The Trouble With Being Human

I am shy. I've been shy ever since I was a kid, but in recent years it has actually gotten worse - or at least, more specialized. I'm rarely anxious in large crowds, and I can even speak in public without much difficulty, but I am obsessively terrified of one-on-one interaction. It has reached the point where today, when someone I like and who is obviously interested in making friends with me asked me to lunch today, I turned him down - because we had lunch yesterday, and obviously we'd have nothing to talk about if we had lunch again today. It is particularly worth noting that at lunch yesterday I talked to him about possible world logic and yet he asked me to lunch again. Plus he seems to be one of the only people here who can understand a word I say. But no, I am too crazy for friends, so I said, "Um, I have to ... do other things." I didn't end up having lunch at all.

Don't bother emailing me to tell me I'm crazy - I am already well aware. Don't bother emailing me at all, actually; not only is my school email still down, but my Yahoo mail doesn't work anymore either. Soon I'm going to have to resort to sending messages in empty bottles of Tsingtao.

Tie a bottle to the neck of an albatross or something and enclose a list of conversation starters. It would be a great help to me.

Still obsessed with Moby Dick

Today was the first day of classes, which went well - actually too well. I am afraid (in that way where it would be awesome) that I made so much progress over my break that fourth year is going to be a breeze and I will have nothing to do all summer but sit in my air-conditioned room watching the X-Files during the day and go out dancing at night. Fortunately I have just utterly destroyed any chance of that by mentioning it, and I will have the grueling two months I signed up for.

There's something worrying me. It's not the sort of thing I want getting around, which is why I'm only going to share it with you, Internet. I think my Chinese has reached a point where talking to other foreigners is going to make it worse. Every time I spend time with my classmates it is as though I can feel the progress I made in Sichuan dripping away. But I have to interact with my classmates! Otherwise I will be lonely! I could talk to Chinese people, I guess, but I'm too shy - my Chinese isn't that good. Once again I find myself relating to Quequeeg - I'm civilized enough to wear boots, but savage enough to put them on under the bed.

I've got to start reading something else.

Had lunch at the Korean restaurant with Cedric, who is new, so I had the pleasure of introducing a newbie to the joy of banfan. (He didn't finish it, but maybe he's just a light eater.) Then I went with about thirty other people to renew my membership at the gym, which is where I am now - free internet access! And at some point, presumably exercise or something.

I have been back for about two days and already we have had more cockroaches in our room than we had the entire last semester. I found one on my bed. It was very tiny, but that is so obviously not okay, and now I have to search all the bedclothes before I go to sleep at night. Mostly they are not tiny - mostly they are the big kind - I got one over an inch long - and it makes me want to cry. I went to the store and bought roach motels, and we're throwing out all food-garbage in the hall, and we've covered the drain of the bathtub with an ashtray, but it seems to be having little effect.

Also, I bought a toilet brush the other day, which means I am officially a Grownup.

If anyone's been trying to email me, I apologize for not responding - my email has been down for awhile. I assume it's because they're doing something to the system, and that they emailed me to warn me about it, but I wouldn't know, because I cannot check my email. And I emailed the person in charge of email, but he never emailed me back, presumably because I had to use my Yahoo account, and who can blame him.

Also, if you find Y20 on the floor of the gym, you get to keep it, right? I forget how that one goes. It's hot out, and Y20 will buy a lot of corn ice cream.

Back in Beijing

My train from Chengdu got into Beijing yesterday morning around five, and I have to admit it is good to be back. Despite how much I hated to leave my friends in Luguhu - I indulged in looking at photos and listening to sentimental music for longer than I'm going to tell you yesterday - there are nice things about being in the city. It's nice to be back with my books, for instance. Before I came to China I was told that we wouldn't be allowed to read English. This turned out not to be true, and I am so glad, because if it weren't for reading and writing I'd have succumbed long ago. I've filled almost my entire journal, in addition to this web-thing, and I've read quite a lot - Anna Karenina, Sense and Sensibility, Psmith Journalist. I've acquired a lot of books since I've been here, and though it pains me, I expect I will be obliged to leave most of them behind. I will give them to ACC to help other bookworm students stave off madness. In the meantime I get to play librarian to my new acquaintances, which is always a job I enjoy. Last night I got my roommate to start reading Moby Dick, and now I am watching her with the air of a mother hen, hoping she gets it.

