Of music, parades and performances
Hi everyone, this is Owen and this is my podcast for Friday 9th October, 2015. I hope you are all well. Before we get started, I'd just like to mention that we now offer a vocabulary trainer on our website and on the app. The vocabulary trainer will help you learn new words from the podcast. The new words will automatically be imported into the vocabulary trainer for you to practice and learn. The weather in Kunming has been horrible for the last two months. I have never seen so much rain in my life. But they say it's good for Yunnan. Apparently the last years have been a bit dry. Unfortunately for our visitors from Switzerland the weather was a bit rubbish [1]. We are keeping our fingers crossed [2] that the weather will be better for our next visitor. The next visitor will be Vittoria's mother. She's never been to China before. We're a little nervous and I think she's a little nervous too. We're sure she'll have a great time, though, as long as she doesn't forget to bring plastic forks with her. Otherwise she might get a little angry and hungry, trying to eat with chopsticks [3]. She's going to be here for the National Holiday. The three of us are going to travel around Yunnan a little before Vittoria and her mum visit Beijing. I plan to explore the north of Laos for a few days instead. Today, I'll be talking about a music festival, September the 3rd and a tourist attraction.
You might remember me talking about a lake a while back. I spoke about this lake because I cycled around it one weekend. It's a beautiful lake a couple of hours south of Kunming. Vittoria and I went back there two weeks ago for a two-day musical festival on the shores of the lake. We only heard about this festival a couple of days before. The line-up [4] of the festival didn't particularly interest us, but we thought it would be nice to get away for a weekend, camp on the lake and also go for a swim. However, we faced [5] two small problems. The first was a dog. We've been looking after a friend's dog. The second problem was my work schedule. The dog was a problem because dogs are not allowed on buses. Luckily this dog is pretty small, so we bought a little dog carrier to put her inside. But then when we got to the bus station, there was a security check where all bags had to be put through an X-ray machine [6]. We hope she'll be fine. Regarding my work schedule, the problem was that I was supposed to work that weekend. I tried my best to find somebody to cover for [7] me. In the end I had to call in sick [8]. I felt a little guilty but I put it behind me and just thought about a nice swim in the lake. But then the moment we arrived at the festival, who did I bump into [9]? A colleague. Of course. Although that was rather unfortunate, it was also an incentive to have an awesome [10] time. If I was going to lose my job and my friend's dog over this festival, then I'd better have a very memorable time. We immediately made our way to the camping area. The festival was in a little bay where there's a big artificial sand beach. To our horror, though, the camping area was not on the beach but on the hard concrete parking lot. I guess we didn't read the information about the festival very carefully because all the campers had blow-up mattresses to sleep on, whereas Vittoria and I only had our sleeping bags. Looking at the soft sand beach and all the tents on the hard parking lot, all we could say was: “This is so China!”. It's just that they don't seem to get these things right over here. Despite our frustration we stayed optimistic. After all, we were not going to sleep much anyway. The sound was good, there was a nice crowd of people, the music was varied, the food was, well, very Chinese, our little dog had lots of fun and we got to swim in the lake. It was a fabulous two days in the sun. We were fortunate with the weather. It couldn't have been better. When we got home we were surprised that we both looked quite tanned [11]. Two days in the sun and water and we looked recuperated [12] and healthy. After supposedly spending the weekend sick in bed, I wasn't yet sure how to explain my tan to my colleagues. Luckily I didn't have to. I got a few funny looks but I still have my job.
