Greetings from Kunming, and from the first cohort in the “CAIS Faculty Institute” (CFI)! We are 15 faculty and staff representing all three divisions of CAIS (ECD, Lower and Middle Schools) and one staff member, and have come to Yunnan province to engage in experiential learning, to learn about lower and middle school education in China, and, quite simply, to get to know each other better as colleagues within the very cultural context of China that is a key mission of our school.
The majority of our group met at SFO on late on the evening of Thursday, June 11 to catch their Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong, and were surprised by Jeff Bissell who showed up to offer a warm send-off. Everyone settled in well for the long flight and for a several hour layover before connecting to Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan. Several hours in HKG airport allowed stops for wonton noodles and an unsuccessful search for a Starbucks. With the layover in Hong Kong, it was a full 24-hours of flights for our folks, but everyone was not worse for the wear upon arrival, even with the lack of caffeinated Seattle-based beverages. Ya-ching Hsu-Kelkis and I had a less arduous trip, as we had just completed working with the 7th Grade Beijing Academy, and flew the 3+ hour domestic flight, but with a flight delay, we caught up with the group late in the afternoon back at our 如家宾馆 Home Inn hotel.
For a large city, Kunming is astoundingly green, and combined with its fairly southern location and high elevation, it is known as the 春城 Chun cheng “Spring City.” The southwest province of 云南 Yunnan (lit. “Clouds South”) is China’s arguably most beautiful and undoubted most geographically and ethnically diverse part of China. It is also the part of China I have spend the most time, save Beijing, coming here first after my junior year of college studies in 1988, when this area was only just starting to become discovered by the Western backpack crowd. Fast forward nearly 30 years, and Yunnan has become a major destination for domestic Chinese tourists as well as international visitors. Kunming is no longer a sleepy “little” provincial capital but a major city in its own right, while still maintaining a slightly laid-back vibe (compared to other Asian cities, at least) that suits this West-coaster pretty well.
After a quick break to shower and change, our group finally met for a quick check-in and then headed out a few blocks to find a light dinner of Yunnan noodles and other 小吃 xiaochi “small eats.” We have the good fortune of being only two blocks away from the gorgeous 翠湖公园 Cuihu gongyuan “Greenlake Park,” a circular park with bridges and islands that cross the lake to an assortment of pavilions and open areas, filled with people walking, exercising, playing badminton, etc. Also adjacent is Yunnan University, with a number of lively streets catering to the younger crowd in this area. So, after some noodles, we had the chance to walk adjacent to the park and to also check out a fun street full of more snack shops, fruit sellers and the like before heading back to our hotel so that everyone could finally take a well-deserved rest.
For our first full day together, I organized a Scavenger Hunt activity for CFI participants to have to navigate on public transport to various scenic locations around town. Our group of 15 was divided into five groups of three people, with each group having at least one Chinese speaker and at least one English speaker, and each group randomly selected one of the five sites to visit and to complete the scavenger hunt in various areas around town. This activity was essentially based on activities we do with CAIS students to acquaint themselves to their new surroundings, and which we just completed with our 7th grade class in the neighborhood around the school where they participated in their three-week program.
The difference here was that each group was required to find their way around town on buses without relying on looking things up on the internet – we had to figure out how to get around the old-fashioned way using paper maps and by asking people on the street about how to find things. At the same time, the non-Chinese speakers, most of whom who have picked up a few things in Chinese via several classes offered at CAIS by Sue Geng and myself, were also required to engage in interactions with locals, though obviously with the help of the Chinese speakers. I think it is safe to say the activity was a “hit,” as it got our participants to mix in groups with people they were less familiar with, and to have goals to complete task (and to prove their completion by taking pictures or short videos with our cell phones). These tasks including easy things like buying ice cream at local kiosks (I included this as this was probably the favorite daily activity of our 7th graders!), finding public exercise equipment in local parks and public places (and using the equipment!), and finding “cakes” of the local 普洱 Pu’er tea with Chinese characters on them (and, if possible, sampling some of this tea shops where it would be brewed free of charge for customers). Many of us found the “old street market,” which still contains a few examples of the ancient, red painted wooden buildings that were the main feature of this area in the center of town, but which are all to rare now, as well as the adjacent “bird and flower market,” which was filled with (for me) heartbreaking animals waiting to be taken to new homes.
