Mysteries of the Orient

Keepin' On Rollin'

2008-07-23T02:54:00.000-07:00

Quite a bit of time has passed since my last update, though little of note has happened. My meetings in Shenzhen and Hong Kong did go off without a hitch, and both of them proved pretty useful. After spending yet another rainy day in Hong Kong, I made the flight to Hangzhou, where I was to have one of the last of my meetings. Well, one thing I've had drilled into my head this trip was that I can't count on anything to be an absolute certainty in China, so when push came to shove, the professor I was supposed to meet in Hangzhou decided that he couldn't meet after all, and he just simply stopped responding to my emails. NICE. Nothing more enjoyable than flying to a city for no reason.

I did visit a friend from Vanderbilt while in Hangzhou, and my Chinese professor from uni happened to be in town, so I was able to have dinner with her. She was intimidating woman from the time I met her, so I had actually been dreading the chance of running into her back at Vanderbilt this fall; I was one of her most promising students when I took her class, she let me know, and I thought she had always been disappointed by my decision not to enroll for the second semester; add to that the fact that I had lived in China for a year, and I thought I was doomed to remain a disappointment in her eyes, as there was no way I could have lived up to her expectations without studying Chinese diligently while living here. Well, I guess most of my fears were unfounded. My Chinese is still something I'd like to improve, but we talked for two hours in Chinese before switching to a mix of Chinese and English, and she told me she was pretty happy with my speaking level; we may even meet informally when I return to Vanderbilt so that I can have some practice every now and then.

After a couple of days in Hangzhou, which is known across China for its centrally-located West Lake (Xihu) that proves a nice area in which to relax, I took the train back to Jiaxing, where I slept my first few nights this trip. Julie's sister, Jamie, had arrived from Korea, on her way to Vietnam before coming back to live in China, so I thought it would be nice to take some day trips around Shanghai (and hopefully have one more meeting with an NGO that had warmly invited me to visit them this summer, but we all know how that ended up) with her. Unfortunately, I got quite sick the second day I was there and had to spend the next 4-5 days on the couch. The first day I felt like traveling again also happened to be the day Jamie departed for Vietnam, so I probably didn't leave the best impression. I learned how to say "constipation (a secondary symptom) in Chinese, and I pantomimed my way through "non-oral medication". A few days later I had to return to the pharmacist to get some medication for Julie's sore throat and ears, and I had to make extra sure that he did not think the two conditions were related.

Hangzhou's Xihu (and pollution):

Part of Rory and Julie's apartment complex in Jiaxing:

Old town in Jiaxing:

This past Saturday, I departed Shanghai again for Weihai, where I lived for the year in 2006-2007. Most of my friends have moved away, but the ones that remain were some of my best friends in China, so it was still a much-anticipated trip, as I'd also have the opportunity to relax on the beach for a few days. Indeed, I have done a lot of relaxing, though most of it has occurred indoors since the weather has been unseasonably cool and wet. A few of the places I had hoped to visit have closed in the year I've been gone, including my favorite massage place, so I need to fine a new place willing to give me a 90-minute massage for $7. I have enjoyed the Korean spas a couple of times, and former students have invited me for dinner a couple of times. It's hard to believe that I have only three more nights in China, and then I'll be back in the US, ready to start the whirlwind of a month that will see me make the move again from Atlanta to Nashville.

Jetsetter

2008-07-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

I'm in Shenzhen now, my third of five cities in four days. I flew from Urumqi to Beijing two days ago, and I discovered that it's possible to walk to the airport in Urumqi. I found a city bus that would take me the two hours to the airport for only $0.14, but I guess it decided that a mile away from the airport is close enough. But seriously, if you're going to go all that way, why not go the last mile? It's like running a marathon and giving up after 26 miles because you don't want to run the extra 0.2 miles. So, after realizing that I was not yet at the airport, I assessed my options: pay a cab, thereby defeating the purpose of the bus, or walk. Nearly everyone decided to talk, so I joined them. Unfortunately, my digestive system has not been operating as efficiently as I would like as of late (read: every four days, on average), and right as I started the walk, my stomach started making that grumbling noise that indicates you better find a bathroom fast, so I run-walked the last quarter of a mile.

Originally, I was to have three meetings in Beijing, but two of them canceled after I had made my flight. One of the cancellations I would probably get to see later in Hangzhou, though, so really I was only going to miss one of the meetings. Well, by the time I got to Beijing, the third person had canceled, and the professor I was supposed to meet in Hangzhou had mysteriously come back to Beijing, but was now too busy to meet. SO, basically, I paid a lot of money to fly to Beijing for nothing. The air was horrible, and that, or the four hours I spent at the pearl market, gave me a nauseating headache by the end of the day that was only cured by bootleg Will and Grace DVDS at a friend's apartment. The air quality is certainly no better than it was last year, so a lot of work is yet to be done in order to get the city ready for serious athletic competitions.

Beijing:

The Water Cube, aka Olympic Aquatic Center:

The Bird's Nest, aka Olympic Stadium:

Housing for all of the migrant workers used to build the new structures:

Right now I'm in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong; I have a meeting in an hour, and I'm trying to make sure another one in Hong Kong doesn't fall through, since I refuse to come back a third time. Tomorrow I hope to fly from Shenzhen to Hangzhou, where the last of my meetings will take place (if all goes as planned, though my flight seems to have been changed, so let's just go ahead and throw that possibility out the window, too).

Desert vs. Dessert

2008-07-07T06:38:00.000-07:00

My week in Xinjiang has been a series of ups and downs. When I booked my flight, another couchsurfer had planned to join me for the trip, but financial difficulties resulting from a series of miscues--missed trains, forgotten passports, etc.--forced him to cancel on me. As much as possible, I tried to meet new people along the way, starting with a few Swiss Germans, two Belgians, a Frenchie, an American-Frenchie, two Japanese, a really obnoxious Canadian, two American frat boys, two British sisters who had never flown before, an English mother and son, and Germans with and without socks for their sandals. I have also been staying with Akbar, a friend of Tyler's in Xinjiang. The company was more than sufficient until yesterday, when the perfect Chinese storm synthesized from the volatile elements of transportation and tourism.

About a week ago, I flew from Chengdu to Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China. Xinjiang and Sichuan, where Chengdu is located, were two of the places I most wanted to visit in 2006-2007, but I ran out of time and money. Luckily, all of my other plans fell through and flights to both were cheap this summer, so I suppose I now need to come up with some additional places worth exploring. Tibet would certainly make this list, but it's massively expensive with all of the rules and regulations of the Chinese government. Anyhow, I arrived in Urumqi, not known for much beyond being a transportation hub, and shared a cab with the Swiss Germans to the hostel, since all of my potential couchsurfing guests had fallen through, where I promptly met another Swiss German, with whom I went out for dinner and a beer. Xinjiang is an interesting place for a number of reasons, the least of which is its absurd time zone classification. The Chinese central government operates the entire country under one time zone, so in the West, which is more than 3000 miles from and closer to Kazakhstan and Pakistan than Beijing, the sun effectively rises at around 8:30am and sets around 9:30 or 10:00pm. Of course, the locals operate on their own time, two hours behind that of Beijing, but that just means that you always have to stipulate which time zone you're referring to--Beijing time or Xinjiang time. It gets pretty confusing if you're not paying attention, and it makes you second guess yourself whenever you set a time for something.

Returning from the tangent now, I decided to leave Urumqi after only one night for Turpan, because Turpan has a number of compelling reasons to visit, and because I didn't want to save that visit for later in the week, get trapped without transportation, and not be able to make it back for my return flight from Urumqi. So, the next day I took a bus to Turpan, which was regularly over 110 F during the day, and latched on to the first foreigners I saw, since I wanted to hire and share a car for the next day to visit some sights, and because I didn't want to be stuck eating dinner alone, since not too many foreigners make it this far north and west. My communication has been limited, especially in the heavily Uighur areas like Turpan, so chatting with the locals was less of an option. In this case, the Belgians and Frenchies were the lucky ones, and I made a decent effort in the Yahtzee that they had continued from their 24-hour train rides from the day before. The actual city of Turpan has little to do beyond its bazaar, which was more impressive for the people watching than for what was offered, so I rode a donkey cart into town to search unsuccessfully for a karaoke joint with the Brits and Frat Boys, before heading to bed.

Wind farms in the desert:

Common mode of transportation:

Mosque in the old part of town:

Another mosque:

These guys had a little accident when they took their eyes off the road to stare at the foreigners walking through town:

Donkey and Uighyrs:

Emin Minaret in Turpan:

Our mode of transportation to look for a karaoke joint in Turpan (the structure behind the donkey is used for drying grapes):

My hotel (my dorm room was in the basement) in Turpan:

Watermelon alley at the bazaar:

Our car departed the next morning at 7:30am, and we were luck to arrange with the driver which areas we wanted to visit. We intended to avoid what had been described as tourist traps by many guides and other travelers, but dedicate extra time to those places that really had something to offer. First on the itinerary was the village of Tuyoq, set in a valley beneath caves dating from 400 AD. This place was incredible, really an oasis in the hot desert; the cemetery on the edge of town that was at least 1000 years old was especially interesting. It is said that this is considered seen visits to Tuyoq equal one visit to Mecca, as this is the resting place of one of the Uighur forefathers, and also perhaps because virtually none of the Uighurs has the resources to make it to Mecca. We did have to argue for 20 minutes before we allowed to depart, though, since we decided to eat the ice cream that had been offered to us, despite our Strong resistance, rather than let it melt. Unfortunately, as the government has limited travel in the region and to the country as a whole this summer because of the Olympics, the town has seen an enormous drop in tourism, but the few people I chatted with did seem optimistic that order would return in time for next summer.

Tuyoq:

Watching over the melons:

Skinning a newly-killed goat:

Chillin'-out, maxin', and relaxin' all cool:

Damn it feels good to be a gangster. I know I look like a tool, but I thought some protection from the desert sun would be wise:

After Tuyoq, we drove by an abandoned city (less impressive than the one we'd pay to visit later in the day); some ancient burial grounds, most of whose remnants have been relocated to museums elsewhere; and incredibly overpriced irrigation systems that are on display for free throughout much of Xinjiang. We also drove by Flaming Mountain, which the local authorities have tried to turn into a tourist attraction by fencing in a few acres in front of the mountain and filling them in with statues and amusement rides, despite the fact that the mountain can be seen for countless miles around. As I've noted before, this is one of the maddening things about China: taking something pure and simple and trying to make it into something more grand, in order to make a buck. Entire old cities can be razed with the hope of producing a picture-perfect village that tourists might want to visit, even if the new product contains nothing true. At the Great Wall section of Badaling near Beijing, the same thing is true, as if the Wall itself if is not enough reason to visit. And, it would be true a few days later when I decided to visit Tianchi.

On the road again:

Flaming Mountain:

After a delicious lunch in Turpan, we departed for the other side of the city, to walk around the ancient city of Jiaohe, which was once an important stop along the Silk Route. It's unfortunate that I can't post pictures now, though I promise to do so in a week or so, because this place really was one of the top five things I have seen in China, and the government hasn't done too much to spoil it, other than the ubiquitous security cameras to make sure you don't wanted off the paths and contribute further to the erosion of the city. Street plans and walls of up to about 20 feet are still evident in some places, and even back then it likely would have taken an hour to traverse across the city. Exhausted from the day's sights, I collapsed back at the hostel for a nap before eating dinner and retiring for bed.

Jiaohe:

The following day, I took the bus back to Urumqi and met Tyler's friend, Akbar, in time for lunch and dinner. A Uighur-version of friends back home, he's been cracking jokes since I met him and has made my stay in Urumqi much more enjoyable. He's also been a valuable lens on the Uighur situation in Xinjiang. Like many other minority areas in China, the government has adopted the practice of aggressively encouraging Han majority people to rapidly populate minority areas, thus suffocating minority presence and culture and simultaneously minimizing the possibility of minority protests/movements against the majority. Minority peoples then experience trouble in getting a job, as they are either discriminated against or lack the Mandarin language faculties necessary to gain proper employment, and thus starts the cycle of generational poverty. Even in heavily Uighyr areas of Xinjiang, I noticed countless youths and people of working age just sitting on the streets with little to do. Despite this, Akbar does seem optimistic about the future when I asked him about it. He is a college professor, though, so perhaps this is not the most accurate reflection of current Uighur thought.

Akbar about to destroy a watermelon. Actually, the traditional Uighyr way of eating the watermelon is to cut it only into quarters and then eat it with a spoon (as opposed to our thinner, messier slices):

The next morning (I lost track of days and dates a long time ago) I took a few city buses to the entrance of People's Park, hacked my way through tour touts, and eventually found my way upon simple buses to and from Tianchi, also known as Heavenly Lake. I had looked forward to the trip for days, as it would be a welcome alternative to the arid climate of Turpan, being described by some as China's version of Switzerland. I planned to stay the night in a Kazakh yurt (tent) along the lake and under the shadows of the 20000ft mountains, but I did not anticipate the commercial adulteration I would encounter at the site. A giant, loud, outdoor big-screen television and amusement rides greeted me at the entrance to the valley after I had paid the ridiculous entrance fee, and from there I had the option of walking up the mountain or paying another ridiculous fee to take a cable car or bus to the top of the viewing area. I chose to take the one or two thousand steps to the top, and apart from the Chinese field trip groups, the scenery was left fairly untouched. When I reached the top, however, where I could be joined by those less outdoors-inclined, I felt like I was in at Disney World. Loud music was blasting from numerous speakers, ugly boat ramps had been installed to make a few extra bucks from tourists, and no one really seemed to care that they were in a place that should have been revered for its beauty. Now, my experience with Chinese outdoor/nature experiences has been that the picture is worth more than one's actual experience in nature, and this occasion be the model for such an assertion. I was pretty disgusted and decided not to stay the night and instead hike down as quickly as possible and spend the night back in Urumqi. This meant that I had to find other transportation back, since I had told my bus that I would not be returning that day and they had found someone else to take my seat, so after about fours hours on mostly dirt roads, and a thick layer of dust on my belongings and in my mouth, I made it back to Urumqi. After another hour getting lost on city buses, I made it back to Akbar's apartment, waited a few hours for him to get home, and then crashed in bed.

Giant, loud TV at Tianchi:

Solar radio in the middle of nowhere, Tianchi:

Tianchi (I've covered up the ugliness with the rocks in the foreground):

Traditional Kazakh yurts:

This morning I spent a few hours trying to arrange flights for the end of my trip (again, transportation here: sucks), before doing some shopping at the enormous, and impressive, International Bazaar, which bodes well for some of you. Tomorrow I head to Beijing for a meeting and some shopping, before heading BACK down to Hong Kong for a couple of meetings, and then back up to the Shanghai area and Weihai for the final two weeks with people I actually know. You can't imagine how great that will be after almost three weeks by myself.

International Bazaar:

Hot and Spicy in Sichuan

2008-06-30T02:58:00.000-07:00

Since I last wrote, I have spent the last of my full days in Chengdu and the surrounding area. After I arrived, I took a two-hour bus to Leshan, site of the world's largest carved Buddha at more than 20 stories tall. Luckily, I encountered two Israelis during the eighth month of their Southeast Asian romp, so I spent the day exchanging stories with friendly strangers rather than becoming bored by my own thoughts. Perhaps the strangest aspect of the site was the lack of Chinese tourists. It was actually possible to take pictures around the Buddha, and I only had to pose for a few pictures with the Chinese tourists. Normally, the place would have been packed beyond belief, but tourism in the area has been severely depressed since the earthquake, up to 90% off last year's levels, I am told. Certainly this will not help the area recover quickly, but it does make for nice vacationing.

Ride that tiger:

Big Buddha, Big Buddha, Big Buddha Big Buddha Big Buddha:

The girls with whom I'm couchsurfing had invited 1-2 more surfers to stay at their place while I was there, and they arrived later that night. This proved to be a fortunate development, as it provided me with travel companions for the ensuing few days.

Jordan, from Arizona, went with me to view the Panda Research Centre outside of Chengdu the next day. Unfortunately, many of the pandas have been moved to Beijing as a result of the earthquake, so we only saw about 15 total pandas, as well as preserved parts of dead pandas. Truthfully, I don't understand how pandas are not yet extinct. They sleep for about 21 hours per day, making them incredibly vulnerable to attack; they essentially only eat one kind of vegetation, meaning that they are incredibly dependent upon only the most ideal living conditions; they aren't sexually mature until they're around 6 years old, meaning that there's a significant chance they won't even survive to reproduce; if they do survive that long, they don't seem that interested in mating during the 3 hours a day they're lucid, so much so that zoologists often have to show panda porn in order to get them interested in one another; they normally only raise one offspring, leaving the others to die; and they often decide to kill and eat this offspring if they don't like it or want to raise it. With 1000 or so left in the wild (meaning nature reserve in remote Sichuan), don't expect them to ever fully recover.

Just munchin':

I'm pretty sure this quotation didn't originally refer to pandas:

Reproductive organs:

Rare shots of pandas willingly mating:

A museum exhibit in the panda museum about other museums (you might even say, a meta-museum):

After getting back from the panda reserve before noon, since they've all passed out from bamboo ecstasy by 11, Jordan and I made our way to the central square, dominated by an enormous Mao statue, and then continued on to People's Park to relax in one of the teahouses made famous by Sichuanese dwellers. If I were to move back to China, I would not consider living anywhere other than the provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, or Guangxi in the south. The life here just seems so much more relaxed. Locals young and old spend hours chatting and playing cards and mazhong with one another, with nothing more than a $0.60 cup of tea required, and I don't think they're bothered at all by the decrease in productivity.

The next day we ventured to the Sichuan Science and Nature Museum that we had noticed behind the giant Mao statue, and it was glorious. Just like its equivalent in Chicago, it featured decades-old computers and exhibits. Unfortunately, they also had toys that apparently weren't suitable for grown-ups, as another couchsurfing friend, Thomas, decided to stick his finger in one of the apparatuses, which promptly resulted in a fractured finger that had to be numbed by tubs of ice cream until he eventually made his way to the hospital. Jordan and I continued on to the Tibetan area of the city (parts of Sichuan and Yunnan were previously considered Tibet before China gained control of Tibet in the mid-twentieth century, so that current political lines do not accurately incorporate Tibetan areas in Tibet with those in other adjoining provinces) to look for some of the food that had been so delicious when Tyler and I traveled to Yunnan. Unfortunately, no yak cheese dumplings were to be found, though I suppose the yak meat was tasty enough for the trip to have been worth the effort.

Mao in front of the museum:

Inside the museum (notice the UFO on the right):

Tea house:

Gross 1000-year old egg:

NICE!

