April 4-5
Travel in China is an inexact science. Flights leave when they can, not when they?re scheduled. We spent 4 hours waiting for our plane to arrive in Kunming. The airport is fairly basic but we were getting used to unpredictable flights. We?re heading for a minority area of China. 93% of the population are of the Chinese Han race ? 7% of the population belong to one of 55 recognized minorities. These minorities are dominant in about 50% of the land mass, but mostly on the outer edges. The best known are the Tibet and Mongols. They have different languages, costumes, race etc. For instance, the Bai who live around Dali where we are going are descended from the Thais. Xian has large swings in temperatures ? getting up to over 100 degrees in the summer and very cold in the winter. Kunming has mild pleasant temperatures year round. It is about 5,000 ft above sea and the name means City of Eternal Spring.
Today we visited Yunnan University. It is one of the major universities in China with 6 campuses and over 1000 professors. We had a tour of the campus and met the president. Oberlin has a close relationship with Kunming University and sends 2 Shansi representatives who are recent graduates to teach English. The campus is idyllic ? they spent a lot of money in the past few years landscaping it ? trees, grass, flowers etc. The facilities are very poor but a Hong Kong businessman donated money for 100 computers and they are expanding the campus with new buildings at the moment. Students were sitting at tables outside and looking very studious. We passed a few dorms and were told that students live 8 to a room. I peeked inside a room and it looked like a train cabin with sets of bunk beds and room for very little else. The foreign students have much better quarters with kitchenettes. I wonder if it makes the Chinese students resentful? We heard from the president that he would like to make changes so that it was not so much exam-based learning and more flexible. Now, when you enter, you have to take the exact courses specified for your major. You have no choices. He is actually sending a delegation to Oberlin to study the course credit system. But all of us thought it would be a lovely place to study.
About 2 hours drive away from Kunming is the Stone Forest. It is an area full of fabulous stone formations.
Around the lake is a village where Sani or Yi people live. They have completely different costumes and traditions to the majority Han Chinese people. They wear colorful headdresses and aprons and specialize in embroidered craftwork. Their houses are made of adobe bricks.
Kunming is next to an enormous lake. On the hill next to the lake is the former palace of Kublai Khan?s grandson. It later became a Taoist temple with a Dragon Gate