It was with great delight that the Chipman three finally met
up with the other MATTEO two in the lobby of the dormitories of Sichuan
University about 12:00 am Tuesday morning.
Later that day, 9:30 am to be precise, we sat on one side of
a long table on squeaky black leather chairs, an old woman pouring fresh tea
and nodding as three other women discussed with us the logistics of our stay in
serious voices. All three then proceeded to break character and squeal with
delight when we pulled Anna out of her carrier. In fact, the term “squeal with
delight” may very well have been created to describe most, if not all, the
Chinese women we’ve met’s reactions to seeing her. They cannot help it. Grown men and women, jumping up and down,
pulling ridiculous faces, talking in high-pitched voices, and pulling out
camera phones. If MATTEO becomes even slightly popular in China, all credit
goes to our 9 month old.
The campus is lovely. And because we live at least 20
minutes walking distance away from any food or anywhere we need to go, and
because we are all curious and perhaps not-yet familiar with the campus layout,
we walk a lot. Within the four large
gates of Sichuan University’s campus we have walked by or through: a lotus pond
in bloom, small crumbling alleys with heavy trees and hanging laundry, fields of bricks and shoes, a
brightly colored kindergarten blaring English dance music, a small market of carts
spilling over with massive mushrooms, squash, and dark green lettuce, misty rain with drops that seem to hang
suspended in the air, and rusty bicycles bouncing along the broken cement and
cobbled roads.
There seem to be no traffic laws other than a perpetual game
of chicken. You are free to drive either way on either side of the street.
Honking is constant, in a very non-aggressive way: simply the means of telling
someone you’re coming.
The woman in charge of co-ordinating our being hosted by the
University is named Zheng Han, and she is a delight. She also almost ran into
an old woman riding a bike this morning when she was talking to us and pulled
out without slowing into an intersection. Neither her nor the woman seemed
phased by the event that made all of us short of breath from the back seat.
After many afternoons of searching and trying out
instruments and negotiating prices in cramped music stores, we are happy to
report that we are now in possession of (renting or bought) all the instruments
we’ll be using to write and record this e.p. We were quite the sight: four obviously
non-asians with case fulls of
traditional chinese instruments banging along as we walked the busy streets pushing
a baby stroller.
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| notebook we found yesterday |
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