We were recently hosts to a couple of friends from Switzerland. They are currently on a six-month trip around Asia. They travelled up to Kunming from Laos before flying to Nepal. They arrived in Kunming at the beginning of September. They were a little shocked because the bus from Laos to Kunming was stopped three times by the Chinese military. Each time they demanded to see everybody's identification cards or passports. I've travelled that route myself a few times and never was my bus stopped by the military. However, maybe the reason why their bus got checked was because they arrived a couple of days before a big and important public holiday. The whole of China had three days off in order to commemorate [13] the victory over Japan in the 2nd World War. It was the 70th anniversary this year. For the past years that I have lived in China, we didn't get any days off on September 3rd. This year was a little different. For the first time, a huge military parade was held in Beijing. In the past they have held military parades on China's National Day, which is October the 1st, but never before on September the 3rd. On the road which separates Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, the Chinese military - the People's Liberation Army - showed off their power. It was a parade of remarkable size. The Chinese airforce also participated, so the authorities decided to close the Beijing international airport for the day as a security measure [14]. It's the busiest airport in China and they just closed it for a day. Unbelievable! When I asked my local friends about the parade, they didn't think it was strange to hold a huge military parade to celebrate the end of Japan's occupation [15] of China. Quite the opposite in fact: it made them very proud of their country. They saw the parade as a clear message that China is now able to defend its own borders and that China will not be occupied again in the future. Personally I perceived [16] the parade as a lesson in nationalism on the one hand. And on the other hand there was a clear political message involved. Since the new president Xi Jinping came to power, he has made many enemies [17] inside the Communist Party by targeting [18] corrupt officials. He initiated a huge campaign against corruption which has resulted in many officials ending up in prison. The parade gave him a great platform to show the country that he is now in charge, not only of the country but also of the military. Pictures of Xi Jinping standing next to Jiang Zemin at the parade were shared a lot on Chinese social media sites. Although politics in China is still very secretive [19], it is no secret that the president and the former president are each other's biggest enemies. Most of the time, however, it's very hard to know what exactly goes on inside the Communist Party and which rumours and theories to believe. They all sound crazy yet believable.
So our next guest will be Vittoria's mother. It was around this time last year we had a few friends visiting from Beijing. One of them was very keen to visit a tourist attraction, which has made Kunming quite well known in the past, for the wrong reasons. Translated into English it's called the Dwarf Empire, also known as the Kingdom of the Little People. It's an attraction, I imagine, you wouldn't find anywhere else in the world. It's a sort of theme park which is managed and staffed by little people. It's in the countryside outside of Kunming. They built lots of small houses, shaped like mushrooms for the staff, which are below a big fortress on top of the hill. Twice a day all the staff perform for the guests. From their houses they walk down many steps onto a big stage. They are all dressed up in colourful costumes with one of them dressed as an emperor. The show consists of a lot of singing and dancing. There was also a tightrope walker [20], though strangely he was the only member who wasn't a dwarf. Thankfully, Vittoria's mother, no doubt, will not want to visit it.
Now I must thank Kaethi for her comment and cake recommendation. Kaethi recommends a “Mississippi Cake”. I checked the recipe and it sounded very familiar. Then I realised that my mum used to bake it for us. It's indeed a great cake. It's very chocolatey and it has Schoggistängeli inside. As a child it was always one of my favourites! I would love to bake it but unfortunately I can't get any Schoggistängeli in Kunming. I don't think I can even find something to substitute [21] the Schoggistängeli with. Nevertheless, thank you Kaethi for the recommendation, it brought back very fond memories. If anyone else has a cake recipe they would like to share, then please write a comment below. As I mentioned I'll be going on a short holiday this month. I'll tell you about it in my next podcast, which you can listen to as always by visiting our website www.podclub.ch or by downloading our app. In two weeks time Gerry will be back. My next podcast will be on November the 6th. Until then I wish you all a very pleasant month! Thank you for listening and goodbye!
Glossaire: Owen in China [1] rubbish: here: not very good
[2] to keep one's fingers crossed for something: to hope or to wish for something
[3] chopsticks: two sticks used to eat in East Asia, instead of a knife and fork
[4] line-up: here: the musicians who were going to play
[5] to face: here: to have
[6] X-ray machine: a machine used at airports to look inside a bag
[7] to cover for someone: here: to do somebody else's work
[8] to call in sick: to call your boss to say you cannot work because you are unwell
[9] to bump into someone: to meet someone you know without planning it
[10] awesome: here: extremely good
[11] tanned: brown from the sun
[12] recuperated: here: improved health
[13] to commemorate: to remember officially and give respect to a person or event
[14] security measure: an action that is meant to make things safer
[15] occupation: here: the action of entering and taking control of China by the Japanese
[16] to perceive: here: to interpret
[17] enemy: a person who is against you
[18] to target: here: to go after
[19] secretive: not sharing all information
[20] tightrope walker: a person who balances and walks on rope
[21] to substitute: to use in place of something else
