A Language We Can All Speak

Music is inescapable in Kunming: our dorm is next door to a piano shop, choir and dance practice seem to meet in the park at every possible hour, the wails of street performers and handheld radios drift through the smoggy air, even the garbage trucks sing. As a dancer, I have a difficult time ignoring this constant aural bombardment - whenever I hear music, I want to get up and dance! But living in a new city with a foreign culture makes it hard to feel comfortable letting loose and expressing myself.

One day when I rounded a corner on my way back from class, I encountered an iPad blasting hip hop, surrounded by students in camo uniforms. Although I had already passed through this impromptu group, something told me I should turn back and ask them if they were going to dance. I asked one of the girls, named Siwei, what kind of a group they were, how often they met, and whether or not I could join in. She asked what kind of dance I wanted to learn, and I replied that I honestly didn’t care as long as I could dance.

We exchanged phone numbers so I could ask more questions as they came to mind. When I asked them how old they were and found out they were all first year high school students, I felt a little awkward. I asked her if it would be strange for me to dance with them. She texted back responding (translation) “No, street dance is a free dance, it has no age restrictions, it does not differentiate between good or bad, no matter where you are or who you are dancing with, it could never be strange. Now, whether you are a high school student or a college student, as long as you love street dance, we will happily teach you.”

Feeling taken aback by this sincere, inspirational text, I resolved not to let my fear of awkwardness keep me from this chance to dance, this chance to make new friends. So the next Tuesday, my classmate Melanie in toe, I retraced my steps into the alleyway behind the building where they meet. The dancers giggled and chattered in Kunmingese, their iPad bumping familiar Hip Hop and Break music.

We joined them and began to practice the steps the more experienced dancers were teaching. As we moved our bodies to the music, occasionally witnessing one boy’s classmates mob him and turn him upside down, or girls pretending to be zombies, we discovered that it was incredibly easy to enjoy ourselves; just as Siwei had said, our age, nationality, and language barrier had no effect on our ability to laugh and dance with these kids. 

I had to miss their next few practices, but two weeks later when I returned for the second time, one of the girls hug-attacked Melanie and I, her screech of excitement reaching a decibel that would make even a deaf person cringe. The group fanned out, a boy leading one group in b-boy style breaking, one of the girls teaching hip-hop, everyone relaxed and happy. We danced until the rain sprinkled down cooling our sweaty faces and reminding me that I should go home and bring my laundry in. As I walked home, the fragrant rain falling on my head and arms, I knew I had found a safe place to be myself.

Photo credit: Hayley G.

Seventeen Flights

Post-dated: July 25th, 2012

After picking my font, it’s hard to know where to start. Fortunately, I always choose Book Antiqua size eleven when I have the option.

Right now I am laying on my bed on the seventeenth floor of an apartment building in Haikou, the capital city of Hainan. I set the fan up to blow straight on me but I am still sweating. Part of the reason is probably that I climbed the stairs all the way up here – I’m not too keen on elevators, especially in China. Going up seventeen flights of stairs with the lights flicking on and off, alternately watching myself rise above the city lights outside, stepping around trash and rubble, past any residents out in their hallways for a melancholy gaze out the window or a smoke, made me feel a little sad. Just a little sad, like a foreign movie, and I guess if my life was a movie right now it would be a foreign one.

I miss the village; the boys at the tea shop playing American music for Mandy and I, the adorable hyper little boy at the rice restaurant and his kind parents, my fried ice girl who called out to me when they finally hand mangoes, the boat ride out to the hospital, and mostly the turtles. Every sea turtle has a distinct face, shell, character, and behavior. Our smallest turtle is the size of my hand, our largest nearly five feet long. They surface with little puffing sounds, their faces and dark eyes rising out up, their shells glistening just under the water, before they sink or paddle back down.

