So after resting all of the day before, I felt a whole ton
better and I was ready to go again. Unfortunately, it just seems like tough
luck for us because three out of the four of us got some kind of sick. I was
sick all of the previous night and the previous day, but then I was fine. One
of us had a cold the entire time and spent the week sipping hot water and honey
or hot tea. And as soon as I was better, the next day another one of us got sick
with the stomach flu too, but for them it was much longer than a day. They hadn’t
recovered by the time we left the city.
But anyway, so because another one of us got the stomach
flu, it was just three of us that went out the next day. We went to the French Cafe
and ordered cheesecake and ice cream and coffee. It was delicious, and perfect
because we just wanted something light to hold us over for the lunch we were
about to have, which I will give you an introduction about now.
So the first day we got off the train in Kunming, I decided
to send my old roommate from YNNU, Youya (this is her Chinese name, she’s a
Korean international student), a text. I didn’t know if Youya was still there
at the school, and when I was in America I tried to keep in touch with her, but
her emails would come through and mine somehow would not go through to her. So
I really had been thinking I was completely out of touch with her forever. And
I figured most likely by the time I was back in China, she would have been long
gone, already graduated and maybe returned to Korea. But I didn’t know for
sure, I knew she had had some time left to go before she graduated, but I didn’t
know how long and whether it was long enough that she would still be here in
Kunming.
So anyway, as I had set foot in the city and had a moment to
think straight I realized I still had her Kunming phone number, and that it was possible for
me to text her now that I was in the city too (if she was in fact there). So I
decided I’d send her a brief text message asking her if she was still in the
city. I didn’t hear back from her the whole rest of the day, and so I figured
that she must be gone. But the next day, as we were sitting in a restaurant, I
got a text. When I looked at it, I realized that it was Youya, who didn’t
recognize my number (because the number I have now is different from my Kunming
number, because I live in Hubei now). Once I told her who I was, I asked her if
she was available to meet up this week and she said yes. She invited me and my
other friends to have lunch with her and her classmates on Thursday.
So flash-forward again to Thursday. After we had our light
snack at the French Cafe, we made our way over to Yunnan Normal University to
hang out until it was time to meet Youya. As we went over there, we noticed
these beautiful and large lily-looking flowers on the trees nearby where we
sitting. It reminded me kind of how YNNU looked when I first came. Kind of, at
least by the fact that there were flowers on the trees even at the end of
February. And it occurred to me that only a month and a half later, YNNU would
look just like how it looked when I first arrived in Kunming in 2012.
So not long after, Youya was ready for us (they had just
finished taking their final test), and we met her there on steps of the language
building, where all the students of Chinese have their classes. It was really
nice seeing her again, and apart from now having bangs, she was just the same
as she was when I knew her in 2012. It was so great to see her again, I didn’t
realize it would be that great...I had forgotten just a little bit how sweet and awesome she was, but it all came back to me fast. And I introduced her to my friends. Because one
of them spoke no Chinese, Youya had to switch to English, and she did it
wonderfully. I don’t know if her English had just gotten better (I think it did
though) or that I never really heard her speak as much English as she had to
now, but she didn’t need help at all. I guess I just never knew her complete
English level before because when we were roommates, we both had a strict goal
of wanting to learn Chinese. We wanted to become more fluent in Chinese, and so
we both decided we would speak to each other in Chinese for pretty much the
whole time unless there was something we couldn’t communicate in Chinese
(whether it was because I didn’t understand the new Chinese word Youya was
saying, or whether it was because I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say
in Chinese…so either way it was for the most part my fault). If we couldn’t communicate
it in Chinese, then we’d switch to English…just for a little bit. My Chinese got
a whole ton better as a result.
But it also got better after doing the competition in
Beijing, which really made it skyrocket. So after coming back to China now and
having not seen Youya since Kunming 2012, she noted that my Chinese had gotten
a whole ton better…and it did. I didn’t need to switch to English at all, only
one time did I ever need to switch. Anyway, the rest of the class then joined us. I
asked Youya exactly who is in her class and didn't know any of them except an
Israeli student named Xia-Long (Chinese name also). Xia-long and I made it past
the city level of the competition and to the finals in Beijing, along with
three others from Kunming (a Brazilian girl named Shi Jinmei, an Australian
named Da-long, and a Thai student named Wang Zhiyong…all Chinese names). We weren’t super close, but it was nice to
see him again, it brought back the good memories I had from the competition.
(The city-wide Chinese Bridge competition was filmed...kind of like how American Idol goes to different cities to find contestants and if they make it far enough they go to Hollywood. My equivalent was Beijing. And just like AI, they never broadcast the whole thing, just the highlights...the really good parts and really bad parts. So give it a watch, how many times can you find me? P.S.- I stand out pretty much. Hopefully it works...if it doesn't, either refresh it or come back to it another time.)
We all went to a Chinese restaurant further down a different
branch of Foreign street, and we all had a good time. I think my friends
enjoyed it too, though one spoke no Chinese and the other wasn't at the level
of comfortably communicating. But all the students were so nice, they reminded
me of my own class from Kunming. When it was the Americans and Europeans
together, we just spoke English, but we also had Thai students in our class
that didn't speak English, so when we hung out with them, we all spoke Chinese,
as Youya’s class had to: they were mostly Thai and Vietnamese students who spoke
no English. But they were all able to communicate comfortably together and they
are such sweet people that it was easy to have a good time.