(When we were travelling together I often thought Zheng Xiaoxue and I were a bit like Ishmael and Queequeg - people weren't surprised to see a foreigner, especially in Lijiang, and they weren't terribly surprised to see a foreigner with a Chinese. But they found it very difficult to believe that we were friends, that she wasn't being paid to translate for me or something, and that in fact when we were together we spoke Chinese.)

Met some nice people yesterday, including my roommate, a brother and sister whom I envy somewhat, a Chinese boy named Cedric, and another boy whose Chinese name I will never forget, since it is pronounced the same as White Pig. Why do Chinese people do these things to us? My friends in Luguhu wouldn't even call me "Ou Aimei," for reasons they were never able to make completely clear, and so Xiaoxue eventually gave me a nice nickname: Jingwen. The "Jing" is homophonous with "quiet" and the "wen" means (written) language - taken together, they indicate that I am quiet and like to read. I like this nickname but I've been Aimei for so long it might be hard to get used to.

Last night my roommate and her friend and I went to dinner at Fuyuan, whose Gong Bao tofu I dreamed of in Sichuan (between dreaming of peach pie and blueberry pancakes), then hung around and talked until fairly late. It was wonderful - we were still speaking English, as the language pledge doesn't begin for a few hours, and we talked about IDEAS! How long has it been since I've had a conversation in English about ideas? I think it has literally been months. And it will be months before I have another one - but only two months, which, as I keep telling myself, is not a long time.

We are in the home stretch.

