And it seems I have rediscovered my love of Guizhou.
I think Guizhou and I have a profoundly passionate relationship. We either passionately love each other, or passionately despise each other. This week we're in love.
Thursday, at about 8:30 pm, while unwinding from my evening class, grading papers, and preparing for Friday morning's class, I received a phone call from my dean. I answered a bit reluctantly, as I've been swamped with work lately and I was confident she was calling to relay some information regarding teaching at the middle school or editing her textbook. To my surprise, however, her voice emitted eager excitement. "You are so lucky," she exclaimed in a very energized, high-pitched voice, "hurry and cancel your classes tomorrow! You are going to a flower ceremony!" After lots of ambiguous answers, and being told repeatedly "I am so jealous and wish I could go!" I was able to discover that Guizhou Normal University ("ShiDa", the school where Todd and Jess teach) invited me and the other foreign teachers at my school to attend a conference for flowers somewhere in western Guizhou. We were to leave the next day (Friday) at 8:00 am (a bit short notice), stay in a hotel, and all that was expected of us was to look at and appreciate the beautiful flowers. I couldn't help but get excited by listening to how eager my dean was, but, knowing how things work here, I figured there were definitely strings attached. Clearly ShiDa would not invite us to go on a free trip when they have a great deal of their own foreign teachers, and they certainly wouldn't pay for us to stay in a hotel without anything in return; that's clearly not how guanxi works. I continuously asked my dean "but what will be expected of us?", "but will we have to give a speech?", "should I prepare for anything?", "are you sure nothing is expected?" and was told, repeatedly, "only to appreciate the lovely flowers! You are so lucky!"
At 7:50 am on Friday morning, after canceling and rescheduling my classes for a very busy next week, Miah, Frank, Marilyn and I met Ricky (he was our designated babysitter for this trip—foreign teachers cannot go on an outing without someone being responsible for our well-being; we were so grateful to have him!) and then were picked up by ShiDa's mini-bus. In the bus, I was joined by Steve (my friend who is a British teacher at ShiDa), his two sons, Desiree (a Jamican teacher from ShiDa), their Chinese "babysitter", and the Communist Party Secretary for ShiDa, who was responsible for asking us to attend (it turns out, I discovered, that Jess and Todd said, at the last minute, they would not go—they were given the option—and that's why we were taken and not given the option; ShiDa needed more foreign faces for a guanxi deal). We drove for many hours to the town of QianXi. It was then that my profound, passionate love of Guizhou reached bursting point. The entire drive was spectacular; the road was surrounded on both sides by beautiful, brilliant yellow canola flowers (to make canola oil), mountains, ravines, trees and rice patties. Spectacular Guizhou!
Upon arrival, we were given a little bit of a look into what was to come. After a huge banquet, we were told that we were brought to QianXi to be foreign guests for the opening ceremony of QianXi's Azalea Garden. QianXi is a little district of Bijie (like Longdongbao is to Guiyang), although perhaps a little bit more impoverished. The district suffered greatly from Guizhou's harsh winter, and right now the entire countryside is still without water (later, on our walk through the gardens, we encountered many locals gathering and drinking water from a lake). This did not deter QianXi from putting out an outstanding show, however, and they paid over one million yuan to put on the most elaborate performance imaginable (check out my photos!). They invited CCTV (China's TV company) to come and air it on television; they had dancers, acrobats, singers from all over China, Sierra Leone and Argentina, confetti, balloons and color shot into the sky. Every person in attendance was given a white baseball cap and plastic clappers to use during the performance. It was extremely well-done. And this was simply an opening-ceremony in Guizhou! I cannot imagine how well China's performances will be for the upcoming Olympics! Also, because of our skin color, we foreign guests were given VIP passes to sit amongst the government officials, we had police escorts to and from the event, and were given gifts a plenty (including a beautiful bound coffee table book on the azalea garden, a HUGE trophy, CDs of the azalea photos, etc.). I was very grateful for their outstanding hospitality.
As spectacular as the performance was, I couldn't help but wish that the performers were locals, instead of very talented actors. QianXi has a large population of Yi minority people. They are a very talented, unique minority group, and this show was done as though the actors were Yi minority. The acrobats, performers, dancers, singers, etc. all wore elaborate costumes of the Yi people (much more beautiful fabric than the actual Yi could afford), danced and performed to Yi traditional music, but no Yi people were actually on stage (and very few in the audience). It was Han Chinese actors imitating their version of the Yi, and while they were so overwhelmingly talented and entertaining to watch, I was a bit saddened that no Yi people were asked to perform their own talented dances and reflect their own beautiful culture, especially as it would have been a great way for them to show off their skills, make money, promote tourism to the area, and it would have saved the district a great deal of money. But that was a minor complaint I had, and I vocalized it to the government officials later (we had many moments for conversation and advice giving). They understood my concern, and, although a bit taken aback, told me they would consider it in future events. I told them I would be glad to pay my own money and bring my foreign friends in the future if they would, in fact, employ the actual Yi people. And I meant it. Guizhou has great possibilities for its tourism industry and options to promote its harmonious society.
