In honor of the fact that it was Valentine's Day last week, I'm playing "The Dating Game" in class this week. Basically, this stemmed from a desire to embarrass my students - sadistic, perhaps, but gosh darnit it's just a whole lot of fun to embarrass 15 year olds because it's just so easy. I'm running the game pretty much like the old television show, with the exception that although the bachelor is blindfolded, the three luck ladies are able to see who they are dealing with. I also run it the other way around, with one bachelorette and three boys from which to choose. Left to themselves to ask the questions, the students' questions tend to be pretty lame: "What's your favorite color?" And "Are you tall?" So, every now and then I have to intervene with a slightly more interesting question along the lines of, "If you were an animal, which would you be and why?" In one class, the bachelorette asked her three suitors which fruit they would be. The first boy answered "banana," and I was afraid I was going to have to deal with adolescent cackling, but, judging by the guilty student's blank facial expression and the utter lack of reaction in the class, I believe the sexual innuendo was unintended. In the meantime, it's jolly good fun to see how embarrassed the kids get when I remove the blindfold and they see who their "date" is. In most classes, the two students bolt back to their desks without even looking at each other while the rest of the class hoots and hollers. Ah, teenagers!  

 Although it's still quite chilly here, the peach and pear blossoms are emerging on the trees. It snowed on Saturday, and I walked around a park with my friend. It was really beautiful, with the froth of reds, pinks, and whites overhead and the big flakes coming down amid the stalks of bamboo. None of the snow stuck, but it was a pretty sight. The tree blossoms have a sweet, very pleasant aroma. My friend tells me that when it snows here, which is rare, the prices of vegetables go up because, supposedly, they taste much better when they've been snowed upon. I don't know if that's true or not; I must say that I detected no difference in the veggies I purchased Sunday. However, I've learned that when it comes to food here, there are certain acknowledged truths that everyone accepts: Shimian has the best barbecue; Hanyuan has the best cherries; Yunjing, the best flaky pastry; and vegetables taste better after a snow.

      On Friday, I went to visit Shuhui, a friend I haven't seen for two months. She lives in a village on a mountain in the countryside. I took a car out of town and met Shuhui. We trekked for an hour up the muddiest path I've ever encountered. The people don't call this "Rain City" for nothing. The rain has been particularly heavy for the last month or so. It rained all day while I was there, too. I was praising heaven that I decided to wear my hiking boots. After lunch at Shuhui's house, we grabbed our umbrellas again and hiked another hour up the mountain to a Tang Dynasty temple in the middle of nowhere. It really was way out there. The trek up to her house had been on a mud road used only by pedestrians, but a road, nonetheless. Most of the trek to the temple was along "jigendao" - paths for the chickens, the name for footpaths in the countryside. These paths are usually about a foot or a foot and a half wide, and these were treacherously slippery. By the time we reached the temple, I was completely soaked in mud up to my knees. It was while we were standing before a twenty-foot Buddha statue that l looked over and realized that, although Shuhui's shoes were quite muddy, there were about three small splatters of mud on the back of her pants and that was all. I was dumbfounded. Here I was looking like I'd been in a mud wrestling match and one would never know, by looking at Shuhui, that it was even a rainy day. As we walked back, I noticed that all of the farmers passing were the same. I guess they've just learned how to walk on the protruding rocks better than I have. When I departed that afternoon, all the way down the path I could hear people laughing from inside their houses, "Look at that foreigners with mud up to her knees." Luckily, I've long since gotten used to being laughed at here.

      Back in Ya'an there is a giant, twenty-foot chicken standing proudly in the intersection near my school. It's the Year of the Chicken. The chicken looks frighteningly lifelike and is lit up like the Fourth of July when it gets dark. Otherwise, not many new events are happening here. Until next time,

 Molly