Near the end of January came Spring Festival of 2009 and the Chinese New Year, which was the beginning of the holiday. This would
be my third time to celebrate Spring Festival in China. Like the previous year, I was invited to my friend Fanny’s home near the river to
watch the New Year’s Eve program on television broadcast live from Beijing. But this time, one less person came to her home to
celebrate with us. That person was Mr. Li, who died the previous year when he was hit by a drunk driver late at night. Mr. Zhou, the one to
survive being hit by the driver, came and appeared to be fully recovered from his broken leg, not surprisingly since it happened over six
months earlier. We sat in Fanny’s home on the fourth floor of her family’s house and watched the New Year’s Eve program and ate fruits
like grapes and mandarin oranges, which people can find anywhere on the streets where there are people selling fruit. The sellers load up
small plastic bags and weigh them on the scale and then tell the customers how much money to pay. It’s very common for people to bring
such items on their way to a friend’s home, or for the people who made the invitation to provide for their guests. I was feeling frustrated
while watching the T.V. program about the fact that I still couldn’t understand most of what people were talking about. I already had lived in
China for more than two years, but hadn’t made much progress with the language after my first year. I only knew basic things like: hello,
goodbye, how to direct the taxi driver to where I wanted to go, and just a few more simple expressions. Studying the language on my own
seemed a bit useless because I wanted to devote a serious amount of time and effort into it or do nothing at all. My classes and my
exercises kept me very busy, so I didn’t have the time for it.
       A few more of Fanny’s friends came to her home and one of them had some kind of SUV that we drove out of Fanny’s confusingly laid-
out old neighborhood to Jiangbei Da Dao in front of the river. We planned to go to the Buddhist temple there and pay our respects to
whomever would have been listening. When we got out of the vehicle not far away from the temple, Mr. Zhou seemed hesitant to
accompany the rest of us. “What are you doing? Aren’t you coming with us to the temple?” I asked. “After what happened to Mr. Li, I don’t
believe anymore,” he said. I felt kind of sorry for him. His faith in a higher power had been taken away from him completely by the accident.
China already had a lack of religious faith from many of its people when the communist government suppressed many of those beliefs so
that the people would listen to the government first and foremost, but it’s possible that the number of people who are practicing religion is
now on the rise. My friend Fanny, though she went to the temple on holidays, was an atheist, but she told me that after the accident that
killed Mr. Li happened, she began to believe in God. Strange that it had the reverse effect on her that it did on Mr. Zhou when he was the
one who was spared from death.
        The temple during holidays was always clouded with smoke. From the street where several “fortune tellers” made attempts to make
money off of unsuspecting victims, we walked down a small staircase on the side of the bridge and walked through some narrow
pathways in the grass between the road and the river where many other young people were trying to squeeze by us. As we got closer to
the temple, the cloud of smoke from the burning incense inside of the temple got more intense, and you could see people begin to get teary-
eyed and try to cover their face to avoid the fumes. It was very hot and smoky. We made our way to the entrance of the temple, where there
was a huge pile of some materials that were burning in front where people were throwing their incense sticks on top of; some incense
sticks being several feet long. I could not see clearly what exactly it was that was burning. The heat was almost unbearable. The fire from
the pile cast a bright orange light on everything and everyone around the entrance. I avoided bumping into the many others who had come
to pay their respects to Buddha as I approached the shrine in front of the temple. I can’t claim to know so much about Buddhism, but I do
believe if there is anyone out there, they’ll be listening to me no matter which country or which place I’m in. There are many people selling
items on the pathways in front of the temple, and we bought some incense sticks there before we arrived at the entrance. I bought one of
the huge ones. I lit the giant incense stick and threw it in the pile with the others and then rejoined Fanny and her friends while getting a bit
teary-eyed myself. After our visit to the temple, we went out on a small but long wooden boat that was on the river about five minutes away
from the temple where the air was much cooler and the smoke from the temple could not reach us. Mr. Zhou met us there, and we stayed
there for about an hour on the boat and on the shore near the boat. Some other friends of Fanny’s were barbecuing fish that had just been
caught from the river and offered me some to cook for myself. The taste of the freshly cooked fish was excellent. The New Year is a time of
new beginnings, but so far, I saw no obvious signs of how the year was going to unfold.
