Night On The Town

昨天的京剧怎么样？

The first thing I saw this morning was Baba leaning out the window of the 7th story apartment to smoke a few cigarettes. As I walked to class, I noticed it was way smoggier than normal. Usually the visibility is a mile, but this morning was half of that.

Today's first class was taught by Jeremiah, and we talked about our biggest observations at the village we stayed at. It's interesting to see what the village dynamics were, even though I didn't see most of them. For example having a car for them opens up an entire world. Not only are they able to have a longer travel radius, they can go to the city. This means they have access to much more than those without a car. In addition, it allows them to bring their kids to school every day rather then having them boarded at the school. And the village had about 1500 dogs that started barking at about 4 in the morning and wouldn't shut up. Once they smelled us, their alarm bells went off, and barked. That was their main function in the village.

After class, or rather a continuation of class, we watched a documentary about women in China. It presented a very insightful perspective on the issues Chinese women face. Among them, tremendous pressure in the family circle to do almost everything from rearing children to taking care of the elderly. On top of it, they're expected to work and keep the house in order. Of course that tradition is changing as women are gaining equality. China has the highest rate of suicide among women so the government is doing a lot to change perceptions and educate women on their importance in this changing world.

For lunch a few students and I went to a nicer, sit-down restaurant where I had this pumpkin porridge, coconut rolls, custard baozi, and some kung-pao chicken (which is eons better here than anywhere else). We walked around the neighborhood and ended up going into this supermarket. I bought a few things including an awesome tea thermos. We got back to school and had 3 hours to kill before I had to leave for the opera. I worked on some things including this journal and a few applications for this summer.

When I returned home, Baba said something to me really fast like we were in a rush then pointed in a few things. I thought I had done something wrong and basically just got ready to go. Turns out it wasn't anything. We had 小吃 or "xiaochi" which is Chinese for snacks. I ate 6 big baozis and some with meat and others with veggies, then we left. The trip there was a long voyage of busses and walking.

We eventually got to the theater and met up with, I guess, his 5 middle school buddies. I was laughing on the inside because one looked like a Chinese Sir Ian Mclellan and another looked like Admiral Akbar.  Keep in mind these guys are like 65. It was fun to see Baba with his friends and act like a kid. They snuck in this huge bag of clementines and one of Baba's friends snuck me a big orange. Sounds like something I'd do back home!

The jingju itself was interesting at first. There was a big screen on the side with the song lyrics in characters and English, so I knew what was going on for the most part. I dozed off about 5 times within the 3 hour event and was awake for when they gave me clementines. I caught Baba singing along with the music a few times, so I extrapolated that he knew this particular opera. As I said before, going to the jingju was exciting for me because we learned about it so much in class and now got to experience it first hand.

The bus didn't come for a long time on our way back and I was worried it wouldn't because of how late it was. We waited about half an hour for it to come. At home, Baba turned the TV to a jingju channel because apparently he didn't get enough tonight. He brought out hot salty water with sour crab apple things for us to drink. It was good only because I felt cold and really thirsty.