Chinese Countryside: Day 3

Today we spent an entire day at the home of one of the two middle-aged 'uncles' who've been leading us around all week. Although he is not farmer, Zhang Shu Shu lives in a farm-style house in the middle of an enormous plot of farmland with his wife and son. He'd also invited three or four students who were only vaguely related to the Zhang family, but who were about our age and wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to engage in cultural exchange with American college students. The majority of the morning was devoted to introductions – to the family, the house, and its surroundings. We helped fetch water from the well and clean some fresh fruit, then set out to find some farmers to interview. Unfortunately, the one I found didn't really want to talk to me. He was busy weeding his field with a hoe. I asked if I could give it a try, to which he responded, 'This work is too tiring, you will not be able to tolerate it.' I told him I'd done the same exact thing many times in my own backyard. Mistake. He handed me the hoe in disbelief. In reality, the piece of land he was working on was about three hundred times as big as my backyard, but having opened my big fat American mouth, I felt obligated to spend at least half an hour toiling away under the hot sun, without one of those Chinese farmer hats that look silly but are actually quite effective. I didn't feel too bad about how tired I was until I learned that the man for whom I was filling in was over 70 years old. Ouch.

After working up a sweat in the fields, we moved to a shady area near a lake, where we spoke at length with the kids about education, Chinese, English, names, writing systems, diets, and arm hair (which they were extremely surprised to witness first-hand). They were all extremely well-educated, especially Zhang Shu Shu's son (above). Although I could not possibly deduce such subtlety from our dialogue, a teacher mentioned later that she thought he spoke with the air and vocabulary of a philosopher. One of the vague-relative-student girls, whose summer assignment was to write about 90s generation aspirations and life goals, managed to ask me about a million questions for which I had no answers: 'What do you want to do after you graduate?', 'What kinds of things do Americans my age think are most important?', 'Do you think you'll live in America your whole life?', etc. Am I supposed to know? I think we both found the situation scary and telling. Meanwhile, our conversation was punctuated by a number of photo-ops with no underlying rhyme or reason, which seems to be a characteristic of Chinese-American cultural exchange. 'Oh hey! You're standing here! Wouldn't want to forget this!' *Snap*

For lunch we walked a mile down the road to a restaurant where guests can eat on raised platforms approximating the size of one-and-a-half king size beds (below). In most northern Chinese farming families, this platform serves as both a dinner table and shared sleeping area. It's incredibly uncomfortable to squat on for an entire meal, and I can't imagine doing so for my entire life. Within 30 minutes we'd decided to move to another room, where Zhang Shu Shu and the authentic Chinese people were sitting at a table with chairs. Clearly, the Chinese do not value tradition as much as comfort. They'd decided earlier that this was the best seating arrangement -- not because they didn't want to talk to us, but because they were worried we would not be accustomed to the kinds of food they wanted to order. I'll say it again, I'm so glad I eat everything. It makes intercultural interaction so much easier, especially in China, where the majority of host etiquette is rooted in food and drink.

At the risk of side-tracking this story beyond recognition, I will tell you that during lunch, an old Chinese man approached us and demanded to know, in an accent so comically brilliant Russell Peters could only hope to imitate it, 'WHERE IS YOUR COUNTRY?', a funny enough question on its own, that has since become a competition of sorts among members of the Chinese countryside group -- who can provide the most elusive correct answer? Under Canada? A few thousand miles that way? Of course, we knew what he meant...

After lunch we were supposed to go to a reservoir to talk to some local fishermen, but by the time we'd walked all the way there (two miles back in the direction from which we'd come), a terrible thunderstorm had rolled in, making it impossible for us to return. Instead, we waited out the storm in a shack smaller than a one-car garage with an engaged couple who'd been taking wedding photos, their family, and a little old man who sold turtles and giant snails out of a big blue plastic bag with a little water in it. The smile on his face when he pulled one out to show us was priceless – I wish I had a picture, but I was too busy taking photos of our situation in the shack:

The day ended with a group dinner back at the hotel, paid for entirely by our two fabulous 'uncles'. We exchanged toasts and thanked them for a great three days, as we would be leaving them the following morning. Halfway through our meal, the hotel owner interrupted to invite us to breakfast the next morning, yet another manifestation of the movie star treatment we'd been receiving since our arrival. We accepted graciously, and went off to bed with full stomachs, looking forward to our final full day in Yuxian.

再见

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