A Few Words of Advice to the New Foreign Fellow

Alright, there’s a pretty solid chance that some other American will come riding through my school gates on a white horse, here to save the day.

When my local teachers broke the news, they expected me to celebrate, “明年另外一个外国朋友要来。你应该很高兴!”

“不知道高不高兴,” I said smiling nervously, “可能他非常优秀，你们就最喜欢他。但是如果他差死了，我就不喜欢.” This is both in jest and quite serious. If this new fellow has immaculate Chinese, prior teaching experience, a 认真 work ethic, or an inkling of humor, they’re going to be a huge hit with the other teachers. But if they’re a really annoying slacker, well I definitely don’t want to deal with that either. Can’t I just be the prized foreign teacher forever?

But I figure if this asshole is going to show up at my school, they should at least play by my rules. So I've taken the time to write a few tips to this lucky (doomed) new fellow.

Tip One: You’re Taking the Fifth Graders

SIXTH AND FOURTH ARE MINE. You hear me? Mine. The current fourth graders made me cry once, so like, you can have them.

Tip Two: Be Male

Normally I would never make such sexist demands, but you see, I have a pretty good thing going with the female circle. I’m not popular exactly, but let’s just say that the people who matter like me. The male circle, however, is a complete enigma. If you’re really going to exist at my school, you could at least be doing detective work into the life of 吴老师. Does he have a wife or kids? Does he have joy or sorrow? Does he own footwear other than house slippers? This is a tall task. Good luck.

Tip Three: Fall in Love With 彭智文

Now this may or may not contrast with tip two (who knows), but if you’re the hero I imagine you to be, you can make it happen. My current insurmountable co-fellow is a humble genius, a polite powerhouse, and a marathoner in everything he does. So just get the 谈恋爱 over with so that everyone will stop insisting I do. And he won’t be 班主人 next year! (Read: plenty of time for courtship.)

Tip Four: Hide Your Hidden Talents

I don’t care if you can juggle flaming torches while playing the cello, dude—keep that shit to yourself. These kids love me because my thumbs bend backwards, no one needs your fancy yo-yo tricks. Isn’t this the directionless time in your life to take up a new hobby? Perhaps ukuleles interest you…

Tip Five: Bring a Coat, etc.

No one warned me that 云南 actually gets really fucking cold—don’t go into a glacial depression like I did. Charm the locals and learn some local dialect. Start planning your October break now before the prices go up. Kids like stickers but China doesn’t have them, stock up in the states. Or planners, bring a planner. Wash your underwear in boiling water sans socks. Buy things from 永安 locals and you might not have to buy them at all. Be happy that you’ve been chosen to teach at the best school, in the best city, in the best region. Welcome! I hate you.

杨维菊

I have to do a brief profile on one of my best friends here. Her name is 杨维菊 Yang Weiju, she is 47 years old, she is a fifth-grade 班主任 (banzhuren), and teaches literature and science. She’s always cackling, feeds me as if I were starving, and today she carried me across campus on her back. In short, she’s hilarious.

We recently had a heart-to-heart over persimmons and dried papaya. She asked, “who’s your favorite teacher here?”

I rolled my eyes, “you, duhhh.”

We laughed. I wasn’t going to ask hers; I didn’t want her to feel like she should say the same to me, especially since nearly everyone here is her old friend.

“Yeah, you’re my favorite too.”

I thought I would compile some of her best quotes. (Note: I’ve taken a few liberties in translating the Chinese/local dialect/hand gestures.)

[Drinks soup from serving bowl] “I guess this isn’t too civilized…. yeah I don’t give a fuck either.”

“I hear Americans don’t care how low their shirts are. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when your boobs are hanging out.”

“Let go drink 白酒 baijiu!” [I drink] “Oh I can’t, I have high blood pressure.”

“My kids love me. They fear me, but they love me.”

“Let’s go steal fruit from the other teachers.”

“I might be old, I might be ugly, but I sure am funny as hell.”

Three Friends, Two Mountains, and One Angry River

‘What are you doing for 国庆节?’ I was often asked before the break. 国庆节 is China’s national holiday, celebrating the day the Communist party was formed. No one really cares, except for the fact that everyone gets a whole seven days off, from October 1^st to the 7^th.

‘Going to 怒江(Nu Jiang)!’ I would reply, stressing the NUUU because inevitably, the asker would knit their brow, then correct me. ‘Oh! 丽江 (Li Jiang), of course.’

At the end of our trip, I insisted that 怒江 was the new Jiang, a pun met with the eye-rolls and glares that good pun always should,  but I meant it. From what I remember, 丽江 is a knock-off of 大理(Dali) but sadder and just as touristy. 怒江, however, is beautiful, rich in the Lisu minority culture, and ‘off the beaten track.’ (Whatever that means… there was only one ‘track,’ which seemed to have been beaten quite frequently, or I assume so based on its condition).

怒江 is the prefecture just north of where I live, but over a huge mountain range. About half of the population is Lisu, an ethnic minority found in Burma, Thailand, India, and Yunnan. They have their own language, traditions, and history, independent of China’s dominant ethnic group, the Han.

