Hurray for wangbas.
2006-09-02: This'll be long, tedious and chronological. Also, I've done horrible, unprovoked things to people's names. Really sorry about that - Chinese speakers will feel especially queasy.
Today's Saturday and I arrived in China on Wednesday evening, having left Wexford on Monday. So I haven't even been away from home for a week yet, and in that time I've been through slight nervousness, great nervousness, clutching my patient little brother and sobbing, a train, Dublin, a 4 a.m. start, two days of four connecting flights, Beijing International, and since getting to Dalian, lots and lots of raptures.
In Frankfurt sixteen of us were delayed and missed our Beijing connection. We had to wait four hours, so we made friends. That shortened the journey. I thought one girl looked oddly familiar, but decided she must just have a type of elegant, open face I'd seen before. After two hours of banter it emerged that she was actually Yang Xuefei, the guitarist - I've seen her in concert! Only then she was wearing a glamorous concert gown and I couldn't actually see her over people's heads.
I've just been incredibly lucky in all arrangements. First of all, I had a Dalianese friend from Ireland who happened to be here. He and his girlfriend picked me up from the airport, drove me around in his swanky car, and only left after seeing me to my Chinese family's flat. Thank you, Leo, that was princely.
Basic luck: Dalian itself. It's grand altogether. I haven't explored yet at all, but the Mandarin is great, the weather not deadly, the mosquito count low and the greenery fairly abundant. Sometimes unlikely places smell very strongly of fish, but there are green hills, loud crickets and a big yellow moon.
Next luck: my family. I think most of my classmates are happy with their families, but mine just can't be topped. They are Teacher Order, Teacher Woodchild and their son Clear Logic who's thirteen. Teacher Order is a professor at the Ligong Daxue (University of Technology), and his wife works there too. I liked Teacher Woodchild the minute she came into the room, and when her husband joined her I thought, what lovely, straightforward people.
They live in a very newly built xiaoqu (like ... an apartment-block estate for the well-off) which is shiny but also nicely designed, with attractive gardens in every gap. Those on the ground floor have their own gardens to tend, and they grow the most amazing things. Even on the top floor some people's balconies are dripping with marrows and things, and the rooves are covered in solar panels.
My Chinese parents go to great lengths to make me feel at home. They tell me that I shouldn't be so polite, should eat what I want, should tell them what I like to eat and be more a live-in than a guest. We'll see about that when Teacher Woodchild lets me start helping in the kitchen. Perhaps I'll get to learn some Chinese cooking - I'm still at the stage where the process looks like: 1: Chinese person buys fresh produce, some of it alive. 2: Person disappears into kitchen for an hour and a half. 3: Emerges bearing bowl after bowl of attractive food. Mind you, I was encouraged when Teacher Order cooked lunch today for me and Clear Logic. There was a big bowl of chopped green peppers chao'd in garlic and ginger, and another of cucumber, both with bits of pork. He was apologetic that the food was so simple, but I was like, dude, I love peppers (in polite Chinese) and ate lots. It was a relief after the prawns, which are nice, but they're not all dead when you boil them (I'm not sure how you'd kill them first) and once they're cooked you have to rip off their heads, front legs and outer carapace, which is also fine except sometimes when you expose their heart and stomach cavity you meet the last meal they personally ate, which I'm not so Zheng He about.
Since when do I talk about food? The fact I'm even eating yet is a good sign. The strange air and jetlag hits you and you can't stomach anything for a couple of days, usually. If you're me.
My family are very educated, thoughtful people, and it shows in my little brother Clear Logic. He's quite far from the stereotypical silent, overworked, lifeless Chinese kid that some of my classmates are living with (and despairing of conversing with). He knows an awful lot, and maybe being bright allows him to go through the school system and remain lively (people: is this impression of the Chinese school system wrong?) He talks to me very happily and is great for my education. He looks younger than 13 and has a big expressive face, and I think he spends plenty of time reading books and thinking about things. He's read all kinds, from Homer to the Count of Monte Cristo (for heaven's sake), and disputes details of Chinese history with his parents. When I passed his room just now he was lying on his bed looking up at the ceiling and waving a ruler around and just thinking. I'm like, that's a good way to spend time when you're 13. Otherwise you'd never internalise anything.
Above all, what I love about my Chinese family is that they talk to me constantly and have time for me despite being extremely busy. And a large part of my rapture is due to being able to talk to them. Take the chat we just had at dinner - going to China in third year instead of second year makes the difference between "I ... go out with classmates now, okay?" and "This question of going out with my classmates in the evenings, I still haven't discussed with you. I will sometimes go out to pubs and discos with my classmates, but I will always tell you in advance. What do you think, is Dalian a fairly safe city? Exactly, I am a foreigner and a girl too. So maybe I should get a male classmate to bring me to the door? Yes, I see that this xiaoqu is very safe, but you think the danger would be in the pubs themselves? Well, I will always be with my friends there. Anyway, I won't come home too late. The main thing is to respect you. What time do you usually go to bed?"
In other words, nope, I haven't shut up since I arrived.