The Picnic

Here is the long-awaited (I'm sure) continuation to my story. When we last left off, our heroine was drenched and bent on revenge. It was not too long in coming.
"Let's have a picnic this weekend!" Zheng Xiaoxue exclaimed one warm afternoon as those of us not in class lounged around under the peach trees. From the classroom, I
could hear Luo Wei telling the first-graders about how important it is to do what
Chairman Mao wanted us to do. "Ou Laoshi and I will treat," Xiaoxue went on, "because we're leaving on Wednesday. We can have potatoes and onions and cookies! All in favor clap your hands!" She herself was so very much in favor that she clapped her feet as well, causing Mao Namu to remark that she looked like a frog.
"And I'll tell you what you should do," said Old Mr Wu confidentially, "You girls ought to get back at them for soaking you that day. It'll be fun!" I for one had no
doubt that it would be; I pictured the other girls and I dumping basins of water
over the heads of the miscreants.
What actually happened was far better than that.
A few days in advance, Xiaoxue, Zao Zao, Wang Cheng and I hired a car to take us to
town for provisions. Fang Laoshi and his girlfriend, just arrived from Guangzhou, went too, but ever since the arrival of the girlfriend Fang laoshi had been of little or no use to anybody, apart from providing us with something to laugh at. The car was crowded, and we three girls sat in the back seat and discussed the future.
"You'll come back, won't you?" Zao Zao (one of the two Naxi girls on the school
staff) asked Xiaoxue. "Of course," Xiaoxue assured her. "We can all go to Shangri-la together."
I was jealous - I wanted to go to Shangri-la, too, not return to hot and dirty Beijing.
"You'll come back too, Ou Laoshi?" Zao Zao went on.
"Sure," I said. "I'll bring my grandchildren."
"You can bring your husband," Xiaoxue corrected me. "And he'll be super handsome and
nice."
Wang Cheng, who was sitting up front with the driver, snorted. We ignored him.
"Oh, look!" said Xiaoxue, "This is where we met you that first day! Do you remember?"
I did. It seemed much longer ago than a month. "We all said you were so pretty - especially Luo Wei and Wang Cheng. Wang Cheng didn't even dare speak to you - the beautiful foreigner."
"Beautiful ge pi!" I retorted, successfully employing one of the more colorful words
in my vocabulary, and the others giggled.
We arrived at the town and bought supplies - potatoes, onions, disturbing-looking hot dog-like objects, cookies, and so on. "We can buy a little beer, but not too much," said Xiaoxue. "There will be about six men - five bottles ought to be enough. We don't want them getting drunk." I didn't contradict her.
The day before the picnic it rained, and Xiaoxue and I anxiously discussed the dismal prospect of having a picnic inside, in the kitchen. But the day of the picnic, though the sky was overcast and there was a cool breeze, it was decided that we would risk the trip to the island. We gathered up the food and hiked down to the lake, where we obtained one of the long Naxi canoes. A few of the men went into Zao Zao's family's store and returned carrying an entire crate of beer to supplement the meagre allowance Xiaoxue and I had bought. She was dubious; I was pleased - I felt up for a beer myself. The men paddled the canoe and Zao Zao and Mao Namu sang Naxi folksongs. Zao Zao had a little girl on her lap - about four years old, and not a word of Mandarin. "A gu bah rah," I greeted her solemnly, using one of my few Naxi words.
When we reached the island, the men built a small fire and we girls started to wash
the vegetables in the lake. Before we could start cooking, however, a trip had to be
made to the top of the hill, where there was a small temple made of white stones. We
hiked to the top - Wang Cheng helped the little girl over the difficult bits by
hoisting her by the collar of her jacket, much like a mother cat with her kittens -
and a small, smoky fire was built at the base of the temple. Then, somewhat to my
surprise, Zao Zao gave each of us a small handfull of sand and we began to circle
the temple (moving clockwise) and scattering sand as we went.
Now, ordinarily, of course, my inclination would have been to leave the religious
rites to those who understand and believe in them. But I took my cue from Ishmael -
I was on my third read-through of Moby Dick at the time - and reasoned thus: that
the most important teaching of my own religion is to do unto others as I would have
them do unto me, and that the Buddhists present clearly wanted me to walk and throw
sand, and that my own God wasn't likely to mind. So I went along, and after a few
laps round the temple we stopped, bowed three times, touching our foreheads to the
ground, and Wang Cheng and Yang Shifu took turns blowing a large white conch. Then,
taking care to move only in a clockwise direction, we went down the hill to the
picnic spot.
There we divided in a typical Chinese fashion - the men sat down to play cards and
drink beer, while we girls started to roast the potatoes and whatnot. The exceptions
were Fang laoshi and his girlfriend, who sat at one end of the canoe and whispered
sweet nothings or something, and Luo Wei, who lay at the other end and slept. (He
and Wang Cheng had been keeping rather long hours due to the World Cup.) Of course,
the advantage was all ours - we ate the potatoes and things hot, and only when we
had had our fill did we pass the bowl to the men, who were intent on poker, and Fang
laoshi and his girlfriend, who had eyes only for each other.
"Do you still remember what Mr Wu said?" Xiaoxue asked me confidentially as we knelt
over the fire.
"Of course," I replied; I'd been chuckling to myself all day at the thought of
getting back at the boys.
"What did he say?" Wang Cheng demanded.
"Oh, just explaining to me about some grammar thing," I lied, and Xiaoxue managed to
turn a giggle into a passable imitation of a cough.
When we had eaten our fill for the moment, it was suggested that we play a game. I