As I wrote in my initial post this year, I planned to spend some time on this trip in areas affected by the earthquake. As I anticipated to some degree, this has proved difficult. The government, understandably, does not want foreigners to circumvent its control. Pictures of areas that have not yet been adequately responded to, and pictures of foreigners providing support instead of the government, are to be particularly avoided, I imagine. This, along with the more-than-sufficient manpower enabled by a country of 1.3 billion people, meant that I certainly wouldn't be hoisting bricks or painting newly built walls. I thought my year as a teacher might be of some use, and indeed I had lined up a gig teaching for about a week in a rural township, only to have those plans fall through. I had also found a foreign organization needing help putting together medical kits, but that project was dependent upon the supplies arriving in a timely manner, and this did not happen at a time when I was free. Fortunately, an organization formed by expats after the earthquake has been traveling to a more remote, devastated village each Sunday simply to provide a break for the kids and families. I was invited to accompany them this Sunday, and I assumed I'd be teaching some English classes to the schoolchildren. This, along with song and dance, crafts, recreation and sports, and preschool, form the groups the organization plans each week to support the kids. After it was discovered that I had spent time in Nashville, though, I was quickly placed on the song and dance team to teach some line dances and see if I could get some boys interested in that activity. I thought about some of the different moves involved in line dances, and even some that normally aren't (per Tyler at the Wild Horse), but ultimately I sort of just made them up on the spot when we arrived in Loushui. Never have I been so tired after only half an hour! Russian leg-kicks, hops, slides, steps, spins, heel kicks, twists, and turns in sunny 90-degree heat can really take it out of you. When we first arrived at the village, I was concerned that our presence was a bit self-indulgent and unhelpful to the community, as locals stared at our bus and police refused to let us enter. But after some wrangling with the authorities and spending a few hours with the kids, I know that they were glad to have us there. The town is pretty devastated, with people living in tents and few buildings safe to inhabit or enter, but it has seen a pronounced increase in local commerce this past week, according to some of the more consistent volunteers, so hopefully that is a sign that life is beginning to return to normalcy.

Playing games with the kiddies:

Standing in rubble:

Temporary housing for the army and relief workers:

Today, I made my way to Huanglongxi, one of the sites used for the filming of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". It was a fairly touristy Chinese site, but I did sit for three hours in a tea house and read through most of one of the books I brought. I was also reminded again of why I hate minibuses. I took one this morning without much trouble, though the 90 minutes it took to travel 40 kilometers were a bit excessive. As I departed the bus, I was told by the attendant that the bus would be leaving at 3:00. I made it back to the bus by around 2:30 and ate a quick lunch, and I was on board by 3:00. Well, 3:00 doesn't mean 3:00 in China, but rather "whenever the bus is full of people and live chicken after 3:00, or, more precisely, 3:50. This wasn't too bad, since I was just having a relaxing Sichuanese day and wasn't feeling rushed, and the bus would be taking me directly to a bus station right on one of the local Chengdu bus routes back to the apartment I'm staying in. Well, I dozed off on the bus, only to be awakened by some yelling that we had arrived at the stop, when in reality, we had arrived a few blocks away and the bus wanted to continue on a different route. If I hadn't woken up then, who knows where I would have ended up. And if I couldn't speak Chinese, I never would have known that the plans were changing in the first place. Oh, China.

Huanglongxi:

Tomorrow, I head to the last frontier in China, also known as Xinjiang. It's mostly desert, so I'll just continue sweating from sun-up until sun-up.

Where I buy all of my underwear in Chengdu:

The Perfect Storm

2008-06-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

So, as it turns out, living in a secluded village on an island isn't ALWAYS that awesome especially if there's a typhoon (er even a tropical storm) in the area. ANd extra expecially if there's only one road to the village and it's impassible due to fallen trees and you have a flight to catch that's a 3-4 hour bus ride away. ANd super extra especially when fish from the ocean are blown into the village by the strong winds and left to flip flop and die.

A few days ago, I noticed a few signs posted with the message T-1, or Typhoon 1 (similar to our hurricane scale, though the typhoon scale goes up to 10). Nothing major, I thought. It was just a bit cloudy, but otherwise just a hot, muggy day. Te next day the signs said T-3. Again, nothing too alarming, I assumed. (I hadn't been checking the news at all, since I have to pay for my internet access, so these assumptions rested on little apart from my hope that my travel plans would not have to be altered.) Then, last night, after we had gotten back to the village, and as the winds started whipping up and rain started falling more heavily, this was bumped up to a T-8. I obviouly didn't sleep too well, and when I woke up, there was no public transportarion operating between the vilage and the rest of HK, and even private cars were unable to get out. Clearly, I would miss my morning meeting, and indeed when I called the office no one was present, as most of HK apparently took a day off, juding by the eerily empty metro. Eventually, one lane of the road was cleared, and I hopped on a (price-gouging) minibus to rush to the bus station to make it to the airport.

Because my cell phone was dead and my host did not have internet access, I had no idea where I would be spending the night, but luckily I have arrived in CHengdu with only an hour delay, and I was able to find another person via couchsurfing to host me. I'm still not sure how the volunteering will work out, but I will keep you updated. So far, I really like the city. As it's in the South, it has a natural tendency to be more relaxed, and this certainly holds true for Chengdu. It's a large city (5 million or more), but it has such a small-town feel that it's really not too intimidating at all.

I'll leave you with a quotaion I heard last night:
"He's the least Italian-looking, Japanese person in the world." Uh-huh.

Comings & Goings

2008-06-24T02:22:00.000-07:00

Since last writing, I have taken a train to Hangzhou, flown to Guangzhou, and taken a bus to Hong Kong.

I met an old friend from Weihai, Neill, in Guangzhou. I'd heard good things about the city's nightlife, but Neill perhaps most aptly described its as a "Chinese Los Angeles." The city is sprawling and polluted, and it takes forever to get anywhere. Needless to say, I was not disappointed that I had only allocated one day in the city.

Guangzhou, with the second-most expensive rent prices in China (average around $2000/month):

The next day I planned to travel to Hong Kong. Anyone who has been to China or read about my experiences in the country knows that transportation is the most brain-hemorrhaging experience you can imagine. You almost always have a huge delay/layover (of multiple days) associated with trains; buses take 3x as long as they should due to their frequent stops and constant appeals for additional passengers; and flights deliver you to airports 60km from your intended destination with no cheap way to get you there. I read explicitly in my guide book that it was possible to buy direct bus tickets to HK from the Guangzhou main and east stations, but both times I've tried it, I've been laughed and looked at as thought I were an intelligent President Bush. Somehow it's more logical to have said buses depart from random hotels scattered throughout the city, and thus make them impossible to know about unless you're a soothsayer or encounter the uncommon travel agent who's willing to provide help even though the relationship is by no means symbiotic.

Similar things can be said for booking flights. One of the major travel websites recently began allowing foreigners to book flights online, but in order to do so, you have to fax or email copies of your passport, credit card, and travel agreement. If I'm going to have to travel to an internet cafe of business shop to use faxes, scanners, and copiers, why wouldn't I just eliminate a couple of stops and go to the travel agent directly?

And while we're on the theme of travel headaches, I witnessed another first a couple of days ago I've seen grown women and little babies pee and poop on the street; dogs urinate on bus floors; a baby uncontrollably expel diarrhea all over her mother on a bus; but I had never before seen a mother hold her child up, intentionally, willfully, and doodee-fully, over the middle of the train floor, so that the child could relieve himself. And then let the remnants flow around everyone's feet and belongings. Yay.

So, I'm already sick of the transportation aspects of travel, even though I'm otherwise having a fine time.

Moving on. I'm currently staying for a few days in HK. Last year I got out of the way most of the tourist stuff, so this time I decided to couchsurf with a guy who lives in a little village called Shek-O on the edge of Hong Kong Island (couchsurfing.com). He lives in the tiniest house I have ever been inside of; the kitchen is no larger than 15 square feet (this is for you, Jenna; pics will come soon, as promised), and we have to move all of the furniture to the perimeter of the living room in order for me to sleep. He sleeps on the floor upstairs and is unsure if there's room for a bed. Anyhow, the village might as well be situated on the Portuguese coast, because it doesn't feel anything like the hustling and bustling heart of HK.

I've had several; meetings today and have a couple more tomorrow with people with whom I might collaborate on future research, and they have been incredibly helpful It was a bit of an expensive detour to come to Hong Kong, as the city is more comparable to the West in prices than it is to the Chinese mainland, but it has been time and money incredibly well-spent.

Tomorrow I'll take a bus back up to Shenzhen, just across the China/HK border, and then fly to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, site of the recent earthquake.

I'm still not sure what I'll be doing, but at least part of my week or so in the province will be related to relief work. I've been invited to teach for a few days in a tent village, but nothing has of yet been confirmed. I also hope to find a day or two to see the largest carved Buddha in the world, visit the Panda Research Centre, and walk around the city used as a set for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

See/write to you in a few.
--Neal

Arrival

2008-06-21T04:34:00.000-07:00

I didn't bother with deodorant today. 1) The temperature is so hot, and the air so humid, that I'm sweating again even after I shower and before I leave to go outside, and 2) I locked myself out of Rory and Julie's bathroom this morning. ALso locked in said bathroom were items like my contacts and glasses, so I spent the better part of the day not really able to tell where I was going. It did make for the first adventure of the trip, though. After Rory and I spent about an hour this afternoon trying to jimmy the lock and in the process nearly breaking off a key while still in the keyhole, we went to look for a locksmith. I looked up the word in my dictionary before we left (suojiang), since I hadn't used it before, and off we went. I also learned another word during the search process, apparently the word used to refer to "man on little blue bicycle with lots of tools," because that's the person we came upon after asking for directions a few times. I have since forgotten said word, and I hope I never have to use it again. He walked his bicycle and tools with us back to the apartment and about 5 minutes and 60 yuan ($9, or way too much money) later, the door was open, my contacts were retrieved, and the bathroom was ready for business. (The internet I'm typing on right now, by contrast, costs about $0.37 per hour).

Let me back up a little bit. I arrived in Shanghai yesterday. On the flight over, I still wasn't sure where I planned to spend my first night, but I decided to stay outside of Shanghai with friends and fellow bloggers Rory and Julie, in order to gather my bearings before moving on. So, I took a two-hour bus from the airport to the Shanghai South Train Station, then another 45-minute train to Jiazing, before I showed up much to the surprise of Rory and Julie (well, Rory at least, as I had indicated to Julie that I might be spending a night). After two nights here, I head out to Hangzhou tomorrow, to fly down to Guangzhou, near Hong Kong, site of a few meetings with professors. Let me also add that Delta' standards seem to have lowered considerably, as the only snack separating the 12-odd hours between meals was a bun with mayonnaise and a hard-boiled egg. Yuck.

When I say Jiaxing is outside of Shanghai, I mean only about 60 km, but I also mean devoid of any white people not working at the English school where they teach. Jiaxing probably has about 3 million people, but I was certainly the only white person on the bus, and I had to read a book in order to deflect stares for the entire trip. It reminded me a lot of Weihai, and I actually prefer these places to the larger cities of Shanghai and Beijing, because people assume you're not simply a tourist and therefore try to sell you less crap. The city itself offers nothing remarkable, but it would be a comfortable place to live. The weather is quite warm, but also free of the snow that I don't want to see more than once a year, anyhow. Palm trees can grow and are indeed abundant. Tolerable beer can also be located relatively easily.

Round Two

2008-06-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

When I returned from China last year, I really did not expect to go back for at least several years. Life in China had simply lost its luster-- pollution, corruption, cultural differences, exhaustion-- all made me long for the trip home. About a month after I returned home, I got the urge to go to Germany, but within a few days of arriving, I knew that I was not yet ready to begin another short-term life in a foreign country. I was blessed with a job at Oglethorpe University immediately upon returning from Germany, and I am thankful for the experience.

Sometime around the thaw of the spring, though, I begin to yearn again for the relative simplicity (not to be confused with ease) of my life in China. Eventually, I made the decision to return to school and started thinking about how China might be involved in my future studies. Certainly, the development in China was something to be awed, but I also wished I could have had more of a hand in directing, or moderating, that development. China's rapid development means that millions of workers, mostly voluntarily, become displaced as they follow the manufacturing and construction jobs around the country. Often, though, their children are left without an education, as they lack the proper paperwork and permits to study away from their natural home. Just as we value the cheap goods afforded by illegal workers in America, so, too, are the migrant workers valued in China only as long as their work is required. Any desire for social support on the part of the migrant worker is mocked as pipe dreams, as another migrant or illegal worker is always ready to step up to fill the need, without wish for rights and fair or appropriate compensation. In addition to an interest in education and development, I also hope to examine housing, poverty, homelessness, and racial/immigrant prejudices. All are problems in China, but so, too, are they in America. Thus, my hope is that a comparative approach will allow me to address issues in America and learn from other contexts how me may improve our own social support systems, awareness, and development.

Naturally, as I thought about going back to school and conducting research in China, with this trip I hope to establish a few connections with professors, researchers, and NGO leaders to support that research. I also plan to visit a few friends across the East Coast.

Unfortunately, around the time I was formulating these plans, the earthquake in Sichuan struck. Initially, I was quite disappointed, for I have wanted to travel to Sichuan since I first arrived in China, and I thought the earthquake would again prevent me from doing so. But, upon more thought, now is the perfect time to visit. I hope to become involved, if possible, with relief effort. This has been no easy task; it seems to be easier to acquire a paying job than it does to simply volunteer in China. I have made a few contacts, but any volunteer work will likely result from simply traveling to the area and inquiring about specific needs. I may be able to help, but I may not. With China, nothing is ever certain. To friends back home, this often comes across as a daredevilness or a lack of preparation, perhaps, but I try to view it more as a realization that flexibility in the most important trait to carry with oneself in the country.

Even if I am unable to lay brick and mortar on a new home or participate in other manual labor, I think the trip will be incredibly worthwhile. If nothing else, I hope to observe the work community organizations are doing, observe how people are coping, and consider how the response may more adequately support the needs and redevelopment of the area.

This blog will apparently forever be reserved for postings from/about China. I will do my best to keep it updated over the next five weeks.

Reflections on The Journey Home

2007-07-21T03:48:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post some final reflections and realizations about my time in China. Specifically, while here, I've learned a lot about myself, about China, about how we live as a society, and other things.

I have come to desire more permanence and stability in life. Perhaps this is only a temporary stage after feeling transient for the past five years or so, but I have a feeling it is a larger shift in my mentality.

I think this time has helped me better understand the importance of friends and family. I hope in the future I will appreciate them more.

I realize that I no longer really want to sleep in dorm rooms in hostels, especially in China. The hostel in which I stayed in Hong Kong was the absolute most disgusting of my life. The day I left, all of the other people in my six-person room moved to a different place to escape the bed bugs. I had previously moved out of a 12-person room for the same reason.

I'm more confident/less concerned with what people think about me. I suppose this is only a natural consequence of teaching and living in a place where people stare at you everyday.

I can't wait to go back to school.

I desire to become an "educated" consumer again:
- to be able to buy things that suit my tastes
- to know what the products I am buying actually are
- to know what is in the products I am buying
- to know that the products I consume are (almost) always safe
- to know how much something costs without having to haggle or fight
- to know I am being treated fairly
- to know that the product is quality and will not break soon

I am less scared of the idea of China. When I came here, I imagined it as a giant that would be conquering the world in the next two decades. I now realize the intricacies of Chinese life and understand that the process will be a long one. Of particular difficulty will be slowing and reversing the rapidly growing disparity between the rich and the poor. One of the biggest things that has surprised me has been the relative disregard for the poor. Far from what I imagined, most of the Chinese people with whom I came into contact are less collective and as individualistic as and, if I may say, perhaps more selfish than, Westerners.

Appearance is very important in China, particularly in distinguishing one's higher wealth/status. For instance, it's possible to buy gold club bags for each individual golf club. Thus, most people that do "golf" don't even have more than a few clubs and therefore don't really golf, but see it rather as an opportunity to display wealth. Thus, even though carrying around one golf club in a bag to a golf course has no real purpose for actually playing the game, it allows others to see that a person can, indeed, afford to play golf, or at least afford to carry around a golf club in a bag. It's also very common for Chinese men to grow out one or both of their pinky nails to show that they do not engage in manual labor. The nail is usually brittle and yellow and looks disgusting, but at least others know they aren't farmers. Finally, appearance can be important in the purchasing of goods. If an object looks like an object, it's good enough; it is not necessary for the object to actually function as the object it represents. For example, I purchased a "suitcase" for a few dollars before I returned home, but before it had even made it to its first plane, two side handles had fallen off, the pull-out handle had broken away from the suitcase, and the wheels had been completely ripped off. It originally looked like a suitcase, but it sure hadn't been made to function as one.

Perhaps the biggest thing I've learned about China regards its struggle to find an identity. The country is changing so rapidly that it seems to have little time to think about the actual direction in which it's being propelled. There is an immense respect for the past, as seen in the regard for ancient art and poetry, but much of it seems to be lost to the growing desire to conform to the West. Unfortunately, this usually results in something unidentifiable that is neither Chinese nor Western, as seen in the monstrous and hideous buildings that characterize almost every Chinese city. I think reconciling this dichotomy will be the greatest challenge the next generation of Chinese faces.

I'm sure I will have more reflections as time goes on, but I wanted to write these down before they fade into my memory. Now, I'm off to pack my last few things. Hopefully I'll have fewer things than the man below:

Believe it or not, this is not the most outrageous thing I've seen carried on a bike or a three-wheeler. I've seen a man riding a bike carry another bike on his shoulder, and I've also seen a washer and dryer strapped to the back of one.

The Journey South

2007-07-21T02:16:00.000-07:00

My time is almost up! Only one day left in China! I am in Beijing now doing some last minute errands, shopping, and packing, and tomorrow I'll be boarding a plane back to Atlanta.

Since I last posted, I've been traveling non-stop. I had been planning to join a Vanderbilt field school in southern China for months, and as soon as I had finished entering my grades at the university in Weihai, I purchased my ticket to join the rest of the members. I flew from Weihai to Beijing and then to Guilin. In Guilin I met a lady who was returning to her hometown in Liuzhou, also my destination, and after talking with her on the airport bus into town, she accompanied and even pad for my ticket to Liuzhou!

Some views of southern China from the plane:

The field school was examining Urban Planning, Rural Development, Health Services, and English Education in Guangxi Autonomous Region. Guangxi is known for its geographic beauty-- limestone karsts situated along the Li River. I was originally assigned to the Education team, but unfortunately it had recently been completed. So, I joined up with a few members of the rural development team instead. Originally, the team had planned on conducting ethnographies and surveys and then using them to write a grant to provide assistance to the area. Unfortunately, the local government had blocked most of their proposals even though the Chinese consulate had previously approved them, so we could also do some informal observations about how some of the villages have been affected by tourism.

One of the first things I did in Liuzhou was visit a local winery:

An old gate to the city:

People dancing in a local park:

Most people have umbrellas attached to their bikes in case it suddenly starts raining. In the summer it rains almost everyday, and earlier this summer Liuzhou experienced several weeks of intense flooding that killed several people.

The central square in Liuzhou:

Eating some southern Chinese food with plastic gloves!

Some local karst scenery:

Guangxi is not exempt from Chinglish:

After spending a couple of days in Liuzhou, we took three buses to a small village called Ping'An, which is famous for its rice terraces. The next days we hiked five hours to the smaller, surrounding villages, and spoke informally with the village inhabitants. As more tourists come to the area, fewer of the townspeople must farm; up until six or seven years ago, however, the villagers ate almost only rice, so the tourism really has improved their lives, and no one we met said they preferred the village ten years ago the the one now. Of course, foreign money makes them happy, but it is nice to know that their economic development has also seen an improvement in their social lives.

