Even on the long flight to Hong Kong (23.5 hours counting time in Toronto and Vancouver airports), it didn't feel as if we were moving to China. It just felt like we were going on vacation. As you approach the runway of Hong Kong's new airport, you can see the giant Buddha (the largest in Southeast Asia) at Po Lin Monastery--surely a good omen for the descent of planes, regardless of whether one believes in feng shui. Hong Kong's new airport is every bit as futuristic and attractive as we'd heard. But modernity comes with a stiff price: it cost UD$60 to check four pieces of luggage overnight whereas our perfectly adequate hotel room in Chunking Mansion only cost US$30. The consolation is that when it was time to fly from Hong Kong to Kunming, I managed to charm the airline check-in attendants into not charging an excess baggage fee, which would have been nearly US$100!

We didn't spend a great deal of time in Hong Kong, and except for going to and from the airport, never left Kowloon, but we can report that we saw no apparent signs of reunification with China. We did notice that Hong Kong flags are no longer displayed, but we didn't see a single Chinese flag either. Compared to even Beijing's residents, Hong Kong's appear quite affluent and trendy. Anticipating a year of only Chinese food, we managed to eat solely in Vietnamese, Indian, and Japanese restaurants during our time in Hong Kong.

The morning of our flight to Kunming, reality finally hit, mostly in the stomach. Although by the time we boarded the plane, my cardiac drum rolls were also announcing the beginning of something big and different.

No doubt I would have soon started hyperventilating had the airline not completely distracted me by showing my favorite Chinese filmmaker Zhong Yimou's latest film which has not yet been released in the U.S. (For you Sinophiles, it's called "Wo Fumuqin," which I would translate to "My Parents," but who knows what title Hollywood will come up with.)

All our luggage arrived, the officials seem satisfied with our long-awaited visas, and no one investigated the parmesan cheese in our bag. (Also on the good news front, the books I shipped in May have arrived!) Mr. Yi, the Deputy Director of my college's Office of International Cooperation met us at the airport and took us home. Mr. Yi is about 40 I'd say, based on what I gleaned of his career history, but looks younger. He has the kind of dental problems that would make an American orthodontist rich. His English is absolutely perfect, with a bit of an Irish brogue (last year's English teacher was an Irishmen.) Seriously, if you closed your eyes and listened to him speak, you would guess he had been born in County Cork, not Sichuan Province.

What we saw of Kunming seemed appealing: less traffic and more greenery than in any other Chinese city we've visited. Also, after nine weeks of rain, the sun came out!

We live in a compound with about 1000 of Southwest Forestry College's staff (plus their families). The six-story concrete apartment buildings are not going to win any architectural prizes but they are new enough to at least look clean, and there are green spaces between them. We are on the third floor of Building 26. Now many of you know that for the last few months, the single greatest topic to occupy my thoughts has been our apartment in Kunming. I braced myself to reveal no dismay, no matter how grim it might be.

But our apartment is beautiful! Truly--the majority of apartments we have occupied before buying our house have been less attractive. The two bedrooms have freshly sanded and varnished hardwood floors. All other rooms have huge white ceramic tiles. The walls are flawlessly white- washed and the doors and baseboards are natural wood. (See--this forestry connection paid off!) And who would have guessed that in China we would have crown molding, a granite bathroom counter, and marble kitchen counters? There are French windows on three sides of the apartment. As I stood in the doorway of the kitchen, with the afternoon light burnishing the woodwork and gleaming off the white walls and floors, a less scrupulous man that Mr. Yi could have asked me to teach four additional classes and I would have happily agreed. We even have a sunporch which was not mentioned in the contract.

Our bikes, rice cooker, and washing machine are so new that they are still shrouded in plastic. (Actually, the washing machine hasn't been hooked up yet either.) The bathroom fixtures (western toilet) and gas cooking range still have the labels on. Everything is CLEAN! We have also been given a huge manual typewriter, two pairs of plastic sandals, a big TV, two electric anti-mosquito incense burners, and ample kitchen supplies.

Now I must admit the furniture is a bit bizarre by American standards. The headboard of our guest bed is chrome with pink velvet covered in plastic wrap (label still on). The duvet cover in our bedroom is pink silk (not polyester--remember I majored in textiles and can tell the difference). The coffee table would be a big hit in one of those kitschy furniture stores in the South End--chrome tube legs and formica top. The sofa and love seat are upholstered in innocuous beige-grey tweed, but covering the seats are terrycloth towels topped off with what look like rag-rug place mats. Machine-embroidered doilies adorn all arms and the back of the sofa.

Here I am going to take a brief diversion to write about the role of terrycloth in Chinese decor. We have seen this towel over chair or sofa arrangement several times before. There is also a towel placed on top of the frilly embroidered polyester satin pillows on our bed. The Chinese must be less active sleepers than we. By the time we awake the towel is never anywhere near the pillow. Now this obsession with terrycloth would not be so weird if we actually had bath towels, but we don't!

Let me tell you what else nirvana lacks:

heat
hot water (it is heated by solar energy but this is the monsoon season)
anything resembling a kitchen or dining room table and chairs
toilet paper or any kind of dispenser
any towel racks (not immediately important because we don't have towels)
more than 8 clothes hangers
bookshelves

Then Mr. Yi walked us across the street to the market where there was so much to look at that I feel as if I only saw one percent. That one percent included vegetables to rival Bread & Circus' in quality and variety, several kinds of tofu, local goat's cheese, eggs, plus an array of live animals and hunks of meat on which I did not focus. Eating is going to be a great adventure here! Since we are several kilometers from the part of the city where tourists visit, and there was only one foreign teacher last year, our arrival aroused great interest at the market. The really exciting thing about being back in China is that I remember how much I like to speak Chinese in China (as opposed to in the U.S. where I will do anything to avoid it).

I couldn't sleep at all during our first night. Our time in Kunming felt like a dream and now that it was time to actually dream, I was too excited. I listened to a chorus of cicadas and one randomly barking dog until the birds began singing in the morning.

So far so good!