chinese countryside for the dragon boat festival

this was a busy week. i discovered my inner-karaoke self while belting out 'karma chameleon' at a karaoke salon called partyworld, in celebration of a successfully-defended PhD dissertation. not mine, of course, but i was invited to join in the celebration and did so...for 5 hours...of singing. who knew?! typically, the mention of karaoke would terrify me, and the thought of singing in chinese blew my mind. but, there were some english selections (see above...i do feel bewildered by what fragments of america, or britain, make it overseas...) and so i reluctantly agreed to sing. i also met a chinese college student who attached himself to me a discussed everything under the sun with me in english: presidential nominees and who my preference is, religion and what my preference is, race relations in the USA. he gave me his chinese name, which i can't remember because...his next sentence threw me into a fit of laughter...he told me i could call him by his "english name jackie, just like jackie chan, superstar!" i hadn't anticipated encountering the word
"superstar" this summer, but it has now become everyday lingo for me and my chinese friends.

i also saw the olympic torch trot through changsha. i attended the event with several nursing students (my security detail!) and it was very exciting. there is a lot of nationalism within china from what i can tell, and a tremendous pride to be hosting not only the olympic games, but all of the visitors who will be attending as well.

i received notice that the internal review board (IRB) for the protection of human subjects has approved my research protocol, so i can proceed to the survey portion of my reminiscence research. we had another focus group on friday, which lent itself nicely to criticisms of the wording and content of the survey tool i'm using (reminiscence functions scale), so i may have to think some more about adapting the tool to be compatible with this population, in a linguistic and cultural sense. this is so important when conducting research, and i am not at all discouraged by the feedback we elicited with the focus group. i feel like a real researcher now, encountering real obstacles and problem solving!

and, i have just now returned from the countryside! i am unequivocally a country girl, and returning to a rural setting was fabulous. and the scenery is stunning. i went with a nursing student, he ying, to her family's home north of changsha. this weekend was the annual traditional dragon boat festival, to commemorate well-loved poet chu yuen's death by suicide, as he jumped into a river because of his despair over his country's occupation by foreigners. i believe this took place a few centuries ago... the story goes that, to dissuade fish in the river from devouring the poet's body, local people threw leaf-wrapped sticky rice (zonzi - very good, if you ask me, but i haven't encountered any food yet that i don't like...) into the river to tempt the fish away from chu yuen. and the dragon boats came in to the tradition as a rescue party for the poet. to this day, dragon boat races are held to celebrate the festival. though i did not see any races. i saw one boat, as i was on the bus to he ying's home, but wasn't able to observe with any great detail.

so, i am now going to share my photos from the countryside! i have limited blogging capabilities so unfortunately don't think i can label photos...which may be really annoying...sorry :( but i have become quite fascinated by rice cultivation , and many of the images capture rice. i also managed to make it back to changsha with a large bag full of loose, full-leaf tea, hand-picked and dried at the source. this is the real deal. i gave the family a gift of vermont maple syrup and a picture book of fall foliage in vermont. i hope i explained maple syrup's uses properly (i have gone through similar scenarios in russia and mongolia, Lord only knows how the syrup ended up being eaten, if at all...).