Kyrgyzstan and China

I am currently making a living in Shanghai, China.  China is my new home, and it was the place I chose to move to when I finished my Peace Corps service in Kyrgyzstan in August 2009.  But, back in October 2007, I had no idea I would be moving to China after Peace Corps service – my plan was to go back to the USA, get married, get a job, buy a house, and live out the rest of my life as a working American.  Of course, two years later, I find myself not in the USA, but in the largest city in China and the fastest-growing city in the world.

Peace Corps tells volunteers that their lives will never be the same when they finish their Peace Corps service – and I am a shining example of that mantra.

My first taste of China came from my proximity to China in Darkhan (directly over the Tian Shan mountains to the south of Darkhan is the Chinese province of Xinjiang) and the Kyrgyz people who grudgingly called the Chinese neighbors.  Kyrgyz hatred of China goes back some 2000 years (the Chinese were the first to mention the Kyrgyz, describing them as red-haired and green-eyed people) – the Kyrgyz, like all wandering nomads surrounding Han China, were considered barbarians and savages.  Today the Kyrgyz are worried about China’s growing influence around the world, and their growing political and economic influence in Central Asia (especially when dealing with the Uyghurs living in Xinjiang).  China actually has a great deal to offer Kyrgyzstan, much more than Russia, who Kyrgyzstan still very much embraces.

This week I wore my Kyrgyz kalpak (traditional male Kyrgyz hat) to the Chinese kindergarten I teach at – mostly the kids just laughed at me wearing what looks to them to be a ridiculous piece of headgear.  Chinese children should know about Kyrgyzstan, and especially the Kyrgyz people – Kyrgyz is actually one of China’s official 56 minorities.

7 October 2007

Once again, Kyrgyzstan throws me for a loop, and I’m left feeling like an asshole.  This morning, in honor of Teachers’ Day, my host parents (including my host mother) presented me with gifts of a towel (which I needed – thank you!!!) and a big thing of Nescafe instant coffee (I haven’t had coffee since PST, so having two cups of coffee this morning was a big caffeine boost to me).  I didn’t expect it at all, and I was very grateful.  Aizat got a towel as a gift too, considering she’s also an English teacher.

Kelly called me this morning, and it was really nice to talk to her.  Not to mention the fact that her voice is the only American voice I’ve heard since the previous weekend.  I’m already starting to notice that my English is either becoming more enunciated or becoming clearer.  For example, I was so used to pronouncing Baltimore “Bal-duh-more” (as Baltimorons like myself do), but since I’ve been here I’ve been pronouncing it “Bal-ti-more” (for Kyrgyz and for other Americans here – only Marylanders pronounce Baltimore without the T).  And I’ve been speaking English slower for both Temirlan and Aizat here (for Aizat I told her I’d speak slower on purpose so she could understand my words better).  I like being able to just blurt out whatever I want, whenever I want, and these days I only get that with phone calls from Kelly.  Keep calling me, Kelly – I need to stay true to my roots!

For some reason, it always makes me laugh when it comes to Kyrgyzstan’s relationship with China.  For the most part, the Kyrgyz people hate China (there might be historical justification – China tried to invade Kyrgyzstan about 1300 years ago and was defeated by a joint Kyrgyz/Arab army).  Mostly these days, the Kyrgyz just hate Chinese products – Americans complain about the quality of products made in China, but the USA gets the good stuff – the not-so-great goods make their way west to central Asia.  If something the average Kyrgyz person has breaks (like an umbrella), they’ll just say “Chinese (umbrella/tools/DVD player, etc.)” and move on.  The good news is that Chinese products are dirt-cheap, so if something breaks you just go buy a new one (important in a country where the word “warranty” doesn’t exist).  My older host brothers will sometimes sit there and make fun of the way Chinese people talk (Kyrgyz and Mandarin are nothing alike), and it makes me laugh.  Partly why it makes me laugh is that the average American living in, say, Texas or Missouri wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a Kyrgyz person and a Chinese person by looking at them – it’s all the same to most Americans (but that’s the third mission of Peace Corps – to educate Americans about cultures and peoples overseas).

Most of the day I’ve been writing letters to family and friends that I’ll send out tomorrow or Tuesday when I go to Karakol to send out emails.  I pre-wrote one email to a lady named Rossalyn that I’ll send out, too.  Rossalyn was a stout African-American woman that I met on the train from Baltimore to Philadelphia when I was going to Staging for Peace Corps (it was also the last time that I saw Kelly).  Anyway, Rossalyn and I had a long conversation about me joining the Peace Corps and what I was expecting out of it.  We also talked about what she was doing (she used to be a teacher in Baltimore city), and whether the Peace Corps might be a good fit for her – she particularly wanted to serve in Africa (Africa is the real Peace Corps – Kyrgyzstan has some amenities, but most African countries where PCV’s serve have zero amenities).  It was only a one-and-a-half hour train ride, but it was a conversation I’ll remember for a long time.  She gave me her email address and told me to write to her, but until now I haven’t.  Hopefully she remembers me.

My host father stopped in my room as I was writing letters, but left quickly when I told him I was writing letters to family and friends.  I probably should have stopped writing temporarily – he brought home a sheep and slaughtered it.  They’re having guests tonight (I don’t know who exactly), but in Kyrgyzstan when you slaughter a sheep for a meal, they’re fairly important guests.  I only found out they slaughtered a sheep when I went to use the outhouse – my host mother was cleaning sheep guts while my host father was scraping meat and blood off the sheep hide (there was blood everywhere on the ground).  I think they giggled when they saw my reaction (how often do Americans, especially suburban/urban Americans, get to see animals slaughtered?).  After lunch I heard a blowtorch outside, and I walked around the corner to see my host brother Altynbek torching the sheep’s head.  I just said “bash” (“head” in Kyrgyz), and he turned around and smiled.  There’s a blackened sheep’s head, and hell, its tongue was still sticking out!  There were more guts waiting in two big bowls in the kitchen area when I left lunch – I don’t know, I felt a bit like a surgeon looking at organs for organ transplant.  Very surreal, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.  As it is, I’ve had to turn off the part of me that is sensitive about animal cruelty (PETA members would be shitting themselves over what occurs in this part of the world).

Let me mention quickly that two sheep were slaughtered yesterday for the Teachers’ Day party at school.  I helped get meat out of the kazan outside the school (big pot heated by a fire), and I could look and say, “oh, there’s a jaw,” and “oh, there’s the top part of the sheep’s head,” and again “oh, there’s a tongue.”

Lakota people in the Great Plains never wasted any part of the bison, right?