alarana.net - Hunan Province

While studying music composition at the University of North Texas, I was lucky enough to take a series of theory classes with Dr. Gene Cho. When, in 2001, I saw an ad posted for a class covering Chinese music within the context of traditional culture, including almost a month of study in Taipei, I jumped at the chance.

Then, again in 2003, Dr. Cho provided the oppurtunity to travel to GuangXi Province, in southern China to take part in a field study of the folk songs of tribes living in the fabled hills of LongSheng county.

Since being uprooted to Russia as a teenager, I have been entranced by the unfamiliar. After I graduated I spent most of the money I had managed to save on a plane ticket to Beijing, after several months of travel plans collapsed, one after another. I had friends living across the country, and armed with a freshly packed bag, a two month tourist visa, and a few hundred dollars, I set out for Beijing in January of 2006.

I came here originally to visit, perhaps to digest the years of music school as much as to better understand my previous experiences in China. Though I wasn't certain how long I would stay, where I would go, or why precisely I felt compelled to return to China, after three days I signed a contract to teach at the Hunan Institute of Engineering. Now there's no turning back.

This is not a travelguide. My information is intended to be a subjective source of impressions, not a cold, factual tome. Modern China is fascinating, frustrating, beautiful, broken,... and it is not well understood by Westerners. I write as candidly as I may, in the hopes that every small increase in cultural understanding tips the balance, somewhere, to a more peaceful future - with the full understanding that sometimes that which draws people together the strongest is realizing just how bewitchingly rediculous we humans are. To this end I feel I must point out that my experiences should not be extrapolated to draw conclusions, for example, about every Chinese university.

I would love to hear from those who happily disagree or would like to share their thoughts, and I hope this will prove to be a small chain which ultimately connects diverse populations - even if only because the West needs more dumplings and the East needs more cheese.

There is a 2007 calendar for sale featuring the most popular photography prints from my travels through south China. It's fantastic quality, spiral bound, and gauranteed to be strikingly different than your friends and co-workers wall calendars. All the photos are strikingly printed with black borders, so it will complement most any style of decor.

You can see the images for each month of the 2007 South China Calendar here, and get your very own via my deviantART print shop.

May 30, 2006

Contact: jessicaleza @gmail.com