DaMing with ReiRei & husband
Up at 6:45. Late for me. 2 1/2 hours later I knock on Michael and Xiao Jing's door and am amazed they slept so late. Perhaps latent effect of Sunday's excursion. We rush through showers etc. and arrive at Xiao Yee's around 10:30 bringing the fragrant stringed flowers we purchased from the flower lady along the way. Breakfast is waiting. We enjoy the wrapped sticky sweet rice that was prepared yesterday unwrapping the still green slightly softer leaves and using our chopsticks we push away the rice which has taken the form of its leafy cup. More sugar is sprinkled over the clump. X has said "the Chinese don't eat sweets", but I'm thinking this is sweet. Everybody is enjoying it. Michael and I eat two. I fear I'll run out of energy if I don't eat a solid breakfast so I've got into the habit of eating more breakfast. We also have the warm soy milk with honey.
We no sooner get the table cleared when DaMing arrives. Shar Mei is with him. The twenty day tour of the "minority country" is discussed. Then the day's project is begun. Xiao Yun who had greeted us 3 when we'd arrived has brought a laptop so M can put together a vitae. Xiao Jing has her jump drive. The plan is to email them to a professor who called yesterday asking for them. The hope is that a co-operative collaboration between the University of the Pacific and this small Chinese university can soon be started. Michael finishes soon. "It's so insignificant next to X's that it never takes long," he says.
Xiao Yee brings us to her office (She has just opened one in Kunming) and the vitae is emailed. She says she will also fax it later.
We move on following Da Ming to The Bird and Flower market a few blocks away. We pass an area where pets are being sold. There are vendors sitting on little stools or on door steps with kittens, puppies gerbils, rabbits, fish in low basins, turtles, birds sharing cages stacked two and three high. M says many are imported from nearby tropical countries since the prettiest birds with melodic songs are extinct in China. I wonder if this is really true even though it does seem probable.
At the Bird and Flower Market we wander through rows and rows of jade. All the vendors stand behind clear glass containers with a bowl of water near the stones.
We wend along aisles of booths marketing clothes , items from minority artists and many kinds of tea.
Finally we go to the next floor of more of the same. One antique shop sells items of use in Chinese households centuries ago. Very interesting to discuss. There are many fossilized trees of all sizes.
We follow DaMing to the exit and then to the bus stop. I mention to X, "all that browsing and nobody bought anything!" She says Shar Mei noted the prices of these things and will be able to negotiate with the vendors we encounter in the minority districts saving lots of money. " Shar Mei is very good at that. Also we wanted you to see this place." She wonders if I need water? I'm good and we ride the bus toward Rei Rei's apartment where we are to have dinner at six. It's now 2:30. I'm getting hungry but keep expecting we'll stop for tea. As we ride along (9 stops) M says, "Here is a good illustration of how unpretentious Da Ming is: He is an upper-level member of the government in Yunnan Province and has a car available to him at anytime but he always takes the bus and rides an old beat-up bicycle to work. M says once he mentioned how beat-up it was and Da Ming responded ,"Nobody will steal it!"
When we get off the bus Da Ming walks especially fast and stops at a bakery along the way. M tells me I am to choose anything I'd like to have before dinner. X has told him that she thinks I should eat something. He buys a few pastries but I choose a package of two red bean filled buns like Xiao Jing had bought before. DaMing pays and we move on. Turning the corner we enter a noodle shop and Michael says, "You're gonna love this too!"
Soon we arrive at ReiRei's gate and pass through and up two flights of stairs to her apartment. The others arrive soon after. We are greeted by tiny ReiRei who has been working all day to prepare dinner for eleven people, some who've not seen Xiao Jing in years. DaMing gets a large bowl and a small one, mixes the noodles thoroughly with the condiments that have floated to the bottom and divides the noodles between the bowls. I eat remarking as I remove my glasses that it's better to use chopsticks when eating noodles without wearing glasses because the lenses seem to distort the noodles. DaMing laughs loudly at this.
People come and go amid much conversation. Xiao Jing later insists I sit on the back porch and have some quiet time in the garden so we walk out leaving one more seat available in the narrow living room. I listen to my Ipod and sit in the swing. Above is another terrace and probably at least four more floors above that.
DaMing has planted the perimeter with plants from his garden, a Chinese pepper tree, lemon grass, a shrub with tiny flowers. He brings me a handful indicating the sweet fragrance. There is also a tree that produces a small mildly bitter fruit.
Around 6:30 ReiRei, Xiao Jing and Xiao Yun bring out the dishes that have been prepared. The table is a picnic table and a metal box that is drawn up against it. ReiRei has covered them with plastic table coverings. There are many dishes. I love the cucumber in hot broth with mild pepper.. There's also asparagus and a dish of snow peas, three bowls of fish, sweet potatoes sliced in chunks, rice , a yellow orange corn bread which I'm not wild about. I enjoy a pulled chicken dish with lots of green onion and spices. There's a sweet rice dish that M. likes and for dessert wood ears with lotus seeds and small dates(with pits) floating in a broth. The beverage: plum or mango smoothies!
Home by midnight.
