At 10 o’clock in the morning we were in John’s school and I was the center of attention of seemingly everybody – the teachers as well as the about 900 students of this school. Most of them were shy however so they kept their distance. Then I become “a superstar” as they called me a few times, being photographed with the school’s headmaster, his family, and other people. So far I’m not seeing much proof that I am now in a communistic country so the fact that most of the photographs were being taken by the political director of the school that never offered the tiniest smile was an interesting and rare proof.

Then I waited for John who had a school’s end of the year meeting, which time I spent talking to the headmasters 25 year old son whose English was actually better than John’s so it made for a nice conversation.

We were supposed to meet John’s parents for lunch in their and John’s home, but the director – a really nice, modest and hospitable man – invited us to have lunch with his family which could not be refused. So John called home and arranged to change the planned lunch to dinner. The headmaster’s family lives in the precinct of the school so we didn’t have to go further than a few steps.

By now it was clear that I was not going to get back on my way today, which fact I accepted quite lightly and with no regrets, seeing the hospitality of these people and their honest happiness to just have me with them. I was very happy with them too. We ate a lot and drank Port Vine followed by the traditional Chinese Rice Vine. By the end of the lunch I felt it clearly in my head. Now I could not leave even if I had changed my mind… :-)

It was agreed that we would all meet for the dinner at John’s place again and we both went to catch up with our sleep deficit from last night. Before we left I received a cultural present from the headmaster’s family in the form of a hand made cotton bed liner typical for and made by one of the minorities in this area. It is big and quite heavy, but I could not refuse, especially because I already refused a big box of cigarettes before. (Cigarettes seem to be a way of appreciating friends or make new ones here in China and everybody seems to smoke.)

The dinner went in very similar manner as the lunch with lots of good food, only now we were drinking only the 45% strong Rice Vine and lots of it, having toasts every couple of minutes. They were really getting me quite drunk.

After the dinner we went to an open restaurant by the river to have some juice, which ended up in a big bottle of beer for each of us and although I don’t like beer and I really had had enough by then anyway I still had to drink as everybody, including some other guests of the restaurants, wanted to have a toast with me. I had to start pretending sipping off my glass unless they specifically requested to drink to the bottom, which I apparently had to accept according to the Chinese tradition. By the way, as I was the guest at lunch I also had to have one shot of Rice Vine before everybody else could start drinking – another Chinese tradition.

One thing that I can’t really understand happened in the restaurant. The headmaster’s son told me that the river that we were sitting by used to be clean just a few years back but it is dirty now. We were sitting about 6 meters above the river that had stone walls and a look down really offered a view full of plastics of all kinds stuck behind the big boulders and on the banks. That by itself would not be that unbelievable as the Chinese really don’t seem to care much for their environment (which is to their defense similar to the surrounding countries) but what I could not believe was when the teachers, when we were finished, each took the plastic cups that we were drinking from and threw them into the river too! These people were teachers and even though they could let the waiter to take the cups away and put them (hopefully) into a rubbish bin and even realizing that the river was dirty they still have no blocks in happily contributing to the mess in the river! I saw a very nice add in TV in my room in Kunming which was encouraging people to throw rubbish into bins in a very clever, nice and non-forcing way. I really liked this add and thought it must work well. I hope they will air it in the whole country soon and that they will also provide rubbish bins on streets to make it possible for the people to behave according to the add. It is very hard not to throw things on the pavement or anywhere when there are no bins at all and the government should realize this. In the restaurant, however, it was a different story and they still threw the plastic to the river for the nature to play with it for quite a few dozen years.

We finished when it felt like time for bed for everybody. Now I am invited to return here any time and possibly even teach English in their school together with Tanja :-).