This is the fattest baby I have every seen, on the bus to Ping-An. It also had diarrhea, so the mother had to change its underpants four times during the two-hour ride (she didn't have diapers). By the end of the trip, she had baby poo all over the front of her clothes. It was disgusting.

This girl was vomiting, probably partly from the baby diarrhea, and partly from the incredibly fast driving around the mountain with sheer drops offs the side of the mountain:

I don't know what this product is:

Men waiting to carry (lazy) tourists to the village:

The entrance to the village:

These guys really smelled:

Split pants!

Some Dong minority women in the village (that is their really long hair wrapped around their heads!):

Ping'An at dusk:

Workers around Ping-An:

Walking back to the paddies:

Some children idling the day away:

We could walk right through the paddies!

An old man who has probably lived and worked in these rice paddies his whole life:

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Rice has been farmed here for centuries. I wonder how long this hut has been here:

After two nights in Ping'An, we took the three/four buses (one change included walking across a destroyed bridge and boarding another bus) for another two nights in Liuzhou.

Walking from one bus to another, across the bridge:

On the afternoon of the 14th, I took a 16-hour train to Guangzhou, followed by a two-hour bus to Shenzhen, followed by a one-hour train to Hong Kong. Hong Kong, like Guangxi, was another place I had hoped to visit since I came to China, and the fact that the Field School participants would be attending a conference in Hong Kong gave me added incentive to go. The conference focused on international social development, though a lot of the presentations focused on social work and social work education. Honestly, much of the conference was a little disappointing because a lot of the papers presented had too little quantitative data and too much fluff, but some of the presentations that focused on human trade and trafficking were excellent, as was Amartya Sen's keynote speech.

Aside from the conference, Hong Kong is a great city. As it has a European history, I thimk it will be a good transition back to America. It reminded me a lot of San Francisco, though no one else seems to agree with this evaluation. The city is situated around a harbor, has lots of skyscrapers and trams, and is very hilly, crowded, and diverse.

A mosque in Kowloon, Hong Kong:

Hong Kong from atop Victoria Peak:

And from the ferry at night:

Having recently surpassed Britain's per capita GDP, Hong Kong also has its share of the absurd that only comes with too much wealth:

Posing on a pink pearl panda:

A shopping street in Hong Kong:

Macau served as one final destination I had hoped to visit since arriving. An hour away from Hong Kong by a (very bumpy and nauseating--barf bags are frequently used) ferry, it made for a perfect day trip. It has a history similar to Hong Kong's, though it was in Portuguese hands, not British, until a few years ago. Much more so that Hong Kong, it has the feel of a European village, as the city has seen much less wealth than Hong Kong until recently and thus retains a smaller, older, and more intimate feel.

The street signs are written in Portuguese and Chinese:

Incense hanging from a temple in Macau:

The old city center:

The first Christian church in The Orient:

The ruins of St. Pauls's church:

And the grittier city center:

After finishing up the conference on the 20th, I flew back to Beijing for two more days to do some final shopping and packing. I'll be home the night of July 22 for those who wish to throw me a "Welcome Home" party.

Weihai, Zaijian!

2007-07-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I say goodbye to Weihai for probably the last time. That means I have a little more than two weeks left in China. I must say I'm not too sad to be leaving Weihai at the moment: many of my good friends are also leaving; I've been fighting with the international office because they don't want to pay me for my work in July; I've been on the toilet for two days because I've had a combination cold/stomach flu/traveler's diarrhea/food poisoning/stress from moving back/stress from fighting the international office; the water is currently turned off for three days; my apartment consequently smells like poo; I'm going to be joining up with a Vanderbilt research team in southern China after I leave Weihai; I will then go to Hong Kong; I will then fly home to the open arms of my family and friends; pizza and ice cream will be waiting for me at home; and it will be much easier to conduct an interview for a job on the same side of the globe as the actual job.

Tonight, my last in Weihai (the only reason it wouldn't be my last is if I have to return to fight the international office some more), was a great (and typical of my time here) way to go out: karaoke! I went with my Asian standards, as well as some of my other best friends in Weihai, and we sang a few classics by Madonna and Britney of course, some Christmas ones (it is July, after all), as well as a few Asian ones that I was mostly unable to read. Then I came back to start/finish packing, and I'm still working on that at 3am.

Sora and Sumin shaking their stuff:

Xu Dong breaking it down:

A few nights ago, they even organized a fountain spectacular in front of the library for my farewell (actually, it may have mostly been for graduation):

Three cool cats (from a few weeks ago):

I don't know what I'm doing in this one (those aren't my empty beers):

Happy no happy?

2007-06-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

Let me recount the conversation I had today with a woman whose English is much worse than my Chinese, but who doesn't know I can speak Chinese (actually, she talks too much and doesn't listen to her conversational partner to even know what he is saying). Her husband teaches at the university, and I have briefly talked with her a couple of times, and it is always really awkward.

Lady: Hello, sit. Sit. Sit. Sit.
(Lady forces me to sit, even though I clearly don't want to because I'm not going to be riding the bus for that long)
Me: Ok
Lady: Qingdao daxue laoshi happy no happy.
Me: I'm leaving soon. No happy.
(Lady doesn't understand)
Lady: You Qingdao University happy no happy?
Me: No happy, weihai happy.
LAdy: Weihai happy no happy, Qingdao happy no happy?
Me: Weihai happy.

In Chinese, it's possible to ask questions by stating the intended verb and then negating it. Clearly, she is using this construction for asking questions in English, and the result just makes me laugh. She was trying to see if I would be interested in taking a position as a teacher in Qingdao, but I think it would have been difficult to know this if I were unfamiliar with Chinese, even though she was speaking in English.

Happy no happy?

Rongcheng!

2007-06-27T02:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend marked the last of my day/weekend excursions from Weihai; my final one, this weekend, will be spent packing and seeing friends for the final time.

Allyssa, Nadeige, and I hired a car to take us to Rongcheng and specifically to Chengshantou, the furthest point east on the Chinese mainland, and a well-reviewed zoo where, rumour had it, you could toss live chickens to the animals for a nominal fee.

We had the driver drop us off first at Chengshantou, where we did a little hiking along the coast. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty cloudy, but at least the rain held off for a little while (until we got to the zoo). On the other hand, this meant that there were relatively few tourists, which in China is always a good thing.

A statue garden near the entrance to Chengshantou:

The coast near the end of the world:

In China, I suppose it never hurts to be reminded (On that note, I saw my first full grown woman urinating on the street the other day. She was seated on the curb with her pants pulled down, whizzing away. I'd seen kids and drunk guys do it before, but never a woman. Then, a few days later, I saw another one doing it in plain daylight!), regardless of the place:

Heaven right this way, please:

The official edge of the world/heaven, though as you can see in the second picture, it's actually NOT the furthest point east:

Let's hear it for the year of the pig! The Golden Year, in fact!

So many choices, so much confusion...

If I see you shooting sharks on the fishing platform, you will be asked to leave. And vice versa. Order, people!

I've commented before on China's tendency to make up jobs just to keep people employed. This man's job is to sweep the street:

After we finished up at Chengshantou and made our way back to the car, our next stop was the zoo. Unlike any other zoo I've seen before, this one allowed you to walk on platforms above the animals. This, combined with the fact that most of the cages are very small, gave me the closest look I've ever had at most of the animals.

White tiger:

The zoo staff apparently have a lot of free time and imagination, because they came up ridiculous combinations for various cages. I'm pretty sure this would be considered unethical or cruel in most other countries, but here it's real entertainment.

This one, called "Harmonious Paradise", featured a lion, tiger, dog, and panther, all living together harmoniously.

Well, most of the time:

Another exhibit, labeled "Peaceful Coexistence", featured hyenas, wolves, and leopards. Here, you can see the leopards and wolves actually sleeping together. My guess is that all of them were on tranquilizers:

Next up were tons of different monkey cages, and we were allowed to walk around inside this one (with the monkeys). If you look closely, you can see some hanging onto the ropes.

However, monkeys have to follow rules. Among the offences: rascaldom, stealing, dacoity, stowaway, and hurting. At least the judges are impartial and incorruptible, though:

If they don't, they end up here:

Several kinds of monkeys were free from the threat of monkey prison, and they each had their own section of the zoo.

I like these little guys; they look like they've dipped their arms into yellow paint.

And this one yawned (imposingly) quite a lot:

Of course, there was also a section where the zookeepers had mixed a lot of monkeys together:

There were some animals I had never seen before (as well as many hilarious signs; I suggest reading all of them):

And some that I've never before seen in a zoo:

Is the zoo staff making a value judgement on these squirrels?

Can you guess what a "small fairy" is?

That's right! An opossum!

I didn't know otters were members of the wolf family:

A really (un)useful sign for the boa constrictors:

Next up was the bird section:

A beautiful peacock:

And ostriches, which were tall enough, combined with the low sidewalk, to snap at children's' toes:

Apparently, they are also former knights:

The ultimate contraction (and command):

Awww... "Lesser Pandas"!

Next up was the African section, which somehow featured bears. This is also where the conditions for the animals became especially appalling.

I was secretly hoping this one would thrash the idiot sitting on top of it, but that would have required ripping out the ring the staff had inserted into its nose to control it:

The bear cage, on the other hand, was neither paradise nor harmonious. It's a bear plaza!

This Tibetan bear jumped right up on the wall and looked up at me. I think he really wanted to escape his concrete hell.

Racing stripes!

Elephant mud pit:

And rhinoceros mud pit!

Finally, we reached the petting zoo, the last section before the marina animals. These goats had had their fur painted with patterns of flowers and plants.

But at least they had a dog to keep them company!

After the marine animals and a long walk back to the driver, since the zoo had been planned rather poorly and doesn't loop back around to the beginning but rather ends in a deserted area about a kilometer from the entrance, we made the one-hour trip back home. We spent most of our time at the zoo rather than hiking as we had anticipated, but it was too difficult to stop staring at the monkeys fight each other. Unfortunately, I didn't get to fulfill my dream of throwing a chicken into a lion cage, as it was a little expensive, but we did cut up a tomato and throw them to monkeys and watch them elude one another as they munched on them.

This week, I'm just wrapping up my classes and reviewing for next week's exam. Time is almost up in Weihai, but it's been a wild and crazy ride.

T Minus 1 Month

2007-06-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Allyssa, Nadeige, and I took a trip to Liugongdao, the islad just a few kilometers off the coast of Weihai that has been taunting me for months. The island has a long history and has been occupied numerous times by both Britain and Japan because of its strategic location in the Yellow Sea, and until recently it was off-limits to all visitors. Since then, though, the government has made quite an effort to turn it into a tourist destination. The island was honestly a little disppointing, and several people had said that might be the case, but I would have kicked myself had I not gone, considering I've lived here for almost a year and I see it every time I go downtown.

To get to the island, obviously you have to take a ferry. This was a bit overpriced, as are most tourist attractions in China. I find that often, tourists things are even more expensive here than they are back home. To get into the museum that contained little more than photos of the battles between Japan and China (as well as several rooms of photos of people visiting the museum and looking at the photos) cost 4 dollars, and a top-notch at museum back home, or at least in Europe, would not be much more than that.

Riding the boat did give us a geat view of Weihai:

Liugongdao:

An exhibition hall on the island devoted to Sino-Japanese War of 1894:

Once on the island, we spent most of our day hiking through the forests, as the weather was absolutely perfect. We discovered that the island appears to house the remnants of a zoo, though only monkeys and some birds remain. I've never seen more appalling conditions at a "zoo". I don't think there was a single living thing in the cage besides the monkeys. Look how sad he/she looks:

A replica cannon (made of concrete) on one of the island's hills:

And a few other views back toward the Weihai coast:

A few people refused to leave the island after the Chinese wrestled back control last century from the British, and some of them make their living by pulling seaweed from the ocean and then drying and selling it:

An old ship from who knows when (I don't know how it's still standing):

"Sea Mushrooms" (Anyone ever seen these before? Speaking of weird food, I ate jellyfish for the first time the other day. It was surprisingly crunchy):

Exquisite doors leading to the old British naval headquarters located on the island:

Of course, the island also featured its fair share of hilarious translations.

A trashcan with a very specific purpose:

This description sounds like something from Lord of the Rings:

Those darn hooligans are causing a ruckus again!

I didn't realize navies were ranked (even back then). I'm not sure I'd brag about eighth place, though:

Finally, a few random pictures from last week.

Rory and Julie making quite a face over a few beers. The atmosphere wasn't quite as nice as a beer garden, but the beers were actually a tad bit larger than the biggest ones I found in Germany:

A real hedgehog from later on in the night!

I think when I don't even flench when I walk into a bathroom like the one seen below, I've been in China too long. The urinal was not connected to the pipes, so urine just drips onto the floor as you're peeing and splashes onto your feet. There's no fixture for women, so they are just expected to pee on the floor (where someone else has just vomited).

Tomorrow I'm off on my final weekend trip from Weihai, as I leave here in two weeks. This time the destination is Rongcheng/Chengshantou ("The Edge of the World), which is the furthest point east on the Chinese mainland. There's a nice hike along the coast as well as a zoo in which you can buy whole chicken for about 50 cents and toss it into the lion pit (or so I've been told)! If that is the case, you will definitely see Neal-tossing-chicken-pictures in the next post.

Another Trip, Another Batch of Crazy Chinglish

2007-06-11T03:05:00.000-07:00

I didn't think Confucius died from being sacrificed. At his own temple!

Yes, man originates from this mountain.

Caution is encouraged.

Especially close to the riverbanks, aka cliffs:

I don't want to get any closer to the urinal! It smells like a urinal!

Especially in the baphroom!

Another Weekend, Another Trip

2007-06-11T00:37:00.000-07:00

Continuing with the theme of dwindling time and a list of places we still have yet to visit, Allyssa and I decided to take a trip this weekend with Japanese and Korean friends to Qufu ad Tai'an, home of Confucius and Taishan, China's holiest Taoist mountain, for the weekend.

On Friday night, we took a bus to the nearby Yantai and then boarded a 9-hour train to Yanzhou, which at 15km away is the closest rail connection to Qufu. We were able to get "hard sleeper" tickets, offering the best combination of comfort and frugality. Despite the incredibly loud Chinese women below us and the fact that it was really hot on the train because they closed all the windows because they were cold, I actually slept pretty well until the morning music came on at around 6am.

Our accommodation:

We arrived in Yanzhou at about 7:30am and decided to take a taxi straight to Qufu and the Confucius Temple. Confucius was born in Qufu in 551 BC, and the first temple here dates back to 478 BC, and since then is has been repeatedly enlarged, though most of its present structure dates from around 1500. Along with the Forbidden City in Beijing and a summer resort in Chengdu, the temple is one of China's three greatest architectural complexes, and when the emperor came to visit, it is said that parts of the temple were covered up so that he wouldn't become jealous. Having been to the Forbidden City, though, the Confucius Temple has definitely lost some ground to the imperial palace today.

The Hall of the Great Achievements, and the altar within:

Many of the trees are famous, so we had to mock, of course, some of the ridiculous photographs the Chinese tourists were taking. Sumin next to a big tree goiter:

And Sora standing cool:

Ridiculous Chinese fashion (did we time warp back to the 80's?):

One of the best parts of the temple was a dance performance. It gave the place a sort of Disney-esque feel, but it was nonetheless cool.

Here, Sora is warming up a few of the instruments...

... Before the "performers" take control of them. Note: they didn't actually play them, and I believe the flutes didn't even have holes, and one of the string instruments was missing all of its strings except for one. They were there just to look cool while the dancers performed to the music on loudspeakers.

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After the dance show we walked around the complex a little more and then headed to the Confucius Mansion, which largely looked like the temple, until stumbled upon the garden where Confucius and his descendants often read books. Perhaps none of our writings will ever become as famous, but a little inspiration can't hurt.

After finishing up there, we scoped out some lunch (nothing like chicken claws for the soul, and to fill the belly...)...

...And then realized that Qufu really had nothing else to offer. We spent a couple of hours having name stamps made, and then Allyssa and I took a bus to Tai'an, while Sora and Sumin departed to return home.

A gate in the city wall as we were leaving Qufu...

And the huge communist statue that greeted us in Tai'an!

We arrived in Tai'an a little later than desired since the bus took 1.5 hours and not the advertised 30 minutes, so we wanted to quickly find a hotel. Our plan was to get dinner and then get 4-5 hours of sleep before hiking to the summit of the holiest Taoist mountain, Taishan, before sunrise.

A woman at the train station approached us, and the bargaining ensued as follows.
Woman: Are you looking for a room? We have rooms for 120yuan.
Me: No, too expensive.
Woman: We also have rooms for 100.... (I turn to walk away).... 80 (still walking)..... 60!.... (still walking). How much do you want to pay?
Me: 50 yuan (7 dollars).
Woman: Ok, we have rooms for 50, follow me.

We walked across the street to a hotel (the blue hotel in the picture with the statue), but they were out of rooms, so she took us to another one that looks much worse. The proprietor then charged us 60yuan, but when I again feigned walking out, she obliged with the original request. While I think I have stayed in a more disgusting hotel, (look back to Xanga and the entry for Hamburg, Germany), this one was definitely in the race.

The area next to the hotel:

Unfortunately, by the time we finished dinner and bought the flashlights requisite for the hike, it was already 9pm, leaving me with only about two hours to sleep before I needed to wake up, shower (I was disgusting from the train and bus rides and activities from the very warm day), and head to the base at around 11:30pm. I naturally overslept and we didn't leave until about 12:15am, but it turned not to hurt us in the end. Now, climbing a mountain at night may sound crazy to non-Chinese people, but it is THE thing to do here. The mountain of 5,000 feet has almost 7,000 steps carved into the entire 8km path up. It's said that those who climb the mountain live to be 100 years old, and that it's the first place in China from which you can see the sun rise. Even not getting started at the base of the mountain until almost 1am, we were joined by lots of other tourists, and at the halfway point, to which it is possible to take a bus and then continue to the summit by cable car (we were intense and walked all the steps), we were joined by thousands more. Keep in mind that this is in the wee hours of the morning.

A man offering incense on the way up, probably at around 2am:

The summit at around 4am. Thousands more are on other peaks or resting below the summit.

Sunrise:

The scheduled time was around 4:45 am, though we actually had to wait a little longer for the sun to rise above the thick haze. You'd think that the fact that there's so much haze that you can't even watch the sun rise on China's holiest mountain would alarm people, but I'm not sure it has, based on the level of pollution and genera apathy I've witnessed in the country.

On the hike down we were actually able to see what we had hiked past a few hours before, and I think not knowing exactly how far we had to go definitely helped out resolve to get to the summit. Plus, it was much cooler than it would have been if we had waited until after sunrise.

A temple complex:

And engraved rock facades:

I usually carry incense in my DaVinci Code backpack, too:

The hike down:

And looking back up:

Imagine walking all these steps (and more). At 1am.

Here, porters carry things like watermelon up the mountain. This must be an incredibly hard job. Some porters make as much as three round trips a day, six or seven days a week. As expected, they earn very little money. Why don't the businesses on the mountain just use the bus and cable car system? Sure, it would cost a little extra money, but it would save these people from backbreaking work. But, in a country as crowded as China, perhaps it as seen as more important that the people have jobs, as difficult as they may be.

