bus 22

I know I owe this thing some updates, but here's a snapshot of a bus ride home from school one night last week...

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I have my freshmen class from 4 until 5:40, the last period of the day. It gets dark midway through, and now that we're getting closer to winter, this class period is more and more miserable. (No heat in the classrooms, no heat on the buses, s-p-o-i-l-e-d American alert.) Last Monday was particularly miserable, with a steady assault of sleet pelting down on all of us waiting for the bus back into town. At least four #22 buses passed in the opposite direction, and three #23 buses passed going in my direction in the 40 minutes I had to stand waiting for the #22 to go home. When it FINALLY careened towards the shivering crowd, all much more patient/used to Chinese inconsistency than I, we clambered on to the tune of club music pumping throughout the bus. A group of men stood smoking near the front, shouting at the driver/d.j. to turn it up. A couple stops later, the smokers got off and were replaced by a man toting propane - wonderful. I had another spoiled American attack: is this legal? Are we going to explode? Should I get off and wait for the next one? and decided I'd just be Chinese about it and sit back and let it happen.

The sleet's still pelting, the music's still pumping, the bus gets fuller at every stop. Enter a glossy-eyed trio stinking of baijou, and this has turned into the strangest bus ride of my entire life. (Actually, just the strangest of my Chinese life, because the one in Milwaukee when the two guys started beating each other with umbrellas is still probably the strangest, and all the #30 rides with The Maniac were up there too.)

going to grandma's

What do Sheboygan, Thiensville and HuangJi all have in common? Grandmas!

Our new friend whose English name is Karvin took us to his hometown in the country, just 45 minutes outside Huai'an. We hopped on a bus that dumped us off on the side of the highway, we crossed over, walked down a dirt road and tucked behind a line of trees was this small village where he grew up. (His parents have since moved to the city nearby, but his grandparents still live in the house he grew up in.)

pic 1: tea
pics 2&3: grandma and grandpa putting on a dumpling show
pic 4: the road to the highway

I don't know how old Karvin's grandparents are but they are SPRY. Grandma was bustling around, hacking at weeds in the garden; Grandpa was raking the rice drying in the courtyard. Two endorsements for the Chinese wellness philosophy.

Shortly after we arrived, I went to the back to use the outhouse, passed the geese-looking things in one pen, and stomped up the path to scare the chickens away. I pushed on the door (marked with chalk as the "women"'s side) and through the hole at the bottom of the door at my feet comes bursting and flapping madly a big fat CHICKEN. I screamed of course, and had to fetch Megan to accompany me for the next attempt. Just when you think you can hack rustic your spoiled, city, bird-hating tendencies have to give you away.

The next day we caught the bus into the city of Hongze, near the "fourth-largest fresh water lake in China", where Karvin's parents and other relatives live. We had lunch at his grandpa's brother's house. This great-uncle was a captain in the People's Liberation Army ---- so, on October 1, China celebrated 60 years of the PRC, and this man helped bring it about. Pretty cool. And he's a great cook to boot.