After that, one of the students who was an American (the
only one in that class…Chinese American) took us to the school he had started.
(Youya is a grad student, and so her class was made up of many students older
than us who likely had other jobs too.) As we were walking there, I had a lot of time to catch Youya up on my life and she told me about hers. She said after she graduates this next term, she will try to stay in Kunming a little longer, but if not she'll go to another city. Either way, she'll still stay in China. So when we got to the school, it was a very small school, no bigger than a typical Chinese apartment
(in fact, that’s exactly what it was…he and his wife had lived in it before he
turned it into a school). But he was intending to make it bigger by setting up
different branches in different places. So we sat and talked about education in
China and our future plans and it was nice. He had an epic view from his
window, you could see the city of Kunming for miles.
We left after a while, and I said goodbye to Youya...that was sad. I didn't know when I was going to see her again. She gave me the cute chain hanging from her phone and it said, "Love never fails." That made me even more sad. She said, "I'm sure we'll see each other again in the future." I told her if she's ever up my way in the US, then she should let me know and my family would be happy to have her over and show her around.
And that was pretty much the end of that day. The next day
was more eating yummy foods and altogether good times. I had strained a muscle
in my lower back bending over the first day and it suddenly got really bad and
that made it hard to walk. I thought it was a vertebrate that popped out of place (*come
on, look at me, I’m no doctor*) because that’s what it felt like…so I decided
to get a blind massage to pop it back into place. The poor guy tried so hard to
fix it…kneading and working the area to fix it…but because it was a strain that
only made it worse. He asked if I felt better when he was done, and I just didn’t
have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t any better, so I said “Yes, much
better. Thank you.” So for the rest of the day it actually got quite swollen
from the massage…but other than that the massage was amazing and he did a
really good job. I love massages in China. They’re LONG and they’re CHEAP…and
they will do FULL BODY, not just feet or shoulders or something.
Here are the rest of the pictures I took:
One morning, as we were walking out, this was one of the performances we saw. The girl in blue balances on a plank on top of a cylinder, while balancing on her head several magnetized bowls. The little girl (who also can do walk overs- they're like back flips without the jumping into the air) puts the bowls on the plank the older girl stands on, and the older girl flips them up on to her head. Another girl (who we saw later doing some tricks too) was walking amongst the crowd collecting money.
There are many children that come to the city center to do tricks, sing karaoke, and sell flowers and other items to people. I don't know what to think about it, because I know very little of how the kids are being treated and where they come from. Part of me wants to give money because these kids wouldn't be doing these things if they didn't need it...but part of me doesn't want to because of what I learned from Slumdog Millionaire. Some of these kids are exploited and freedoms are taken away, because their parents/guardians/bosses know that people will pay money if they see a child in need. This will continue as long as people are willing to pay. So though I don't know the full situation, I think maybe I'll not pay...just in case exploitation is happening here...until I find out further information.
Breakfast at the Prague Cafe on the last whole day. This was one of the first foreign restaurants I went to in Kunming, and the waitresses tricked me into buying a large pizza when I ordered a small one. They put a pizza in front of me whose size was ambiguous (couldn't tell if it was a large or small), the waitress waited in the corner watching me, and after I took the first bite she came over and told me "Sorry there aren't any small pizzas". I had never been cheated before so I paid for the large, caught very much by surprise. What I should have said was, "Do you have knives? Because large pizzas can be cut into smaller ones." (Also, my Chinese wasn't good enough to say that, so that's also why I paid.) But I only went back there a few times since then. My recommendation: go to the Prague Cafe by all means (and this goes for any Chinese restaurant that's more upscale than those typical small places), but be on your guard. Do not let them cheat you...and do not always take what they say as truth. If they tell you they don't accept credit cards, ask to speak to their boss. If the boss confirms it, then no harm no foul. But most of the time, after asking this, you'll get a grumpy waiter/waitress trudging back to the cash register and after a minute or two of talking to their co-workers, they'll return and say, "Yes, we accept." This actually happened to me with my dad in Beijing. When in doubt, ask to speak to their boss...about anything for that matter, not just at restaurants.
Coffee!!
Coffee and cream!
Sorry...once more I forgot to take the picture before I started eating...but it was so yummy! And I was so hungry. Here we've got eggs and ham, fresh warm and soft bread, mashed potato, and in the middle is butter with garlic bits in it.
This is the railroad behind YNNU, my school. Whenever I wanted to get further across town and not take the longer route down the winding, complicated road, I would walk on the railroad tracks and they're a straight cut over there.
The only reason I ever went to that part of town for the most part is to get to this restaurant that, along with As You Like, serves the best pizza in town...among other things. It's also a deli with good sandwiches and fresh desserts. It's called Slice of Heaven and it's run by a lady from New Zealand. She also sells New Zealand cheese.
We ordered sandwiches, but I also got garlic bread too. This was the garlic bread. It was really good, and it was HUGE. I couldn't eat it all, so I saved it and ate the rest the morning that we left Kunming.
So that was our last full day in Kunming…and then the next
day after having some wonton soup together, the four of us split in half,
Malcolm and Melissa then me and Kyle…and went our separate ways, on to the next leg of our trip.
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