Shop 'til you drop

Every shoe shop, clothing store, jewelry boutique we came across was inspected thoroughly. Towards the end of the trip, the exhaustion of the male part of the group was clearly visible, but that did not keep the girls from having the shopping time of their lives. Sometimes, even Prof. Schmied and Christian found something worth buying.

Now and then, it was hard to find the right sizes and it could be rather frustrating to try on clothes in size XL. Nevertheless, the limits of our suitcases were reached at the latest in Hongkong and we had to give up our shopping adventures.

Chinese English

Hongkong

Before we started our trip to China, we thought that Hongkong would be the best and most exciting part of the entire trip. Although Hongkong was exciting for all of us, it is a completely different world compared to Yunnan. Again and again, we had to see that Hongkong is not China, but an autonomous part of the country. Suddenly, all websites on the internet worked again, we met McDonalds & Co. again and left-hand traffic became quite challenging for us.



Not only the traffic was challenging, but also the weather. During our stay, the temperature was never below 33 °C and the humidity leveled out between 80-90%.


On the second night in Hongkong, we saw probably the no. 1 tourist attraction Symphony of Lights. Every night at 8pm, the Hongkong Skyline shines in all imaginable colors accompanied by music. Every skyscraper changes its lights and colors in time with the music.

Farewell Dinner and Trip to Kunming

On our last day at Honghe University, the staff of the English department invited us to a farewell dinner at a Hani restaurant in Mengzi. For the first time, we saw a whole chicken (including head and feet), of course dead, cut in pieces on our table.



Apart from the poor cut chicken, the food was, as always, delicious and far too much to eat up everything, which you are not supposed to do in China anyways. After we had said goodbye to the staff, we took our last opportunity to go shopping in Mengzi.


The next day, the Chinese National Holiday (October 1), we left our hotel on campus very early in the morning to go to Kunming. On the way to the capital of Yunnan, we stopped at the Confucius temple in Jianshui.


Due to the National Holiday festivities, a Chinese orchestra played in front of the temple and showed us what traditional Chinese music sounds like.


Our next stop was in Yuxi, where we met Juliane, a German teacher who studied at Chemnitz University of Technology. She and her husband invited us for lunch to a hot pot restaurant.



As the name already suggests, hot pot is a hot soup in big pot standing on a gas flame. While the soup is cooking, everyone throws in different ingredients, such as salad, meat, fish, bamboo and mushrooms.
In the evening, we finally arrived in Kunming and met Mrs. Guo and her daughter, who arranged the entire China trip for our group. Both showed us around in Kunming that night and also the following morning, before we left Yunnan to fly to Hongkong.

Data Collection at Honghe University

The collection of data of non-native speakers of English, which may be used for future linguistic research projects at our home university in Chemnitz, was our second objective next to our teaching activities. More than 45 students were asked to read the famous text "Arthur the Rat". The first half of the interviews was recorded in a computer lab with several recording devices, but the sound quality was rather low.



Because of that, the Dean of the English department was kind enough to arrange an appointment with one of the employees of the university's recording studio. For us this was much easier because we could split up into two groups and record two speakers simultaneously, one in the studio and another one in a soundproof booth.

Tea Ceremony in Mengzi

Apart from our teaching and data collection activities at Honghe University, we also try to get as much insight into the Chinese culture as possible. One of the most important things a China visitor has to do, is to take part in a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. Cleo, an English teacher at Honghe University, arranged this ceremony in a teahouse in Mengzi downtown.


We were lucky to try two kinds of Pu-Erh tea, one of them was 20 years old and the other one was harvested last year. The first and the second infusions of tea are poured away. The third infusion is drank. A Chinese proverb says that the first infusion is for your enemy, the second for your friend and the third for yourself.

Teaching and Leisure Activities

The first day of our teaching activities at Honghe University started with frenetic applause as soon as we had entered the classroom. That popstar feeling increased during the break when the entire classroom took one picture after another.

Although the level of English of the first semester students is rather low, they tried their best to understand Annika, who held the lesson, and took the opportunity to actively participate in class.
In the afternoon, we visited the Honghe Prefecture Museum, which exhibits several different pieces of art from the Chinese culture.

Afterwards, we enjoyed probably the most popular soup in Mengzi which is called Rice noodles over the Bridge. You get a huge bowl with hot water and several little bowls and plates with uncooked vegetables, herbs, meat, noodles and spices. Then you can show which cooking skills you have by throwing all the different ingredients in the bowl and cooking them in the hot water.

Trip to the Rice Terraces

On our second day in Yuanyang, we had actually planned to see the sun rise. Well, we were greeted by rain, clouds and lots and lots of fog. So, we tried to wait out the rain by driving to most distanced point of interest of our trip, another Chinese village.

Following this very quiet yet inspiring experience, we went to the viewpoint from which you can see the Daba rice terraces. Did we mention that we weren’t very successful in escaping the fog? The picture speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Although, we couldn’t see the terraces again there, it was still beautiful to see the lush green foliage and to hear a waterfall among all this fog.

After lunch, we finally made our way back to Mengzi. Approaching the city, you can almost imagine seeing the Scottish highlands, but they are without sheep here.

First Days in Yunnan, China

33 °C in the shade, tropical humidity and still dressed in jeans and sweatshirts we were picked up by a brave bus driver from Kunming Airport. After 200 meters we had the first accident: we bumped into a car in front of us with the incredible speed of 1 km/h – no exaggeration. During our 300 km road trip through the hinterlands of Yunnan to the university in Mengzi, we got the first impressions of the rural Southwest China.


The second accident followed immediately: the Chinese food. Although it was really delicious, thefood was too hot for our sensitive German taste buds. Finally, we arrived at our hotel on the campus of Honghe University. Well rested, we started into day 2.

John McAdams, an American living in China for 22 years, gave us a brief cultural introduction on Chinese peculiarities.


Since food seems to be one of the most important issues so far, we decided to go for lunch with a few members of the staff of the English department.


Almost as important as the food, seems to be shopping. Our campus visit led us through food markets and malls with shops of all kinds. The girls were happy to find bags, jewelry, cosmetics and sun umbrellas and Christian was happy to find a Chinese SIM card. Meanwhile, Prof. Schmied explored the Chinese organic medicine.

In the afternoon, we met with the English department staff and introduced ourselves, hopefully in the following days we will get to know the staff a little more.