nihao, kunming

Well, I’ve only been in China a few hours and yet there’s so much to tell I don’t know where to start. Traveling was an absolute nightmare, starting with my trip in Cleveland, which was delayed b/c of fog at JFK. Imagine this scene: once I finally arrived in JFK, I sprinted-- huffing and puffing and sweating—across the airport, nose-diving once into the tile floor in front of an entire crowd, scraping up my hands and my face a little—to Air China, where I was informed I’d missed my flight by 15 minutes. In a storm of rage and tears that recalled my old corporate airline battleground days, I got American to put me on the next flight to San Fran—which, serendipitously, I only got on because it was also delayed. I had to sprint to that flight again, just barely making it before the doors closed (note to self: work out more!).

The guy sitting next to me on the HK flight blatantly ignored my no-eye-contact, no-talking rule on flights (created explicitly because it’s much easier to drool in anonymity than it is when you’ve actually held a conversation with someone). Anyway, this dude turned out to be a radio-frequency engineer from Singapore, staying in HK for a few days. Once we landed in HK, since I had six hours to kill, he helped me negotiate the final leg of my flight (note to self #2: learn Mandarin-stat!) and we headed into Hong Kong. It was really cool that I got to see the city, if only for a few hours. The only way to describe Hong Kong-and China- is that it is so utterly foreign to me. In comparison, Costa Rica seemed more like home than a field of corn on the Fourth of July. There is just so much I do not recognize: the language, the letters, the food, the way the cars and buses and bikes and pedestrians all seem to mix and merge into one giant river of commotion. I love it though—for the first time, it feels like a real adventure!

I finally got to Kunming, 2 full days after I left Cleveland, and of course my luggage is nowhere to be found. Met my Chinese interpreter, Hongmei- and my fears are confirmed. I cannot understand her. She cannot understand me. This could make for a loooooooooooong summer. We may have to resort to sign language…or the progressive face, I’m not sure which yet. Also, it’s incredibly ironic that I’m here to study obesity- I am by far the largest human I’ve seen here so far. I tower over all of the women and loom over most of the men as well—and I’m the only blonde in the entire city, I think. I definitely got racial profiled in line for immigration- these scary looking dudes in green uniforms with hedge-like haircuts pulled me out of line from everyone else just to inspect me. I actually think it will be interesting from an anthropological perspective to see what it feels like to live as such an extreme minority for the summer. Honestly, it might be the most important lesson I get out of this entire trip—we’ll see.

The good news: my roommates are awesome! I am going to learn a ton from them, both in terms of Chinese, Israeli culture, and general life in Kunming. Shelly’s going to be tons of fun- we hit it off upon meeting; Hila’s slightly more quiet, but I like her quite a bit as well. She yelled out “FUCK!” when we were in the supermarket (you’ll see why in just a minute), and after that she earned high marks in my book. It’s a little strange because sometimes they speak Hebrew or Chinese to each other, so I’m just in my own little world. Honestly, I’m very much like a blind person here- I don’t know how I’d get by without them already. Today we went to a Wal-mart type place and oh my god, I have never seen so many kinds of disgusting meats. I saw chicken feet prepared at least half a dozen different ways. I saw a five year old fingering fish heads. I saw what appeared to be bloody eel stew. Aaaand, I’m pretty sure I saw a dead baby cow. Disgusting. But we all came back and made dinner together, with Hila’s British boyfriend, Richard, who’s smart and quite hilarious in that droll British way. Both my apartment and my neighborhood are nicer than New Haven, ironically. So far, the only negative are the beds: apparently, Chinese people like to sleep on beds as hard as boards. My roommates even bought nicer, "softer" mattresses, but still--each morning I wake up feeling stiff and as though I am emerging from a few years inside a coffin. Ouch.

Otherwise, I’m feeling a bit anxious about my luggage, my project, and quite honestly, what to do with all this free time. I’m not sure how to live in a city where I am illiterate and essentially mute. Time for exploring, I think!