THE BURMESE BORDER

With my school closed for a week, I decided to go on a little trip. I went to Ruili (pron. Ray-lee,) a Chinese town on the Burmese border. There is not much in Ruili, but Mo, a Burmese guy who is a friend of a friend owns a guest house there. For 15RMB ($2) a night I had my own thatched hut, bed and mosquito net. It was a cozy place, and as far as I could tell, I was the only person staying there (and the only foreigner for 100 miles.)

My first day in Ruili I wandered around until I came to the Jade Market. Almost all of the best jade in the world is mined in Burma, then transported to Ruili where it is disseminated to the world. There were polished stones and uncut ones, ranging in size from a golf ball to a car. If I knew anything about jade I would have bought some. However, I don't. I wound up spending about 4 hours playing cards and majiang with the vendors at the market. I won 10RMB.

The next day went to Jiegow, the town 4km from Ruili that is the actual border. I don't know what I was expecting of the border, but I guess somehing like a river or a bridge or something. The border was just a fence, and not even a very high one. I touched Burma then decided to wander around Jiegow. After a few minutes, a young Burmese girl approached my and to my surprise said in perfect English, "where are you from?" After I answered her, the next thing she said was "are you alone?" Ding Ding Ding. Alarm bells go off in my head telling me I'm about to get robbed. I say no, but she can clearly see I'm lying. I start walking and she runs to 2 teenage boys, says something in Burmese and they start to follow me. I tried to lose them for about 5 minutes before I came to a hotel. I ducked inside and jus sat there. The kids stopped outside of the hotel, and then 4 motorcycles pulled up with 2 guys on them each. They all were heatedly talking and looking around and would occaisionally point in my direction. After 20 minutes in the hotel they seemed like they were leaving so I snuck out the back and took the first taxi I could get back to the guesthouse.

My next few days were spent exploring Ruili. Ruili is an abnormality in China. The town is deserted during the day. At around 10pm the clubs open and people go out. Apparently Ruili is known for 3 things: gambling, prostitution and drugs. The Chinese government even advertises the prostitution: "come see the true hospitality of Kachin (ethnic minority group) women" and so forth. This coupled wih a huge supply of heroin from Burma, gives Ruili the highest concentration of people with HIV in any town outside of Africa. AIDS is a problem that the CHinese government has only recently acknowledged and is now trying to fix. In Chinese ai zi bing means "love sickness." Thats an interesting way to describe AIDS.

Now, I'm back in Kunming. My English class has been complaining that the class was too easy, so I decided to show them what it is like for me to learn Chinese. Here, one work can mean many different things depending on how it's pronounced. Also, characters can have multiple meanings as well. Last night was my revenge. Thank you to my Aunt Ruth for providing the inspiration for this. In class we did difficult English sentences. The best two were "the soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert," and "since there is no time like the present, he thought it time to present the present." I know some of you native English speakers who just read that had trouble. The class was horrified, but we went over each word and explained the different meanings. I think they ended up liking it. At least it wasn't too easy for them.

My Chinese teacher is now teaching 8 classes a day. My morning class has been moved this week to 8am. Its hard to think that early in the morning. Thankfully, she felt the same way, and next week, class will be in the afternoon.