That evening, we reconvened as a group to go to a nearby vegetarian Chinese restaurant. I love these restaurants, as the cooks go to great lengths to use tofu and gluten products to recreate Chinese “meat” and “fish” specialties that are completely delicious in their own right. We were served well over a dozen dishes, with each one so beautifully presented that everyone whipped out their cell phones to take pictures. I’ve eaten a lot of this cuisine, and this dinner was simply the best vegetarian banquet I’ve ever had, and featured a lot of the delicious Yunnan mushrooms and fungi that the province is deservedly famous for all over China. For dessert, folks shared some of the fruit they bought at local stands (yes, this was another scavenger hunt task…), and Yang laoshi brought some of the most amazing 杨梅 yangmei I’ve ever eaten, which is appropriate, as this delicious berry-like fruit unavailable in the US is so named with the first and the last characters of her own name, 杨艳梅Yang Yanmei.
Following this superb feast, we were able to go to a private room in the restaurant, and have a group debrief about our scavenger hunt. We got to hear about Kaicy’s first time eating intestines for lunch, saw videos on a projector of a number of people trying out the exercise equipment (this stuff is nothing like the Nautilus equipment at your local gym, mind you), various non-Chinese speaking faculty trying out some simple questions asking for directions with locals, and to sample some treats brought back by different groups – my group found a flaky pastry filled with sweetened rose petals that were quite delicious! I scored points for each group, and since Kaicy, Wen and Annie’s group scored a bonus point for Kaicy’s bravery with the intestines, their score put them over the top to win a bag of green tea each for their efforts to gain the highest team score.
At the end of an action-packed day, we all shuffled back to the hotel, and everyone pretty much crashed for the night, most of us still dealing with jetlag. Next up: hiking in the “Western Mountains” and visiting Buddhist sites. Stay tuned!
- Adam Ross
The majority of our group met at SFO on late on the evening of Thursday, June 11 to catch their Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong, and were surprised by Jeff Bissell who showed up to offer a warm send-off. Everyone settled in well for the long flight and for a several hour layover before connecting to Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan. Several hours in HKG airport allowed stops for wonton noodles and an unsuccessful search for a Starbucks. With the layover in Hong Kong, it was a full 24-hours of flights for our folks, but everyone was not worse for the wear upon arrival, even with the lack of caffeinated Seattle-based beverages. Ya-ching Hsu-Kelkis and I had a less arduous trip, as we had just completed working with the 7th Grade Beijing Academy, and flew the 3+ hour domestic flight, but with a flight delay, we caught up with the group late in the afternoon back at our 如家宾馆 Home Inn hotel.
For a large city, Kunming is astoundingly green, and combined with its fairly southern location and high elevation, it is known as the 春城 Chun cheng “Spring City.” The southwest province of 云南 Yunnan (lit. “Clouds South”) is China’s arguably most beautiful and undoubted most geographically and ethnically diverse part of China. It is also the part of China I have spend the most time, save Beijing, coming here first after my junior year of college studies in 1988, when this area was only just starting to become discovered by the Western backpack crowd. Fast forward nearly 30 years, and Yunnan has become a major destination for domestic Chinese tourists as well as international visitors. Kunming is no longer a sleepy “little” provincial capital but a major city in its own right, while still maintaining a slightly laid-back vibe (compared to other Asian cities, at least) that suits this West-coaster pretty well.
