Although I am quickly approaching my six month mark here in China, every day something new or surprising reminds me that I have only scratched the surface in understanding China’s culture and society. Yesterday I returned to Kunming after two weeks of travelling throughout Yunnan with SIT. Somehow those two weeks felt both shorter and much longer than fourteen days. We went from Kunming to Weishan, Weibaoshan, Dali, Shaxi, Shaping, Lijiang, Shangri-La, then back to Dali and then Kunming. Needless to say, these two weeks involved some long bus rides and a desperate need to do laundry. In the middle of this trip there was a five day rural homestay in Shaping village, a small farming village within walking distance of Shaxi. Each student was given their own homestay family, each of which were of the Bai minority in China with varying degrees of knowledge of Putonghua (Mandarin). Luckily my host grandmother spoke some Mandarin so we were able to communicate to some extent but many students had families that only spoke Baizuhua (the Bai minority’s language). Although it was frustrating at times, it was a good reminder to stay humble and grateful. Every night the town would come together and teach us traditional Bai dances, in return we taught them the cotton eye joe dance, the closest thing to a traditional American dance that we could think of.
Some highlights and bumps in the road from the trip include:
- Hiking
- Dancing
- Binge-watching season 2 of Stranger Things with Chinese subtitles on the bus ride from Shangri-la to Dali.
- Snow in Shangri-la.
- Being stopped by police in Kunming for an hour when we were ten minutes away from home.
- Befriending said police officers who stopped us.
- Rural “toilets”
- Little host sister/demon throwing a cactus at me.
- Losing all the videos from my favorite day abroad because I don’t understand technology apparently.
- So. Many. Cute. Dogs.
- Not getting rabies from petting every dog I saw.
- Being stuck in traffic after drinking two bottles of water.
- Kicking 毽子 with strangers on the highway during this traffic.
- Saying goodbye to friends who were staying in different cities for their ISP.
These are only some of the things I can think of at the moment. During the last month here everyone is taking separate paths. Tomorrow begins our “free” month, we were given the choice of either conducting our own research project, an internship, or an intensive language course. I chose the language course so beginning tomorrow I will not be allowed to speak, read, or write in English or any other language besides Chinese for a month. While I’m a bit nervous, I think this is the best way to end my study abroad experience here in China and will put everything I’ve learned up until this point to the test.
My next blog post will most likely be when I’m back in Florida or at the airport on my way back home. I’m still not quite sure how I feel about that. On one hand I’m already planning my next Chipotle order, but on the other I’m currently trying to arrange the next time I’ll come back to China.