Moving home to Dazhai

I have moved into my dorm on the Dazhai Middle School campus! It is, all things considered, a very nice room. Hanxiong and I both get our own individual rooms and share a larger common area where we can cook and relax. Moreover, we are on the first floor, so no need to climb stairs every day. That said, we have only public showers and bathrooms that leave much to be desired. You can see a picture of the boy’s bathroom below. I will leave out the usual descriptive language, as I believe them to be both unnecessary and likely to make you stop reading now.

That said, it is a very nice housing situation. Right now, the school dorms are rather tight for teachers and extremely tight for students. The school knocked down an old dorm building earlier this year and the new dorm has yet to be built, so the students are stuffed into dorms like sardines and they are having trouble finding enough room for us teachers. For the students, the result is, I am told, about 20 students in each room, meaning that students have to share beds, sometimes with up to three kids on one bed (the size of the plank bunk-beds I stayed in at Dayao). I have yet to see the rooms with all the students in them myself, but I can only imagine the utter lack of personal space and the sweaty smell of pubescent, seldom-washed middle-schoolers when all the students are there. The new building should be finished within the next couple months, alleviating conditions significantly.

But in the meantime, I am here in my new room, and I have an address, so I can be sent things! My address is as follows:

孔德临 (Dylan Kolhoff)

中国云南省临沧市云县大寨中学 （675809），P.R. China

电话：18408858586

Dylan Kolhoff

Dazhai Middle School

Lincang Prefecture, Yun County

Yunnan Province

P.R. China

ZIP Code: 675809

               Print out both the Chinese and the English and send letters or packages through USPS. I would love to hear from people, and, especially now that I have my room, I would love care packages. If you are wondering what you can send that would be useful, I can offer a few suggestions of things I want and need (credit to Ida for many of these great ideas):

1.       A watch – Something I definitely should have invested in earlier, since it is very difficult to get through a lesson timely without knowing how much time I have left. A plain, pragmatic, and still good-looking and professional watch would be perfect.

2.       Letters and pictures and art – I have large, dirty, white walls in my new room, and messages, pictures, and art from home would go a long way in making these walls home.

3.       Postcards from your home – It would be really sweet if you could write a short message to my students on it and include it in a package or just send it by itself. Through my teaching, I would like to try to begin introducing my students to the wider world (and to the US in particular), and messages from (for them) exotic places would go a long way toward that goal.

4.       Maple syrup – I have really been longing for western breakfasts, and now that I have a place I can cook I have the ability to make it myself. And while pancakes are easily made most anywhere, pancakes without real maple syrup are barely worth making. Maple syrup would be much appreciated.

5.       Chocolate – I prefer dark chocolate, but it is all good. German chocolate (like Rittersport or Milka) and things with caramel or mint are particular favorites. Candy in general would be great, and it would be really fun to share that piece of US culture with my students (I would have to have at least 15 pieces to share with my kids) – for example, Swedish Fish or Sour Patch Kids.

6.       Peanut butter – Only available in big cities in China, and always enjoyed by me and my co-fellows.

7.       Cookie butter – From Trader Joe’s, this would be an amazing treat in rural China. Really any snacks from Trader Joe’s would be great – they last well and are delicious.

8.       Tide detergent pens – The type that you can take out and use to clean stains in the moment. I brought one of these with me to China, and it has proved invaluable as I always seem to manage to splash spicy broth from my noodles onto my shirts.

9.       Cheese – Stuff that doesn’t need to be refrigerated (parmesan, other?) would be terrific in cheese-less China.

10.   Welsh’s fruit snacks – Because they are delicious.

That said, anything at all would be so very much appreciated, from a postcard to a package. I should say, though, that I can easily get basic cleaning supplies and toiletries here in China, so while I am living with shitty toilets (Ha. Funny.) and showers, I at least have easy access to soap and toothpaste and such.

The boys bathroom. I think the picture says it all really.

And yet there is also such extraordinary beauty in Dazhai. Here is the morning view outside of the window of the hotel I just left.