It’s our last full day in Kunming! In some ways it feels as though we’ve been here for a year because of the many new and different experiences, but in fact the two months have gone by fairly quickly. My apologies to Alan J Lerner for the loose paraphrase of his lyrics that largely sum up our experience in China (the feminine references are to Kunming, our mistress these 2 months) – ” I’ve grown accustomed to her ups and downs, her look, her face, [her smells], her joys, her woes, her highs, her lows, are second nature to me now, like breathing in and breathing out, (not) so easy to forget, rather like a habit one can break, and yet, I’ve grown accustomed to the trace of something in the air, accustomed to this “place”!

We’ve now spent a total of six months (4 last spring, and 2 again this year) living in this exotic, other-worldly place, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. In my dotage I am slowly learning to appreciate another culture that is so vastly different from ours. Language of course, but aesthetics, food, manners, temperaments, ways of doing things, are in marked contrast to our “western” way of responding to familiar situations. Sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes hilarious. Yesterday Howard and I both got the giggles when our friend Lillian who has a smattering of English asked us about peaches. So of course we responded by saying yes we loved peaches etc.  etc.. She had this puzzled look on her face, and said no, peaches as in music. We finally figured out she meant pitches!! I wonder how often we have had conversations supposedly about the same thing but totally talking past one another!

The last two weeks have been busy! Last week Howard had two concerts.  I must tell you about the wonderful gift he had for me. The concert was on the 22nd of May, the day after my birthday. Howard had programmed the lovely Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner, and the 22nd of May was Wagner’s 200th birthday. As many of you know, Howard loves to program things so that the dates have special significance. Wagner had written this work for his wife’s birthday, but she always celebrated her birthday the next day, so Howard thought how appropriate to dedicate this work to me on the day after my birthday! Of course I was thrilled, but only after I had it translated to me from Chinese to English by my seat mate. The stage host for the evening of course spoke only Chinese!

The next concert was an outdoor concert where the orchestra played mostly Strauss Waltzes.  They did have “staged” dancers, but many in the audience danced as well. I would say it was fairly obvious that this was not Vienna – the waltz is not yet second nature to Kunming, but everyone had a wonderful time, even in the Tango!

 

 

It’s been a very busy time for Howard preparing 6 concerts these 2 months, with much of the (Chinese) repertoire being new to him. I managed to keep busy as well, but more of my own doing. Because of transportation issues, it was not practical to teach English at the university an hour away. But I did explore the neighbourhood, and I actually managed to read 21 books – everything from Oscar Wilde to David Bergen to George Bernard Shaw!

This last week has been a good one socially with some young (30’s) expats from Holland and Britain. Discovered some great new restaurants just when I was thinking I might be getting tired of Chinese food! Not so, there’s so much more out there that we haven’t tried. Maybe next time?? Who knows…

I don’t remember who it was that said “Adventure is a path that forces you to have first hand encounters with the world”. Our adventure in this part of the world has forced us (mostly willingly) into many first hand encounters!

Tomorrow morning we leave for Beijing, a 3 1/2 hour flight. We’ll spend a few days enjoying the sights and sounds of that great city. Then on Saturday it’s home! We can hardly wait. Looking forward to seeing many of you soon!

Hao lunkong xianzai,  (Goodbye for now)

Maggie