Allyssa and I reached the bottom at about 8am after a one-hour break for sunrise and several more bathroom stops on the way down, meaning that our total time of hiking was about 6 hours. Not bad for 10 miles round-trip of stairs.

We were eager to get back to Weihai in any way possible so as to sleep on our own beds, and being only about 250 miles from home, you'd think this would be pretty easy. Allow me to elaborate on China's train and bus system.

It's archaic and incredibly unorganized. It's impossible to buy train tickets unless you're in the actual city from which the train departs (unless you hire an expensive broker). It's also impossible to connect in a different city without buying new tickets. Thus, if you're in Tai'an and want to go back to Weihai, which isn't directly connected to Tai'an by train, you must first buy a ticket to Jinan, disembark, buy new tickets, and board another train. What makes this more difficult is the fact that you can only buy tickets 5 days in advance, and they usually sell out before the day of departure. Thus, if you arrive in a city and need to change trains, your layover is likely to last at least a day in every city in which you have to change trains. Naturally, we wanted to avoid the prospect of getting to Jinan and having to endure along layover, so instead we tried to take a train from Tai'an to Yantai (only an hour from Weihai) and then perhaps get a bus from there. Unfortunately, there were only standing room tickets available (Had we been able to book on the internet, or from a remote place before the day of our departure, we would have been fine, but like I said, this is literally impossible. Simply astounding.), and because we had not really slept the night before and instead climbed a mountain, this was not an exciting prospect. The next step was to see about big long-distance buses, since I had vowed never to ride a minibus again. That was also a no go, they didn't have any to Weihai. Last step: minibuses. Of course, there was a minibus departing (supposedly) at 10am, in only 30 minutes, so we bought tickets. These tickets were 125yuan, far more than the train (99yuan) or a big bus might have been. Again, as with the train system, I simply don't understand the logic. The most expensive, and most enraging, way to travel is by minibus. In every other country I've been, the very worst option is the cheapest. Not in China. If you're going to be tortured for hours on end, you're also going to charged out the wazoo. You'd think someone would realize this glaring fact and change things, but it surely has not happened yet. I was still a little hopeful that the journey would be ok, because the ticket agent said the trip would only take 6 hours, but I had a suspicion the trip would take far longer, and an hour later, after we had visited the other three long-distance bus stations in Tai'an and still not left the city, I knew it was going to be a long day. Again, I don't want to needlessly complain, but why do you need 4 of the exact same bus stations in the same (small) city? It takes an hour for every bus to leave the city. Instead of having people congregate at one place and then get things moving efficiently, you have to waste an hour. On top of that, the buses are horribly uncomfortable and stop every few minutes to try and recruit additional riders who happen to be walking along the highway! So instead of the promised 6 hours, we were on the bus for 9 hours. I should say busES, actually, because were were on three of them. After about 5 hours on the first one, which was relatively comfortable and odor-free, the driver worked out a deal with another bus (apparently he was no longer going to weihai) and we boarded it. It was quite full and a lot more cramped, but it did at least say Weihai on the front of it, so we thought we were safe. WRONG! About an hour later, we were transferred to a third bus. This one was one of the worst I have been on. There were only two seats left, and I got stuck in the back row with five people. It smelled like a combination of bunghole, pee, and foot fungus, and I had to sit next to a really rude chubby Chinese woman that took up half of my seat so that she could turn sideways and place her nasty feet on her boyfriend's lap. Despite the fact that the bus was completely full, the bus still deemed it necessary to stop and pick up extra passengers, and they generally sat near the front of the bus on the floor next to the driver. Have I mentioned that safety and traffic laws need not be followed? When the bus finally pulled into Weihai three hours later, Allyssa and I chose to get off the bus at the edge of town and take a taxi back to school rather than take the bus another 30-60 minutes to the bus station. I'd like to say again that I will never again ride a minibus in China, but I know that "never" actually means "never", especially in China, the land of a God-forsaken travel system.

The Chinese Po-Po

2007-06-07T02:07:00.000-07:00

Last night was ridiculous.

I met fellow laowai Rory and Julie for dinner along the beach, and we decided to go to a restaurant they had been to before, specifically because they hadn't been ripped off the first time. We ordered several dishes and I observed that they were a little expensive to start with (14yuan for tomato-egg dish, which is normally about 8; 14 for lamb, which is usually about 12; 14 for kung pow chicken, which is normally around 12; and 18 for fried potatoes, which are normally around 8; we also got two bottles of baijiu for 10 apiece, a little overpriced, and 3 bottles of beer for 5 apiece, though they should have been around 3), but considering it was the beach, I thought it was acceptable. Add all of this up, and it should have been 85yuan, which, again, is expensive by normal standards. Imagine our surprise when the bill came and the total was 127yuan. The 14 for the lamb had been crossed out and mysteriously converted to 28, and then to 38 yuan. The kung pow chicken had now become 24, and the egg-tomato had also increased. The only thing that remained the same was the potato dish, which, incidentally, was the most outrageously overpriced dish to begin with. Now, the difference in the bills was only about 40 yuan, or around 5 dollars, but at this point in my time in China, I'm sick of being treated differently because I'm a foreigner. I'm tired of people telling me what I can and can't do because they think I'm inept or don't understand; that I can't take pictures even though I am photographed more than a model; and that I should pay more because they assume I'm a tourist. I think this has made me bolder, so when the waitress brought the bill, we refused to pay it. We argued with the waitress for a good 30 minutes, but she wouldn't budge, so we finally just decided to leave 100 on the table and leave. When we did this, she came storming out of the restaurant with her husband and they grabbed the three of us and wouldn't let us go. She had a grip on me so tight that I had to karate chop her hands and arms before I could twist free, but not before she ripped a hole in my shirt the size of a cantaloupe. At one point I stopped and thought, man, I am hitting a woman, but she would not let go! In America I could have sued her for sure. Even after we wrestled free, she left her husband to guard us while she called the police. All over 4 dollars, and even though we had been the only customers all night. So, we waited another half hour for the police to arrive, and then waited for him while he alternately listened to each of our stories, back and forth, for an hour. I was a little nervous not that we would get in trouble, that he'd write us off as foreigners and assume we were to blame, but he was actually very impartial. He asked us a few times why we couldn't just pay the money, and I reiterated the fact that we shouldn't have to, and that we get cheated every time we try to do something. The policemen did try to write my name down, but I again refused because we had no fault.

I also pointed out where the waitress had crossed out the original prices on the ticket, and mr. policeman finally sided with us and told us to go ahead and leave. I think he knew all along we were right, but he didn't want to piss off the (Chinese) restaurant owner. He told me that I should get a receipt in the future whenever I order the food, so that something similar wouldn't happen again; I had pretty much done that last night, but I assumed that the waitress wouldn't blatantly try to change the prices even after I had asked her how much the dishes were and seen her write the prices down. So, I guess from now on when I go to a restaurant, I'm going to have to sign a contract!

At one point, another group of policemen arrived, and one of the policemen that had arrived first explained to the second car what was going on, and they just smiled and left, waiving as they drove away; they, too, understood how ridiculous the situation was. So, everything was finally over after several hours. I saved the 30 yuan, though ironically, the shirt that the lady destroyed cost more than 30 yuan, so I actually came out in the red. Sometimes being stubborn/firm/hard-headed/resistant/principled is worth more than a monetary value, I suppose.

More Wacky English Translations

2007-06-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

One of the most entertaining parts of the trip was simply reading the descriptions of the products on the nightstand in our hotel room. Not to be negative, but when products claim to prevent sexual diseases that clearly don't have the capability to do so, you have to wonder how large of a role a lack of education plays in China's AIDS problem.

Look at the subtle differences in the men's and women's versions. The women's version is also suited for the home, while the men's isn't.

I like that these are called "nabs". They don't say much for Chinese men when the man on the carton is advertising it by placing it on his finger:

Hmm, I wonder what will happen to a towel when it gets wet.

I don't think I normally have dirt and grease in my mouth.

Do men need "vagina care"?

And my favorite of them all; this one is unbelievable (both the front and especially the back):

Dalian!

2007-06-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

After realizing that we only had five weeks left in Weihai, Allyssa and I decided that we better make the most of our time and get to those places we had been talking of visiting since we got here. We assembled a real motley crew, featuring the two of us as well as a French teacher, a Korean teacher, and another American teacher. I had heard several people praise the city of Dalian, with one even saying it was her favorite city in China. With that in mind, we booked tickets on the overnight ferry from Weihai, departing at 9:30pm and arriving at 4:30pm the next day.

Pictures of the ferry, though this is actually our return ferry. The first one was newer and nicer and a little larger.

And the "toilets":

Morning port:

I brought a book to read, but mostly we just talked and listened to music before we tried to sleep, and I only read two pages of the book the entire weekend. We were awakened by a very loud Chinese woman banging on our door with a wooden spoon, and perhaps I felt a bit more threatened than I should have been, as it was before 5am. We made our way off the boat and walked to a park for breakfast. One of the reasons Dalian is so praised is because its previous mayor ushered in a green revolution in the city, building parks and squares and generally trying to clean things up. This means that people now actually have places to gather and associate, something that is rare in China.

Old men stretching on a park fence. I'm glad the railing isn't higher.

Taiji in a park:

Though it can still be pretty polluted, it was pretty clean compared to the rest of China, and I think it has been named the best place to live in China. And because of its history including long occupations by both Japan and Russia, it also has interesting architecture, and its skyline probably ranks in China's top 5, behind Shanghai and Hong Kong and maybe a few others.

Below, the sun rising on the Eiffel Tower:

Zhongshan Guangchang, the main square in the city:

And one of the most garish "castles" I've ever seen. It's actually a museum for shells. This fact confuses me even more. How many shells could you possible have in a museum?

TV shows and advertisements are actually shown on the side of this tower:

As I've said before, when China realizes it has something good going, it often overreacts, turning a tourist attraction into something so obscene that people no longer desire to visit it (see previous post on Terra Cotta Soldiers). This is exactly what Dalian has done with its old Russian Quarter. Now it looks more like Disney World:

As we discovered while strolling, people in Dalian even stand in lines! Apart from Beijing on the 11th of each month (the 1's remind people to stand in straight lines), I have not encountered real, observed lines anywhere in China. Hooray, Dalian! This is one of the most frustrating things about living in China, and perhaps this is why I enjoyed Dalian so much. Respect!

As clean as Dalian is, though, we still managed to see several Chinese babies wearing the infamous split pants. As I've said before, this makes it possible for children to simply pee and poo on the street as they please.

Most of the time we simply walked around the city. It was nice to have a change of scenery, even if it didn't entail doing anything particularly touristy. We ate food (starfish, sea urchins, squid, clams, etc:

And watched a Chinese version of something like American Idol. The singers were just as bad, maybe even worse:

And watched these tiny three-wheelers go by:

There were plenty of places to shop, but I refrained from buying too much beyond a few wacky souvenirs because I need to save money for the rest of my weekend trips.

Spoons for sell under a tent:

Ahhhhhhh! Attacks of the Russian keychain dolls!

Meanwhile, these two are suffocating:

A wacky Chinese billboard advertising an aquarium. I'm pretty sure it's photoshopped:

I didn't have enough money to shop here (sorry, Mom):

But I did find the "Good Food" aka "Imported Food" (are those synonymous at this point?) section in a supermarket:

We also managed to find a foreign bookstore, but perhaps the sections of the store featuring English materials indicate why my students' English still has a distinctly Chinese feel. At one point a worker demanded that I stopped taking photos; she had a lot of gall considering I have my picture taken several times daily, usually without my knowing it, simply because I'm a foreigner. That, and the fact that I'm sick of people tell me not to take pictures for stupid reasons, made me more determined.

Where else would you study abroad?

It's so crazy, it's spelled "crary"!

Maybe the reason my Chinese isn't fluent is because I've been studying "chinses".

Not sure about this one:

Or this one:

On our second day in Dalian, we spent more time outside. One of the more interesting things we encountered was a Chinese wedding chapel.

As I've mentioned before, weddings in China are even more so a reason for the bride to be pampered than in the US. We saw several dozen couples, all receiving the same exact treatment. It really was like a wedding factory. Pictures in the weeds?

Check.

Pictures on the beach?

Check.

Pictures with the doves?

Check.

Is it traditional to wear jeans under your wedding dress? Maybe it's a cultural thing. Or maybe she didn't have time to take them off because she was being rushed through so many pictures.

The rest of our time we spent walking along the coast, which was actually much more beautiful than any of the beaches were appealing.

I also encountered this spider. I don't think I'd ever seen one before.

Squeal like a penguin!

I will eat you alive and use your bones for toothpicks.

Stalker Saga Supplement

2007-05-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to talk with the vice dean late last week about Stalker, but unfortunately not before I had her in class again. Stalker was dressed to the nines as never before, and I am quite sure it was an effort to make me regret not reciprocating her unwanted advances. I was a little unsure that anything would be done after my meeting with the vice dean, but fortunately I got this email from her a couple of days later:

"The party secretary told me that she had a talk with the student and asked her to stop the improper behavior right away. The student felt a bit afraid and losing face, and she agreed. I hope she will not disturb you any more. If she does, please let me know as soon as possible.

"You know, most of the students we are teaching are the only child at home due to China's Family Planning Policy. They are spoilt. They are naive and lack of self-control. I have felt big difference between them and the students I taught years ago. They demand more attention and help from us, both teachers and political instructors who are responsible for their behavior.

Let's hope that the situation changes, though I imagine my last few weeks teaching her will remain awkward.

As far as Stalker's myspace profile goes, she seems to have reacted in the vitriolic manner I would have expected.

From Stalker's myspace profile from May 28:
"Life lesson: If you walk on the street, suddenly a mad dog bites you without reason. What you have to do is continuing to walk with good mood. You don't have to argue with it, because it is a beast. You should keep walking and enjoying your life. We are young; we don't know how sophisticated the society is and how many beasts there are in the world. You behave well and are a good person, which is most important.we can not trust a person before we know what kind of person he is. He may be a beast which disguises being a good man.Everyone has its worst experiences; it is one of my worst nightmares. I wish every good person has beautify life without interrupting by any of these beasts.

And though the following part has been posted for a while, it has suddenly become a lot more ironic:
"Frankly speaking, I don't want to meet some big guys like others. I think it is ridiculous, because worship is very ridiculous at first. Why someone always worship other people confuses me all the time. These so called big guys are normal people who eat, drink and sleep like us.

OK, on to better things. This past weekend Allyssa and I threw a birthday party for a Japanese friend turning the big 2-9; she's the one in the yellow shirt below. Allyssa was in charge of most of the food, though I did throw in a few kebabs. I was in charge of the beverages: sangria and margaritas. The sangria turned out really well, and while the margaritas were good, they tasted more like tropical punch than margaritas. Considering I haven't seen one lime in China, I suppose this was inevitable. Anyhow, after everyone had consumed a few glasses (which for Asians spells trouble), we commenced the taking of goofy pictures.

Below, a Korean friend makes fun of ridiculous Korean picture poses.

And an international (Korean + Korean+ Japanese + American) girl sandwich!

Finally, I leave you with a picture of the most hideous building in Weihai. I cringe every time I look at it. It's just awful. Why a fountain pen? Why mauve, cream, and beige? Why the sloped, curved facade? Why tiles? Why really ugly glass? Why the lincoln-log-like entrance?

Heart of a Champion

2007-05-22T03:38:00.000-07:00

Once Andrew left last week, life continued as normal. Well, as normal as China can be. Thursday and Friday classes were cancelled in lieu of "Sports Meeting". I thought I had avoided participation, as I had been left off the roster when a fellow teacher checked on Wednesday, and no one said anything to me on Thursday when I went to observe. When I went back on Friday afternoon to watch a friend run, on my way to play tennis, however, I was asked to run. In 15 minutes. Seriously, what would they have done had I not come along? So, I quickly changed into my "running gear" and warmed up. Ok, not really. I was already wearing tennis clothes and brand new tennis shoes I had never worn, so I was as ready as I could be given the time limitations. I would be running the fourth leg of the 4x400 (four laps total) with three other members of the the English department. By the time the baton was handed off to me, though, our team was in last place, more than half a lap behind the leaders and so far behind that I could only possibly have passed one person (who was already at the second turn when I started). As it was, and because I had not trained at all or warmed up, I forwent any intentions of pacing myself and ran as fast as I could out of the blocks (ok, there weren't any blocks), and by the final turn I could tell I really had nothing left. Unfortunately, I was only neck and neck with the next-to-last place runner at this point, so he had just enough gas left to beat me at the end. Our team finished in 7th place, aka last place, aka 6th loser, but I without a doubt had the loudest cheer section I heard over the entire two days. I think the English department cheering section in the first turn was excited and surprised to see me running, and they cheered so loud they alerted everyone else to the fact that there was a foreigner running, and then they started cheering as well. So, by the last turn I was just smiling at the ridiculousness of it all, a foreigner in last place receiving the loudest cheers. Hooray, China!

Drums help motivate the runners to the finish line!

The Three-legged race!

Most of the girls carry around parasols to shield themselves from the sun. Unlike America (unfortunately for my pasty skin), white skin is considered beautiful, so many of the face creams and washes also contain whitening agents.

In two months, I'm leavin' on a jet plane (don't know when I'll be back again). In honor of the occasion, I'm going to list a few of the weird things I've eaten here and will likely never eat again:

-congealed lamb's blood
-donkey dumplings
-cow stomach
-chicken hearts
-chicken claws
-deer penis/antler liquor
-octopus tentacles
-cow tripe
-something that's so weird it's not in my dictionary, though it tasted as I imagine intestines would taste.

Also, though not specifically to celebrate my final two months of life in China, I have recently acquired a genuine, real-life stalker. She is a student of mine and apparently is crazy. Part scary, part funny, below I have posted the four messages she has sent me so far, aswell as three subsequent text messages. Tomorrow I plan to talk to the dean and see what can be done. I don't want to get her in trouble, but clearly her actions are inappropriate and increasingly offensive.

Date: May 1, 2007 4:59 AM
Subject: Something seems out of control
Body: It's Audrey here. I don't know whether I should write this message to you or not. But I clearly know that I have already gone crazy and my life has been ruined because of you. In the past two months, I have spent most of the time thinking of you and until now I still don't know what you mean. All the things are just like a dream and I don't know what my feeling is. I planed to lead a peaceful life in the university and study hard; but now all the things have changed. I feel very sad and depress every second and minute, especially when I knew you had planed to go to Beijing this holiday. These nights were so hard to me that I can not bear. I don't want to live like this. This message maybe let you know what happened in the past. Please treat me like your student. I know you will be back to America at the end of this semester and I still have two years to go to America. During this time, I want to lead a happy life and concentrate attention on my study, not try to forget a man who disappears in my life forever.