don't know how it is, but these folks loved to sing, and all day long at the school
you could hear Houzi's gravelly voice singing traditional Chinese folk songs, or
Wang Cheng's enthusiastic tenor, or even, very softly, the occasional off-key Laura
Cantrell. And so the game that was agreed upon was Sing A Song Or Run Around the
Island (The first suggestion, Sing A Song Or Remove An Item of Clothing, was
rejected, somewhat to my disappointment). We were broken up into teams - Naxi, Han,
and, rather unfairly to my mind, Laowai. "Ou laoshi can be Han," Xiaoxue suggested,
but this would have been letting me off too easy.
And so we sang. The Naxi team sung their folk songs, which were lovely, and the Han
team sang a few Han songs (but not quite as well), and then it was my turn. I tried
to stall. I tried to get out of it. But I do not like to be a poor sport, so finally, starting off unsteady but growing stronger as I went, I sang.
***I need someone to love me
Need somebody to carry me home
to San Fransisco
and bury my body there
Oh I need someone to lend me
a fifty dollar bill and then
I'll leave Hong Kong
far behind me
for happiness once again ***
"What does it mean?" Luo Wei asked me.
"It's about an American in Hong Kong, who wants to go home, but he can't. My dad
used to sing it to me when I was a baby."
By and by some of us decided to go for a spin around the island (moving clockwise,
still, owing to the temple at the top). Luo Wei, Wang Cheng, and Houzi rowed, while
Xiaoxue, Mr Wu and I sat around and looked decorative. Fang laoshi followed us along
the bank for a bit, throwing large stones to splash us, but Wang Cheng got him with
the paddle and he desisted. "Want to go swimming again?" Xiaoxue joked, and I said
yes.
"We'll close our eyes," Luo Wei grinned.
"You two are gay anyway, so you don't count, but we can't trust Mr Wu," Xiaoxue
retorted, and quite probably this was true.
As we approached the picnic spot, we saw that Yang Shifu and Xiao Zhou, a 16 year old Naxi boy, were waiting for us with the old basin of water routine. Wang Cheng got them with the paddle, but then - traitorous boy! - switched sides and jumped onto the bank, where he began splashing us unmercifully. Luo Wei helped me and Mr Wu onto the shore, but poor Xiaoxue couldn't get off the boat, and Wang Cheng jumped back on and paddled off, splashing everyone indiscriminately with the paddle. Xiaoxue bravely tried to shove him off the boat, but she was either not strong enough or not quick enough. Finally, Wang Cheng came back to shore and Xiaoxue, utterly soaked, managed to climb off the boat.
Then I gave chase to Wang Cheng, but he was fast - and armed. Soaking me with one
last basin of water, he took off up the hill. I followed, but I had no water and so
was forced to return to the picnic to get some. This cost me valuable time. I did
not find him at the top of the hill, and by the time I made it back to the bottom
things were in a pretty fix. Xiao Zhou had climbed to the top of the pagoda and
people were throwing all sorts of things at him in a feutal attempt to make him come
down. Wang Cheng had taken the boat and was now reclining in the middle of the lake.
"Never mind," Fang laoshi said to me as I stood, panting and holding my bottle of
water. "He has to come back eventually - we'll get him then."
"I'm never coming back!" Wang Cheng shouted from the boat. I was soaked. I took off
my shoes and socks.
"You're all going to have to swim home!" he crowed. I took off my glasses and placed
them carefully in my sneaker. "Ou laoshi, what are you doing?" Luo Wei asked, but I did not answer. Fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, I plunged into the water and began to swim.
Oh, but there is nothing on earth wetter or heavier than wet jeans! I swam freestyle
for a few yards, then paused, treading water, to catch my breath.
"Ou laoshi! Come back!" they cried from the shore. "Come back!"
"Ou laoshi, go back to the island!" Wang Cheng shouted. "I'm coming back, I'm coming!"
"Are you really coming?" I demanded.
"Really! Yes! Go back to the shore, Ou laoshi!"
So I turned and swam back. After all, I did not have any particular plan - if I had
made it to the boat I don't know what I would have done - I couldn't tip it even if
I wanted to (and imagine the headlines - MORON LAOWAI DESTROYS NAXI CULTURAL ARTIFACT) and it would be very difficult to climb up and throw him off.
They made a big fuss over me and tried to make me stand by the fire, but I broke
away and went to stand on the shore to wait for Wang Cheng.
"Here," said Luo Wei, handing me an enormous knife. (I wanted to make some sort of
joke about his ardor being dampened but nothing came to me.)
"I'm coming," said Wang Cheng from the boat. "I'll do it myself." He paddled the
boat close to land and resignedly climbed off in order to wade to the shore.
This was obviously inadequate, and I was already as wet as it was possible to be
without drowning. I chased him back into the water and, amidst his shouts of protest
and howls of laughter from the audience on shore, proceeded to make him as wet as I
was. "Peace," I said finally, and he raised his hand in acknowledgement of our
truce.
"That was very brave," Old Mr Wu said.
"I am proud of you," Fang laoshi said.
"I saw her take off her shoes," Luo Wei said, "and I thought, 'what is she doing?'
And then she just jumped in! Wang Cheng must have been terrified!" He whacked Wang
Cheng on his still-dripping back, then threw his arm around him.
"It was awesome," Xiao Zhou agreed.
"Very romantic," said Zheng Xiaoxue, which of course resulted in some more hitting.
That evening as we stood outside with our bowls of soup, watching the moon come up
over the mountains, Luo Wei told the story again, relishing every damp detail. "I don't know what on earth you're talking about," I said with quiet dignity. "I
would never do a thing like that. I am a lady."
"It's no good saying you're a lady," they laughed, "we'll always remember." And I dare say we will.

