FISHY!!!

One of our neighbors brought us some more fish today! So Brandon and I, now experienced fish gutters got to work. This family ran into some misfortune shortly after we arrived in Yunnan, and part of their house burned down while no one was home. The community and our NGO have done all we can to help out and get them assistance. The fish are one way the can thank the community for their help.

Freshly caught fish.

Freshly gutted fish.

Brandon enjoying gutting fish a bit too much..

Going to the Farmers Market

Going to the farmers market is the best way to view the local culture and customs anywhere in the world. Each Thursday Brandon and myself go to our local market to buy our fruit, veggies and what ever else we might need, and we get a good look at the local Naxi ethnic minority. You can pretty much get what ever you might need while living on a farm. Tools to pesticides, meats to treats, shoes to hats. And something that Brandon and I noticed this morning at the market is that after three months the locals are starting to recognize us! Not that they didn't recognize us after our very first visit, we quite obviously stand out from everyone else, But people are saying hello to us and being friendly. Some of these folks are the ones whose fields we were working in planting corn a few weeks back.

THINGS TO BUY

Meat Market.

Doesn't that pig head look yummy?

Heres where ye buy yer brooms and baskets.

Cookies and sweet breads.

...Not to mention random horns from assorted animals.

Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Those are herbs and roots and fungi...

Tools of all sorts. Household needs.

Water jugs, hooks and hangers....

                                                     

Ducks, chickens, pigs.

Traditional Naxi clothing. Aprons, shawls,
the while thing in the center is a sort
of cape most women wear.

BANANAS und ORANGES

NOODLES!!!!

THE NAXI PEOPLE AT THE MARKET

Blue aprons, blue hats and blue anything is the signature style for the Naxi people. I fit right in with my blue sweatshirt.

Beijing Trip In Pictures

My bicycle taken apart and ready to make the trip to Beijing with me. I have been to BJ before and know that it is very easy to get around if you have your own transportation, plus I knew I would be playing some bike polo with the Beijing team so I had to bring it along. It is easy to get around as the city is just a huge grid The only draw back would be the extremely poor air quality. According to the Air Quality Index healthy air is in the 0-50 range. The first few days I was in Beijing we had a few 350 days. After a day of biking in those condition your throat is sore and your head aches.

Mission #1 of going to Beijing was to apply for a Russian Visa at the embassy. Here is the receipt for my visa. In the center is my name written in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, АЛЛЄН БРЄНДАН ДЖОН (Allen Brendan John) Then I purchased my train ticket for the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In June I will embark on a 7-day journey from Beijing to Moscow. I anticipate discovering a new side of myself, one in which you can only discover after having sat a train non-stop for 7 days. This is the first step of this summers adventure in Europe. I will spend a few days in Moscow before going to a friends wedding in Bologna Italy, then I will bike where-ever through Europe killing time until the 4th World Bike Polo Championships in Geneva.

This is my third trip to Beijing. But each time I somehow missed out on going to the Great Wall of China. So on wednesday, when everyone I knew had to go back to work after the May 1st holiday I decided I would bike there and back. Luckily it was a gorgeous day with very little pollution and clear skies. I got some direction from a friend to a section of the wall with much less tourists, I think I was there with only 15 other people. It took 4 1/2 hours to bike about 75km through the mountains to get there. There is the wall snaking up the mountain behind me.

With the help of some other travelers I was able to hoist my bike atop the Great Wall of China to take this picture. You are not allowed to climb along this section of the wall, but I did not bike 4 1/2 hours Not to walk on the wall, so take that Chinese Govt.

Folks say you can see the Great Wall of China from the moon. WRONG! The equivalent would be like trying to see a single hair from two miles away. Even the first Chinese in space Yang Liwei said it was a big ole lie. Look at the wall, its the same color as the rocks it sits upon. How could you see that from space?!?!? So... if you or someone you know is helping to spread that lie, please do your part to set the facts straight. No matter how amazing a feat building the Great Wall is, it's still not that amazing.

Probably one of reasons you can't walk on the wall is that it is falling apart like in this photo. 

At one end the wall breaks to go over this reservoir.

This was one of my first views of the wall, probably still 45 minutes or so away from the wall. Test your eyes, the wall is stretching from one side of this photo to the other, can ye see it??? 