Date: May 4, 2007 8:28 AM
Subject: Neal, these are what i have done for you
Body: Neal, I don't know what will happen in the future. Maybe we are the stranger forever and will never see each other again after you leave this place at the end of this semester. I believe the fate. There is something that we can not control in the world. We continuously say goodbye and forget someone or something that had great influence in our life once upon a time, so I think I should tell you something which maybe not important to you and I will forget in the future.
April 10th is my birthday. You sung a sweet song to a girl to celebrate her birthday in class 5 that day. I heard this news and sad.
I don't know from what time I begin to stand by the window every night to watch your dormitory for a long time and log in your space every night in order to see your lovely pictures.
April 27th. That afternoon I saw you clean your room and heard that you planed to go to Beijing. About 1o'clock that night I saw you prepare something.
April 28th. My dear roommate tried her best to console me. I thought my life had been ruined.
April 29th. I encountered you go to play tennis. My dear roommate tried her best to console me. I thought my life had been ruined.
April 30th, May 1, May 2, May 3, May 4, I found you hadn't seen my email and had not come back. I checked my email and your space from time to time.
It is these things that I want to tell you and want you know. Don't treat them as burden. Maybe many years later, you can remember me and these things. I'm sure that at that time I will have already forgotten. I wish you happy life.

Date: May 19, 2007 1:32 PM
Subject: we should settle something
Body: It's always not wise of me to send many messages to you. But why not reply and act as if you hadn't read them. Something must have an end before you leave this place two months later. It seems you don't want to make any commons about this and act as if nothing had happened before. How stupid of me to say those words to you. I don't know why you did these things to me. Maybe you want to show how attractive and handsome you are.

Date: May 20
Subject: The last letter for my perfect teacher
Body: Frankly speaking, you are the most disgusting man I have ever met. You are not only a crowd but also a patient. Because I doubt that you are not popular among the girls in the American and no girl even cast a glance on you, so you have some psychological problems and your mental is abnormal. In that case, it is not very easy for you to disguise being a polite and good boy. There maybe a lot of girls have some crazy feelings on you in china. But I am sorry to tell you that I am not one of them definitely. I can appreciate your feelings very much, because it is miserable for a man who had never been loved by any girl. It was shameful for me to do many stupid things and have some ridiculous feelings on you. It is the worst things I have done in my life. My words maybe straight, but I sincerely hope that you can lead a normal life and you should firmly believe that one day a woman will fell in love with you. Life is beautify, please don't depressed. My perfect teacher, I wish you happy and satisfied. Yes, nothing had happened between us, I am one of your student.

Tuesday, May 22:
Text Message 1: If you are a man answer the call no trouble will happen
Text Message 2: I just want to make sure sth you speak them out nothing will happen
Text Message 3: It not because of love but self esteem i am always superior to the people surrounding me you embarrass me

Vacation Part 3: Qingdao, Weihai

2007-05-17T06:42:00.000-07:00

After my classes finished that Friday, Andrew and I departed for Qingdao, and at 6 hours by bus, this turned out to be our longest trek to Qingdao (reminder: it's only 120 miles away, and the terrain is completely flat). We found a fellow Couch Surfer to crash with for a couple of nights, and it turned out to be a great experience. She met us at the bus station, secured some blankets for sleeping, and provided us with information in the city. We also went for a showing of Spider Man 3 (only my second theater in China--they're hard to come by), and it was awful. Don't see it.

I had been looking forward to going to Qingdao since I started planning on coming to China, but it took a visitor to finally get me there. A former German concession in the early twentieth century, today it still retains a bit of a European feel and is one of the few places in China with inspiring and interesting architecture, the others being Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, and a few others. At times I felt like I was in Bavaria, and we even encountered a cobblestone street or two.

St. Michael's Catholic Church in Qingdao:

Protestant Church in Qingdao:

Former Governor's Residence in Qingdao:

Half German/Half Chinese (can you guess which is which?):

And completely atrocious, completely senseless, completely Chinese architecture in Weihai:

The German presence is also felt in the Tsingdao, or Qingdao brewery, and today it brews the finest and most popular beer in China, though it really doesn't taste that much different than most of the other hundreds of Chinese lagers.

After church on Sunday morning, we arrived two minutes late for the large bus and were therefore forced again to take a minibus, which meant another unnecessarily long trip for 5.5 hours. The rest of the time in Weihai was a little quieter, and I think it allowed Andrew to experience living in China rather than just travelling. We cooked dinner a few nights, played tennis, hung out with friends, shopped, and did all the normal things you do when you live somewhere. We also had a few more "Chinese" experiences, as I finally convinced him to go to the Korean bathhouse/sauna, while another night we had tea and watched some dancing and music performances at a traditional tea house.

In what was definitely a more difficult adventure than I expected, Andrew, Allyssa, and I rented a "trandem", as Andrew called it, and biked along the coast for a couple of hours. I never really got the hang of driving and preferred to sit in the back, but Andrew and Allyssa were quite adept. Along the way we passed several large sculptures and statues along the way. Even metal bear statues have split pants (and nards)!

A sculpture to Weihai's shipping industry and importance:

In the caption on their piece, my favorite, the artist describes providing a window for man to see nature.

I was a little relieved and sad to say goodbye to Andrew this morning. The 17 days involved a lot of planning and tiresome activity, but they went by pleasurably and unbelievably quickly. It did make me excited for my return home in a couple of months, but in the mean time I still have to find a job, and I'm a little worried about the transition back home. Life will be easier for sure, but does that also mean more mundane? While I often wish for certain aspects of life to be easier here, there's something invigorating about being challenged to fulfill tasks that seem basic in other countries. Will I be bored when I go back home? Is that inevitable? In any place? But there's also something appealing about being "normal" for a while and settling down, not always being on the move, and being able to semi/fully support myself. And I can't wait to see friends and family.

Exercise Instruction on the Beach in Weihai

2007-05-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

Who needs to pay for a gym membership when you can use awesome equipment like this for free?

Vacation Part 2: Xi'an, Weihai

2007-05-17T05:50:00.002-07:00

We arrived in Xi'an exhausted after a delayed flight and one-hour+ check-in nightmare at the hostel, but we did manage to find our first too-expensive restaurant in Xi'an, hotpot place that was double what it should have been. Xi'an itself is pretty impressive, with the largest intact city walls in China and the magnificent Bell Tower, which anchor's the city's center within the walls.

Xi'an also has its share of kitsch, as we would find out the next day as we visited the Terra Cotta Soldiers, known in China as the Eighth Wonder of the World. As it has done with many other (previously) attractive tourist destinations, China has over-indulged in an effort to make every last buck, and the result is less than desirable. We passed this Egyptian (theme) park on the way to the Soldiers, which alone should be enough of a draw, and once there we had to walk through a literal tourist city with countless shops and people paid to dance for about half an hour before we reached the actual pits containing the soldiers.

Once we got there and paid the enormous entrance fee, we realized that we could visit a museum commemorating the building of the museum, but not one actually detailing the discover and uncovering of the soldiers. This is also where we had our most expensive dinner, where we paid four times the typical rate for food and ended up with much less. To ease the frustration, and to poke fun at the crazy pictures that Chinese people take that usually involve only people in ridiculous poses and none of the scenery or circumstance that would warrant a picture being taken in the first place. Thus, when you look at a Chinese person's photo album (and I have), it's difficult to tall whether a picture was taken in a prison cell or at the Great Wall, because all you can see is a person's face and a few peace signs.

The Terra Cotta Soldiers were fairly impressive, but I kept thinking that very little had been done in the thirty years since the soldiers were first unearthed. It looks like no archaeological work has been done in twenty years, as huge sections of each pit remain hidden, so the overall effect was substantially reduced and a little disappointing.

We had another expensive dinner that night in the Muslim quarter, though it was much better. What's really annoying is not so much the price, as it's still cheap by western standards, but by the inconsistencies in service provided to Western and Chinese patrons. Chinese often assume that all Westerners are wealthy, but in reality, many make more money than I do, at least ones that would eat at a night market instead of cooking. It's not like we charge tourists in America more money just because they;re tourists (unless they really have it coming).

The next day might have turned out to be my favorite of the vacation. We left early again to take a bus to the base of Huashan, considered the most dangerous of China's five holy mountains and featuring a 6km trail and 2100 meter peak. The second half of the trail is completely steps; the ones shown below are pretty much the steepest ones we encountered, though. Still, thousands of steps can be exhausting.

After 4-5 hours we were at the top of the north peak, a good 500 meters short in altitude of the other four, higher peaks. People tie red ribbons and place engraved locks on the railings at each peak.

An hour later we had hiked to the higher peaks and found a place to stay for about 6 dollars a night each, which was expensive even by our standards and became even more so when you saw the hole/bathroom and realized you had very little water to use for any purpose, drinking and bathing included.

After sunset we had another expensive dinner, even though we ate only cold noodles and a plate of fried rice. It's understandable that food would be more expensive at the top of a mountain, though, because it is relatively inaccessible. Men like those below transport food, garbage, and recyclables up and down the mountain several times each day.

We intended to wake up the next morning for sunrise, and we even arrived at our destination, the East Peak, early, at 6:15, though we had clearly missed sunrise by at least 30 minutes before we got there. Crazy China and its one time zone. Still, the views were beautiful, and the temples hanging onto the sides of cliffs looked even more spectacular.

Because we had a late afternoon flight to catch, and because the mountain was a good couple of hours away from Xi'an, we started our descent early and took the more direct path, which meant that almost the entire path consisted on steep and very shallow steps. We made it down in super speed however, only to be slowed by an insane bus driver who was fond of using the entire road. Famished, we hoped to fill our bellies and avoid expensive airport food, but unfortunately, we stumbled upon a Sichuan restaurant, and I didn't notice until it was too late. Sichuan cuisine is known all across China for its searing heat, and it did not disappoint. This was simply the spiciest food I have ever had. Look at all those peppers! Every dish was unbearable until I ordered a plate of broccoli and demanded that any peppers be kept far away while cooking. Too bad it also cost us a fortune. And don't believe Andrew's smile in the picture; we were finished with peppers by that point.

I had been dreading our flight from Xi'an, as there were no direct flights to Weihai or Yantai, which are the closest airports, and we instead had to fly to Qingdao, which is a good 3-4 hours (normally) away from Weihai. Unfortunately, since we wouldn't arrive in Qingdao until 8pm, there would be no more buses to Weihai, and we'd have to hire a car for the trip. This turned out to be disastrous. I thought we were doing well at first, because I talked the guy down to 500 yuan (I was quoted 700-800 by drivers before I left), but about 15 minutes after we left the airport, the driver flagged down another motorist who apparently had a Yantai license plate. Since our driver clearly didn't want to take us, he worked out a deal with the Yantai driver and in the process received 350 of the 500 yuan he would have received had he taken us the whole way. Not bad for a 15-minute drive. Clearly, our new Yantai driver was not the brightest, as he paid 350 yuan for the privilege to take us to Weihai, and would only receive himself an extra 150yuan for completing the trip. Thus, he paid 350 yuan to the man who drove us 15 minutes, but would only net 150 yuan for the entire journey. Stupid. Unfortunately (again), he already had a passenger that wanted to go to Yantai, so I was pretty certain we were going to get screwed and end up having to go to Yantai first. I was right, but I had also decided to only give the guy 400 yuan, since we never wanted to go to Yantai in the first place. Unfortunately (yet again), our new driver decided once we got to Yantai that he no longer wanted to go to Weihai, because it wasn't worth the 150 yuan he was set to receive (which I wasn't going to pay him in the first place because the trip took so long). DUHHHHH ! MAYBE SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE AGREEING TO TAKE US! So, he proposed flagging down another car for us at the expressway to Weihai, which I naturally opposed as that would increase the cost of the trip (and make us even later). However, as I said earlier, our driver was a complete moron and just sat in the car and whined for the better part of an hour about how he was tired and it wasn't worth the money to go toWeiha . At this point it was all I could do to keep from punching him, and I'm not even violent. This guy was that stupid. He eventually conceded he'd make the trip for an extra 50 yuan which isn't even that much money (an extra 6 dollars), but this left me more fuming. You don;t negotiate a contract after you've already agreed to an original one and are in the process of fulfilling it. Can you imagine agreeing cutsomeone's hair for three dollars, then realizing it's not worth the money, then leaving the hair half-dyed for two hours while arguing for more money, then suggesting the customer find another stylist and still pay the original one the original amount, then whining a little more and asking for a raise, then finally completing the job, and then having the nerve to ask for money? NO.

We eventually made it back to Weihai at 1am (the first of three times it it took more than five hours for that 120 mile stretch). Matt had only two days in Weihai, so we had to make the most of them. The weather was colder and generally less pleasant, but we still managed to spend some time outside at the beach and explore downtown. The moment I had anticipated most upon our return to Weihai was karaoke, however, and Matt and Andrew didn't disappoint. While I generally struggle through songs (but still proudly sing my heart out), Matt and Andrew actually managed to harmonize. I'm pretty sure they;re the best karaoke singers the world has ever known. Even when singing Bon Jovi and Puddle of Mud.

The next night (Wednesday, Matt's last) we ventured out to the club (see videos from previous posts), but before that we had another giant Xinjiang dinner with lots of friends in Weihai.

Signage

2007-05-17T05:50:00.001-07:00

Vacation Part 1: Bejing

2007-05-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

I don't know which is harder to believe: the fact that I've been here for almost nine months, or that I only have two more to go. The last few weeks have flown by: a week of vacation (more on that to follow), a movie week to ease back into teaching, and a week of only one class because of conflicts with the annual "Sports Meeting" on campus. That means I have only 6 weeks left in the classroom, two of which will be consumed by exams and review, and another might be used for a final movie, which means that I have only 3-4 weeks of real teaching left. Wow. Then I'm heading down south toGuangxi for a week to work on a research project with Vanderbilt, and then on to Hong Kong for a week for a conference, and then I'll be home!

OK, now on to actual items of interest. May 1 kicked off a week-long "Golden Week" in China, during which many of the millions of workers had vacations. This makes that week an incredibly insane time to travel (upwards of 350+ million people travel during that week), but it also coincided with the times Vanderbilt chums Matt and Andrew, as well as aunt and uncle Sandy and Phil, had available to come to China. I flew down to Beijing a little early to bum around and to check out a few lesser-known places that I hadn't visited before, such as Baiyunguan Si, an important Taoist temple:

And Ditan Park, where I saw some older women playing a game similar to croquet:

And around Chaoyangmen, where a small group had gathered to roll with their yo-yo's, yo:

Then, after months of waiting, I met Andrew and Matt at the Beijing to start a whirlwind tour of China. Matt was here for only 10 days, and Andrew for 17, so it was important not to bum around too much. Still, I think we managed to go at our own pace and not feel too rushed. It's hard to feel rushed then the transportation can be so inefficient and unreliable, so it;s best to take the attitude that there's little you can do to improve the situation. You may have read about by horrific bus story in February, and this trip did not disappoint in the public transportation department, either. On three occasions it took us more than five hours to travel the same 120 mile-stretch between Weihai and Qingdao, and I have vowed never to take a long-distance minibus again. Unlike larger buses, which are relatively efficient, minibuses stop along the route to pick up more passengers until the bus is packed, pick up and drop off packages, allow the bus driver to get lunch, and visit friends. But, because they depart more often than larger buses, chances are you'll end up on a minibus at some point during a stay in China.

Anyhow, after Matt and Andrew arrived, we dropped our stuff at the hostel, ate a quick dumpling lunch for 75 cents, and rented bikes to ride around some hutong, or small, old alleyways. But, so as not to make the transition to China too jarring, we went for a Texas-style dinner and trivia at a BBQ place in Beijing. In some way, it still manages to be authentically Chinese: all the waiters wear shirts resembling Texas flags, even though they probably have no idea of where or what Texas is. It's hilarious.

The next day was spent working off jet lag and replacing it with pure exhaustion. We departed the hostel at 6:30 and returned 12 hours later, after spending the day hiking from theJinshanling to the Simatai sections of the Great Wall of China, northeast of Beijing.

After we got back, I sent Matt and Andrew to meet up with Carmen, a fellow Vanderbilt alum, while I made my way across the city to have dinner with my aunt and uncle. They didn't come specifically because I was in China, rather they were on a tour of Beijing, Shanghai, and Xi'an with a group from America. Still, it's amazing that I've had as many visitors here as I did in Germany. Though Germany is certainly more accessible, I think the idea of traveling in China with someone who is relatively familiar with the place encourages people to visit when they otherwise would not. Whatever the reason, I'm enjoying it. When people do visit, I feel part of my responsibility is to be a mediator between China and visitor. It's very easy to have a bad impression of China initially, as people can be rude, ignorant, and intolerant. But that can be the case in America, too. I enjoyed showing my parents and other visitors around Germany, and I have also enjoyed planning people's visits here. Maybe it just makes me feel more important, but I also like to think that my presence makes the trip more authentic, enjoyable, relaxing, and comfortable. Verdict?

The next day we were supposed to meet up with Sandy and Phil for Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City, but because both were so hot and bombarded with people, we quickly made our way north to Jingshan Park for a view out over the Forbidden City and greater Beijing.

Then, it was on to the Lama Temple, a large Tibetan Buddhist temple in Beijing, and to the Temple of Heaven, which was used for sacrifices and prayer for bountiful harvests.

That night we had perhaps our greatest meal of the trip, as we ate Xinjiang barbecue outside in a small hutong, complete with legs of lamb, kebabs, beer, the best fried potatoes I've ever had, etc. The next morning would be my last chance to see Sandy and Phil before we departed for Xi'an, so I made my way to their hotel for an incredible international breakfast and also transferred to their care a large suitcase that will make my packing and subsequent trip home a little easier and a lighter. Then Matt and Andrew joined me for a trip to the Summer Palace, which was also unbelievably packed. We made out way to the top of a hill with a couple of temples that afforded us a view of the rest of the park, including the Seventeen-Arches Bridge seen below, and then stopped for lunch near the hostel before departing for Xi'an, home of the Terra Cotta Soldiers.

Did You Know I'm Korean? Party People All Around

2007-04-22T05:49:00.000-07:00

Mama, tamen shi shenme ren?
Hanguoren ma?

roughly translates to

Mom, where are those people from?
Korea?

This was asked by a Chinese person of a group of Americans (including myself), Kiwis, and a South African. And then it happened again about ten minutes later. I know lots of Americans find it hard to differentiate between Asians, but in China, apparently people have trouble distinguishing between everyone non-Chinese. Black, brown, white, they all look the same. And I look Korean.

Haven't been up to much lately, just a few birthday parties and end-of-week parties.

A few weeks ago our recently arrived French teacher had a birthday, and we went to the night market for dinner before Allyssa and I split off for the club. This is one of two in Weihai, and by far the better one. Check out the videos below.

Nadeige's birthday cake and butcher knife:

Making noodles for dinner at the night market:

Yum!!!!!! Deer penis baijiu (aka white liquor, as yes, that long cylinder is what you think it is):

Next came Allyssa's birthday. Here she is getting her head smashed into her cake:

And her second cake [that weird mythical creature-looking thing is a dragon/donkey (Allyssa's favorite animal) hybrid]:

And lots of sushi for dinner:

This Sunday we went for another hike, to a small village outside of Weihai, and the area turned out to be beautiful. Fruit (peach?) trees are starting to bloom. It was one of the first times in a long time I've been able to hear the wind and birds chirp without the background of cars and other noise pollution.

This coming Tuesday marks the beginning of the ninth month I've been here (it's hard to believe). It also marks the day that Matt Merker and Andrew Levine arrive for 10 and 17 days, respectively, as well as my aunt and uncle, to visit me. I'll meet them in Beijing to see the usual sites, then we'll head to Xi'an, home of the Terra Cotta soldiers and Huashan, and then we'll head back to Weihai before Matt departs for home and Andrew and I make one last excursion to Qingdao, home of one of the best beers in China!