        A couple of days after the New Year, The Nurse invited Troy and I out to the countryside not far away from Nanning where she had
some relatives. The Nurse’s sister along with her husband came in a van to Troy’s hotel on Beida Lu not far from the university. Troy’s wife
Joy had already returned to the Philippines, so she wasn’t there to come with us. Driving north out of the city, we eventually came to a
small community about 30 kilometers outside of Nanning. The Nurse introduced us to some of her friends and relatives there, and we
eventually had lunch. I had just quit drinking and smoking, and this would be my first test to see if I could hold out. As a tradition during
holidays, and actually during normal times as well, everyone at the table wanted me to drink some bai jiu, or white wine. I already had a
history with that stuff, but I was ready to say goodbye to my old friend. I refused everyone as politely as I could but felt a little bad because I
thought they might have thought I didn’t appreciate them. Almost nobody in China refuses a drink, but I think they might have understood
because they didn’t look incredibly offended. On our way back to Nanning, we made a couple of stops, including another old-fashioned
house where there were at least 30 people sitting at different tables all drinking and eating inside of a room that had a large area but low
ceiling. Troy didn’t have a problem drinking with them, but I had to attempt to explain myself over and over again that I wasn’t going to
have anything. We also went to an aviary where The Nurse bought about seven small white birds from the keeper and put them into a
small cage. After that we were ready to return to Nanning. The Nurse put the birds in the back seat of the van, and I could hear them crying
continuously throughout the rest of the trip. “What are you going to do with these birds?” I asked the Nurse. The Nurse was in the
passenger seat, and she turned around and looked at me and said, “I’m going to kill them!...And eat them!” as she chuckled a little. When
she said that, I realized that the birds were crying because somehow they knew they were going to die. This set something off in my mind.
“That’s it! I’m not eating meat anymore!” I said. It was not only this, but I would often see people on motorcycles driving around with
chickens tied up onto their motorcycles. The chickens couldn’t even move a single body part of theirs except for their heads. I also once
saw a cage stuffed full of small dogs that was sitting in front of a restaurant. It was easy to guess what they were there for. All of this
animal cruelty slowly ate away at me until I could no longer be a part of it.  
        My friend Chad that used to be my roommate in Hefei came back to China and since had married a Chinese girl from the countryside
somewhere in Guangxi. Chad told me that they and the girl’s family were going to celebrate the New Year, and that I was invited. I didn’t
have any other plans for the two weeks or so that I would be off, so I agreed. I was instructed to buy a bus ticket to a small city in Guangxi
called Long Lin (Loang Leen) in a region known as Bai Se which had a very large minority population and was said to be a very poor
place. Chad’s wife herself was a minority of Chinese called Miao (just like the sound a cat makes), but are better known throughout the
world as Hmong. Long Lin was about 12 hours away from Nanning by bus, so I bought a sleep-bus ticket and boarded on the appropriate
evening.
        I always felt a little uncomfortable on the sleep-buses. I heard several stories of bus drivers falling asleep and driving off the road
and into ditches or other vehicles, but eventually I made it to sleep. The next morning I woke up and tried to appreciate the scenery. It was
a very wide open area that was hilly, and there were small mountains we drove around on the dirt road we were on. Some of the larger
hills we passed had rows of crops being grown on slopes that seemed like they would have made farming extremely difficult, but I guess
the people out here weren’t wasting any space. When I got to the Long Lin bus station, I gave Chad a call on his cell-phone. He then came
as quickly as possible to pick me up, and then we went to meet some other friends of his that he also invited. Long Lin was a very small
city built at the base of a hill and unsurprisingly seemed quite a bit backwards compared to bigger cities like Nanning, though Nanning
itself was quite backwards compared to other cities.
       Chad and I walked through the streets until we got to a hospital where we would wait for his wife to show up. After 15 minutes or so,
she appeared in the small courtyard in front of the hospital where we were waiting. She was a very happy young lady who seemed a little
childlike for her age. She was not so serious like most Chinese girls her age. Next what we had to do was go to a predetermined location
in the city to meet a friend of Chad who was also invited to come. Chad’s friend that we were going to pick up was a young woman named
Summer (not my old girlfriend). Summer was an incredibly popular girl’s name in China. In almost any large classroom of thirty students or
more, there is bound to be at least one Summer in it. Other popular girl’s names were: Lucy, Jenny, Vivian, Linda, and others. When
Summer finally came to meet us, I recognized her immediately, but I couldn’t put the face to the situation. How many people do I know in
China? Relatively few, so it was only a matter of time until it came back to me. Her husband was also there guarding their luggage.
Summer’s husband was a young and polite professional-looking guy with glasses and who was a photographer. Together, the five of us
waved down some carriage taxis to go to a place where we could get a ride into the mountains. Chad’s wife and her family didn’t actually
live in Long Lin, but about 15 miles away. We all got in a van at a transport service, put our luggage inside, and headed up the twisting
road that led into the mountains.