Shout-out to my girl Jasmine for the idea. She suggested it to Diane and I, and though at first I thought, wait you want to go somewhere more rural than where we already live?… now I’m really glad we did. Also, I’m going to refer to the three of us as DAJ from now on, mainly because I can.

We all met up in 保山(Baoshan), and after the most glorious meal of our lives, walked over to what seemed to be the red-light district, to find a place to sleep. Over the next two days we took four buses and one police truck to finally get to 丙中落(Bingzhongluo)—the northern-most, most isolated, yet somehow most touristy town on our agenda. At this point there were eight of us: DAJ, two second-year Chinese fellows we bumped into at the bus station in 保山, two slightly annoying American college students we bumped into at the bus station in 福贡(Fugong), and a cool Chinese guy they had bumped into at a bus station in 昆明(Kunming). You see, it was rumored that to enter 丙中落 one needed to pay an 100元 fee. Yet my friend Jasmine, ever the networker, called her local-teacher friend, who called one of his friends from 怒江, in order to call his policeman friend, to ask him to sneak us in for free. We later met a nice German guy who astutely observed, ‘relationships… I think it’s called关系(guanxi)… seem to be pretty important here.’ So the eight of us, plus two policemen, piled into a fiver-seater, and drove right on through the toll gate to our destination 丙中落.  Another shout-out for Jasmine and her homie Yangxu.

Unfortunately there was not a single hotel room available. We asked high and low, but receptionists started to scold us, ‘it’s 国庆节 ! And it’s late!’ Splitting up didn’t even help, though it did help us lose the other Americans. A man sitting outside eating a pomegranate overhead our pleas, ‘I have a place you can stay. It’s just not cleaned up...’

We were skeptical. ‘Can it fit eight people?’

‘8, 10, 25—it doesn’t matter.’

Terrified, we continued to search. 丙中落 only has one street, and after walking it up and down three times, we started to consider the offer from the creepy pomegranate man. But finally I noticed a store solely selling live chickens and fish also had a 宿主 sign. Alright, maybe the rooms were a little yellow-tinged, but it was about half the price of every other hotel. We celebrated our find over dinner at a hostel called Aluo’s, which we really liked, so we made a reservation at their other location in 迪麻落 (Dimaluo) for the following night.

In the morning, it was down to DAJ again. We nabbed a map and decided to hike to 迪麻落 by foot. Psyched to not be trapped on a bus, we marched off into the wilderness with a vague notion of heading southeast. First we needed to cross a bridge. Pretty straightforward—head towards the water. Well after asking three different people, we still couldn’t find it. When we asked a woman a second time, she took us to the right path.  

‘Hmm, if it took us an hour to just find a bridge, maybe we can’t make it in a day…’

‘No!’ said optimist Aubrey.

We walked over the bridge and encountered a man with a fancy walking stick. Little did we know, he would soon be our salvation.

Along the angry river we went, until we met an old, skinny 北京人, a chubby dude with a big camera, and his preteen son. They proved to be enjoyable hiking company, and we walked until we came across a village, and stopped to ask directions at a church. (Bizarrely most of the area is devoutly Catholic, thanks to some missionaries back at the turn of the 20^th century).  They laughed in our faces, ‘it takes us a day to get to 迪麻落.’ Fine. We would find a road, and from there hitchhike to a place we could definitely walk from.

At the road, we parted ways with our new friends, and tried to flag down any and every car. Things were looking pretty grim, when a familiar face rolled up. The man from the bridge! Turns out him and chubby dude had been friends since elementary school. He dropped us off, and we were on our way. Only a 10km trek from this point. Except we hadn’t really eaten lunch and a cab suddenly rolled by, tempting us. But our cheapskate hearts saved us from sloth. ’30 块?!’ we scoffed. ‘No way.’

After a two-hour slow uphill march, we arrived at Aluo’s, road-weary and relieved. Showers (cold)! Food! 啤酒! Sleep! What more could we have asked for. We chatted with Aluo himself for quite a while, a strikingly handsome older gentlemen, with amazing 普通话(standard Mandarin, pretty much everyone in China speaks their own local dialect, or in 怒江’s case, the Lisu language). He told us we had to go to 阿路来卡 (Alulaika), about three hours up a mountain.

The next day, we headed up. The path was a steep one, but the views were more and more amazing the higher we climbed. Once we were at the top, we were literally walking on clouds. Naïvely thinking we would find a restaurant, it slowly dawned on us that 阿路来卡 is a tiny village of about twenty homes and a church. I was getting ready to fly down the mountain for food, when our new trek-mate begged a random household to cook for us. Though barely understanding Chinese, they were gracious and hospitable, serving butter tea, potatoes, spicy fried egg, and rice (so only potatoes and rice). We gave them two American quarters as a keepsake, and 60快 for the trouble.

I think the best part about this trip was how little stress, how little effort, how little planning any of us put into it. We took things day by day and it turned out to be an amazing week. I feel like I would only ever be so casual about something unless I lived, well, just over the mountain. It also makes me appreciate coming home to Yong’an, because it’s really just as beautiful, yet I don’t even have to share it with the tourists.