Flying to and from Beijing we stopped over in Wanzhou to re-fuel, and sitting next to the tarmac were these two awesome Chinese Yun-5 biplanes. It hard to see, but the markings on the side indicate it was part of the Chongqing Three Gorges Aviation Company， 重庆三峡通航。

When I got back to Lashihai and the Green Education Center I found out that we got some new additions to our family. These are some of the fifteen new chicks we got for our coup. Also the Swallows that live in the rafters above our walkway hatched to eggs as well. So I left three chickens and two swallows, and came back to eighteen chickens and four swallows. Our piggies had also grow quite large in just under two weeks.

Down On The Farm

During my internship here in Yunnan I have been able to experience a truly different sort of lifestyle. I live in a tiny slow going village of about 38 households, I use squat toilets (which are actually awesome) then I  use the gas from my poo-poo to cook my food (which is also awesome) We grow our own veggies and raise pigs and chickens. It's back to the basics and its great.

Well a few weeks ago, after a local village boy brought over a bag of fish to our house that he, his father and grandfather caught in the lake that morning, he taught us how to gut and clean the fish and in exchange we would come to his families field the next morning and lend a hand. It's corn planting season and getting the fields ready to plant is no small task. It takes a long time and a lot of people. In the good spirit of community many of the neighbors come to help out in each others fields in exchange for help when it comes time to prep their own field.

That first morning there was about 8-10 of us at any giving time. Brandon and myself spend most of the day standing next to a huge mound of horse manure mixed/composted with old corn stocks and pine needles.

I've mentioned in the past what a huge problem horse manure is in the area. The horse guide tourism includes some 4-5000 horses, thats a lot of manure, and most of it just sits on the road to dry up or winds up in the creeks and flows into the lake (in the last decade the lake has gone from quality level 2 down to level 3, about a decade ago was when the first horse corrals sprang up in the area... eh, a little math problem for y'all to think aboot) We try like hell to get people to use the horse manure in their Biogas Digesters (almost every household in the area has one, but very few people actually use it) But one way of dealing with at least some of the poo is using it as fertilizer in the fields.

... Oh yeah, So we stood next to this huge pile of poo and waited for the old ladies to walk over with large wicker baskets strapped to their backs, and we fill the basket and they'd haul it over the the fields and dump it out. I also did my share of spreading the manure equally throughout the field, and threw nitrogen fertilizer and lye over the manure before the ox-driven plough came and buried it all. I did get an amazingly fun 2 minutes of leading the ox through the fields, but I couldn't get the bugger to keep a straight line, so I was demoted to spreading poo again. Dang it.

Then we would spread plastic sheets over the rows to help retain soil moisture. We asked what they do with the plastic after harvesting the corn, and they said they would burn it like anything else <SIGH>

That was the end of the first day. The next time we came to help a week after we had a Canadian CouchSurfing friend come along to help. He had spend months previously in South East Asia bumming around and also doing plenty of farming through WWOOF, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. The night before we decided to camp on the top of a mountain and hike down in the morning just before an exhausting day of farming, so yeah, we were ready tired and our back hurt from the hard mountain top, Then it was time to start working...

We spend most of that day hauling water and pouring cups into the holes where corn kernels would be buried. Then hoeing up dirt and covering up the kernels. Pretty simple, but lots of bending and lifting, Murder on your lower back.

It was all very fulfilling work. The villagers were very happy to have the extra help, not to mention extremely surprised to have foreigners volunteers to get their hands dirty. The same way that living out here has changed my perspective on many things, it is nice to know that we might be changing the locals perspective on things as well, such as a Yankies willings to live in such simple conditions and work hard in a field (not what they see in the movies) Each day they would make us a delicious lunch and dinner, and give us beer and invite us to come back anytime to hang out. They were all very fantastic people.

Ends up other members of the extended family heard about the new volunteers so they were quick to "reserve" our labour for the next week when they were planning on tending their fields. Our boss eventually told the village we couldn't keep helping out because we had our intern work that needed to get done as well. But I am very happy to have done it, and I hope I get the chance again before I leave. In my Geography classes I have learned so damn much about farming without so much as picking up a hoe or seeing an ox. This put things in a totally different light.

