feeling my fingers again

I don't know when it happened, but it did.  The government-regulated heat in our apartments was turned off.  We were too busy throwing our windows open and spending most of our days outside to notice.  Spring, and real, sticky, suffocating heat, has finally returned to Kaifeng.  We knew we had officially put the hardest months behind us when the old man who religiously plays badminton outside of our apartments began to don his barely there sports shorts and sleeveless badminton shirt.  Spring had been decreed.

the essentials

My first day of spring and the beginning of a new chapter in my life in China was the first day I stopped wearing my thermal underwear.   It was the best day of my life and the most self-conscious.  After wearing my thermals religiously for several months, I was happy to shimmy out of the now perpetually smelly and tattered things and bid them adieu.  But throughout the whole day, I kept suddenly looking down.  I had to make sure that I was actually wearing pants because it felt like I was wearing nothing. Teaching was awkward as 'Oh god, my pants!' suddenly flashed through my head while speaking mid-sentence.

neighborhood temple

Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome, maybe it's the euphoria of finally being released from my apartment and being able to explore Kaifeng again, or maybe it's legitimate, but Kaifeng is really beautiful in spring.   Max and I have started riding our bikes with our boombox in tow, etching out new boundaries, neighborhoods, and areas in our mental maps of the city.  We've unearthed new parks, markets, and favorite places as we scandalize and delight Chinese people with our music and a bottle of pijiou or two.  I'm falling in love with Kaifeng again and it makes teaching seem even more worthless.  I'm as distracted and apathetic about school and learning as my students are, which in a way helps.  It doesn't make me feel so bad that I would rather be outside than teaching business memos.   And based on the listless attitudes and faraway stares every HeDa student has, I guess I'm not the only one.

beirut

donkeys

bird

killer rabbit

baby pagoda

green moat

bamboo