After the 4 hour outdoor performance, we were escorted on a walk through the azalea garden. Unfortunately, because of the harsh winter, the beautiful garden was destroyed and we saw very few flowers. That being said, I can tell that it was once (and will be again) a beautiful place. Guizhou is really working on its harmonious tourism industry. Our job was, primarily, to have our photo taken admiring the few surviving flowers. While in the park, I met a few of the local boys (ages 12 and 14) who wandered into the park because they could not afford to see the actual performance; they were very sweet and my company of preference. I snuck away with them to avoid photos and chat for a while. Once we were discovered and I had to return to photo taking, I insisted on them being in the pictures. It will add some uniqueness to the azalea photograph collection (the coffee table photo book we were given was filled with photos of foreigners brought in from previous years).
After the azalea garden, we were treated to yet another generous and rich banquet, filled with toasting, introductions of prominent people, more toasting, and lots and lots of eating. In attendance was two men from Arizona, flown in from The States, I discovered, to hold a conference on biodiversity (one was a former '89 Peace Corps agro forestry volunteer from Ecuador—very nice man), prominent Chinese men who work for the United Nations, as well as a plethora of Communist Party officials, secretaries, Guizhou elected leaders, etc. It was very…official. And business-minded. I was told, by one of the Arizona guests (not the former Peace Corps volunteer), that when I decide to enter the business world ("you will before you know it") that he would provide me a scholarship to Arizona State University. He gave me his card. I shall save it for when I decide to sell my soul.
The next morning, we were woken early for yet another plentiful breakfast, and then escorted to a conference room. We had no idea what was to come, but when we entered the room and saw TV cameras and fancy name tags on the front table baring our English and Chinese names (I was not, unfortunately, Fang Fei Fei; instead "Valerie Flynn" was transformed to Wa Le Lea Wei Lin), I knew it was going to be special.
It was special indeed. The conference was on bio-diversity, horticulture, and how to preserve the azalea flowers, given in both English and Chinese. In the opening introductions, we were introduced as "our foreign azalea experts". The conference lasted for 4 hours. And, after two hours, Ricky was sent to sneak up to our table and deliver us a message: "you're going to have to speak at the podium and give a speech on your opinion." "Opinion on what?" we anxiously asked. "I don't know. On how to save the azaleas, I guess?" So, quickly, in the midst of pretending to listen to the presentation, Frank, Marilyn, Miah, Desiree and I (as was promised by his insistence—I think he knew something we didn't—Steve and his little boys got to go home the night before so they missed out on the fun) jotted down speeches on something we knew nothing about. I think our speeches were brilliant. We made sure to include the words "harmonious society" and "Beijing 2008 Olympics", so we knew that no matter what we said or how little we knew, we were winners. I designed my speech on advice for how to better promote tourism and preserve the azaleas by working at the grassroots level, educating the locals on methods to better protect Guizhou's natural resources and environmental preservation, not littering, encouraging people to reduce/reuse/recycle (and teaching methods to do that, rather than simply say "do not waste"), creating fines for litter and then using the money (rather than pocketing it) to open up a door-to-door recycling program or clean-water incentive. The speech was full of compliments for our esteemed officials in attendance, full of practical advice, and, I think, oozing with last-minute-I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-talking-about brilliance: "With the upcoming Beijing 2008 Olympics, now is a crucial time for Guizhou to emphasize and encourage its thriving tourism industry"… "blah blah blah …"if you were to promote and give incentives for the local people, businesses and government officials to have immense pride in Guizhou and keep Guizhou clean, foreign and Chinese tourists will want to come to our harmonious province. The residents of Guizhou, filled with its clean, natural beauty, will be filled with great, renewed happiness, and their happiness will radiate to the outside world" … "blah blah blah"… and that's how I reflected that I am, in fact, an azalea conservation, horticulture, biodiversity expert.
;o)
Now, I am sitting with a delicious cup of home-brewed, imported Starbucks coffee and Swedish chocolate, the windows open, a gentle breeze coming in, relaxing in my favorite chair, the familiar, home-like sounds of Longdongbao drifting in amongst the smell of spring rain about to approach, and it is a beautiful evening. I, once again, love Guizhou.
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