Gazing South

Haven't taken many pictures lately. The three images below are views from our south windows. There's been demolition and construction going on for weeks and it will continue for the next couple of years. We're on the western edge of town and the surrounding buildings have been razed in the first stages of a new development drive that will construct many high-rise apartment and office buildings. Right now, however, the land to the south and west holds only a few trees full of crows, the shells of a couple of buildings awaiting demolition, and three army-green tents where some of the road-building crew live.

Southwest

South

Southeast

Dear Uncle Jochi,

it was pitch black dark outside when my wristwatch alarm went off thursday morning. i stood in the shower until my second alarm went off about a quarter hour later. i pulled my lunch out of the fridge and stuck it in my bag along with some gloves and clothes, tied my boots, and pulled on my down jacket. it was somewhere south of freezing and not any lighter when i stepped outside to find the rest of the guys.

by the time we hit the good roads it was plenty light and i remembered to text message the teachers to let them know i'd be out of town. we flew along smooth new highways above hayfields and rivers and small villages, past the growing bones of dams, factories and prisons.

somewhere beyond huju the highway gave way quickly to dirt roads, which in turn gave way to snowy lanes lined with white-barked trees. long straight single lines of trees along long straight stretches of snowy road along long straight runs of streams coming down off the mountains were broken infrequently by little bridges cutting to the opposite bank and by small villages of mud and stone and people.

curls of smoke rose from the chimneys in the windless morning. men and women turned hay in farmyards and walked along the road with their pitchforks on their shoulders. one man led his black hog off the road into a stand of trees at a gentle bend of the stream.

eventually the ridges and peaks and streams and fields and herds and haystacks and stone walls converged as they must when one drives up-valley. there we parked, got out, and walked up.

Sunny Afternoon

Lows in the upper 20s this week. Highs in the low 50s. Our sun-room where we hang laundry to dry gets quite warm in the afternoon sun- and from its windows we can see snow on the eastern hills. Today we are cleaning house and listening to Congo to Cuba (thanks Krejci!). Shinay has added flavor to the day's chores by brewing eight treasures tea and fixing a delicious tofu-cabbage stew. I married a great cook! If you're in DC and want to try eight treasures tea- we recommend Ching Ching Cha in Georgetown.

Chilly Wednesday

I woke up this morning to the sight of what appeared to be snow on South Mountain. Our apartment backs right against the base of the hill, and about two hundred yards up there was quite a bit of white between the tufts of grass and trees. Not sure if was a heavy frost or a dusting of snow. I wanted to go inspect- but it's not that easy to get to the slopes that are so tantalizingly close, as I discovered on my walk there last weekend.

About 50 yards up the steep hill, a mud road runs parallel to the base. All along the road are the old style courtyard houses built without gaps in between save for a tiny drain here and there. It's maddening trying to go for a nice walk on the hill and having to walk for over a mile to get to a break in the houses. If one travels westward along the hill, the only avenue upwards is to a gated entry to a park. If one travels eastward, there is just house after house after house. All are mud or brick or concrete block. The mud and brick yards are swept clean, potted flowers grace the doorways and the windows are hung with colorful curtains. Huge laying hens cluck about and a few roosters crow throughout the day. Children run about happily flying little kites made of plastic bags and string. This is affordable housing and seems to be a healthy neighborhood of taxi drivers, laborers, and shop-workers. A mosque anchors the east end and to the south east is a broad field before the city resumes. Men, women, and children alike all seemed noticeably happy as they walked through the fields and mud streets chatting or playing. Every home bears a black, spray-painted designation on its outer wall: "for demolition".

I eventually gave up looking for a break in the houses and followed a young boy as he picked his way through some buildings to an ash and rubbish pile that doubled as a ladder up 20 feet to the next terrace. I tried not to think about what I was climbing and scrambled up after him. In a few garbled words I enquired about how to get up the hill. He just pointed and said to keep going the same westward route I'd been following. To my dismay, the brick path eventually led right back down to the previous terrace, but I did enjoy the expanded view and the sight of two different flocks of chickens waiting patiently at their owners' doorways for lunch! 

Abandoning the search for a legitimate route to the hillside, I ventured into an un-gated courtyard and looked about for someone to ask for permission to cross their property- but couldn't find anybody. The small rooms to the back of the courtyard used the hillside as their rear wall, but there was a little nook in the corner where one could pass. It was an outdoor room for a tethered calf, two walls being the earth itself and one wall being that of another building. I was happy to face a guard calf rather than a guard dog and carefully climbed the homemade wooden ladder eight feet up to the mud steps cut into the soil. 

