Christmas with the Recovering Heroine Addicts
December 26, 2003
Kunming City, Yunnan Province, China

Jim and I spent Christmas wandering the streets of Kunming. We marveled at the wonders of imported Betty Crocker cake mix, Jeno's Pizza Rolls and Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese at "Paul's Store," fended off beggars with basketball pick moves, drank fifty cent Yunnan coffee in the sun at the French Cafe, and browsed English books in the Yunnan University area at Mandarin Books. We met up with Judy, another USofAer placed in Kunming by the same organization as Jim, Princeton-in-Asia. She helped us find the third season of the Simpsons (one of the best seasons ever) on DVD for $5. Merry Christmas indeed!

Judy is an ABC, or American Born Chinese. She has a totally different perspective on China than Jim or me, because she doesn't look like a foreigner (Lao Wai). She looks like everyone else. As Jim said, they don't "wave the magic lao wai wand" for her. Like when she wants something to happen, she can't get away with pantomiming because they think she's retarded. The Chinese language does flow through blood and get transmitted through genes, doesn't it? Luckily for Judy, she grew up speaking Chinese and has a pretty good grasp on the language. She can also pass through a crowd practically unseen.

Judy helped organize her organization's Christmas party last night. This involved a lot of recovering heroine addicts playing balloon games, eating cake, smoking cigarettes, playing ping pong, and watching Home Alone while Judy told Jim and me about office politics, who was sleeping with whom, and who was actually off junk and who was taking "sick days."

Population Services International, her organization, is one of the top distributors of condoms in this part of Asia. They also educate people about AIDS through poster campaigns and targeted marketing. I got two packs of playing cards filled with AIDS factoids in Chinese. I can study these as a replacement for the flashcards I had stolen on Christmas Eve Day.

I've settled in nicely here. I can see why Jim told me I should come here and "drop out." A lot of expats have. Life is good here for quite a few people. My next projects are visa applications, getting money wired, and getting my bedroom set up in Jim's apartment. He's got a bed for me to use, but we can't fit it in the bedroom door. It's also one of the few well-built things in China and I cannot get it apart without sawing it in half and putting it back together. (So Chinese). We wandered around most of the afternoon to different shops today buying a saw, nails, and a hammer, getting spare keys made, having a tailor woman repair five articles of clothing for sixty cents, and trying to find wood. The wood was the hardest thing. After asking around and finding none, we chanced upon a construction site and one of the workers was nice enough to give me three pieces for free.

It's amazing to me how many people just live behind the sliding metal doors of their shops, getting heat from small coal fires. The roofs have no insulation, save the grass growing on the thin tiles, and the people have no security save for what they earn by selling their wares and services.

Adios for now,
~josh(away)