Spring

So I suppose it's about time I wrote something new here.

Well, the weather's been changing pretty dramatically here over the
past few weeks. It is now quite warm, to the point where I'm sweating
copiously during taiji practice. It's not unpleasant, and with the
amount of sun we're now getting it's a definite improvement over all
previous months.

This afternoon I actually did a little swimming in the river with one
of my students. Although really it was mostly wading, as the river's
pretty shallow except in the center. It's got quite a current though,
it was a struggle to walk against in just knee-deep water. A lot of
fun floating downstream though.

We actually took a boat across the river right at the end of West
Street, and on the other side it's all grassy, with some water buffalo
grazing, stones along the water's edge, quite idyllic, except for the
big tourist boats. It wasn't quite the other side, it was more the
middle, and it looked like it would get inundated when the rive
reached its maximum height. There were some places where it looked
like the foundations of some old stone shacks remained after the rest
had been washed away. Still, for today it was a pleasant place to
walk with my friend/student and his girlfriend. Besides going in the
water, we skipped stones and played some badminton. I'm getting
better at skipping stones, I think it's in conjunction with getting
some practice with my forehand in frisbee, which has improved
dramatically over the last year or so.

Afterwards we went for dinner at a place near the school and the
students' dormitories, stir-fry with a limited selection, but pretty
good. At the end of the meal Sea (the English name of my student)
also ordered us a glass of rice wine mixed with medlar buds (at least
that's what his translator produced, I have no idea what they are
other than that they're quite small, red, sweet, and tart, and also
are put in the lotus root jello that you can get on West Street).
Apparently they're good for your eyesight. And it was interesting,
kind of good, sort of like a liqueur or apperitif.

Oh yeah, another thing to mention. Any kind of alcohol that isn't
beer is translated into English as wine. Except maybe for brandy, but
really it's pretty much all called wine. And while that does apply to
red wine made from grapes that ranges from about 8-12% alcohol, it
also applies to everything else that's of equal or greater strength,
including 55% rice wine. Also, here white wine doesn't mean wine from
white grapes, but instead "wine" that's clear, so virtually all hard
alcohol, at least everything that's cheap and you can find easily
without going to a bar, is called white wine.

So after dinner Sea offered to show me where I could get some hooch
and took me to this little street side shop on the north edge of the
market, up a side street that eventually leads to a path up one of the
hills with a TV or radio tower... Anyway, this place has a few
ginormous clay pots along the wall and four smaller pots, covered in
front, each with a sign. There were 3 different strengths of rice
"wine" and a pot of 40% wine made from corn. Interestingly, they sell
it by the jin, which is a weight measure, a little more than a pound,
now officially measured as half a kilogram. We split a jin of the
corn, and I've tried a little bit. It's surprisingly not bad, tastes
sort of like popcorn, or cooked corn kernels. And it is by far the
least alcohol-y tasting 40% alcohol I have ever tasted. And the
prices are ridiculously low, the corn was easily the most expensive
and it was 2.5 kwai/jin. That's cheaper, certainly by alcohol
content, than the cheap beer!

Anyway, spring got started about three weeks back, kind of at the same
time as fall. Because there is no autumn here. Well, there are a few
trees that I thought were dead in February but have now sprouted
leaves, but for the most part the leaves just stay on the trees
year-round, and then get pushed off at the start of spring by the
fresh new buds. There was one day in mid-March when the wind suddenly
picked up and leaves started swirling down all over the taiji ground,
it was quite beautiful. Then for a couple weeks the trees all had
this light, spring green air to them, I'm sure I've seen it before,
but it was the first time I've been shown so clearly the contrast
between mature leaves and those that freshly grow at the start of the
new year. It clarified the meaning of the crayon color "spring green"
at any rate.

So things are going well. I think I've finally really settled into
teaching, and I'm finding that what's most important, for my classes
at least, is not so much the precise material that I'm trying to
teach, but that I'm open to questions and that I maintain a good
relationship with the students, which I do, with pleasure. They are,
usually, a fun group of people to spend time with, and it's no problem
for me to answer what questions they have about English.

Last Wednesday my level four students (mostly freshly moved up from
level three) invited me, and their other teachers, to a birthday party
for one of them, who just turned 24. Well,
23 by our counting, but the Chinese count you as one year old at
birth. So she actually turns out to be one of the few students I
still have who's younger than me. A couple weeks ago I had three
high-schoolers, but now they've all left. But the birthday party was
a good time, everyone brought lots of food (to a restaurant too, it
was kind of strange, we did get drinks and some french fries from
them, but then all of the students had brought all sorts of snacks...)
and it was a good party, which didn't even run too late, since they
were all conscious of needing to go to class in the morning.

Okay, well, I need to finish taking care of some laundry and someone
else needs this computer. Later.