I'm sure pictures and stories will abound.

Celebrate!

2007-04-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

You have to find your own ways to celebrate holidays in China. Sometimes China attempts to celebrate Western holidays, but usually they remind you more that you're in China than of your holidays at home (see: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs nativity scene at Christmas).

Last Saturday we went for a night of karaoke at the local KTV. Okay, okay, we weren't celebrating Easter specifically, but as our efforts carried over into Sunday morning, perhaps our voices were glorifying. I know the other people at the place
sure enjoyed them, including this group whose party we crashed.

The next day, a group of us hiked up a mountain/hill nearby for an Easter service. We didn't make it for sunrise, but it was early enough. We shared songs, hymns, verses, and stories with each other before taking communion. It was a very nice way to spend Easter, outdoors with friends.

Chinese people also hike the mountain to burn incense. I am not positive of the reason, but I think in this case it honors their dead.

Afterwards we moved to an awesome Xinjiang restaurant that included eating in a tent, laying down on the floor to let the food settle, and watching some traditional dancing. If you're planning on making a visit, you'll definitely be treated to a similar experience.

Finally, I leave you with a picture of two adjacent shops downtown. Is there a (subtle) message here?

Notes from the Underground

2007-03-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

A few more selections from my students' writing exercises:

The revised, final draft of a limerick:

There was a nice guy from Georgia
But now he is teaching in China
He wore T-shirt in Winter
He is our dear teacher
I will miss him if he goes back to Atlanta

A few letters of apology:

Dear Brenda,
I would like to express my apologies for sending you a rose last Sunday. You must misunderstand me that I'm a homosexual. On fact, I took that day as Fool Day and later my sister told me it was wrong.
With many apologies,
Rosalyn

Dear Christ,
I'm writing to express my apologies for not being able to bring a lamb to you this time because it's forbidden to take animals on the train. Next time I'll put a lamb in a box when I get on the train and you'll see it by then.
With many apologies,
Cherry

Dear Saddam,
I'm very sorry that my soldiers hanged you mercilessly. You know I didn't mean to do that. I'm quite sure a good man like you will go to the heaven.
Sincerely,
George W. Bush

And a thank-you letter:

Dear Mr. George,
Thanks for your fighters, missiles, and bombs. I have never seen such kind of things for more than ten years. They are so interesting. But since there are ample of them, please no more.
Sincerely,
A young lady from a poor country

Clever, eh?

Update Party Central

2007-03-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

Well, lots and not much has happened since I returned from my vacation travels.

Though I still had three weeks left before classes were to begin, I had to come back to Weihai after traveling in Yunnan because I was out of money, and this gave me time to think about what I might want to do next year. When I got back, I made a list if places I'd like to work (China, Germany, Latin America, and America) and jobs I'd like to have (generally something involving education, travel, and/or international exchange). I then spent hours each day applying to jobs around the globe, using job sites and recommendations and references from friends, and left the rest to fate. During the process, though, I began to feel more and more like I'd really like to live near home, and since then I have focused my attention solely on Atlanta and Nashville. I have received a few offers from companies in San Francisco and Beijing, but I have a few possibilities for Atlanta and Nashville as well. Hopefully I'll know more soon. At this point, what keeps going through my mind is that I'd like to be "normal" for a year-- live in an English-speaking place rather than a foreign one where every aspect of life is more difficult than at home. I'd also like to continue on to grad school in Fall 2008 (it's too late to apply for this year), and it'd be nice to live near family and friends before I move away again, though I might end up back in Nashville, as there's a program there I'm really interested in. Depending on when the university allows me to leave for the year, I may join a Vanderbilt Fieldschool and research project in southern China during the month of July; this would greatly help my chances for grad school, though it will also depend on when I have to start whatever job I end up with. For now, though, keep your fingers crossed. I'm at a point where I'd be pretty disappointed if I couldn't find a job back near home, so hopefully something will work out.

That said, I'm still enjoying my time in China a lot. The weather hasn't been completely cooperative, though. A couple of weeks ago we had quite a storm, which brought some snow and strong winds--50+ mph--with it. It knocked out power for a night, which meant my apartment was freezing for a day, and also caused some damage along the beach.

A sign blown off a building during the storm:

These fences were not match for the wind, and the sand blew right past (and through) them onto the grass along the beach:

We decided not to walk out the pier that day:

Since then it hasn't warmed up too much, and that has been a little frustrating, as I'm eager to get out and enjoy the beach and play tennis after having been cooped up for much of the winter. This desire to get out and enjoy the outdoors has also made me a little less excited about planning lessons, and lately I feel like I've just been going through the motions of teaching, though I still feel like I'm doing a good job. I think the main problem is that I don't find the work intellectually stimulating, so I find I'm bored with it often. In terms of what I'm teaching, this semester is definitely an improvement over last semester, when I basically taught essay writing, as this semester I'm teaching more creative writing. Still, I have to start at a pretty basic level, and the discussions we have never really become too deep or thought-provoking simply because most of the students have never really developed or been given the chance to develop that ability.

Their writing still has the ability to amuse me, though. The following was wirrten following a lesson on advertisements:

"F-14 Tomcat - $1
Since the F-35 JSF Fighter hascome into service, the old Tomcat, which isstill modern and advanced, need to be kept well. Being short of money, US Air Force hopes some friendly countries can take them. The price is sure low. Any countries except China, North Korea, Iran, and Libya can take them for just $1."

And see if you can guess about whom this (really bad) limerick is written:

"There is a nice guy from Georgia
But now he is in China.
He wore t-shirt in winter
He is our dear teacher
And I wanna know if he like banana."

Simply exceptional.

The month of February also saw the coming and going of Chinese New Year. I had been prepared for the worst, as I had heard accounts of fireworks 24 hours a day for an entire week, but really there were only a few instance when the fireworks made it too loud to watch the television, and I was only hit by stray rockets and debris a couple of times. To celebrate the occasion, we, like every other person in China, shot off some of our own fireworks, and we also smashed a piñata. Of course, we had to improvise since it's not a Chinese tradition. First of all, our Kiwi friend pronounced it "pinata" (without the ~ on the ñ), and she also had never heard of the idea of using a blindfold and spinning around to make it more difficult). So, the first time we smashed a piñata, during a birthday party, she held it on the end of a broom and we tore at it with chopsticks, breaking three in the process. As you can see below, we eventually progressed up to plastic bats for other birthdays and Chinese New Year, though our Kiwi friend began to place more and more layers on the piñata, so that it took a long time to break, even hitting it with a bat without a blindfold. We also learned several more Kiwi birthday games, such as pass the parcel, and this one, which involved dressing up in wacky clothes and eating chocolate with gloves on. Oh what fun!

Fireworks on Chinese New Year:

The first experimentation with the piñata, tied onto the end of a broom and beaten with chopsticks without a blindfold:

Even the young ones get in on the fun:

Darren seemingly about to smash the (extra reinforced) piñata to smithereens, though he puts just a little dent in it:

Allyssa destroying a piñata during Chinese New Year:

Despair not, though! My social life has included more than just children's birthday parties! I've also come to love the art of karaoke and have had the pleasure of singling on three different occasions in the past two weeks: the first with some Asian friends, the second in front of all the English teachers at the school (definitely the most embarrassing), and then again with some Asian friends. During the process, I've probably sung most of Britney's hits, as well as songs from Madonna, Kanye, Outkast, Blondie, Mariah Carey, Van Morrison, Los Del Rio ("Macarena"!), and others. I don't think my singing has improved any, but hopefully everyone else's ears have become more tolerant. What makes karaoke more enjoyable in Asia is that you sing only in front of your friends (unless you're forced to sing at a banquet); each group has its own room and chooses songs as it wishes.

Below, a typical karaoke room:

You can even play the tambourine as others sing!

A video of some Chinese and Japanese friends singing karaoke. If you look closely, you can see that the video being played is probably not the original one; a Britney Spears song may be paired with a video of a boat sailing down a filthy river; Madonna might be accompanied by shots of downtown Weihai. The words are usually correct (though sometimes popular songs are translated into other languages but retain their general phonetic structure and resultingly sound a little funky), but the videos are definitely not:

Besides karaoke, I've also spent some time doing more typical, western "hangout" activities. On Saturday, St. Patrick's Day, some new friends from Missouri and Allyssa and I went to the Red Tomato Bar, which had imported Guinness just for the occasion. Normally they only have Chinese beer as well as a few other light imports, such as Corona, so this was not to be passed up. We then hit 2046, the dance club, which was especially good. Click on the "Welcome to the Zhongguo" link on the right for a video.

And I leave you with a hilarious sign some friends took of their daughter a few years ago. Again, further evidence that Chinese don't ask for assistance when translating into English:

And congrats to my cousins Paul and Betsy on the new addition to the family, Davis Grayson Smith! I look forward to seeing him at Christmas, or perhaps before!

Bus Rides. Subtitle: The Idiot's Guide to Pushing a Bus

2007-02-09T02:49:00.000-08:00

Though the trip will definitely be remembered fondly, I won't forget how awful many of the bus rides were. Whether it was the fact that the seats were often crammed so close together that it was impossible to put your legs in front of you, or the simple lack of cleanliness, at times I would have almost rather walked.

On the very first bus we took, from Kunming to Dali, we sat in rush-hour traffic for about an hour. A city of eight million people, the highway had two lanes. And donkeys. The sad thing is, they were moving as fast or faster than we were for much of the way.

The first bus ride I'd rather forget occurred on the trip back to Zhongdian from Deqin. Joining us for the ride were a pair of chickens and a pair of smelly dogs. I immediately felt like I was in a Borat movie set in China, but that feeling became stronger when, 20 minutes into the 7+ hour trip, one of the dogs whizzed all over the floor; this was repeated a number of other times, right next to me, which made for quite pleasant ride. Add that to the usual smokers and loogie hockers, and you can imagine I was soon ready to get off the bus.

After sitting in this bus, yes, I'd very much like to go to Australia!

The very next day came an even more exasperating ride. We awoke to a fresh blanket of snow but were told our bus from Zhongdian to Baishuitai would leave as scheduled, at 9am. What should have been a 3-hour trip max finally arrived 7.5 hours later at 4:30. I think I spent more time outside the bus than in it. The roads were snowy, but the bus handled them fine at first. But, as it continued snowing and we gained altitude, the bus began to have problems, and soon we were out pushing it along for the first of many (at least 10-12) times. What made matters worse was that every times we got the bus back on track, nearly everyone on board would light a celebratory cigarette. I have no doubt half of the Chinese population will have lung cancer within 30 years--maybe they have found a new solution to control the population, because the government seems to be doing nothing to discourage it. There had been two other foreigners on the bus, but they gave up after pushing the bus through the snow for the second time; I guess we should have seen it coming, considering they were French.

Everyone out! And debate what to do, after the bus becomes stuck the first time.

During the discussion process, I decided to leave my imprint, my name, in the snow.

I'm not sure about the whole pig, but its legs are definitely on board:

This is how the window looked for the entire bus ride. It really was the same temperature as outside since we had to get off the bus so many times.

The snow accumulating:

Another stop, another plan of action.

This was perhaps the third time the bus became stuck in the snow, and it took the longest to free it from its icy grasp. Everyone got out of the bus, and the bus made a run for the top of the hill.

Once it started slipping, we'd run up behind it and start pushing.

It would get a little traction and get ahead of us, but inevitably become stuck again.

This continued for the better part of an hour, but the bus was not able to round the corner at the top of the hill, and it was forced to back down its track after every failed attempt.

Tyler, exhausted:

And the bus about to swerve into a two-foot-deep ditch, which would have effectively ended our trip for the day. I'm not sure if another bus would have come or if we would have just had to camp out in that one, as Tyler said he once had to wait on a bus in China for 24 hours while it was broken down.

After other failed attempts to climb the hill, the bus driver had given up and turned the bus around, when along came another bus that made it right up the hill with no problems. With renewed vigor, the passengers (not I) demanded that the bus driver turn the bus back around and make another attempt. We gathered tree limbs and foliage for traction.

And waited anxiously for the bus to gather its steam.

And waited some more.

And then it went whizzing by, and we chased it...

Until it became stuck again. I'm not sure it you would call this persistence or stubbornness/stupidity, but it definitely became closer to the latter with each push of the bus.

At this point, Tyler and I are ready to hop on the first vehicle heading the other direction and go down to the tropical jungles of the southern part of the province, but unfortunately, no other vehicles came by after we made that decision.

I give up.

Following the bus again... Shouldn't we be on it?

The snow getting deeper:

Following the bus again after pushing it out of a rut. By the afternoon, the snow on the road was close to a foot deep.

And pushing it some more:

And following it some more.

Like I said, this happened more times than I have fingers, and I stopped counting. In the States, I would have expected someone to sue the bus operator for mental anguish and physical suffering, or at least demand a refund and multiple free trips in the future, but here, people were just happy to reach their intended destination, however late it may have been.

Though most of the other bus rides were tolerable (I spent 45 hours total on long-distance buses), the last one, an overnight bus from Lijiang to Kunming with beds that aren't quite the length of by body, should also be forgotten. About an hour before the bus departed, I got that unmistakable feeling in my stomach warning me of large quantities of time soon the be spent in the bathroom, but unfortunately, all that time had not been spent before the bus departed. I tried to fool my body and go to sleep as soon as I got on the bus, but it didn't believe me and a few hours later I woke up with a violent urge to go to the bathroom at that very moment. I frantically talked to the bus driver and discovered that there as a WC on board, and after more frantically searching in the dark to find it, I pulled open the door with no time to spare. As bad as the experience was, I'm sure it would have been made worse had I not found the bathroom in time.

Yunnan Xtravaganza

2007-02-09T01:16:00.000-08:00

I'm back from a doozy of a trip.

As you already know, I have a two-month vacation between semesters of teaching, and Tyler Harlan decided to stop over for a few weeks on his way to Australia to study. I met him in chilly Beijing on January 23, and after a couple of days to recover from jetlag and to meet up with old friends in Beijing, we were off to the relative warmness of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province and holder of the title "City of Eternal Spring". Yunnan borders Tibet (and other provinces such as Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi) as well as the countries of Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. China has 55 recognized minority groups and many more than remain unrecognized by the government, and because of its borders with so many different different lands, Yunnan is home to at least 28 of these groups.

Because Tyler had to catch a train on February 7 to be able to fly to Australia on February 9, we decided to take a bus to the northern part of Yunnan as soon as we landed in Kunming, because there we expected to find the best hiking. After a bus ride of about 6 hours, we were in Dali, which has recently become a sort of hangout for foreign hippies. The Chinese government has recognized this, or spurred it on, by tearing down much of the city and rebuilding it with more traditional-style Chinese buildings. As much as harmony between nature and human construction is praised in the principles of fengshui, it seems to have been largely ignored in most modern Chinese cities, and while the government's decision has made the city more attractive, it has also morphed it into a Chinese version of Disneyland, sans rides. To escape this, Tyler and I rented bikes one day and rode down to the nearby lake and surrounding villages.

The Old Town of Dali:

Riding through small villages near Dali:

And to Erhai, a lake near Dali:

Women working and their children playing in a small village near Dali:

After a couple of nights in Dali, we were ready for an 8-hour bus trip to Zhongdian, which has recently been renamed Shangri-la by either the national or local government. They, too, are in the process of tearing down the Soviet-style buildings and replacing them with more traditional ones, but luckily this process is not so far along as it is in Dali, and some character has been able to survive in the city. Tyler and I quickly made the Potala cafe our home, eating there no less than 5 times during the two different nights we stayed in Zhongdian. Since 80 percent of the town was Tibetan, the menu featured such specialties as yak butter tea, fried dried yak meat, and fried yak cheese. The first tastes as you would expect, a little salty and oily but good; the second is similar to beef jerky; and the third is the most delicious. Tyler and I ordered it every chance we got. The closest thing I can think of to describe it is slightly tart, slightly chewy ripe yogurt. I know that sounds disgusting, but if you ever get the chance to try it, don't hesitate.

I must recount one particular time we were bargaining for a room, this time in Zhongdian. Bargaining is an essential part of Chinese life, and the vendors and merchants stop at nothing to sell at the highest price possible. I believe the conversation between Tyler and the hotel proprietor went something like this (but in Chinese):

Tyler: I think our toilet is broken, it won't flush.
Proprietor: Hmm, maybe you just need to wait for the water to fill up.
T: Well, it didn't even work when we got here.
P: Well, it's not a big problem.
T: Well, my crap is still in there.
P: Hold on, I need to go fix the toilet cover (that he had just dropped on the floor).
T: (5 minutes later) I think our toilet is leaking onto the bathroom floor.
P: No, it doesn't.
T: Yes I will show you.
P: (After watching fecal water run out of the toilet onto the floor) Ok, a "small" leak.
T: Well, can we have a discount?
P: (After some thinking) Ok, 40 kuai (a discount of 10 kuai).

At the end of the day folks, if the turd is still in the toilet, something's got to be done. Needless to say, our bathroom floor smelled like dung for our stay at this particular inn.

Surprisingly, the further north and the colder we got, the more basic the accommodation became. I don't understand why, because the Tibetans still seemed to be cold and woke up shivering just like the rest of us. Clearly they have fire, but I guess they just haven't learned to use it to continually heat their houses. No rooms had heat, and most had only cold water. That meant waking up more often than not with ice on the windows and our breath visible in the cold air. Some rooms provided heating blankets, but in general the only hot water that was available came from boiling it and placing it in thermoses. This resulted in a number of misshapen and too-hot-to-touch water bottles:

We watched some traditional Tibetan dancing in a square that night (one of the few squares in all of China, I have come to realize), but before long it started to snow. This led to a snowball fight with some local kids and a group of Chinese travelers, and to warm up Tyler and I had a few bottles of the worst and second-worst tasting beer I've ever had, Dali and Lan Cang Jiang beer. Unfortunately, they're pretty much all you can get in the area, but luckily, they haven't been able to gain acceptance elsewhere.

Chorten in the Old Town in Zhongdian, aka Shangri-la:

Dancing in the square:

And a short time later after a snowball fight:

The two worst beers on the planet get three thumbs down!

Tyler and I were a little worried that the snow might prevent us from taking a bus further north the next day, but luckily the roads were fine, and we arrived in Deqin after a trip of 7 hours. Deqin turned out to be a really ugly town, so we took a short taxi ride a little bit further to Feilai Si (Temple), where we began hiking the next morning. We were primarily hiking in an area around Meilixueshan, whose range marks the beginning of the Himalayas and the border with Tibet. This, perhaps 10 or 20 miles away, is the closest we could get to Tibet without having to pay the massive fees and sometimes bribes required for a foreigner to gain access.

The Sun rising on Meilixueshan:

Sittin' on top o' the world:

The first day of hiking turned out to be pretty difficult; we had two elevation changes of more than 3000 feet, and we had to take pack horses for some of the steeper sections at higher elevations, which marked the first time I have ever been on a horse that I can remember. I'm not sure it made the trip any faster, as my horse stopped every 10 steps or so to poop or munch or rest, but it did save our energy. There was one scary moment, when the horse started slipping on some ice and almost buckled beneath me, but luckily he maintained his balance and I was able to hop off.

