Overall, I have to say I’m glad I’m doing this trip, and I’m happy to have the experience under my belt, but I don’t think I’d ever sign up to do it again. The reward so far hasn’t been worth the discomfort. Additionally, I feel like this trip was not well-planned. We have too much “do nothing” time. Yesterday, we had hours of “do nothing” time, punctuated by an unexciting horse ride and a bland dinner.
I’m frustrated, I miss home. I almost think the 4-day Chinese village (another research trip possibility) would have been preferable given the free time I would have had in Beijing.
The one thing that makes this trip really worth it so far is the scenery. It’s so much like Texas in composition and Nebraska in form. The scrubby grass, the low undulating hills as far as you can see, and the stars… the stars are home. I keep forgetting how awe-inspiring they are. It’s no wonder someone thought to name our galaxy the Milky Way. It really looks like there’s a milky rainbow stretched across the sky.
That was the highlight; laying on the ground and looking up at the stars. That, and the seconds of cantering I finally got out of my lazy, unresponsive horse with uneven stirrups.
In our down time, we played a lot of cards: ERS, BS & Spoons, to be exact. We also learned that “BS” in Chinese is “pìhuà.” We also had the most interesting lesson ever from Zhao Laoshi (a teacher) on Chinese “zāng huà” or “dirty speech.” Honestly, I forgot most of it, but that doesn’t really matter since a Wikipedia page has been circulating among the second-years as to the full range of Chinese “dirty speech.”
Anyway, the horse ride was as unexciting as I expected, so I wasn’t exactly disappointed, but I was disappointed at our destination: a muddy creek with cows. To be fair, everyone else was really happy as they thought it was an idyllic location, but given where I grew up, I was just bored. I felt bad that I couldn’t quite connect with their excitement, but after 10 years in Nebraska and a childhood visiting my grandparents’ ranch, I was just too familiar with what we were seeing.
On a side note, as we’re driving to the next far-flung country home to interview its residents, I have no idea how the driver knows where to go or how they managed to set up interviews in the middle of nowhere. I’m actually a little impressed by that part of the research trip, and by the driver’s ability to drive the bus through anything.
So there was a large yurt on the compound we slept at last night that was a bar, and when we walked in there were three little girls manning the counter! We managed to chat with them a bit and found out that they were 10, 6, & 5 years old, and they were instructed to call an adult on the phone when someone actually wanted to order. It was a little surreal seeing these small girls behind the counter.
Later that night, there was a folk song/dance performance, which was interesting, if a little staged. I enjoyed the bowl-balancing dance by one of the women. I might try to incorporate some of her moves next year for belly dance. There was also some enthusiastic rap/interpretive dance from two men in the troupe.
Luckily at this compound we weren’t stared at as much as other locations we’ve been to… until we got up on the stage and danced. Then the night ended much the same as the night before, with us girls gossiping in our little yurt. Little did we know our teachers in the neighboring yurt could hear everything. We found that out this morning...
Here's a picture that I really like of our compound:
Here's a picture that I really like of our compound:
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