Finally! Above the endless ribbon of mud and brick homes, above the noisy streets, I was almost eye level with the towering high-rises and facing a terraced hill of grasses, trees, and shrubs. I grew up in the countryside on a sprawling property just east of the Blue Ridge. Even the small town of Blacksburg was unnerving in its urban-ness and crush of people everywhere. Grass and trees and cows and bugs and bushes and streams and hills are what I need to breathe. Over the years in Blacksburg and then in DC I learned where to find little pockets of air and how to hold my breath longer and longer. At Tech it was the cow pastures and hikes along the Appalachian Trail and any stream Gabe and I could find. In DC it was wooded neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and long runs on the W&OD trail and walks at Great Falls and kayaking the Potomac. It became such habit that I didn't even realize how tense I was until I'd hit 29 South and the rolling fields lined with cedar trees approaching Charlottesville and all my being would relax like tight muscles in a hot bath. 

South Mountain is a little breath of life in this city of millions. As I picked my way through thornbushes and tall grass upward into bigger and bigger trees and then beyond them to high fields- I felt alive again. Fall is the time that I need the outdoors most and the time that I daily live with one foot in the here and now and one foot on the ethereal ground of memory. My body walks concrete paths between concrete towers, but my soul is with Gabe and Grandad cutting wood and walking in the pastures. At dusk I want to go somewhere- but I don't know where, I'm looking for something, but don't know what. I feel lost until I realize that my being is searching for the gathering in of family and friends around the Brickhouse kitchen table at dusk- but that is far off in distance and further off in time. 

Dusk instead found me sitting in a park with another old friend whose pages hold these worlds together- and also promise another better than the beginning. Sitting beside an earthen wall of a city thousands of years old, I read the words that accompanied me to the farm ponds of Appomattox and the banks of the James River, that fed me through hungry times and lit my way through dark ones, and I remember that there is no going back and there is no standing still- there is only pressing on.  

I have sucked in a breath of nature and have drunken a draught from the springs of life. I have looked into the ghosts of memory and it is time now to return. Homeward bound, I climb the dark hill to the apartment- knowing that the home I long for is both past and future, and that the home that I must build is now.

Signs of fall, smell of snow

The leaves on the mountainside are turning golden and the air is often crisp and cool. Outside of the gate trucks loaded down with apples sell to passersby. Besides the usual fall crops- huge mounds of red chili peppers are being carted all over the city on little motorized three wheelers that supply the small vegetable shops. In people's windows one can see strands of them as long as a man hanging to dry.

A couple of days I've walked outside to the distinct smell of snow on the wind. How odd, I thought- as there was no sign of snow clouds. As I hiked up South Mountain a few days ago- the source of the smell became visible. All of the high peaks beyond the dirt mountains surrounding the city were showing white at the peaks.

Walk on South Mountain

A man returning from the yellow pastures at the top of South Mountain. I crested the shoulder of the hill to find him packing and lighting his pipe. He lingered for a little while in the warm afternoon sun- probably curious to see what I was doing- then shouldered his load of fodder and gathered his grazing cattle with whooping calls and the cracks of a whip. 

Although not very visible in this picture, the ridge in the far distance is snow-capped.

More from the Archives

These are portraits that I shot in 2004 at a Children's Day celebration in western Yushu Prefecture. It was incredibly sunny and a lot of my shots from that day were washed out- but there was no hiding the beauty of the nomad families that camped on the grassland around the boarding school. It was late June - I think- and the afternoons were fiercely hot and the nights brutally cold. I had brought a soccer ball to the kids at the school and we played a lot during their days off- until it popped. Another local group from the community did some environmental workshops for the kids and I showed them some of the insects that lived in and around the streams. At night on the plateau above 15,000 feet the stars were infinite above, and the white summer-time tents were lit like lanterns on the grassland below. During one of those black nights, I snuck out between the glowing tents to the stream to bathe for the first time in many days. Even though it was June- there was still a good two or three feet of ice along the edge of the stream to jump over to get to the moving water. I scrubbed off days of grime in the icy brook while taking in the stellar majesty above and tiny dots of life spread out before me as the sounds of laughter and barking dogs floated across the open plain in harmony with the gurgling water. It was a truly delicious taste of life.