Xidang village:

A goat farmer on the trail:

Taking pack horses to the pass:

Once the trail became icy and snowy, we had to walk ourselves.

Near Nazongla pass at 13,000 feet, we met up with a guide and he invited us to stay in the guest house he and his family fun in a small Tibetan village called Upper Yubeng. After his sister cooked dinner, we were invited to a night of singing, dancing, and drinking with the whole town, which numbered around 30 people. At one point Tyler and I were urged to give a performance, and since all of the Tibetan songs were really old, we tried to think of an old American folk song, but the best we could come up with was "Amazing Grace". We planned on singing "Sweet Home Alabama" next, but we went to sleep before we got the chance to do so. There were only two other "foreigners" present--a couple from Shanghai--which meant that Mandarin was a second language for all of us. I think Tyler's and my American accent remained closer to Mandarin than did the Tibetan accent, as it was very hard to understand. Unfortunately, experiences like this may become fewer and fewer as China encourages the Han majority to move into minority regions--traditionally areas of resistance and separatist movements--to better control the areas.

Upper Yubeng village:

The dining room of the house next to which we slept; this is the only heating available. The brother of the guide with whom we met up with is playing a traditional two-stringed Chinese instrument.

A recently slaughtered pig drying, on the floor above the living quarters.

One of the women of the village dancing. Relatively few women were present, so Tyler and I think this may have been a matriarchal village.

And videos of a few of the men and women in song and dance:

The hiking was much smoother the next day, with us making a loop back around near to where we had begun. Here I am at the Mekong River, or Lan Cang Jiang in Chinese, which has its source in Tibetan and winds its way south into Vietnam.

We managed to get a ride back to Deqin for the nights, and the next morning we were back on our way to Zhongdian. After a hellish bus ride (because of the "passengers" and their "pets", but more on that one later), we were back at the Potala Cafe eating yak products. We also had time to visit Zhongdian's claim to fame, its Tibetan Buddhist monastery that houses more than 400 monks. Destroyed in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution, it was allowed to begin operating again during the 1980s.

Ganden Sumsteling Monastery:

We slept another night in the inn with the leaky toilet, because we were able to get the discount again. As it had done last time we were in Zhongdian, a significant amount of snow felt, but because we had encountered no problems the previous time, we assumed we would be able to take a bus the next morning with no difficulties. Unfortunately, it turned into bus ride #2 from hell (again, more on that in the next post, but because of external forces, but then the passengers as well). We did finally arrive at our destination, though, the largely forgettable Baishuitai, or White Water Terraces, on our way to Tiger Leaping Gorge. The one consolation was that our accommodation cost us only 7.5RMB per person, marking the first time I have ever slept in a "hotel" for less than one dollar.

Baishuitai. One of the holy sights of the Naxi minority, the limestone terraces have been formed over thousands of years by high carbonic acid content in the spring water.

It continued to snow all night and into the next day, hampering our plans to hike from the town of Habba to Tiger Leaping Gorge, so after we took a bus from Baishuitai to Habba, we just hired a car to drive us to the more official beginning of the gorge near Walnut Grove; luckily, we only had to get out and push the car once. We ate a lunch including the Chinese dumplings I have ever eaten, fried yak cheese jiaozi, but because we got a late start, we only hiked for about four hours to the Tea Horse Guest House, and then finished the hike in Qiaotou the next day.

Hiking in Tiger Leaping Gorge. The gorge gets its name from a legend stating that, because it is so narrow in some places, a tiger once escaped pursuit by leaping across it:

After stopping in Lijiang, which has perhaps the most developed and more touristy "Old City" in the area, and is the most preferred by Chinese tourists, we took a sleeper bus to arrive back in Kunming for a few nights before Tyler had to depart. We woke up at 5:30am the next day to catch the Superbowl at a bar in town, and for a while we were joined by only one other American, though a few others did show up after the sun rose. It was fun hearing the game explained to an Englishman, and I expect it to be the most random place I ever watch the Superbowl. Later in the day we went to the Bamboo Temple north of town, which was well kept but not particularly unique, though it did have quite large collection of intimidating Buddhas in all poses and shapes imaginable.

Looking over the Old City in Lijiang:

The Bamboo Temple:

The rest of the time, though, we pretty much just relaxed, since most of the trip we had awakened early either to catch a bus or begin hiking. We renewed our ping pong rivalry and indulged in delicious ethnic food in the region, much of it inspired my the more tropical south and often incorporating fruits like pineapple.

Banana Pancakes:

I also hoped to find some cheese to take back to Weihai in one of the 50 or so Wal-Marts in China (yes, they're even here), but as you can tell by the picture below (look in the bottom right corner), I didn't really find what I was looking for.

Seriously, if you can produce something like chocolate cheese, why not have standard cheese?

Funny Signs and Disgusting Bathrooms

2007-02-09T01:15:00.000-08:00

Too bad, I'm not sure if my filthy jeans are qualified for this place.

Exactly how often is "usually"?

A description on a sign at a natural park.

This sign was found in the middle of a gorge on a pretty strenuous hike. I'm pretty sure it would offend any person with a disability, for if they are able to make it to this place, they certainly don't need the charity of a free bed. And why a free bed in the first place? Do they think people with disabilities need to sleep more, or do they feel they should be confined to beds? Why not a golden star sticker or something celebratory?

Ahh man, I really needed to drop off the Cosby kids...

The left trough is for pooping, the right for urinating. See the diference between thre two?! I don't know what to do with all that privacy!

Each "stall" can be used for peeing or pooping! Again, what privacy!

Shanghai Shenanigans

2007-01-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

I just returned from a 5-day trip to Shanghai. I had planned to meet another friend from Weihai there, but my dates kept getting pushed back because of a little thing called "a total lack of communication between myself and the university." Ask any foreigner living in China, and he or she will almost certainly say the biggest frustration he/she faces is the lack of communication between his/her employer. I'm not sure if it is intentional or just reflects a lack of planning, but either way it's frustrating. For instance, when the Foreign Office threw a Mid Autumn Festival party for us, they told us about three hours before it was to start. When they planned a Christmas dinner, they changed the time the night before the party. This time, I had been able to pry a little information from them about entering our final grades into the computer, which of course turned out to be wrong. Originally they had said we could do it one Monday morning, so I planned on buying a ticket to Shanghai for Monday night or Tuesday morning. Luckily, I remembered how nothing ever works out as planned in China and decided to wait until I had actually entered my grades. Monday passed with no communication from the office, and Tuesday night I got a message that we could enter them at 9am the next morning. Great. Good thing I didn't already have plans. So, we went to enter our grades, which was an incredibly frustrating experience that took about 3 hours too long since they only had one computer available for the foreign teachers, while the computer room with multiple computers across the hall for Chinese English teachers was empty. After I finished that nightmare, I went and bought my ticket to depart Thursday night, and a few hours later I got a call from my friend saying he would be departing Shanghai the same day I arrive. Great. Thank you English Department for being totally inept and completely ruining my plans. So now I needed to find some people to meet up with in Shanghai so I didn't go crazy. I quickly logged onto couchsurfing and made a few contacts, including the girl I'd be staying with, and the next day I took off for Shanghai, but not before the English Department could display its patheticism one more time. I get a text at about 10am saying I need to be at the office at that very moment to sign the final versions of the grades. Could we not have done this the day before WHEN I WAS ALREADY IN THE OFFICE? I must say, this was the first real time I have been completely frustrated with being in China. All the little things that get on my nerves, like ineptitude, arbitrariness, stupid rules, hierarchies, and problems arising from a simple lack of communication, came together for one horrific experience. Little did I know my next breakdown would come just a few days later.

I arrive in Shanghai, and luckily my couchsurfing host is cool and has a sweet apartment with an extra bed and really comfortable couch. We chat for a while the first night and then we both head to bed. Unfortunately my host had to work a lot, which meant I'd be exploring the city by myself, but which would also lead to me watching about 15 hours of LOST during my stay. I had hoped Shanghai would be significantly warmer than Weihai, but the weather turned out to be complete rubbish, as it was still pretty chilly and rained almost everyday.

Rain doesn't mean any fewer people are out, though:

SO, the next day, after visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art (which was too small), I purchased a sweater and then stopped to put it on in a park. As I was doing that, three young Chinese girls approached me and started speaking in English. After a while they told me about a "tea festival that only happens every three years" in Shanghai and invited me to come along. I thought it odd that I would not have heard of such a festival, as Chinese do festivals to the extreme, but being alone, I said why not and went along. They led me to some small tea house in an out-of-the-way shopping mall, and I was a little surprised to see that the price of a cup of tea was about 50 RMB, or 6 dollars. I almost decided then not to have any, because I can't tell the difference between tea anyway, don't particularly like it, and certainly didn't want to pay that much for it, but I wanted to be polite since they had invited me. The xiaojie, or young girl who performed the tea ceremony, came in and told us, or so I thought, that because it was the time of the three-year festival, we could try all the kinds of tea that were on one section of the menu, for the price of one cup. So, seven tiny cups of tea later, each about three sips, and only one of which I really liked, the bill comes. 1400RMB, or almost 200 dollars. I am half expecting the three girls to pay, since they had invited me and this would have followed Chinese customs, but then one of the girl suggests I pay it. My suspicions were aroused again, but again I attributed it to a possible language misunderstanding. My suspicions were again aroused when I noticed I was the only one pulling money out, but one girl did get up and leave the room, so I had to assume she was paying for the rest with her credit card, which would still have been unlikely because Chinese almost never use credit cards, and paying 1000RMB for your friends is quite a nice gift. I was still shocked by the total cost and didn't want to offend anyone, so I just paid my 350RMB (almost 50 dollars) share of the bill, which left me with less than 50RMB in my wallet. It takes me almost four days to earn 350RMB, so you can imagine how upset I was when I realized I'd be giving it over for about half a litre of TEA. I quickly decided I'd better not spend any more time with these free-spending girls and took the metro back to my host's place, where my LOST addiction began. The whole way home and for the rest of the night I replayed the events back over in my head and realized almost immediately that all my little suspicions had added up into one big resounding SCAM: the unknown festival, the remote tea house, the inconsistencies in their stories (they said they had been learning English for only a year, though they were far better speakers than any of my students), them knowing perfect translations for the more intricate parts and words of the ceremony, the fast speed of the ceremony, the fact that the xiaojie didn't use all of the ceremony utensils, and the paying of the bill. Everything was further confirmed when I got back to my host's place and told her the story. Turns out, two days before two of her other surfers had been taken for the same ruse and had been asked to pay 1200RMB! I was infuriated but even more embarrassed that I had been taken for a ride. For one, I live in China, so I should be aware of potential scams, and two, I live in China, which means that I don't make a lot of money. The thing is, they have practiced their scheme down to every detail. They concentrate on foreigners, of course, and then act as if they just want to practice English. They hold very polite conversation and compliment the victim at every chance, making him/her feel at ease; they repeatedly complimented by big nose, which is seen as attractive in China. They invite the victim to spend time with them, and not wanting to offend, the victim obliges. They try to put the entire bill with the victim, and again, not wanting to offend, he obliges. Then they take pictures with the victim, either as a sort of trophy or because they really like to have pictures taken with foreigners, and then get ready to seduce another victim. They do it every day, so the procedure, and their stories, are almost flawless. Most of their victims never even realize it, but because I don't make a lot of money, I thought long and hard about it and picked apart all the inconsistencies, and the next day I paid the tea house another visit.

As soon as she saw me coming, the xiaojie closed the door and stood like a coward behind the reception desk. I'm guessing they don't have too many repeat customers with the amount of money they make people pay, so she definitely knew I wasn't there for another cup of tea. I had come back to try and retrieve 300 of my stolen RMB, and right away the manager threatened to call the police. I told him to go ahead, figuring he'd have more to explain, and to lose, than I did, and this quickly changed his mind. I told him he and his cronies ought to be ashamed at their total lack of human decency and self respect, and he tried on his acting clothes and acted as though he were shocked and offended by my accusations. He told me that his practices were fair and that I had just misunderstood, and at he first refused to give me any money back, but after I made it clear that I was not going to move and would thus prevent him from doing any business that afternoon, he started to talk with me and call me "friend", though I quickly reminded him that we were not friends since friends don't steal one another's money. I was ultimately able to take back 100RMB from him, which is much more than he originally offered, but didn't want to push it any further since he wasn't obligated to give me anything back, but now that I think about it, had I stuck with my plan of ruining his business for the day, perhaps he would have given me a full refund. I also sent lovely emails to my "friends" who had invited me the day before, but I have not heard back from them ;-) Needless to say, I avoided any other young Chinese girls who wanted to speak English with me and just pretended that I was German.

Ultimately, though, the event just reminded me of the nature of humans. Some are worse than others, like those involved in this incident, but all have their faults. I started thinking about how the managers of the stores from which I stole ninja turtle kleenex and every flavor of tic tacs as a kid probably weren't too happy, either. I was still angry at the operators of the scam, but after thinking about it, I understand how it happens and how and why they are capable of it.

Though this event only consumed a few hours of my time, it will be what I remember of my trip to Shanghai, if not also because Shanghai is lacking in the cultural department in which Beijing thrives. Shanghai is simply a young city, so there's not much to do or see. The museums I visited were either unimpressive or in the middle of rotating their exhibitions, and besides museums, one is mostly left to wander around the city. The architecture is much cooler than that in Beijing, though, and the mix of modern skyscrapers and imperial British and French structures provide for quite a fantastic dichotomy. And similar to the hutong Beijing, the Old City leaves one wondering how people can still live as they did 200 years ago in a city approaching 20 million people with such international significance.

The Old City in Shanghai:

A butcher in the Old City:

Just a 15-minute walk away, a view from the Bund of the Pudong section of Shanghai:

Next up on the traveling itinerary is south China, more specifically Yunnan Province, which borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. I head up to Beijing on Monday to meet Tyler, and from there we fly to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, and then train and bus our way around for a couple of weeks from there.

Classes!

2007-01-06T19:56:00.000-08:00

I just thought I'd give you an idea of who I've been teaching this semester. These are my five classes:

Beijing, Visit Two!

2007-01-06T19:17:00.000-08:00

I'm back from another trip to Beijing, hopefully just stopping off for enough time to proctor and grade exams (and get sick again), before moving on to Shanghai and Hangzhou with a couple of friends from Weihai.

My primary purpose in going to Beijing again was to meet up with a friend from Vanderbilt, who was in Beijing half-way through a 12-day orchestral tour of China, but I decided if I was going to pay for the flights to and from Beijing, I might as well go a few days early and have my first go at couchsurfing.

I arrived late Friday night and was a little nervous after I received a text from my host that sounded like he had completely forgotten that I was coming. Everything worked out, though, and I met up with him and some of his friends at a Japanese restaurant before heading to a club for a little dancing and a few drinks. This was definitely the most international experience I've had since being in China, as his friends included some other Frenchies (he's French) and some Swedes, Japanese, Indonesian, Chinese, and Americans. Since he was busy with schoolwork, the next day I headed into Beijing with another couchsurfer, an American who introduced Barack Obama at his graduation ceremony, and walked the hutong (small back alleyways) of Beijing. It's incredible that areas like this still exist right in the middle of a city like Beijing, which has almost 20 million inhabitants, but they are fast disappearing as land developers realize their incredible value and push out the families that have lived in them for generations.

A meat shop in a hutong:

Some propaganda in a hutong:

The next day, New Year's Eve, I did a little shopping in Beijing before getting ready to party the night away. We had dinner in a Japanese-Italian fusion restaurant; I was expecting pizza wrapped in seaweed and sushi with pepperoni, but really, the only fusion that occurred was that dishes of both types were on the menu. Alas! Afterwards we went to a relaxed bar, where we hoped to chill before heading to a dance club, but unfortunately the club was too packed by the time we went and we were left with nowhere to celebrate the countdown. So, I yelled Happy New Year/Xinnian Kuaile in a cab with a French guy, a Chinese girl, and a Swedish guy at midnight. It was a little anticlimactic and disappointing to say the least. Being in Beijing, I had hoped for a party much better than I could have gotten in Weihai, but things don't always turn out as expected or hoped for. We headed to "Bed Bar" afterwards, which, as you can guess, is a bar where the seating consists of beds, but perhaps it is best that we didn't party too hard that night, for the next morning I had to wake up to meet my friend Ellen when she arrived at her hotel!

She was originally supposed to stay two nights in Beijing, and I had planned a full itinerary for the two days, but I knew full well not to really expect everything to work out, as it never does in China. She ended up with a couple of hours to eat lunch on the first day, and then the majority of the next day, before she had to fly out to Inner Mongolia. We went to an Indian restaurant for lunch, and then I dropped her off at the Great Hall of the People (on Tian'anmen Square!), where she would perform that night. I showed some of the tour chaperones around Beijing and then watched the Flag Lowering Ceremony at Tian'anmen before making my way back to the Hall for the concert. The sound quality wasn't great, but the experience of seeing a performance in such an important place was incredible. We had planned to go out dancing after the concert, but we were so exhausted we just went to bed.

Flag Lowering at Tian'anmen:

Concert in the Great Hall:

The next morning we awoke at 4:30am to be ready to leave at 5:30am for our day-trip to Simatai Great Wall, the same section I visited in October. It really is supposed to be the best section near Beijing, and this time I wanted to see it with some snow around it. Unfortunately not much snow was left from the previous few days' of snow, but combined with the near absence of smog, there was enough to make it even more beautiful than before. The drive to the Wall took three hours, and after a three-hour hike and the trip back, we had enough time to do a little shopping and collapse from exhaustion before she headed off to Inner Mongolia.

A funny sign at the Wall:

What an office!

Ellen and I on the Wall:

After Ellen and I parted ways, I made my way back to a different Couchsurfer's place and promptly went to sleep. I have thought a little about moving to Beijing next year, as there are so many exciting things to do, but this trip really reminded me that it is a large, exhausting city, and I have the same misgivings about it as I do about NYC and Berlin. The next day I slept in and met up with yet another CSer before catching my flight back to Weihai.

Like I said earlier, I hope to be off to Shanghai in a couple of days, and I'll even be back in Beijing in two weeks to meet up with Tyler. I will without a doubt have exhausted Beijing by the time I leave, as I plan to go at least two more times to meet up with other friends coming to China, and by that time it will surely have exhausted me as well.

I'll leave you with some more snowy Great Wall pictures.

Cultural Differences

2007-01-06T18:36:00.000-08:00

As I've noted before, one of the hardest things to get used to here was the differing level of cleanliness when compared to the Western World. I have already seen children peeing and pooping on the sidewalk here (they have slits going from the front to the back of their pants specifically for this purpose), but never before had I seen it in a restaurant. After I finished my final exams on Friday, Allyssa and I went to one of our favorite restaurants, a Korean one that serves a great curry dish and an Italian-inspired one with noodles. This also happens to be the cleanest restaurant of which we know in Weihai. Well, near the end of the meal, a little boy (but one that was old enough to be walking around and climbing onto different objects) started motioning that he needed to go to the bathroom, and instead of using the one at the back of the restaurant, the mother pulled out a paper cup, pulled down the boy's pants, and held the cup as he urinated into it. She then stepped outside to dump it onto the sidewalk, though she almost tripped on the way, which would have sent urine flying all over the inside of the restaurant. Allyssa and I looked at each other dumbfounded.