CHILDREN'S DAY

June 1 was International Children's Day, which to my knowledge is celebrated everywhere but America. Li Jie, the older Taiwanese woman, took it into her head that we should take the children - 50 all told -down to Yunnan for a picnic. So that weekend she, Zao Zao, Mao Namu and I took a bus to Yongning to buy provisions. And what provisions! Each of us had a large basket on our backs, and all four baskets were completely filled with every kind of vegetable. And then, somewhat to my
consternation, we bought the chickens. Alive. Worry-prone relatives, you
might want to stop reading now.

Since coming to China I have developed a morbid paranoia of all domestic fowl - to the point that I feel even seeing a chicken is but the first step towards inevitably dying of bird flu. So it was difficult for me to live in Luguhu, which is country and where there are chickens and ducks everywhere. When visiting a Naxi house it is not uncommon for chickens to run around your feet. Still, I watched the purchase of twelve live chickens with a good deal of apprehension.

After a very good lunch in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, we assembled our mountain of vegetables and went to hire a car. Due to construction, however, we had to take a small minibus. The vegetables went in the back, but the chickens, drenched and miserable, were piled at our feet.

"I'm going to die," I thought grimly. "I'm going to die for the sake of a barbeque."

But I did not die, and soon it was Children's Day. [Relatives can resume reading now] "This is going to be exhausting," said Xiaoxue. "Why don't we celebrate Children's Day by leaving the children at home and having a picnic by ourselves? That would be fun. This way, we're each going to be responsible for about seven children, and they're certainly going to drown or burn themselves." This seemed likely. The Chinese can be very lackadaisical about child safety, and I pictured myself trying to
wrangle seven children, simultaneously hell-bent on playing with fire and swimming in the lake. If only the Chinese ate sandwiches - one hundred PB&J's would've about met the case, and I'd have personally volunteered to cut off all the crusts.

That morning we marched the children down to the lake, loading them down with chickens, pots, pickled eggs, and so on. When we got to the water, the boys loaded most of the supplies onto a boat and set off for the picnic spot. The other girls and I herded the children. Mao Namu made them sing their Naxi folksongs and "Frere Jacque," which they can sing in English, Mandarin, Naxi, and Mosuo (Naxi is my favorite - it has a lot of syllables so it's kind of syncopated). Hearing fifty Naxi
children sing "Frere Jacque" never failed to make me laugh.

Eventually we reached the picnic area - a shady spot, hidden from the road, at the foot of a large rocky hill. The children were turned loose and the men lit the fire. The other girls and I washed the vegetables in the lake and a few of the older children helped wash the chickens' feet in preparation for their death. Wang Cheng and Wang Muniang did the actual killing - Luo Wei said he didn't dare. They were killed in what struck me as a particularly inhumane manner - their throats were slit
and their blood collected in a bowl. I will say this for the Chinese - when they eat chicken, they eat the holy living hell out of it. We ate the feet, the blood, the heart (quite good), the intestines and lungs (not so good) - EVERYTHING.

After the chickens had been grilled and eaten, along with the bananas, pickled eggs, and hot dogs (somehow I could bring myself to eat chicken heart much more easily than I could Chinese hot dogs, which I did not dare to try), the boys took the boat out and went for a swim. I was very envious - I'd been reading A Room With a View and the thought of swimming in the clear, cold lake seemed very idyllic, but I supposed it
wouldn't do for girls.

In this I was happily mistaken - when the boys returned from their swim, Houzi ("monkey"), Xiaoxue, Zao Zao, Namu and I took the boat out and went for a swim ourselves.

At first we were timid - the water looked cold, and some of us [i.e. me] had large, cumbersome American bodies they were reluctant to reveal. But promises were exhorted not to look, and I stripped down to my undershirt and underpants and jumped from the boat. The others, with the exception of Houzi (monkeys can't swim, we teased her) followed in short order.

It was so nice to paddle around the boat under the clear Yunnan sky. When we got tired, we swam back and Houzi helped Zao Zao and Xiaoxue climb back on board. I was able to get up myself, but Namu, naked except for her underpants, could not be pulled up and had to drift, holding onto the side as we paddled to the bank.

"What if there are snakes?" she said, and we scolded her - a local, a Naxi girl, afraid of snakes and unable to climb onto a boat! The rest of us dried for a bit in the sun, then got dressed. We were still a little damp but no matter. Namu climbed in from the shore and we paddled back to the picnic grounds, singing "Dui Mian de Nuhai Kan Guo Lai" ["The Chinese Harmonica Song"].