I also miss having the chance to awkwardly run into one of my students from the week-long middle school course I helped teach. I’ve never been on the other side of that dynamic before. You know, the oh-no-it’s-my-teacher-and-this-is-weird-but-I-will-say-hi kinda thing. It must be good that I miss all these things, after only about a month in 新村 I got to do so much…

At the hospital, I learned the common procedures for taking care of and rehabilitating the turtles. Khallisi, a hawksbill, and George (a beautiful Green with an opalescent shell, so named George because he came to the hospital the same day Lonesome George died) had just started eating when I moved up here. I was so happy! Weeks of patient dangling squid in front of their nares and trailing it across their beaks, plus fluids and vitamin stimulants and antibiotics, finally paid off. I think Neptune, or “Bubbles” as I nicknamed him for always blowing bubbles when we put him back in his tub, has started eating too, but it’s hard to be sure because my reports are coming from Xiao, who is unclear at best.

Our week-long program at the middle school ended up a success too. I designed all the slides for the English class, and taught most of it as well. I had completely forgotten how much fun “Simon Says” and “Bingo” can be! I also helped with activities for the sea turtle biology class, like review games and outdoor activities. On the first day of English class, the students were too uncomfortable to volunteer and speak up, but their change in attitude throughout the week was unbelievable. By the end of the week students were running up, to the applause of their classmates, to introduce themselves in English into the mike in front of the class.

I know that they learned the seven species of sea turtles throughout the week, but more importantly, I feel hopeful that they began to understand the environmental consequences of their actions, and recognize how valuable the natural world is. That is the kind of idea that needs to be taught here. There is absolutely no environmental education, and what should be a tropical paradise has been covered in litter without a second glance. Working with the kids gave me hope, but the task of saving our oceans and forests seems bigger and bigger the more I learn about the situation here. It has also motivated me to go home and do work back in the states: sometimes I forget that not all of the US is like the Pacific Northwest! And we really need help back home, too.

The last afternoon of class was supposed to be a field trip to the Sea Turtle Hospital, done in three shifts, with a beach clean-up for the students not at the hospital at any given time. It ended up turning into a sea turtle release, with the media invited, and something of a hot mess. After a long, stressful afternoon of herding cats, and all the pomp and circumstance of a turtle release being executed in the best-looking way possible, Frederick finally placed one turtle down, and then the next. As each turtle’s flippers hit the sand, it dug its nose into the sandy surf before pulling itself forward into each sunset-lit ripple with great effort, a slow struggle until the larger waves began to lift it up and give it strength to swim out into the darkening bay.

That night, Mandy and I went back out to the hospital after dark to fix things up. Fireworks rose above the village in the distance with pops and showers of sparkling color. “Happy China!” has become our refrain when we don’t know why people are setting off fireworks. And the ride back through the lantern-lit floating homes exudes tranquility, no matter how stressful your day has been.

I came up to Haikou Sunday afternoon, to start doing some work at Hainan Normal University and on different kinds of projects. I’m not really settled into my schedule here yet though, and I think it will take some time for me to get the ball rolling in a new place. I did leave most of my stuff in Xincun though, so I’m guaranteed to go back for at least a little before the end of my internship!

I’m hoping I’ll be working more with Green, a devout Buddhist Chinese volunteer, on a project relating Buddhist beliefs to their practice of releasing animals. I got to experience of these releases – everyone piling onto a boat happily chanting away (as Frederick and I struggle to pit-tag the turtles while we have the chance) on their way out into the bay and then [un] ceremoniously dumping bags of shellfish and three turtles into the water. I don’t really know what to say about it, but hopefully I’ll be learning much more and writing an article in the future.

Green is really cool though. She came down to Xincun to help teach the class, and when I was setting up her bed I apologized for not having an extra mattress, but only a thick blanket to lie on. “No matter,” she said “as long as my heart is content!” The next morning Clarissa found her sleeping on the bare wood with a book for a pillow. I asked her how she slept. “Great!” she responded, “and this morning I meditated on the balcony. Is my first time to meditate by the sea!” I’m hoping for a meditation lesson soon…. I could use it!