        During our drive, I talked to Summer and found out more about her. She knew Chad because they worked together at Webster’s Liu
Zhou City branch, which was the place that originally hired me while I was still in the United States, but for some reason sent me to
Nanning, not to my disappointment. With that bit of information, I was able to piece my memory together enough to remember where I had
seen her. Back when I used to teach at Webster’s main school in Tai An building, I used to eat lunch in the break room with all the other
Chinese teachers. The girls would often talk to each other in Chinese and giggle with each other. Sometimes with the small amount of
Chinese I knew, I could pick up on the fact that they were talking about me, being that I was the only foreigner in the room. I remembered
seeing her there many times during my first year teaching, but she had long since disappeared. When I brought this up to her, she
confessed remembering me.
        On our way up into the mountains, I saw many young people living very casual lives in contrast to how people in the city live with
their restricted lives. There were people who looked as young as 13 riding around on motorcycles. It seemed as though the authorities had
little presence in this place that was dominated by minorities instead of the usual Han majority. We arrived at Chad’s wife’s home, which
was an old wooden house in a community of several other houses that were similar. They had livestock pens and small areas devoted to
farming. Around the small community were small mountains all over with dirt roads weaving in between them. Inside of the house was a
large living room that had several bedrooms and a kitchen connected to it. Chad’s wife’s family greeted us happily. There were about six
of them that lived together in the house. I could see that their smiles were completely genuine, unlike in the city where people smile for all
kinds of different reasons. Chad studied the Hmong language for one year, so by now, between that and having already studied Mandarin
for a year, he was basically fluent in their language. His wife could speak Mandarin and Hmong, but not English. But at least Chad,
Summer, and her husband could communicate with me. The family was curious about me, so they started asking me questions with Chad
acting as the translator. “In my hometown, there are a lot of Hmong people who live there,” I said to the father. Chad translated for me his
response. “Well, now you have come to the Hmong homeland. Be patient.” “Be patient for what?” I thought to myself. Maybe he meant that
all things will be explained in due time or something philosophical like that. He then said, “Dinner will be ready soon. Be patient.” At least
this time I knew what exactly I should be patient about. Next to the living room was a small fireplace set in the middle with large strips of
pork hanging from the ceiling. The father said through Chad’s translating service, “We will have vegetables and some of this pork for
dinner. You must try some. It is very delicious.”  “I’m sorry. I just became a vegetarian a few days ago,” I said. “You picked a bad time to
become a vegetarian. You should try at least a little,” he said while smiling. As soon as dinner was ready, and everyone was at the table, I
agreed to have a piece of pork, knowing this might be my last time to eat meat. If I was going to end my life as an omnivore after eating
something great, it was this piece of pork that I ate. They had been smoking it for such a long time and it was so full of flavor. It was
straight from the slaughtered pig. “Yeah, that IS good!” I said. Out of understanding for my new position on killing animals, Chad told me
that the family only kills one or two pigs a year. I still liked the taste of meat, but now it was going to be a challenge to resist that in favor of
vegetarianism.
       While we were there we helped out with some of the chores. One night we helped the family make a sticky and gooey paste from
putting rice inside of a large bowl-like piece of wood that was on the ground and used large wooden sticks to squash it up. After that, the
family took some honey and spread it on some of the rice globs and gave it to us to eat. It was good! We also helped them collect wood
from a hill that was about one kilometer away. It was certainly a workout dragging all of that wood back to the house. On our last full day at
the house, Chad’s wife and her cousins dressed up in Hmong traditional clothing and took many photos in front of the house and at a small
abandoned school nearby. Chad told me one of the cousins was looking for a husband, but I wasn’t sure if I was the one. There were too
many obstacles in the way such as language and distance, and there wasn’t enough time to let things happen naturally.
        It was nice being away from the city for a few days, but the time to return to Nanning came. I was very happy with the family’s
hospitality, and they invited me to come back again. Summer’s husband was going to stay at the house a little longer, so he said goodbye
to us there. Chad came with Summer and I back down the mountain to Long Lin. One of the cousins gave me a ride by motorcycle, and
Chad gave Summer a ride on the other motorcycle. Chad told me that a lot of people die every year in motorcycle accidents on that road, so
I felt much better about the trip on the way down. There were many minorities walking through the streets in Long Lin with their traditional
garments that I never would have seen in a city like Nanning. They dropped Summer and I off at the bus station, and then said goodbye to
us. I wasn’t sure when I would see my old friend Chad again.
        Summer and I got on a bus heading for Nanning as early as possible. We made it back to Nanning late that evening. At the Beida bus
station where Beida Lu curves around and transforms into Da Xue Lu near Guangxi University, Summer and I said goodbye to each other.
The holiday was not quite over yet. I still had another week or so. So far this year started out with much more promise than 2008, but some
of the craziest times in Nanning were right around the corner.
China Dispatch/Andrew Gramling
Celebrating the Chinese New Year