Sunrise on the top of Horse Saddle Mountain over looking Lijiang

Watering

Taking a break

Taking a nap after lunch

Me and Chen Laoshi hauling the nitrogen over to the fields

An Average Day In Yunnan.

Greetings everybody.

Today I just want to share some of the things I do day to day here in Yunnan.

First off as part of my internship I am making a map of the Lashihai area. Right now we are focusing on the Horse Guide Tourism. We have traveld to the 24 different horse corrals around the lake to map out their location as well conduct a survey about waste management (horse poo-poo) It took a few days to make it to each corral, and luckily for us, that week was a gorgeous one to bike around the lake. It was also a great way to understand some of the locals views on environmental issues, how they feel the horse guide industry is affecting the Lashihai ecology, and their general trust and willingness to answer possibly sensitive question asked by two foreigners.

View from the southern bank of Lashi lake.

Horse corral worker taking my bike for a spin. Afterwards he
declared it was no good. The saddle of my bike would only
破蛋 "break your balls" whereas the saddle of one of his horses
is like getting a massage...

We often have visitors come take tours of the Green Education Center. Last week Brandon and I led tours for some Canadian and Italians visiting from Shanghai. Usually our boss will lead tours for Chinese speakers, but we'll chime in in Chinese in case he forgot anything. During the tour we explain about Lashihai's ecosystems, the use of Biogas (gas created by fermenting feces in an anaerobic digester then used to cook food) and sustainable living in rural China. 


We also invite local villagers to come by and see a demonstration of our efficient trash burning stove. It is unfortunate and counter-intuitive for Brandon and I to burn trash (not too mention terribly unsustainable), but the sad fact is, in a rural village like ours there is no other alternative to deal with your garbage. What makes it worse is trash burning pit used by most of our village is not very good. Its walls are low with on open top, so much of the trash gets blown out of the pit and lands in the stream directly next to it, and flows into the lake. On average only half of the trash gets burned properly. After people throw in the garbage and light a fire, they leave and don't make sure it all gets thoroughly burned. The half burned stuff is also kicked out by the wind. Lastly, EVERYTHING (plastic, batteries, light bulbs, pesticide bottle...)  is burned, and so people too close the pit breath tons of terrible gases. Our new trash stove is enclosed with a chimney reaching fifteen feet into the air. Although all the terrible gases are still released into the air at least people aren't breathing it in. It also burns all the trash very thoroughly and in much less time, and so less wood is needed for fuel. Again it is a very sad reality for us that burning trash is the only way to deal with it, but at least we can try to do it as efficiently as possible with the least amount of impact to people and environment..... : /

While we are not working at the GEC we also volunteer once a week teaching English at the local middle school. The kids are great fun. It gives them a chance to get up out of their chairs and act silly for a bit while at the same time learning some English from native speakers instead of their teachers, who all speak English fairly well, but with thick Chinese accents. So we are the kiddos only pronunciation coaches. We also bring in the guitar and teach them songs. It’s a good break from the normal daily routine.

Also with free time we do plenty of hiking in the local mountains, plenty of biking around the countryside and beyond, taking in the beautiful scenery, learning to relax and quite my mind, writing and playing music, filming bees, wood carving, studying Ancient Chinese and Daoism, meeting with CoushSurfers who travel through the Lijiang/Lashihai area, plenty of reading [Jack Kerouac is great while traveling] learning to cook Chinese food….

Once a week we will make dumplings or baozi. I was surprised out how very easy it is to do and I am glad I am learning it now so I can take it with me back to the States and make delicious dumplings for folks when I return.

kneading dough

Steaming Dumplings

filming bee hive for Flying Pigeon video

teaching at the middle school

Today we had a nice surprise. A middle school student whose family is good friends with the GEC stopped by with a bag full of fish he, his father and grandfather caught this morning in the lake. He taught Brandon and I how to clean and gut the fish. It was the first time I’ve ever done it, and it feels good to have the new knowledge. It leads to another interesting aspect of life in rural China, we know exactly where all of our meat comes from. When we have pork its from the piggies that GEC

That's basically my life here in Lashihai, Yunnan, China. It is a simple yet fulfilling life, and one that gives me perspective and insight on the life I live in the States.

14 year old Muyi teaching me how to clean and gut fish.

Our three little pigs. Have no doubts about their fate.