Photo credit Mandy Tippet, me and Logan seeing eye-to-eye

Sunset view from the hospital.

Boatride home at night.

View from the window just outside the Haikou apartment.

Monkeys and Whale Sharks and Fried Ice

The last week seems like about a month of time in mind. My jobs for the organization range from aggravating to nerve-wracking to peaceful and enhancing. Working at the hospital on rehabilitation sick turtles requires tremendous amounts of patience and love, but other jobs have to be done at jet speed under pressure. Life in the village is similarly paradoxical: it’s loud, bustling and messy, but everyone takes long afternoon breaks and spends time outside socializing at leisure in the evenings.
I am still staying in Xincun, although I have had a side trip or two to Sanya and Haikou, and I’m becoming attached to the village. My favorite part of the day here is around eight pm when all the lanterns on the water light up, ice cream stands, fruit stands, and “fried ice” stands appear in every walkway, all surrounded by pink plastic chairs, and we have a break (usually the one and only all day). My favorite treat is the “fried ice,” something that America tragically lacks, where you choose two (fresh off the tree) kinds of fruit, and they blend them up with sugar and condensed milk and then place the mixture on a special cold plate. They work the slush with two paddles until it sets up, mound it into a bowl, and drizzle more condensed milk and peanuts on top. It’s the best!
Every person in the village has to tell Mandy (the other intern) about how bad her sunburn is every day. I’m looking forward to when I inevitably get one and get to be reminded constantly but clucking Chinese ladies that my face is neon pink. The stores that we frequent most always know what we like best, especially the two restaurants that we have a deal with here, and I do feel like a special part of the community. Sometimes though, being special means getting stared at and bombarded with constant “Hello!”s, but I don’t mind so much anymore because it’s mildly endearing. People really like that I speak Chinese, too, and I know I’m starting to speak more fluently. 

Some highlights:

Xiao, a local Chinese worker, doesn’t speak any English. Or at least he didn’t until we were out on the hospital late one night waiting for a boat taxi. We had spent the evening trying to build a baby crib, which involved Mandy figuring out how it should go together, me translating to Xiao, and Xiao trying to build it. As you surely know, these things are arduous at best, and add a tiny floating room that’s getting increasingly dark to the situation, and there you have it.

So once we had finally assembled something that looked kind of like a crib, we stood out waiting on the deck, playing with the dogs and joking around. For reference, Xiao is my age, spends all his time flipping his hair, likes to wear low-cut tanktops, and is difficult to understand even for Chinese people because he talks so fast and with so much island slang. He’s absolutely hilarious to be around because he’s utterly ridiculous. When we finally heard Taotao coming for us in his boat, Xiao started yelling “我的天！”at the top of his lungs, and I taught him how to say the English equivalent “Oh my god!” Now when he calls Mandy and wants to talk to me, he refers to me as “Oh my god!”

One night after feeding the dogs who live in a house near the outside of the village, Mandy and I came out to find a monsoon destroying the “roads.” Water rushed everywhere, so deep that in the dim streetlights it almost looked like it had snowed because sidewalks, roads, and even store entrances alike all reflected back the same murky quality. The cold water rushed around our feet, and pounded on our umbrellas like there was no tomorrow. All the stores had either shut down, or just peacefully continued about their business. The few places that were still open had people relaxing and gambling with the rushing water tearing at the feet of their pink chairs as if it were no big deal.

I waded across the calf-deep water to get some dumplings from our place, and the ice cream people in front of our house gave us a wry look when they saw how utterly soaked both of us were, clutching our useless umbrellas.

I finally made the pilgrimage to the infamous “Monkey Island,” although not the theme park part of it, just around the peninsula (it’s not an island.) Once we clambered up the beach where the boat taxis drop people off, we entered the rain forest and started walking along the paved road that skirts the mountain. Under the cover of the canopy, the flowers and insects and freshly filtered air create a different world. We walked down the road and around the tip of the peninsula to the sandy beach and looked out over the bay for a few minutes before heading home.

