Back in Chongqing

May 11, 2010

Woke this morning shortly before 5:00 am, aware of my Chongqing world being much less insular than my quiet bedroom in Rutledge, PA. There were of course the calls and whistles familiar to spring in lush humid climates. At this still grey hour the birds outdid the insects, and somehow the language function in my brain gave these sounds a northern Mandarin twist. I’m sure I heard a mocking bird imitating a restaurant patron, insistently calling to the kitchen for rice—mifan, mifan, mifan!—drawing out the miiiiii and landing abruptly on the fan. When this bird was suddenly silent, my brain shifted to making sense of other coos and callings. I was particularly confused by the cries of a peacock issued from somewhere over the wall that delineates this urban campus from the world beyond. I realized I don’t remember how to say peacock in Chinese, though I once inquired about a peacock feather for sale in a dirt market in Chengdu. Ultimately it was the clang of metal against metal from the construction site behind the dorm that had me out of my bed at 5:24 am. I opened my laptop and clicked on my dictionary software, aptly named “Writer’s Resort,” what I like to think of quite literally as my “Forest of Words” (Wénlín). It took a few quick clicks to pull up the characters I sought: kǒngquè, the same kong as Kongzi, Confucius; the same què as sparrow. I pondered this for a moment, appreciating that I inhabit a life where I can follow the thread of such seemingly trivial questions; appreciating that when I return to China I am always, out of necessity really, first and foremost, a student.

It’s Tuesday morning and I’ve been in Chongqing since Sunday night after a three day “vacation” in Beijing. I know vacation might sound like a strange way to describe three jet-lagged days of touring, with me being the only Mandarin speaker and unofficial tour guide for a group of sixteen students and five faculty. Those three days came on the heels of wrapping up a busy semester and they were wonderfully restorative and rejuvenating with an elegantly simple itinerary, some of which was set in place beforehand, some of which emerged in spontaneous response to the interests and requests of participants. This year we opted for just a bus and driver and not the local tour guide who usually accompanies these packages. This worked well, as it allowed me to be the sole narrator in our roving, fitting our site visits with readings and lectures I had given the students in their pre-trip course prep. It also allowed us to be more fleet of foot, changing things up as new opportunities presented themselves.

Our itinerary began with a late night arrival in Beijing last Thursday. A driver and bus met us and brought us to the North Garden Hotel in Wangfujing near Tiananmen (Beifang Jiayuan Fandian 北方佳苑饭店). Most of us slept quite well that first night, and woke early and re-assembled for a combination Chinese and Western style breakfast on the hotel’s fifth floor. There, our more timid eaters could indulge in coco puffs and corn flakes, while marveling at the novel notion of waking to the much stronger Chinese tastes of congee with pickled vegetables or fried dumplings consumed with bowls of soup noodles. I opted for something that bridged these culinary worlds: a cheese-less scallion omelet cooked at a station manned by a gentleman wearing a chef’s cap; a Danish pastry topped with apricot jam; a bowl of cantaloupe that I hesitated before eating, raw fruit as it was; a plate of fried rice; and three small black cups of very strong and steaming Yunnan coffee. It was a good start to a good stay.

The first morning the bus picked us up at 9:00 and we headed for the Wall: a section of Ming wall closer to Beijing than Badaling, called Juyong Guan. It’s a steeper section of the wall than the more popular Badaling, but less crowded. It also includes a beautiful Yuan gate building (built around 1342) called Cloud Terrace (Yun Tai), which includes a small Buddhist temple of protector deities. It was exhilarating climbing with the students. After group photos we branched off on our own, according to interest and stamina. Predictably, I ended up with the agro-climbers (I miss my vertical west coast hikes!) and we did quite a satisfying ascent, aiming for a distant pagoda, but finding we had ascended well beyond this to an upper guard tower before it was time to turn back for our agreed upon reassembly point. Everyone was flushed and proud of themselves as they settled back into their seats on the bus. I pleased the driver and reluctantly stopped for lunch at a watering hole for tourists on the way home— “a cloisonné factory” and gift shop which pays commissions to bus drivers who bring in customers. The food was decent, but pricey.

I gave the students a couple of hours of free time after returning to Wangfujing in the late afternoon, then I had the driver take us to Shichahai, a lake area connected to Hou Hai, filled with many restaurants, shops, bars, and a lively night life after dark. Some of us relaxed by the lake with coffee treats from Starbucks, others walked around and shopped or checked out the local scene. A few fatigued students joined me and my faculty colleagues as we chilled by the lake, and sensing their jet lag sinking in, I suggested paddle boat races in mixed teams of four (four faculty, four students, a huge success for shifting moods and combating fatigue). Those four students who had been on the water with us joined us for dinner, and then headed back to the hotel, a bit over-tired and ready for their own comfortable spaces. My faculty friends and I remained at the lake, walking in a long loop, taking in the local scene: groups of musicians playing traditional instruments; couples of all ages strolling hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm; singles walking their dogs; grandparents carrying their grandchildren. We ended the evening in the large open area near Starbucks watching all the ballroom dancers living large in the warm evening air.

The following day, Saturday, was our day on foot. We walked to Tiananmen Square, which is always an intense experience for students who have taken my courses and learned a bit about twentieth century Chinese history. We then ambled over to the Forbidden City where, after a brief introduction, students took their time walking through, meeting up at the other end after a couple of hours. It was a warm day and many were quite slow and sore by the time they arrived at the imperial garden just before the exit. We started the long walk back to Wangfujing as a group, with the plan of everyone being on their own for lunch in the vicinity of the hotel. But I could sense students were in need of some care and were pretty tapped out from having been on their own for a few hours. I spotted a traditional Chinese noodle house and brought them all in, much to the joy of the restaurant management. It wasn’t a place set up for tourists, and they scrambled to accommodate a group of our size by pushing small tables together in an upstairs room. The students loved it. They loved the food, they loved being cared for, they loved feeling like they were doing something local without having to do it all on their own initiative. I proposed students meet up with me again for dinner for another hunter-gatherer adventure, and many of them did, so we had a repeat of local flavors for the last meal of the day: dumplings. The faculty and I ended our own day with foot massage and a nightcap in the lobby, counting students as they returned from their strolls, soaking from a thunderstorm that had suddenly swept in.

We are now in Chongqing and I’ve taken the morning while the students are in class to tend to the student blog (and my own blog) and enjoy the quiet of my dorm. This afternoon I’m taking a small group of students who are doing independent projects on Chinese healing traditions to a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) hospital. One of the students has agreed to be the patient and we’ll observe how she is diagnosed and treating in this setting. I’ll be there with my dictionary in tow, accompanied by my Chinese friend Ella (Wei Ming), my companion in the archives from last May! We will, again, be students together.
The students are, as expected, having a phenomenal experience. They are still a bit bewildered, but are increasingly finding their own legs and are increasingly setting out on their own. Check out the student blog at Widenerchina.blogspot.com.