Reading Material and Local Fare

For those interested in reading more about the broader region, BBC correspondent James Reynolds keeps a blog here. Another interesting BBC article about the nearby areas can be found here. Foreign Affairs also regularly has articles regarding China, the latest written by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.
----
As for us, it's been a slow week- mostly studying and helping some friends get their coffee shop ready to open next week. We'll have no classes from the 29th until the 6th, and so are hoping to help with some water/chemical testing, getting the office filing system in order, and re-formatting some of the computers. Since it's been raining most of the week, most of the highlights have been eating. Shinay already covered the ladies making dumplings, so I'll leave you with these pictures of a lady slicing up pigs' feet and a man roasting meat. When I was growing up, the Hammonds had a hog farm at the end of Booth Road. On one of my previous trips I tried some of the local pigs' feet at the night market- and they tasted exactly like the smell of that hog farm. I can eat just about anything, but I'm not planning on ordering pigs' feet again over here any time soon. The fellow roasting meat was one of the few folks still selling dinner as I walked back home in the rain after painting tonight at the coffee shop. He grilled me up five sticks and a flat bread brushed with oil and encrusted with spices, then stuffed the meat into the bread and poured me a cup of salt tea. It was the perfect late-night dinner.

A Day Not At School

I spent most of the day today with a friend from Holland. After a fine lunch of falafel, couscous, tomato salad, and fresh baked flat bread at his home, we ran some errands together. It was another damp, grey day as we crisscrossed town paying bills, picking up one of his sons from school, doing some carpentry at a friend's coffee shop, eating noodles, and buying fruit. It was really fun to be doing some construction work again- something I've missed a lot since over the past two years. We had a couple of doors to hang, a couple of shelves to put up, and some decorative woodwork to install. We got about half way through and will go back Friday afternoon to finish up.

The guys at the noodle shop were friendly enough to let me photograph them at work in the kitchen. They were a quick team pulling dough into noodles, boiling them, ladling out broth into the bowls and spooning vegetables and meat over each dish. The whole process took only a couple of minutes.



















After the noodles, we stopped by a fruit shop before heading home.

A Day At School

This is the inside of our school building. It's a pretty neat building- four floors arranged around a central open space with skylights overhead. When it rains there's quite a bit of dripping and there hasn't been any electricity this week- but overall a good place to learn. During breaks we come out to the common area to chat, stretch, and people watch.



Our classes get out just after noon, the same time that every school in the city sends kids home for their two hour lunch break. It's a complete mob on every street and quite a challenge to squeeze onto the packed buses. Today wasn't too bad and we managed a spot on a not so crowded bus.

After a long, cold morning (it was drizzling again and there's no heat in our concrete classroom), we warmed up at a Korean restaurant with some friends. The bibimbap, tofu soup, and spicy yak stew hit the spot!

The Rest of the Story

My wife also keeps a blog. You may want to read it to get the rest of the story. soyskim.blogspot.com

------

Below is a picture from the trip over. It seemed like we were flying above a giant sea of cotton for hours upon hours. The plane was very new, the food good, and the flight staff very nice. All of this was an added bonus, however, as our single selection criterion was price. If you're planning a trip to East Asia, look into Hainan Airlines.

Laundry

I was hanging up the laundry today when I heard someone talking outside my window. I peered out and saw this woman and perhaps her grandson also doing their wash.

Sweets and Snacks

Shinay and I went shopping yesterday. These are some of the sweets and snacks we saw.

Local News!

Today's Post had an article about this area. Please read it when you have time.

From the Archives

I realize that I've not posted many pictures this year. Here's a shot from my first trip to the area in 2004. Between the river and the road leading out of Yushu, there was a little concrete pad with three walls and no roof. I was working with a friend on translating audio from a participatory video project we'd done with Insight Share and each afternoon after work, we'd head over to this little pad of concrete to play 3 on 3 soccer. There were two men of the cloth who often joined us. One traded in his robes for maroon soccer shorts and a saffron jersey, but the fellow shown below always came out in his full garb. Despite the disadvantages- he did have a certain trick of gathering the ball up into the robes where we couldn't get at it and he would then waddle towards the goal.

Warm Thursday

Well, dinner has been eaten, the dishes are drying in the rack, and a load of laundry is churning in the machine. Today we had a good class, got the accounting wrapped up, and got our residence permits and long term visas. There was even time for a good soccer match just before dark- from which my ankle is still throbbing. 