On the way back we heard a noise and a rustle in the trees just to our right. I stopped, although we thought it may just be a bird, but I had that feeling and we waited for a few more minutes. In the gloom of the evening rain forest, we started to make out bigger movements than a bird would make. Then, a family of three wild monkeys crept through and peered at us curiously between snacking on fruits and jumping around!

Today was a huge day for the organization because we released the juvenile whale shark that has been out in the bay, and two turtles! I was looking forward to the event because I hadn’t seen the whale shark yet, but I didn’t realize how exhausting the whole production was going to be. For example, I found out at about eleven pm last night that I would be introducing the present important people in Chinese in front of a crowd of about fifty people! Fortunately Frederick came down with the godsend of two British girls who grew up in Hong Kong, one of which speaks better Chinese than me, and also a Chinese woman called Elaine, who is one of the most organized and efficient people I have worked with yet. We divided up the page-long speech we had to give, and Clarissa (the girl who speaks awesome Chinese) and Elaine helped me with the words I didn’t know.

This morning I tried to back out because I was so nervous, but there was no chance that would actually happen. I am so proud of myself for doing my parts, and it helped that the microphone wasn’t the best so I know people probably couldn’t tell if I messed up a little bit. (haha)

When we got out to where the whale shark was, I was astounded by its grace and beauty. I have never seen such a gorgeous, gigantic animal, and it’s only a juvenile! It was all I could do to keep from diving off the yacht into its enclosure to swim with it.

We dropped off our two turtles, Bill and Albert, who I will miss at the hospital, and we could see them speeding away into the ocean. My heart was pounding as I watched them go, and I hope they live safe lives out in the world. Attention then turned to the whale shark, and although its net was dropped it circled several more times before swimming out and then back in, circling again and again, and finally setting off and out in the right direction. I can’t really describe how I felt being present at all of this, but I can say that now the strongest feeling I have for them is hope.

(As a bonus there is a video of our program releasing Bill and Albert available online: Click HERE to watch adorable sea turtles and see if you can spot me in the clip!)

Some photos for you:

Who takes a water taxi to work everyday? I do!

The street view from the balcony of our apartment!

The view of the Floating Village (also taken from our balcony). The lighted building you see is the Police Station.

Introduction to Xincun Fishing Village and the Floating Sea Turtle Hospital

Xincun, literally meaning “New Village,” is a small fishing village that lies on the southern coast of Hainan Island about two hours east of the nearest tourist city, Sanya. Apartment buildings, restaurants, stores, and open markets jumble together on the land and street sellers sprawl out into the dusty roads. Just two larger roads run parallel to the water, with every other street leading down to the docks. Beyond the docks float an array of homes and boats held up by a network of floating planks. The floating part of the village houses many fisherman and their families.

The building that sits on the water in the furthest corner of this floating mass has six nets blooming below its decks. This is Sea Turtle 911’s floating sea turtle hospital. Three different sea turtle species live here: Green Sea Turtles, Olive Ridley Sea Turtles, and Hawksbill Sea Turtles. Among these, turtles of all ages and backgrounds live here. Some are treated for malnutrition, fungal or bacterial infections, missing flippers, spinal maladies, or any combination of problems. They live together in the nets with other turtles and some special companions including horshoe crabs, puffer fish, seastars and grouper fish that encourage a homey environment for the turtles.

Other creatures cling onto the floating planks - barnacle, algal, and isopod communities thrive here, and if you peek between the boards you can see schools of small black and yellow fish hovering anxiously. When the water is clear, larger fish loom out of the depths before darting back under the hospital to hide. 