As we approached the others, Old Mr Wu stood on the huge boulder and threw an empty bottle near the boat to splash us. "You have to go get that, foolish child!" Houzi commanded him. As we came closer, we saw Wang Cheng, Luo Wei, and Xiao Zhou, a 16 year old Naxi boy, waiting on the bank. They each had a washbasin, and as we screamed in protest they proceeded to soak us completely. I was the fastest - I chased Wang Cheng all over the picnic ground, but he was quick - and armed. With one last
drenching toss of the wash basin, he took off up the mountain. I could have followed him, but then what? No water on top of the mountain, and it didn't quite seem to merit throwing him off. So instead I joined the other girls by the fire with roast potatoes and beer and dried my clothes.

But that was not the end of the matter.

To be continued.

This morning Zheng Xiaoxue and I left Luguhu for Lijiang. Before leaving we were presented with a variety of gifts from the other teachers. "I'm not going to say anything more," said Luo Wei, giving me a painting, and then ran away.

"I can't bear to leave you all!" Xiaoxue wept, and I felt the tears come to my eyes as well.

"Don't be such a girl," said Hou laoshi roughly, then immediately stalked a few yards away and turned her back to us so we could not see her face. I shook hands with Luo Wei, Wang Cheng, and Zao Zao, and then Xiaoxue and I got in the car and started off on the bumpy road to Lijiang.

It was hard to leave Luguhu, it really was. "Life is made up of meetings and partings; that is the way of it," I said to myself in the car, trying not to cry. "That's awfully good - what is that from?" A brief rummage through the filing cabinets of my mind revealed that I was comforting myself with quotes from Kermit the Frog in the Muppet Christmas Carol. I'm okay with that, though.

Oh but there are so many stories for me to tell you - how the other girls and I went swimming in the lake, the temple at the top of the hill, and most of all my revenge on Wang Cheng - but I'm afraid I haven't time. Xiaoxue and I are going to stay two or three days in Lijiang - which is pretty, but dreadfully touristy and I am more glad
than ever that I got to see some real China when I was in Luguhu - then going to Dali for a day or two, then finally to Xiaoxue's home in Chengdu, and then back to hot and dirty Beijing. I will try to be in touch during this sojurn, but by no means on an every day basis.

When you have a nice thing, it is only natural that you should want it to continue. But instead of saying, "Why no more?" I am trying to say "Thank you for what I had." I would not trade my time in Luguhu for anything in the world. And though that story is over, there are more adventures yet to come.

On the day I decided to remain in Luguhu, I wrote in my journal, "To stay here - to not have to leave on Monday - is like being given a beautiful present." And such has proved to be the case - it is a present I open every day and every night when I go to sleep I am so filled with thanks. I can't seem to refrain from cheesiness, I apologize - I'm just so gosh darned fond of Luguhu. And it's hard to say what it is, exactly, that I love so much, but here is an account of an average
day here. Maybe a bit of the beauty will leak through.

Every morning, I wake between seven and eight o'clock and lie in bed for a bit, thinking of this and that, watching the dim light coming through my opaque blue curtains. There's no rush; somehow I always manage to wake well in advance of breakfast, which is almost always xifan, a watery rice porridge which at first I found unbearable but I've gotten used to it. Occasionally we have noodles, which is always exciting, and once we had sweet green pea soup. Lately we've also been having pickled eggs, which are so much tastier than you would think. I'm already
thinking about the pickled egg situation when I return to Beijing, and the entire aisle of pickled eggs in the grocery store I patronize.

Breakfast is rather catch-as-catch-can because it's served ten minutes before classes begin. I do not have any classes until later in the morning (and I have only five classes a week which is not very many) so I generally sit outside on a bench under a tree and watch the lake and read.

When I do have class it is a challenge. Teaching elementary school, it seems to me, is chiefly a matter of keeping order. Make them love you, my grandmother advised me, but it is just as important to keep them in line. The two are not mutually exclusive - it's one of the mysteries of children that they often seem to love the strictest teachers the most. The thing is, Chinese child management involves a lot of hitting. We have a special riding crop sort of thing that is used to hit the children's hands, and when they won't present their hands to be hit a smack to the head is administered instead. "How do I keep order?" I asked Luo Wei and Hou laoshi one day when I first arrived, and in their meandering Chinese way they told me not to spare the rod. I felt like Anne of Green Gables.