It's been a good week for getting to know folks around here. Every day we walk past a man with two steaming pots emitting the most delicious smell right at dinner time. Somehow each time we walk by, Shinay convinces me to look in his pots and ask "How much is it?". I think she just wants an excuse to look in the pots. I keep telling her it's the same price as yesterday- but the game doesn't seem to get old. Tuesday evening was grey and rainy and cold and we had a handful of friends over. After chatting for a while, I ducked out and headed down the hill determined to finally buy dinner from the man with the two giant pots (who must have been thoroughly bewildered as to why we always inquired and never bought). I found him happily tending his pots under a multicolored umbrella cozied up against a little shop where his wife was selling some kind of bread. It was a good spot- sheltered from the wind on the one side by the shop and by the rain from a giant willow overhead. He seemed absolutely delighted when I pointed at the larger of his two great pots and said "two of those please". He pulled back the lid to a billow of steam and revealed about ten whole chickens- head and all- boiling in a yellow broth. He stirred them about with a long, two pronged instrument, selected two suitable looking specimens and with the prongs hooked them about the neck and dropped them into a pot of boiling spiced oil. Wait awhile he said, grinning. He then politely offered me a cigarette and a seat beside him under the umbrella. Politely declining the former, I accepted the latter and began to chat over the inevitable questions. Where are you from? What are you doing here? How long are you staying? I fumbled through the answers fairly enough- I think- until another patron arrived to distract my host. He went through the same process and as he was dropping the next chicken into the oil I saw that mine were finishing to a lovely golden-brown. A few minutes later, he fished my chickens out and placed them in a cooling pan. About that time a young woman with two guys who had been eyeing the chickens from a distance hastened over and quickly said- "I'll have this one" as she snatched a bag and began to help herself to my chicken. Luckily the chicken-vendor shooed her away and let her know in no uncertain terms that those particular birds were already spoken for and that they would have to wait. The raiding party looked rather chagrined at their failed attack- as they should have. He then bagged them up for me, threw in a couple of packets of chili-powder and spices, and wished me happily on my way.

On the trudge back up the hill, I decided to stop and see the lady tending a  coal fire in a 55 gallon drum. On top she was roasting sweet potatoes ranging from moderately-small tubers to nearly football sized. I picked two of the largest ones, which she weighed out on a small stick-and-weight scale. With two bags full of steaming deliciousness- I scurried home to my hungry friends. 

The place was quite warm and cheery when I arrived. I stepped into the middle of some conversation about cultural interactions- but it quickly dissolved as the prospect of dinner became much more real. I put one of the Nepalis to work cutting the chicken- a task to which he applied such gusto and such a large cleaver that we all prayed that he'd not lose a hand in the process. Shinay prepared noodles and I scooped out the potatoes and washed fruit. At last we sat down to a feast of chili-peanuts, pumpkin seeds, chicken, noodles, sweet potato, bananas, apples, oranges and soda-pop. It was fantastic- both eating and getting to know some of the other folks in town. Now every time we walk up or down the hill- the chicken vendor smiles and waves to us.

Besides the chicken-man, we're also getting to know a tofu-seller and a family that runs a vegetable shop on our corner. The husband and wife are quite friendly and mild and they often have their young child in the shop with them. We try to go at less-busy times and ask what different things are called. Today we were getting tomatoes to make chili and the husband asked if we have tomatoes in our country. It took me a while to figure out what he was asking- but eventually assured him that we do. The shop has a good selection of fruits and vegetables and some grains and cooking oils. There is also an older woman who is sometimes in the shop and she is often tending the young boy. We assume that she's the man's mother, but don't know for sure. At first she would lecture Shinay at length about how to buy vegetables and how to count change- but after about the fifth scolding she must have realized she wasn't getting through and has resigned herself to trying to sell me old watermelons instead.

The tofu seller is quite a nice fellow. His stall is tucked in a back corner of a large, covered market on South Little Street. He makes the tofu daily and sells three items: straight tofu, pressed tofu, and bags of soy milk. He's nice enough, and Shinay likes tofu and soy milk enough- that we thought it would be a good place for her to practice her Chinese for the first time. I walked Shinay to the market on my way to play soccer and released her to practice and, hopefully, get ingredients for dinner. Two hours later, I stepped out of the dark into a bright and wonderful smelling apartment. Success! Shinay was happy, the tofu seller was happy, and there was a great dinner waiting.

Whenever someone asks me how big the city is- I usually say quite small. It is, however, over 1 million people. I thought for while about why I perceive it as a small town and realized that it's because I know only a few English speakers, and so I think of the place as about 30 or 40 people with lots of space and stuff in between. I'm looking forward to seeing the city "grow" as I meet more local folks and learn how to communicate with them. I could go on about the guys I play soccer with, our language teachers, the Muslim family that sells me noodles, and the ice cream shop that always has a double chocolate bar waiting for Shinay- but I need to head to bed and have something to write later. 

Monday Off

Well, it started off cool and grey this morning. We had the day off from classes for the Autumn Moon Festival. Last night all of the squares and roads were lit up and most restaurants and shops were closed. Driving home from a late farewell gathering, we watched little lanterns being released and floating up into the misty night sky. They rose slowly from the square and then drifted westward as they caught a light breeze. It was a very mild and peaceful evening and the bright moon was muted through the clouds.