Once a turtle has been rescued, usually from poachers, the Sea Turtle 911 staff will care for him or her by keeping them in a healthy environment and administering the necessary treatment for each case. Some of the turtles require medicine, but most of the rehabilitation process lies in keeping them clean and giving them fluids to bring them back to health and spark their appetite.

Poachers take sea turtles because there is a large market for sea turtle meat, especially in the case of the Greens, and Hawksbill shells can be made into valuable products. As long as people continue to eat turtle meat and buy these products, this phenomenon will persist. Every species of Sea Turtle is already endangered, and the populations will not be able to sustain themselves much longer with such a high level of human interference on top of the threats of habitat destruction, getting caught in fishing nets, and harmful pollution that they also face.

PS: Dear blog readers, I will write a more personal blog soon (maybe) but I already had this written so I hope you enjoy it. It's pretty rough, but it's at least a picture of where I am.

Traveling across worlds to arrive

The airplane/waiting in airports/standing in line trip was more or less hell on wings.
I sat next to a middle-school girl for the flight between Vancouver and China and she was very cute. I bravely did not cry as I rewatched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II on my little screen so I wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of her. Just kidding! I cried about eighteen times haHA! I also watched “The Day the Earth Stood Still” which was not only a magnificent example of convergent evolution, but also got “Science Fiction Double Feature” stuck in my head. I liked it though. And then, as you can imagine, watching Lady and the Tramp in Spanish was the only possible solution for my next movie. The girl next to me also decided it was a good idea to watch Lady and the Tramp. But the flight was sooooo long.

In the airport with Tiktaalik and the Bog

 
And when I arrived in Beijing, after the airplane sank through the dense yellow fog, I had to clear immigration, pick up my checked back and go through customs, re-check it, go through a security line, and find my gate in an hour and a half. I was overjoyed when I made it to my gate just in time and had a second to buy some TCBY strawberry frozen yoghurt in a dish and eat that to cool off and calm down. Although the Beijing airport repeats everything in English, they usually give more extensive and frequent announcements in Chinese and then add something in English as an afterthought, so be prepared for that if you ever fly through.

We sat on the tarmac for an HOUR once I was on the plane to Haikou, but China Air had good service and they gave us water to drink while we waited. By that point, I thought I would have to throw up from exhaustion. The man next to me on that flight was very kind – he has a pet turtle and his daughter also dances, so we had a lot to talk about – and he also made sure that I got picked up by someone at the airport before heading off to his hotel.

The someone at the airport that picked my up was “Jesse,” a volunteer for Sea Turtles 911. He was holding up a neon green ST911 shirt like a beacon of light that made me feel much better. We took a cab into the city (terrifying) and it poured harder than I’ve ever seen it rain in my LIFE! The city is full of flashes, honks, and pounding music at night and most of the stores are open in the front. Electric bikes and scooters motor all over the place, and in some places people just drive their bikes right into the hotels or restaurants.

I had dinner with Jesse at a tiny restaurant, which was very tasty, and then we scurried back through the storm to my hotel to find the organization’s director standing there next to a lime green bucket with a teeny tiny sea turtle in it. I should have insisted on going to bed when he asked if I was jet-lagged, but he wanted to talk to me about my plans so I went to get tea with him and another volunteer who took notes on our conversation. He’s an intense person and the extensive interview was way too much for me after twenty four hours of travelling with minimal sleep.
The first night went bad. I was freaking out and my room didn’t even have a window so it was one of the most disorienting nights of my life. 

The second day went much better, although I was still exhausted. Jesse took me to get a go phone and run some other errands, and then we met the director and another volunteer for hot pot lunch. It was so tasty! I also visited Hainan Normal University and met one of the professors and some of the turtles. It feels good to be around people who share my passion for conservation and are also patient with and encouraging of my Chinese.