After a quick break to shower and change, our group finally met for a quick check-in and then headed out a few blocks to find a light dinner of Yunnan noodles and other 小吃 xiaochi “small eats.” We have the good fortune of being only two blocks away from the gorgeous 翠湖公园 Cuihu gongyuan “Greenlake Park,” a circular park with bridges and islands that cross the lake to an assortment of pavilions and open areas, filled with people walking, exercising, playing badminton, etc. Also adjacent is Yunnan University, with a number of lively streets catering to the younger crowd in this area. So, after some noodles, we had the chance to walk adjacent to the park and to also check out a fun street full of more snack shops, fruit sellers and the like before heading back to our hotel so that everyone could finally take a well-deserved rest.
For our first full day together, I organized a Scavenger Hunt activity for CFI participants to have to navigate on public transport to various scenic locations around town. Our group of 15 was divided into five groups of three people, with each group having at least one Chinese speaker and at least one English speaker, and each group randomly selected one of the five sites to visit and to complete the scavenger hunt in various areas around town. This activity was essentially based on activities we do with CAIS students to acquaint themselves to their new surroundings, and which we just completed with our 7th grade class in the neighborhood around the school where they participated in their three-week program.
The difference here was that each group was required to find their way around town on buses without relying on looking things up on the internet – we had to figure out how to get around the old-fashioned way using paper maps and by asking people on the street about how to find things. At the same time, the non-Chinese speakers, most of whom who have picked up a few things in Chinese via several classes offered at CAIS by Sue Geng and myself, were also required to engage in interactions with locals, though obviously with the help of the Chinese speakers. I think it is safe to say the activity was a “hit,” as it got our participants to mix in groups with people they were less familiar with, and to have goals to complete task (and to prove their completion by taking pictures or short videos with our cell phones). These tasks including easy things like buying ice cream at local kiosks (I included this as this was probably the favorite daily activity of our 7th graders!), finding public exercise equipment in local parks and public places (and using the equipment!), and finding “cakes” of the local 普洱 Pu’er tea with Chinese characters on them (and, if possible, sampling some of this tea shops where it would be brewed free of charge for customers). Many of us found the “old street market,” which still contains a few examples of the ancient, red painted wooden buildings that were the main feature of this area in the center of town, but which are all to rare now, as well as the adjacent “bird and flower market,” which was filled with (for me) heartbreaking animals waiting to be taken to new homes.
That evening, we reconvened as a group to go to a nearby vegetarian Chinese restaurant. I love these restaurants, as the cooks go to great lengths to use tofu and gluten products to recreate Chinese “meat” and “fish” specialties that are completely delicious in their own right. We were served well over a dozen dishes, with each one so beautifully presented that everyone whipped out their cell phones to take pictures. I’ve eaten a lot of this cuisine, and this dinner was simply the best vegetarian banquet I’ve ever had, and featured a lot of the delicious Yunnan mushrooms and fungi that the province is deservedly famous for all over China. For dessert, folks shared some of the fruit they bought at local stands (yes, this was another scavenger hunt task…), and Yang laoshi brought some of the most amazing 杨梅 yangmei I’ve ever eaten, which is appropriate, as this delicious berry-like fruit unavailable in the US is so named with the first and the last characters of her own name, 杨艳梅Yang Yanmei.
Following this superb feast, we were able to go to a private room in the restaurant, and have a group debrief about our scavenger hunt. We got to hear about Kaicy’s first time eating intestines for lunch, saw videos on a projector of a number of people trying out the exercise equipment (this stuff is nothing like the Nautilus equipment at your local gym, mind you), various non-Chinese speaking faculty trying out some simple questions asking for directions with locals, and to sample some treats brought back by different groups – my group found a flaky pastry filled with sweetened rose petals that were quite delicious! I scored points for each group, and since Kaicy, Wen and Annie’s group scored a bonus point for Kaicy’s bravery with the intestines, their score put them over the top to win a bag of green tea each for their efforts to gain the highest team score.
At the end of an action-packed day, we all shuffled back to the hotel, and everyone pretty much crashed for the night, most of us still dealing with jetlag. Next up: hiking in the “Western Mountains” and visiting Buddhist sites. Stay tuned!
- Adam Ross