1st week in KUNMING.

Hello loyal followers! I hope Tim is not mucking up my blog too much. I just finished my first week in KUNMING, YUNNAN PROV., CHINA. 4 hrs of 1 on 1 instruction 5 days a week gets pretty draining, but I'm having fun so far and learning alot of PUTONGHUA. The school is full of a weird mix of people. An Indian-Aussie doctor, a young white Brit with dreads, some strange Americans (me included, i guess), some old guys looking to score a wife, maybe. It has dorms, but they're all full, so they put me and 2 other students from France at a nearby hotel. One is black and the other is white and both can speak chinese much better than me

I've been hanging with them mostly and we get stared at all the time. They've never seen a HEI REN before. They're fun to hang out with, but sometimes, they have a habit of, what I like to call, "going all Frenchy on me". That is, they will randomly start making weird sounds, and start singing in french, and dance. Again, a total random occurence. We've been to KTV, an Argentinian bar, a disco that opened until 6 am, and various museums and temples. Nearly every meal, there are at least 3 or 4 different nationalities and languages spoken.

As I think about my experiences in Kunming, so far, the phrase, "WELCOME TO CHINA" can be applied liberally to many different incidents.

1. A well-dressed mom takes her well-dressed child outside a restaurant or something, pulls down his pants, lifts him up like young Simba, and lets him poop on the street.

2. The touts at every bus/train station asking us if we would like to hop in to their old, unmarked van to take a tour to God knows where instead of paying 10 yuan extra for a proper bus ticket.

3. I hear the loudest loogie of my life being hocked, and then I turn around to see a 7 year old girl .