On the way back to my hotel, Jesse treated me to a pineapple on a sick situation from the street. The seller pulled one out of a jar, dipped it in water, and put plastic over it. I was dubious at best, but when I bit into it, the sweet, juicy flavor overcame my mouth with bliss. Jesse got me a new room on the seventh floor, which is approximately eighty-five times nicer because it has a window and a great view. Then I went to sleep around five pm. It’s almost five am now, and I can hear roosters crowing from down below. The honking has quieted down though. 

A nicer view of the city!

I want to thank everyone who has been supportive and kind to me in the last seventy-two hours, because I really really needed it.

The Plan

 Early Sunday morning I will fly from Portland to Vancouver to Beijing to Haikou. In Haikou, someone from Sea Turtles 911will meet me at the airport and we will take a bullet train all the way down the island to Xincun Fishing village where the organization is based on Hainan. As far as I know, my internship will include rehabilitation of sea turtles that have been recovered from poachers, helping plan and lead ecotourism and public education events, and also some research. Ten weeks later, I will go from Haikou to Kunming and start school.

星期天早上我就飞到中国。Portland 到海南没有直接的飞机所以我只好先去Vancouver，然后去北京，然后去海口。。。

I made this blog specifically because there is no facebook in China - a phenomenon that I plan on embracing - and I know my friends and family (that's you) will be hoping for updates. I am also planning on making entries in Chinese as a way to mark my improvement throughout the six months, and keep up my writing and reading during my internship. If you don't speak Chinese, don't worry because my English entries will (probably) cover the same ground and be more coherent. In general I want to post whenever I have something interesting to share, but my goal is to post at least once a week. I want to say a big thank you to my sister Lucy for helping me get started with this, and if you want to read HER blog, it is at:

lucywanders.blogspot.com

She is very cool. 

Goals for my Internship:

1. Improve my spoken Chinese to near fluency. In one month, I hope to feel mastery of all the material I have learned up to this point. I have been studying Chinese for so long that sometimes it takes a while for me to string all my words together and make them sound right. 

2. Gain a deeper understanding of Chinese customs and culture through interactions with locals and tourists where I'm staying.

3. Further my understanding of where conservation fits in modern Chinese society. From what I know now, sea turtles are poached all around China for their shells. Other turtle species around Asia are often sold to China for medicinal value, food, or other products that have traditional significance to Chinese culture. This is  a problem because there is currently no balance between tradition - which is very important - and the future of China's fragile ecosystems. 

4. Visit new places, adjust to the heat and humidity, and have a great time with some new friends yay!

实习的目标：

１。提高我的中文水平。我学中文学了那么长的时间但我还是有时候说不出来。我希望一个月以后能说得很流利。

２。通过跟中国人打交道更了解中国文化和习惯。

３。更了解中国社会与环保的矛盾。据我所知，某些人为了卖海龟的产品就把海龟砸死。还有各种各样的乌龟都被人偷了。这是因为中国的传统文化很重视乌龟的产品。这个现象使很多乌龟面临灭绝。

４。去我没去过的地方，交朋友，享受自己的生活！

Words of the Week (as promised)

1. 海南 Hǎinán ：Literally meaning "Sea South," Hainan is the largest island in the South China Sea, south of China and east of Vietnam. I will be staying there on a ten-week internship with an organization called Sea Turtles 911 (http://www.seaturtles911.org/) If you know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Hainan is just to the East of that gulf.

2. 云南 Yúnnán ：Literally meaning "Clouds South," such a delightful name is given to the province I will spend the second part of my trip in. The second program starts at the very end of August, and I will be living in the dorms at Yunnan University with a Chinese roommate. All of my classes will be taught entirely in Mandarin and there will be a language pledge. I'm planning on taking Kunming Studies (Kunming is the capital of Yunnan, where I will be,) Chinese Environment and Development, and Yunnan Ethnic Minority Studies as well as a self-designed (hopefully) Dance Ethnography of Yunnan class. :) 

Yunnan is known for its biodiversity and ethnic diversity. It was also historically important because Kunming was the endpoint of the Burma Road in WWII.