making connections, the chinese way

I have been in Kunming, the city I studied abroad in last spring, for 8 days. Before I arrived, the administrators of my program told me that I might be here for a while, as my school might be nervous about me going off to a rural village to live for several months. “Use this time to make connections,” they said.I’ve been making connections, though not necessarily the kind that will directly help me. At the hostel I was at, I made friends with an Israeli girl, a 52-year-old Vietnamese Canadian man, and a Taiwanese woman I might be traveling with on Wednesday (it's National Day, which actually lasts a week). My friend introduced me to an environmental engineering professor from Yunnan University – this is the school I originally wanted to affiliate with, but couldn't because the Foreign Affairs Office found my research too controversial – but the connection ended with him browbeating me into teaching his friend’s daughter English. (“Maybe you don't understand Chinese culture,” he said. “My friend is the wife of the governor of ~~a town I have never heard of~~, and is very powerful, and can provide you with many favors. The family will take you out to a steak dinner next week.” “…You can give me her number,” I responded weakly.)
Here are the ways in which I am not making very good connections:
1) I hit a stranger. On purpose.
I saw a disturbing scene of street justice that will stick with me for a while. A man had shoplifted from a store, and I saw a young man kicking, slapping, and punching him while other people were holding him and yelling at him. The shoplifter, though, was an older, slightly hunchbacked, raggedy man with tears in his eyes – I couldn’t watch him lying on the ground being beaten. So after the third attack, I immediately pushed the young man’s shoulder and shouted, “Don't hit him!” The young man actually stopped, and even looked ashamed of myself. The fact is, of course, that my reaction was wrong. I responded to violence with violence, and if I were to help, I should have tried another method, such as telling the policemen that the shoplifter was mistreated.
2) Everytime I've met a researcher with potential helpful advice, the night has ended with us getting wasted.
Getting wasted has once entailed KTV (karoake), and always entails witnesses, some of them (probably horrified) Chinese people. Promises to get together later to discuss research are made, but have not yet been kept.
3) I told my roommate I don' t think most foreign-guy + Chinese-girl relationships will actually work out, and it turns out she's seeing an English man.
Yah.

In the event that all my enemies don't eventually kill me, connections seem relatively easy to start. Everyone knows someone, and sometimes I'll even meet that someone, but one of three problems occur: 1) I'm terrible with email/text messages/following through in general, 2) The researcher is not actually a researcher (I find that this case of let's-build-Jules-up-about-something-only-to-disappoint-her happens quite frequently, actually), or 3) The researcher drags their feet, and cares very little about what I'm doing.

Everything, beyond just the connection-building, is so different from a year ago. I am no longer living in the bubble of the foreign student dorm, with 12 Americans – I now have to take care of my own visa and residency. I do not have an amazing program planned out for me – I have to make my own, although now I need to focus less on playing/traveling and more on work. I'm also just now realizing how big Kunming really is, since I'm taking the bus everywhere; before, classes, entertainment, and shopping were within walking distance.

And my roommate... well, my roomie situation is drastically different. The two of us have had an obscene amount of ups and downs. She is a 35-year-old unmarried woman, and our conversations are often her going on about something (sometimes she gets so worked up she slips into Kunming dialect, which is extremely difficult to understand) and me nodding and maybe saying one sentence in response. Our relationship began through text messages, which were often misunderstood or not recieved. Before I even moved in, I knew we were on shaky ground. The morning after the first night I spent there (after arriving after 1AM, something she was not happy about), she woke me up to say, "Oh, I've decided that you should pay (100 yuan more than what she had advertised on her sign)... and you should (going off on a hundred other rules I should follow. For example, I am now going to make my bed every morning. This is actually a pretty big lifestyle change.)" I tried to argue with her, saying that she should have told me this before I actually made the decision. The money is arbritrary to me, but I did not want her to think I would just roll over and adjust to her every mood swing. "I think we have had a lot of miscommunication." "It's not miscommunication, it's your problem," she snapped. Finally, I actually left her apartment with all my stuff, and she settled for only 50 yuan more (I decided it was fair, for the utilities) and told me to please come back up the stairs.
So yes, this may be difficult. She wants to know everything I'm doing, where I am all the time, etc. She tells me when it's meal time and lists her schedule everyday (perhaps expecting me to return the favor). She comes into my room when she pleases and though she gave me the key to my door, I think it would greatly offend her if I locked it. And she jumped into family mode right away: "I think you are very strong," she said, shortly after I had moved out/moved back in. I thought this was a compliment, but then she continued. "I used to be fat too, but then I just slowly got skinnier and skinnier. I don't even know what happened. But it's better that way. Is it because in America, you ate too many hamburgers?" She chuckled. "In America, I do not count as fat," I grumbled, but she didn't notice. "In China, we just eat steamed vegetables and fruit!" (This is certainly not true, for the record.)

Though she wants to practice English, she rarely does it for more than a word. I have no idea how she carries on conversation with her boyfriend, since she is not exactly the strong silent type.
Anyway, maybe living with this overbearing woman for the month will help me concentrate on staying home and doing work. I need to actually figure out my methodology. And I'm taking Chinese classes as well, since I'll be here in the city anyway. So between those two big projects, maybe being forced to hiding in my room will be useful. I have a desk, which is pretty awesome.

I've already begun to think about applying for a three-month extension on my grant. Ten months seems too short, and I want to be able to be in a village through all of the agricultural seasons. A year seems like a long time though, doesn't it? In actuality, it passes by so quickly. A year and a few months ago, I had left Kunming not having any idea whether or not I'd be back. Now I am, and I'm seeing some of the old people and meeting new ones. It feel strange to return, and yet... very appropriate.

In other news, bird flu might be hitting China this winter, according to China Daily. So if you don't hear from me after January, you should probably just assume the worst.