I spent a lot of today in a prolonged meeting to schedule out the fall's activities through December. There's lots to do: a trip to Mongolia for local partners to learn from similar environmental and development projects, another study tour to other conservation projects in China, monitoring trips to check up on the 11 clinics that we help build/train staff for/fund, water monitoring work, checking up on the grazing study and repairing fences, test-running the snow leopard study equipment, test-running the bear fencing on-site (which we got juiced up and tested in the city last week), and so on and so on. There are conferences to attend, lectures to give, relationships to build, relationships to maintain. All this for three full-time workers with Shinay and I helping out part time after classes! Never a dull moment.

The day was less grey- but not very warm- by the time I left the meeting at 3:30. It wasn't cold either, just not warm. I headed home to see Shinay who'd been studying all day. We took a nap and then went to make something of the day off by playing soccer. Wouldn't you know as soon as we stepped out the door, clouds started rolling in from the west. We got in a good forty five minutes of play before the wind and rain picked up and the game fizzled out. We went to a noodle and fried rice restaurant for a quick dinner and were happy to find jia-jia-myun on the menu- but it didn't taste anything like the Korean dish we're used to.

After dinner, we studied some more together, checked up on our fantasy football team (we're almost last in our league- didn't really want to play but were coerced by some friends), dug through an old music collection, and practiced some swing dancing. Not bad for a day that started off with 5 hours of meeting! Tomorrow I'm skipping class to try to get our paperwork straight for residence permits and visas.

Random notes

There was an interesting article on outsourcing to China in this morning's Post. 

Since I'm in the city for a while, here's another site that tells a bit about the surrounding area where the projects that we support are being carried out. It's blocked here, but hopefully still up and running elsewhere. Oddly enough, I can now actually view my own site- which wasn't possible last fall. At that time it was blocked here, but I could post by e-mail. BBC news and Wikipedia are available now, too- though some folks think that a little while after the olympics these will be taken away again. We'll see.

Sunny Monday

Well, it started off cool and rainy. I got up at 6:30 this morning to catch the bus to the university for the first day of classes. The ride went quicker than expected, so I ducked into the welcoming, steamy warmth of a dumpling restaurant. It was packed inside with students in military fatigues. I squeezed into a small open space at a table by the door and ordered a bowl of fungus soup along with five meat-filled, bready dumplings steamed in a bamboo tray. From my perch on a little three-legged stool, I watched others trundle in out of the cold morning and wipe their glasses and blow their hands before spotting some classmate with a happy cry and tucking in to their own bowls of  rice porridge, fungus soup, and dumplings. I took my time- slowly waking and warming up with each bite. 

Outside again in the cool drizzle, I found someone to interpret my class schedule and lead me to the correct building. The computer lab where class was to begin at 8:30 was dark and locked at 8:20. I had no idea if I was at the right spot, but eventually a janitor came round and unlocked the doors. Around 8:40 one of the administrators showed up and explained that the teachers would arrive shortly and that no one had given them their schedules yet. I ended up in a small class with three others who had either studied or been using the language for two to four years. It was pretty rough, so I ended up staying for a beginner class being held at 10:30 which was a much better fit. There was also the added bonus that I got to sit by Shinay! 

After class, it was even colder than when we had left the house in the morning! My stomach had been growling through the whole second lecture, so rather than facing the long bus ride and walk home cold and empty, we hunted down a restaurant on a side street near campus. There we warmed up with many cups of hot tea and a heaping mound of fried rice along with eggplant cooked with garlic and ginger and tofu cooked with peppers and fungus. Feeling much better about the journey home, we stepped outside to find the day miraculously transformed from gray and cold to sunny and pleasant! 

Now that we're home, it's time to study study study.

Rainy Monday

It's a grey evening here. The wind is driving rain against the east face of our building. We're living at the end of a street that runs halfway up south mountain. It's a largely Tibetan compound and some folks gather each evening to dance in the courtyard- but I doubt they'll be out tonight. Along the street that climbs up to our apartment complex there are motor-tricycles loaded down with all sorts of fresh vegetables and fruits. The gate keeper is a little old Muslim man with a long wispy beard and the typical white hat. He seems very happy to see us each time we pass by. Everyone tries to speak Chinese to Shinay and they seem quite skeptical when she insists that she doesn't speak.

Things have been busy. Besides settling in and getting registered, we've been testing the bear fencing, getting the snow leopard camera traps ready, working on a proposal and design for a research and extension center, and setting details in order for a project in Mongolia. In between we've managed to make a bunch of new friends and catch up with old ones. Next Monday we'll be starting classes at the university.