Day Two: I woke up early even though being very tired because there were many planned events, such as a parade of minority people at 7 am (no candy, only rain). We ended up missing it because it was very short because of the excessive amount of rain. It was streaming down the streets. But Roy made sure I got pictures with all of the different minorities--so I have numerous pictures with the Yi, Yao, Dai and Hani women and guys. They were often very friendly for the most part!! My friend Roy wanted me to meet the president of HongHe University in case we want to teach there someday. He was a very interesting person with great English. They were having a meeting of scholars from throughout the world to research Hani/Akha culture and history and he was the translator. I wished I could have gone but it was for many days and I could not get enough time off of school. Because it was raining, I went to Faye's mother's house to help them make sticky rice. It is a very interesting process. They will take the special rice and put it in a carved out log and take wooden bats and beat it for quite a while and then roll it in spices and eat it. Yummy!!

I think if I would have stayed long enough, I would have eaten my weight in the stuff. I got many chances to practice my Chinese, which is not very good by any account. Many of the visitors wanted to talk to me, so I tried to answer questions and understand their putonghua. It was very interesting!! They were often very kind and willing to deal with my lack of Chinese. I took some pictures with Faye's family--her dad smoking the water bong and her mother cooking food. The whole family was over cooking food for the festival. They had 9 tables to prepare food for, all kinds of different Hani food and some other family specialties.

Because of the rain, the events I wanted to see were cancelled. This did not mean I knew that in advance, so I made the mile walk down to the park to see it getting soaked along the way. When I got there, there were only the old men shooting the ancient flintlock guns and then sacrificing to the gods. The games I came to see were not meant to be. They were supposed to have cock fighting, wrestling, archery, traditional swinging, and lots of other sports. It was too bad. So I returned to help the family set up for the long table dinner. They have small wicker tables lined up for over one mile with over 3,500 tables filled with food and drinks that anyone can eat at. We had to carry the tables, chairs, food, and covering for the rain down to the area for their tables. It was fun to see everyone working together to get everything setup and also how people solved the problems like how to make a canopy over the tables and how to keep everyone dry.

My friends wanted me to take pictures of the whole long table from the beginning to the end, but that did not happen as it started to pour. There was a river of water coming down the street, so everyone mainly stayed under the makeshift tents. I went out and tried some food at a number of different tents including all of Faye's family tables. Most of the foods were things I had tried before, except for bees in eggs (not bad), dog meat, small smoked birds and sausage. The food was yummy!! After the food and drinking, they had a Hani dance. Some middle schoolers came and wanted to sing a Hani song for me and were super excited. Other people wanted me to get video taped dancing a Hani song. But after eating at the tables, the hosts all went home and had an actual meal, so I think I ate many pounds of food. We danced the rather simple Hani songs until around 10:30 pm and got some gifts for Patty and I (Hani clothing) before going to bed.

I was to leave in the morning. I thought day three would be a rather boring day, but it turned out to be more of a crazy day then the rest. I guess that is part of traveling in China.