What's worse, when I don't hit the children and they misbehave, Hou laoshi
generally comes in and hits them for me, which causes me to lose face in front of
all the children and the other teachers. So what is there to do? I slap the children on the hand when they misbehave, but I use my hand, generally not the stick. It's a compromise but it's
the best I can do. After classes are over we have lunch, which, although generally the same, is
filling and tasty. In the afternoon I am free, so I usually read or hang around the kitchen and chat with whoever else is hanging around the kitchen. Sometimes Zheng Xiaoxue and Hou laoshi and I go down by the lake and sit on one of the boats and talk. We have dinner at eight, and after I have helped to clear and wipe the table, Zheng Xiaoxue and I generally go for a walk down by the lake. When we come back, we hear the horn being blown to signify the start of evening classes, which are for the local adults. Then Luo Wei, Wang Cheng, and I have our English/Naxi
lessons. Unfortunately we've been neglecting the Naxi side lately (Naxi is so incredibly complicated it makes Mandarin look like a picnic), but I love teaching them English. Luo Wei is Sichuanese and so does not distinguish between the "n" and "l" phoneme, either in Chinese or English. It's very interesting - he claims he can't hear any difference at all between, say, "light" and "night." I made a list of l/n words for him and we practice almost every night. "When you say 'light' your tongue is on the outside of your teeth," I say. "For 'night' your tongue is on the inside." This observation has helped a lot. It's much more fun to teach English to Luo Wei and Wang Cheng because they are learning on purpose; also, Wang Cheng's hilarity makes everything fun. Even when I can't understand a word he says, his delivery never fails to crack me up.

When the boys are tired of English, Luo Wei politely suggests that I go to bed. When I first arrived, he told me proudly that he had an English name, and I thought he said it was Terry, which suits him admirably. However, one day during our lesson he wrote his name down and I saw that it was, in fact, "Cherry." "What's so funny?" Luo Wei asked, bewildered. "That's a stripper name," I told him. I was pleased with myself for knowing how to say "stripper."
"WHOO!" Wang Cheng shouted. "Get up on the table, Luo Wei, and dance for us!"
"I don't understand," said Luo Wei. "It's a cultural thing," I explained, and could not explain it any further. But I still occasionally laugh when I think of Luo Wei, a famous architect, coming to the U.S. to design a high rise or something and introducing himself as "Cherry Luo." Someone needs to supervise Chinese people when they choose their English names; when we were in Xi'an, Lili met a guy who introduced himself as "Superman."

Last night some of us went to Wang Cheng's house after dinner. Li laoshi had insisted that we eat beforehand, but when we arrived at Wang Cheng's house he insisted that we try Naxi Hotpot. So we sat around the fire and ate sunflower seeds while the hotpot was prepared. Naxi houses are all very similar - a large room with a raised platform in the back with a fire for cooking, heat, and light. Wang Cheng's house has posters of Chairman Mao and the Dalai Lama (the Naxi are Buddhist) on the walls. In addition to the school people, there were five or six Naxi men, including Wang Cheng's father, two women who kept in the back, and a little boy of maybe three named Eight Kilograms, his weight at birth. There are at least two other Eight Kilograms
that I know of, and a Six Kilograms. Chinese hospitality can be intense. "Eat that!" Wang Cheng commanded. "Don't be polite! Finish that so I can give you more. Ou laoshi [that's me], Cheers!" Then when I attempted to toast with my tea (the Naxi corn liquor is very strong and very vile) he whacked me on the leg. "NOT OKAY!" he shouted. There were many toasts - to Fang Laoshi and his girlfriend, who arrived yesterday; to me and Zheng Xiaoxue - "You should stay forever," said one of the men, raising his glass to us, "Stay forever, and if either of you and Wang Cheng -"
"AIIAAAA!" Wang Cheng shouted, and Luo Wei nearly died laughing.

After much hotpot and much corn wine, the four of us made our way homeward, the boys with their arms around each other, Zheng Xiaoxue and I holding hands as close female friends do in China. There were no lamps, but there was the brightest moon I've ever seen and more stars than we have even in Northampton.

"I saw a moving star!" I said. "Did it have a tail?" Zheng Xiaoxue asked. "You can make a wish." "We have that custom, too," I said. "What did you wish?" Wang Cheng demanded. "She can't tell you," Luo Wei said. In fact, I can't remember what I wished. But at that moment there was nothing I could want.