On a warm Sunday morning recently, the Foreign Language Department faculty of Southwest Forestry College boarded the school's bus for what the department head called an outing. John called it a junket, but maybe that's because he was still off in Sichian and didn't get to attend. We drove to the southern part of the city, cruised along the giant lake that is the pride of Kunming, and pulled into a resort called "Fascinating Nature Garden." Whoever did the English translation had a lyrical bent. A more straightforward translation of it Chinese name is "Big Nature Scenery Park."
I was wearing my best silk blouse and pants because we'd been told to wear our finest clothes for a group photo. As we got off the bus, we each received a bottle of water and instructions for approximately where we should stand for the photo. Under the blazing sun, my vainer colleagues cowered, shielding their complexions with parasols, jackets, and hands. It's at times like that, when they most fear getting tan, that my naturally paler face draws the most praise. Frankly, in America, my 47-year old complexion no longer attracts admiration, so you can imagine how I love the compliments. I was prepared with my own parasol as well as sunscreen lotion. Paleface was positioned dead center in the group photo.
Before we scattered, the two administrative assistants distributed tickets for lunch, dinner, swimming, ping pong, and bowling. While I always like the prospect of eating, I hadn't brought my swimsuit to China, haven't played ping pong since I was a child, and bowl wretchedly by any country's standards. I may have been the only one who was grateful that our next activity was going to be a meeting.
The meeting would take place in Chinese, so I didn't have to attend, but everyone thought it would be good listening practice for me, and frankly, I was curious about the discussion. We all sat around a long oblong table with cups of tea. The meeting was not chaired by YLM, the woman who I believed to be the department head, but by a man I'd never even met. It turns out that YLM is only the deputy director, and this man--who speaks no foreign language whatsoever--is the Communist Party secretary who is actually the top dog. He seems to hold several jobs because he's also the head of personnel for the college. The first item on the agenda was electing ten representatives to the Workers' Union.
While he droned on about the importance of these unpaid positions, I scrutinized a list we each received. It noted the names of all department staff, their age and year of birth, their highest degree and the school where it was attained, their title within the department, their ethnicity, and whether or not they were party members. All that was missing was salary, for heaven's sake! This kept me busy for the first hour since it was written entirely in Chinese characters.
It turns out that of the 37 Chinese staffmembers, 10 are party members. One is off getting a PhD, two are off getting MA's, eight already have MA's, and neither administrative assistant graduated college. Eleven, including the one who brought his toddler along, are men. Thirty-two are Han, which is what we think of as ethnically Chinese, and seven belong to other minority groups (although they still look so Chinese that no one can tell just by appearance who belongs to which group.) Given that between a third and half of the people in this province are not Han, it does show you how few minority group members have access to higher education.
"If you're elected," I whispered to the teacher next to me, "will you be happy or chagrinned?" As a senior staff member and a party member, it seemed to be that her chances were good.
"I will tell you the truth," she said. "Some people will be happy because they think it will make the leaders like them, but it takes a lot of time and we don't get extra pay."
"A mixed blessing?"
She nodded.
"Do people vote for those they think are most qualified, those think really want the position, or for their friends?"
"I will vote for the most qualified," she assured me, "but some people vote for their friends."
The votes were tallied right at the table by two teachers who read the votes out loud. As an observer of the election, I'd say it was clean one. The ten elected reps were predominantly party members and/or senior staff, but at least one person chosen is a member of the Democracy Committee and definitely not regarded as one who kowtows to the party.
Next, every departmental expense, except salaries, for the last several months was read aloud in an effort to keep financial matters above the table. While the goal was commendable, it made for tedious listening and I pulled out my Chinese textbook to pass the time.
I almost missed the party secretary's announcement about how proud he was that their foreign friend had a chance to witness Chinese democracy. Everyone applauded, stood up, and we hurried off to lunch.
It was definitely the biggest buffet I've ever experienced. Pretty much any Chinese dish you can imagine except my favorite eggplant was available among the more than 100 items. As you might guess, quality suffered at the expense of quantity, but we all managed to stuff ourselves. No sooner did we put down our chopsticks then it was decided we would all bowl.
My team consisted of best friend ZXY, a brand new teacher who had never bowled before, and the one person here who I really can't stand, XH. As it happened, I was not the worst bowler, but I did roll gutter balls for the first few rounds. My enemy hovered over me saying helpful things like, "What you must do is look at the target."
"Really?" I replied, all wide eyed. "Who would have guessed that it's exactly the same in America?"
As it happened, her score wasn't that much better than my own.
Bowling shoes returned, we all headed out to the coffee-colored man-made pond for some rafting. I don't mean boating. These were bamboo rafts propelled by long poles, exactly what peasants still use in the countryside. I chose my group well--all the most muscular teachers--because heaven knows I didn't want to have to push the raft around.
At the risk of making a generalization, I'd have to say that for the ability to have sheer goofy fun, the Chinese win the international prize. We laughed so hard that the raft rocked, and that made us laugh even harder. We pretended we were sailing into New York harbor, calling out landmarks as we spotted them. One teacher posed as the customs inspector; fortunately he was easily bribed because we were all illegal. We took turns posing as peasant boatmen, flexing biceps and calling out traditional rivermen chants. We sang "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" as a round. We raced another raft and bumped them a few times, finally exchanging a few passengers in some daring across-the-water leaps.
When our hour was up we faced some tough decisions: swimming, karaoke, cards, or ping pong. The group split up and I went off with the card players, hoping to learn China's favorite card game. As far as I could tell, the rules are about as complicated as that of bridge--definitely not something one learns just by observation. My attention wandered and before I knew it, I had agreed to a game of ping pong.
Let me stress that one of my guiding principles of life is to avoid all sports involving balls. I'd already had to bowl that day. However, I discovered I really liked ping pong because it required so much concentration that I couldn't think about anything else. This is not to suggest I was good at it, and the two times the ball went down my neckline provoked enormous laughter, but I made steady progress. The was much joking about my becoming America's best ping pong player and having to face China in the Olympics. Ha ha ha, but I have to admit I now have a weekly ping pong date and last week, I spent more time perfecting my ping pong than studying Chinese.
Dinner was an even bigger buffet. Even though we all professed to still being full, we certainly managed to eat plenty more. Then we waddled off to the bus and were home by 8:30.
No one complained about having to work on the weekend or leave their families behind. No one commented on the resort's ragged ping pong paddles, murky pond, or the scarcity of rest rooms. No one even whined about missing the afternoon nap. As I said, when it comes to having fun, the Chinese are champs.
<
Back to the index