Labor Day: Dehong, imaginary cards, a lake, and the Chinese police

In China, Labor Day is May 1. That makes this weekend Labor Day Weekend, and as in the US, it's a long one. And it's been quite a whirlwind. Two weeks ago one of my local teachers invited me to join a bunch of local teachers visiting his home in the neighboring prefecture. I was shocked by the advanced planning and excited to be included, so I accepted happily.

We left on Thursday evening (at 5:15, not the previously announce 6:00) for Tengchong city, stopping at two teachers' city apartments (in the same building) and waiting for everyone to assemble. There were fifteen of us in total, a full five car's worth. Then we drove on to Yinjiang (盈江), a county city in Dehong prefecture. Like Mangshi (the capital-city, so to speak, of Dehong and where I went for the water splashing festival), there were decorative peacocks everywhere.

Stylized peacock streetlight.

We found a hotel to stay at, but then went out to eat some late night snacks. We met up with the friend of local teacher who was excited to meet an American and kept using random English phrases that disoriented me. They wanted me to join them in a drink, the major form of socialization among men in China. I said, sure, a little, and the friend toasted me, and then started a drinking game. My cofellow assured me he'd drink for me if needed and tried to explain the rules to me, but I'm still not sure how it works. Essentially the pile is in the middle with the top card turned face-up. Each person has their own card that is kept face down and you can choose to look at yours or not. You can challenge someone to reveal their card (with more drink at stake if you don't look at your own first), or often everyone turns over their cards one-by-one. The person with the "highest card" wins, but this is where I get fuzzy on the details. There some magic formula by which your card, the card in the middle, and a third "imaginary" card are added together. Numbers closer to the card in the middle are better. If you have the same number as the card in the middle you should definitely call someone out. Usually it's only the number that matters, but sometimes suit comes into play too. That's as much as I know.

My favorite part of the evening, though, was watching the restaurant's cat which looked rather small and young and a little like one of my own cats. We were eating fish hotpot, so the restaurant owner brought two fish out onto the pavement to kill and clean them. The cat watched them flipping around curiously and moved in to tap them with one paw before jumping backwards when they moved. As the woman prepared the fish for us she tossed a small piece over to the cat. Over the course of the evening two dogs, each five or ten times the size of the cat, showed interest in her fish, but she fended off their attempts, back arched and fur bristling. The dogs quickly backed off. One of my local teachers said that they have a phrase that a dog is fiercer than a leopard, so it's fitting that an even a smaller cat is fiercer than a dog!

We stayed in the city overnight and in the morning drove towards the teacher's hometown. At one point we paused on the side of the road to let the other cards catch up with us and my teachers got out and walked around a bit. I stayed in the car and read. They soon returned with some yummy golden raspberry-like berries. They weren't quite sure what they were called in standard Mandarin, just the dialect, in which it sounded a lot like the word for mango, so it took me a moment to process what they were telling me.

As we continued on, one of the other cars pulled ahead. We almost sped past it, but realized just in time that it had pulled over to the other side of the road. We joined it and then flagged the car behind us. We squeezed the cars through a narrow concrete gate, and drove down a bumpy road. We soon stopped at a scenic area called Kaibangya Lake (凯邦亚湖) and got out of the cars, looking around.

Then, to my surprise, we got into a boat and drove around the lake which was much larger than it appeared. It's one of those lakes that has peninsulas jutting into it and lots of islands in the middle so there was lots to see.

It was also fun to see some wildlife, including what I've identified as grey-headed lapwings (Vanellus cinereus).

And some not-so-wild life.

I loved just being in a small boat again, reminding me of my semester in Panama and summers growing up. We were in a boat just like this one...

Not one like this...

After our boat ride, we got back into the cars and kept driving. A few minutes later we pulled up to a police check point and everyone was asked for their identity cards. I pulled out my passport, as always, ready to explain where I was from and why I was here. In actuality I barely said a word as the other teachers in the car explained for me, in snatches from each of them.

"You can not pass," the police said to me. "You are American, you cannot go here."

I was confused. Why was this area special? My teachers were confused. Why could they go, but I couldn't?

The explanation came in bits and pieces. "Myanmar is over there." Were we going to Myanmar? Had no one thought to tell me we were going to Myanmar? I knew that Americans couldn't cross the border to Myanmar by land.

"But we're just going to his house over there," my teachers insisted, gesturing. Did the road go around a mountain and through a bit of Myanmar back to China? I wondered.

The police started writing down my passport and visa information. They seemed confused as to which visa to look at (I now have three on consecutive pages), so I pointed out the most recent one, my entry date, and that I had 90 days which wouldn't expire for another three weeks.

Eventually more and more details were given and I finally understood the problem. This was the last checkpoint before the border. After this checkpoint Myanmar was just on the other side of the river. So if they let me through, they couldn't stop me from going into Myanmar, which is illegal. So I couldn't go past that point. I couldn't visit the teacher's house.

My teachers told me they'd get me a ride back to the city. I could stay there for a day and they'd join me tomorrow. I could call that friend I'd met and he'd show me around. My cofellow was really sweet and insisted on returning with me. But neither of us knew what to do in Yingjiang, so we decided to go back to Tengchong. We asked someone on the street which bus station had buses to Tengchong, grabbed a cab, and were able to get tickets for a bus that was about to leave.

Crossing back into Tengchong from Dehong, there was another police checkpoint. Again, they asked for everyone's identity cards. Again, I handed over my passport. Again, they looked confused. "What are you doing here?"

"I teach in Tengchong."

"Your bags."

I opened up my camera bag and showed it to them, then handed over my overnight bag/purse. One of them dug through it meticulously. He pulled out a little white package. "What's this?"

It was a hand wipe. "For washing hands," I said and mimed.

He put it back, kept searching, and eventually gave me back my bag. "I'll be back," he said, taking my passport inside. A few minutes he came back, handed me my passport, and we were on our way.

Tengchong has had a major problem with drug trafficking, especially over the Myanmar border, so the search made sense, but I'd never been so specifically targeted like that, not even the last time I went to Dehong (for Poshuijie), when they almost missed me when they asked the other foreigners for their passports. Two police encounters in one day! But the lake was definitely worth it.