Saturday, November 20, 2010

My New Jacket and Other Holidays

So I am no longer freezing to death. Im sure there was great concern in my following, but now you can hold off the vigils and such, Ive learned to suck it up, and I bought a jacket.

Anyway, so there was a Halloween party at the university. That was interesting. My site-mate and I wanted to do the holiday right, so we went downtown and tried to find a pumpkin, which according to all our students, was a totally reasonable mission. Alas, the English translations were not so good for their large gourd squash things and even their consistency did not really seem right to make a weird mishapen jack o lantern, though I suppose we could have tried a little harder. I mean, In Senegal I saw volunteers make them out of watermelons, that is dedication.

But we did want to get dressed up, though generally failed in the whole get-a-costume thing. I ended up as some sort of weird black and white thing with clowny clockwork orange kinda makeup. Leo put some red around his mouth and carried around a hammer and I guess was some kinda serial killer of some sort. And then from there we went to the 'party'.

Now I was pretty sure that no matter what, a college party here in China could not resemble a college party in America. I will have to write a whole other blog about how maturity levels are different, ideas of independence, general behavior of students, feelings about drinking and having fun, all is so different. Anyway, but the party was hosted by the university, it was held in a big banquet hall above the cafeteria, and there was some vague holiday-ish decorations (ok, I admit I did see some cut outs of ghosts and a witch on a broom), lots of colorful lights, a stage and seating set up facing the stage taking up most of the room. When we came in there were many students packed into this room, many of them were my students, so that was cool. No one in that main room was wearing any kind of costume but us. We tried to mingle for a while in the crowd, meeting people and scaring people with our 'beautiful makeups', but we were soon ushered over to stage left so that the party could begin. This ushering us around was definitely a big part of the whole evening. On the stage was an announcer or host of some sort, and he was starting things off, getting people to take their seats. He was being filmed by some video crew, another interesting point of the evening.

Again, we were mingling over to the side of the stage with various people. Out the door to the side were maybe a dozen students dressed in costumes, where the whole point was that they were wearing them to be judged on stage and afterwards they would promptly remove them. Soon after the program began, we were unexpectedly ushered on stage and asked to explain Halloween for everyone, why it was important and what it meant for all Americans. That was odd. Then they spontaneously asked us to begin our "program", whereupon we stared blankly at each other for a while. Bo one had really said at all what was supposed to happen at this "party", let alone that we were expected to have a 'program'. Eventually, Leo told a terrible rendition of some ghost story that no one could really hear anyway with the music and the noise, and that they wouldnt have understood anyway even if they could hear it. Then the costumed people came up on the stage in a big line and we were told to choose two to be the winners or soemthing. I just chose kinda at random and felt badly after because I could have picked one of the two or three that were my students and it would have all been the same.

Anyway, then we tried to just hang out and mingle by the stage but then we were again ushered to sit in front row center for the rest of the program. There was singing and music playing, kungfu demonstrations and dancing. Later there were some games presented by the host, where he choose people 'randomly' from the audience and had them do things, like who could wrap tp around their partner the fastest (vaguely halloween-like, mummy like at least), and another was a game like charades, the rest i couldnt really figure out.

Eventually that all ended and it was time for the dance party. Again, not to be confused for an American dance party. First the chairs were partway moved so that some of the dance department could come and break-dance. This was in fact one of the coolest and most interesting things I have seen here in China simply because it was so different and interesting. After that they cleared out all the chairs and there were a few different dance melodies played where students danced in unison, electric slide style, sometimes in conga line, sometimes in rows, sometimes with a partner, sometimes in a circle. It was kinda fun, I am not good at being coordinated, but it was funny at least.

And that went on for maybe a half hour or so, maybe more, and that was it, the lights came on and everyone left. That was the whole college party, China-style. Oh, i guess there was some candy, they randomly threw hard candy over the crowd sometimes.

Throughout the whole event, people constantly took pictures with us. That is pretty constant anytime we are at any function or a student has a camera. But this was much more so because of our semi-costumed selves. Everyone wanted pictures. One student would come up and her friend would take the picture with her phone, then her own phone, then another person would come up and there would be three more pictures with all the phones, then the friend would want to be in the picture so she would give all the phones to someone else and there would be another four taken... and so on and so on. Literally the entire evening. My face hurt from trying to smile so much.

The other thing was we were constantly, constantly apologized to for it not being interesting. I had to say over and over that it was interesting. It was legitimately interesting. And then they would say, "but it is not like Halloween in America?" Well of course it is not like bloody Halloween in America, nobody does anything like this in America unless you are in elementary school, but then I didnt really want to explain all that. I just had to keep saying over and over that I was having fun. That was a really annoying part. Often people here will ask you over and over if you are having fun, and you cant say 'no', but even when you are having fun, especially when you are having a good time, it can just be obnoxious to have the same four sentence conversation with every person you talk to.

So that was Halloween. Strange, interesting, kinda exhausting.

Now yesterday was another holiday, the new year celebration for the Yi ethnic group in China. I will try to keep this short as this is already way too long a post. Much of the administration at the school gets invited to this celebration held by some of the Yi student leaders, not far from the university. We got there just after ten in the morning and stayed until after 5 in the afternoon though we were told that it would continue until maybe ten that night, they like themselves a party.

So there were maybe a hundred or so people total there, students and administration and their families, maybe a bit more. I was there with Leo and the other American paid teacher, Donald, and a Japanese volunteer (JICA) teacher was there too. She just came to Yibin and has been teaching Japanese majors for a week. The four of us were often together as we were the big interest, besides the holiday that was going on.

After some tea, mahjong and card games, people gathered around a bonfire and two small pigs were brought out. It was clear almost before I was the pigs what was happening. Maybe I can sense it from being in Senegal, the metal bowls, the long inexplicable knife held by some young grinning guy. First they carried the pigs around the fire three times, we didnt get good translations on the symbolism in everything but I am sure that many things had symbolism. Many of the Yi men and women wore soft black coats with colorful embroidery. The Yi people are mostly in western Sichuan province and Tibet, if I understood correctly.

Then there was something new for me. I had never seen a pig slaughter before, let alone two. It was quick, ill give it that, but the screaming before hand, eek. But it was different then Senegal, not the throat cutting move, but rather a neck stab into the heart.

Later there was dancing around the fire, some singing, some chanting, general merriment. Then lunch was served a little after one. I had to eat some of the pork, though it was served in rather intimidating large chunks to eat with chopsticks. And then the drinking, toasting, and all that began. I tried to limit myself because I am weary of such situations, but many people were rather drunk in quick order.

After lunch I wanted to just talk to people and mingle, as I always want to do at parties and always fail to do here because no one ever lets me. Instead they had more singing, followed by a kind of wrestling, followed by arm wrestling, which I got pulled into more than once. Then there was more singing and whatnot. Some old guy pulled out an accordion and that was kinda cool. But then everything started to drag out and it was clear if we stayed for another hour we would be expected to have dinner and more and I thought we would be best to make an exit.

It was really cool though, the music, the songs, the clothes, the dancing, the tradition. I really want to do more things like this while I am here. maybe without the arm wrestling...

This week is of course Thanksgiving, the deans of the school have invited us to some dinner that night and Leo and I really want to go to another city where many other PCVs are meeting for a weekend. I guess I will let y'all know how all that turns out.

2 comments:

  1. I just finished reading this post aloud to my folks. While my throat is a bit parched (sure it was long, but it was well worth it!), as always they (and I) appreciate your "lighter side" view of the events you experience! Keep writing funny schtuff!
    -eL

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  2. PS I found your office on Google Maps!
    -eL

    ReplyDelete