A less disgusting difference I have noticed lies in the method used to draw stick figures. Chinese draw them as seen below, sort of like a big snowball on top of a house,

while Americans draw them like this:

I was trying to think over what the difference might mean.

Do Chinese people have no necks? Is this why they are shorter? Are their legs attached directly to their arms?

Are Americans perpetually happy? Or frustrated and clueless?

Perhaps the Kiwi way is the best:

Finally, after reading through my students' final evaluations of my teaching and the courses I taught, I realized that the many Chinese attribute dissatisfaction or unhappiness to themselves and their own actions, and less often to external factors or someone else. Some of the students wrote that at times the class was boring, but instead of writing of ways I could improve it next year, they wrote that perhaps they should participate more in class and work harder. I remember some awful classes and professors at Vanderbilt, and when evaluation season rolled around, we couldn't wait to criticize the teacher and the class. Rarely did we reflect on how we could have made it better ourselves. Similarly, I attribute most of the students' unhappiness here with their own efforts and less with myself. I feel somewhat justified in this though, because I did work each week to alter my lessons and make them more interesting, and pretty much only one class by the end of the semester wrote of the lessons being boring, and as expected, they were the ones that made the least effort to participate in any class activities and discussions.

I wonder if this difference results from the pressure placed on each student to succeed at every level of schooling. As the high-performing students are continuously pared down through examinations and they become closer and closer to reaching the ultimate goal of acceptance to university, their lives come to involve little more than studying. If they ultimately fail to achieve acceptance to university, they and those around them conclude that it is only because of their efforts, or lack thereof. Perhaps this is a formula for creating a responsible society, but it also results in one so competitive there's little room for enjoyment of what the hard work has brought. Once students begin university, their weekend nights continue to be occupied largely with studying, and those who don't follow this trend are accused by their peers of wasting the opportunity they have. While this process is also at work in the Western World, I think it has been tempered a bit by becoming comfortable with success. Here, though, every step toward success also offers a possibility of straying from the path, and students are so wary of being left behind that they stop at almost nothing to achieve that success. Many of them plagiarize papers and cheat on exams, and in most circumstances it goes unpunished. While this doesn't always enable them to get ahead of the pack, it does assure them of not falling behind it. In any case, it certainly doesn't do anything to improve China's reputation abroad as being uncreative, something the students are fully aware of, as they often woe the fact that China has never produced a Nobel laureate. For the time being, though, with all the pressure placed on students to succeed, it doesn't look like anything will be changing soon.

Happy New Year!

2006-12-28T07:15:00.000-08:00

I'm off to Beijing tomorrow to meet up with a good friend Ellen, who will be in Beijing for about two days as part of a Vanderbilt orchestral tour of China. Since I'll be there for about five days, most of my time will be with random people, called couchsurfers, whom I've contacted online for a free place to sleep (plus gain cultural insight). So, wish me luck on that venture.

I thought I'd leave you with a picture of a traditional Chinese toilet. This one in particular is located in the building in which I teach, so you can imagine I try to avoid it whenever possible. Still, I have to endure its smell for multiple hours each day, though the putrid stench is somewhat muted in the winter.

I've been spending a lot of time in the bathroom myself lately, though luckily not this one, as I came down with my first ever case of food poisoning a couple of days ago. Almost everyone that comes to China gets sick because of the food in the first few days, and while that did happen when I first arrived, this was much worse. I was pretty weak for about a day and a half and slept for about 60 percent of those days, but I'm pretty much over it now.

On that note, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Since I'll be in Beijing, I'll be celebrating it at least 13 hours ahead of most of you, but perhaps I'll be thinking of you celebrating the New Year as I'm eating lunch that day.

Cheers!

Is it already that time of the year?

2006-12-24T18:07:00.000-08:00

So, it doesn't really feel like Christmas. Sure, there are touches here and there, but nothing like the hysteria back home. There's no last minute shopping to be done, and Christmas tunes are heard very rarely. Santa hats and decorations are actually quite plentiful, but because they might be stocked next to a cardboard pig with Chinese characters, a Chinese spin on whatever tradition is expected is always noticeable. Some Chinese, particularly those with commercial interests, have begun to embrace the holiday, but the true meaning seems to be lost almost completely. For instance, as another teacher (Roz) here noted, a local hotel has observed the custom of setting up a nativity scene around the holiday. However, not really knowing what the nativity means, instead of depicting the figures of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the Wise Men, etc., they used Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The hotel/apartment building where I live has also given it its best shot. There's quite a large tree in the lobby, though it seriously needs my decorating help. Around the tree are lots of Christmas pennants and inflatable Santas hanging from the ceiling, and red lanterns decorate the entrance.

I was also able to find a Christmas tree at one of the larger shopping centers here. While I would probably never have a silver tree at home (I don't like fake ones in any case), this one is small enough and I think it looks quite nice with the colored lights (which I also try to avoid).

On Christmas Eve Eve one of my classes decided to throw me and their other foreign teachers a Christmas party. I was really touched by how much effort they put into it since they know how important the holiday is in the West and how we'd probably be missing our friends and family back home. One of the students is a huge basketball fan and only misses games when he's in class. I commented on how the Rockets had played well that morning (the games are shown in the morning here because of the time difference), and he said he hadn't been able to watch it because he had already been practicing for his performance that night. Basically, the students prepared all day so that they could give performances for us, the teachers and honored guests. I believe every one of the 26 students in the class was present, and I could only think that this would have never happened in school in America. Granted, my students have all of their classes together, which doesn't happen past fifth grade in America, but even so, it would be difficult to get even a small group of students to put together an event like this one. Few might be available, and even fewer would volunteer. I think they really saw it as a way to honor the teachers and make us feel at home, though, and for that reason they were very eager to participate. Most of the performances were skits, some that the students had written themselves, and others based on traditional Chinese stories. Some were in Chinese, which I had more trouble understanding, though most of them were in English. They had improvised their costumes with what clothing they already had, and they had spent time making their props (swords, etc.). Other students sang songs, some traditional Chinese, some more modern, and some even modern Christmas Carols. What I didn't realize is that as a guest of events like this one (rather small with fewer than 50 or so people), you are also expected to perform. So, after a few of their performances, the host said something to the effect of, "And now I think it's time for Neal to come give us a special performance." I tried to resist and say I had been losing my voice (a bold-faced lie), but they quickly dismissed that excuse and then started clapping/banging on their desks for me to perform. So, I reluctantly took the stage but managed to grab one of the other teachers and pull her along with me, and we sang a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bells"; any harmony was completely unintentional. Apparently all of the other guests had been notified that they were expected to perform, or had learned from previous experience, so they had all prepared something beforehand. One of the teachers always carries a poem in his pocket in case he is trapped into such situations, and his wife had already prepared a song to sing. There was one new foreigner that night who has been here only three days and who also goes by my name (though spelled "Neill"), and unfortunately for him, he was also expected to perform. So, he grabbed a few apples and oranges and juggled them, and then took a volunteer for his next act. You've seen this one before, where the magician has his subject stand next to a wall and then tosses knives around his or her head without actually hitting it. Well, he was going to do this with scissors, but after he said it would be his first time attempting the trick, the volunteer understandably backed out. So, if anyone has any suggestions of what my talent could be, let me know and I'll be practicing it for my next banquet. I momentarily thought I could just show them my webbed toes, but I'm not sure if they would have been as excited about them as I am.

The next day, Christmas Eve, we had a big party at a local school and invited all of our foreign and Chinese friends, about 60 of which showed up. We chatted awhile and then read the Christmas story, but the main highlight of the afternoon was the White Elephant exchange. As this was the first such exchange for many of the Chinese attendees, they found it particularly funny. I invited the Chinese man with whom I eat dinner each week, and I had difficulty even explaining the concept to him: "Bring a gift, a cheap gift, that no one would want. And then wrap it." "But why would I want to bring a gift that no one wants?"

Accordingly, many of the gifts weren't too funny, but I did end up with a clock that I have put to use in my living room. Another teacher received a furry tiara, though, and Neill received a bright pink pencil sharpener shaped like a train, so some of the gifts were at least worthy of the White Elephant name. I brought a 10yuan ($1.25) plastic jewelry box decorated with scenes from the movie "Titanic", and some young Chinese girl happily snatched it up to take home.

Ok, on to Christmas Day. Allyssa and I exchanged stockings stuffed with Chinese goodies. Among the gifts I received were a sock-drying apparatus, "laundry ball" agitators, "boxing pen-container woodcraft construction kit", "conch candy", "Ha! I only love you good quality" pig keychain flashlight, "double happiness ball for trainning of Chinese t.t. team", ice trays, baijiu, and "Talladega Nights".

After that we headed over to the Golden Bay, the 5-star hotel, for lunch with a few close friends. Though quite expensive at about $15 a head, it was really our only shot to have turkey for Christmas. We rented out the "Western Food" Restaurant and gorged ourselves with turkey, lamb, mashed potatoes, baked zucchini with cheese and meat, soup, spaghetti, and desserts, and then headed to the bowling alley for a few games. We also exchanged Secret Santa presents, and I must say I think the one I received was one of the best: a nice towel and (the real present) three free massages at a Korean spa!

Christmas Day in Weihai!

Turkey!

Bowling:

After bowling, Allyssa and I went back to the home of our Kiwi friends for dinner and merriment, and then finished the night with the Christmas Party episode of "The Office", sent to me for Christmas by my family back home. Unfortunately, I then had to plan for classes the next day! Ughhhhhhh.

Oh, I almost forgot. Last week I showed "A Christmas Story" in all of my classes. By the fifth time watching it in four days, I was a little tired of it, but my students really seemed to enjoy it, particularly the more physically-humorous scenes that they could more easily understand. Some of the scenes that they found most interesting, however, were those that depicted particular aspects of Christmas. For instance, when the turkey comes out of the oven near the end of the movie, almost every one of my students gasped with excitement, apparently unfamiliar with the sight of a large, cooked bird (either because ducks are smaller, or because most homes do not have ovens?). A few minutes later they gasped with delight when the husband and wife sit on the sofa next to the lit Christmas tree but otherwise in the dark, looking outside at the falling snow. Like the turkey, this was an unfamiliar yet beautiful sight to them.

I want to leave you with a line from a Christmas card one of my students gave me: "You care a handsome and shy boy, with a big nose and charming eyes." Though here having a large nose is considered exotic and attractive, this probably would have made me self-conscious before I came to China. I think as a foreigner, it's impossible to remain self-conscious in China; people stare at you all the time and you can't do anything about it. Most of the time they're probably just curious, but there's also the possibility, for insecure people, that they're scrutinizing every imperfection they see. You have two options in response: accept your insecurities and no longer care about them, or go completely crazy and leave the country or become a recluse. Luckily I think I've chosen the former option.

That's all for me. I hope everyone has a good Christmas/New Year/Holiday season back home. I miss you and wish I could be there with you.

Work Work Work!

2006-12-18T19:07:00.000-08:00

I'm continually impressed by the Chinese work ethic here, particularly of common laborers. Many of the jobs they do could easily be handled by a machine and one or two other people, but perhaps their methods enable more people to be employed. For instance, often times the grass is cut by hand, blade by blade, and leaves are picked up without a rake, leaf by leaf. And people sweep the streets with brooms with no handles. I'm not just talking about the sidewalk, but about the whole street.

This past weekend it snowed a couple of inches, which made me very excited as I've lived mostly in the South, but it was also the most painful snow I've experienced, as it was blowing into my face at more than 30mph and it hurt really badly to open my eyes. By the time I arrived at the restaurant for dinner, I was completely white, and the restaurant worker wouldn't even let me come into the door without knocking it from my clothes. This restaurant is normally filthy, so for me not to be allowed in, I must have had a lot of snow on me.

One reason I like snow is because, if especially severe, it forces people to slow down and relax a bit, simply because it's impossible to do otherwise. That mentality seemed to last about a day here, as cars actually did seem to drive with some semblance of caution, but that was soon out the window as the common laborers started shoveling and sweeping the snow off of the ROADS! Again, I'm not just referring to the sidewalks. Apparently the concept of salt and gravel to combat snow has not reached China yet, nor has the snow plow, even though it snows here a significant amount. So, lots and lots of people are employed each winter to clear the streets of snow. Oh well, I enjoyed slipping and sliding for a day.

Here's a picture of the snow/ice-covered basketball courts from my dorm room.

And of some students actually playing basketball. I'm told that when it snowed several feet last year, the students simply pushed it aside so that they could continue playing.

And finally, the sad remnants of a snowman, in front of my apartment/hotel building:

It's beginning to look a lot like China

2006-12-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

I’ve been really lazy about blogging lately, but before things get too out of hand, I’ll write down some of my thoughts. I originally intended to keep a separate, traditional journal of my time here in China, but because I used this blog so often the first few weeks, I abandoned the idea of a separate journal, but since I have been relatively inactive here as well as of late, my time here is currently passing by unrecorded and without much reflection. That said, I do hope to be more diligent in writing, as I do think I’m learning a lot from being here.

I’ll start out with a few cultural observations and then let you know what’s been happening in my day-to-day life.

Teaching has been going well the past several weeks, and in fact I have only about two more weeks of instruction, followed by a movie week, a review week, and then final exams. Right before final exams I’ll have a break of a few days, during which time I am planning on visiting my friend, Ellen, from Vanderbilt who will happen to be in Beijing on an orchestral tour during those few days off. Then a certain Tyler Harlan may or may not come visit, and perhaps we’ll visit the Ice Festival in Harbin in northern China, and/or head somewhere further south to escape the increasingly bitter cold. It snowed a bit yesterday and today, but nothing substantial. The temperatures have hovered around freezing for the past couple of days, but what makes it really cold is the fierce wind that blows off of the ocean. During storms the winds are at least 30 mph, but even on nicer days they can be pretty strong and bone-chilling.

Anyhow, back to classes. As I alluded to in an earlier post, sometimes I mold part of my instruction to help me learn more about China and the national conscience. Though I originally intended to avoid the topics of Japanese reconciliation from WWII and the independence movement in Taiwan, I decided to address the issues in class after several students requested it at the beginning of the year. I’ve already written a little about Chinese feelings toward Japan, but allow me to expand a bit upon the subject. Japan committed some pretty terrible acts on Chinese citizens during WWII (much as every country does during war, though these were particularly heinous), but whereas many Americans seem to have forgiven the Japanese for their aggression during the war, the idea of forgiveness and moving on seems pretty much incomprehensible in China. I brought up the topic around the time of Thanksgiving as a way to tie in the issue of reparations to Native Americans and ancestors of slaves to a more salient debate, namely Japanese reparations to the Chinese. I outlined a few factors always discussed amid such debate (guilt/culpability of current generation as opposed to those that committed the initial acts, fairness to a generation not wholly responsible, deservedness of ancestors in receiving reparations as opposed to those who were more directly affected, role of government versus private individuals, etc.), but nothing could move my students from their position that Japan must pay reparations before they could once again enjoy hospitable relations with the mainland. I then posed the following situation: perhaps Japan never pays reparations (which is their current stance, based on treaties they argue free them of paying war reparations to the Chinese; Chinese argue, on the other hand, that these treaties only free the Japanese government from responsibility to the Chinese government, and not to individual citizens; whatever the case, there is no real dialogue at the moment). If China were to forgive Japan nonetheless and establish normal relations with the country, would this be a mature step, or one that would indicate giving in without proper recompense? Unanimously, my students opposed any such move and agreed that no amount of time would heal the wounds without a formal declaration of apology and the payment of reparations from the Chinese. Not even 500 or 1000 years without such actions would rectify the deeds. Even outside of the classroom, I am constantly confronted by this very negative perception of Japan. Students casually talk about their hatred of Japan when we go out for lunch, but they never really seem to be able to articulate any substantial reasons why. It must be hard to be a Japanese student or teacher living in Chinese, particularly in a country whose citizens seem to offer no free forgiveness. While I am cautious of labeling the whole country as such, the sentiment is so strong, especially in this area, where many of the crimes were committed, that I feel relatively justified in doing so.

The week before I discussed Japan, I had tackled the even more sensitive issue of Taiwan (I have since decided that I will save discussion of any additional political topics for next semester). Because we were studying persuasive writing in a couple of my classes, I introduced the importance of addressing and weakening some of the major arguments of one’s opponent. Otherwise, two sides end up arguing two separate cases with no real reflection, and as long as the points offered in both are valid, the undecided audience is left with making a decision no less easy than before the (sometimes heated) debate began. Knowing that all of my students would have the same opinion about Taiwan, I at least wanted them to be aware that others do not share their opinions. And even though I framed the presentation of the alternative arguments as a way to strengthen their arguments, my alternative intentions were to help them think more deeply about the issue. So, if they were going to have one opinion, at least they would have thought about it more deeply and have become better able to articulate it.

First I had them list the reasons why Taiwan should not be independent of the mainland; they had trouble coming up with anything other than its historical relations as part of China, and while this is a valid argument, it is not particularly convincing in a world where at least a few countries a year, especially those in Africa, seem to substantially change their governments and in essence become almost completely different countries. As soon as I asked for students to brainstorm reasons why others might argue for Taiwanese independence, one student stood up and demanded that we change topics, stating that, “There is no discussion”. Mind you, I wasn’t offering arguments for independence in hopes of trying to get them to change their opinions, and I made this clear before I even began the lesson. Rather, I framed it completely as a way to make their opinions seem more valid. If anything, I was instructing them on how to strengthen their opposition to Taiwanese independence, not weaken it. Flabbergasted, I quickly assigned an in-class essay while I fumed at the front of the class. At first I thought I had handed the situation horribly for allowing my authority in the classroom to be undermined, but I actually think I handled it pretty well now. Having them write the essay gave me some time to prepare how to respond to the students at the end of class; I told them that I had in no way meant to offend anyone, and that I had simply been using the topic as a framework for writing persuasively, though in the future I wouldn’t tolerate interrupting class for reasons like the one that interrupted it that day, and I later spoke to the student individually (he was quite embarrassed, in fact). I told them it was fine to have whatever opinion they have, but I would not allow my classroom to be used for tirades against a person, group of people, or country. When some students at the beginning of the semester requested that we discuss Taiwan, perhaps what they meant was a discussion of one side only, but I made it clear that this is not how my class will operate.

Even though I handled the situation relatively well, I was still concerned about what might be reported to my higher-ups. Students have a surprising amount of control in the classrooms here: all they have to do is complain to the dean, whatever the issue may be; the dean says a word to the teacher; and the teacher, not the student, is expected to change whatever caused the unhappiness or disagreement. Some of the other teachers have even been forced to stop assigning homework to classes because the students complained to the dean that they did not want to do it. While the teacher was still required to plan classes each week, the students were freed from their end of the contract and no longer had any responsibility outside of showing up for class. Aware of such information, I was nervous of what might be reported about me, and I didn’t sleep well for the first couple of days and week after the confrontation, but it appears that everything has passed over without any trouble. What really is unfortunate is that the class had been my favorite, and I had even been fond of the student who had been unable to control his opinions and emotions, but now it is difficult to think of the class without thinking of the “incident”. I am thankful that it happened relatively late in the semester, as my confidence in the classroom was affected, particularly with this class, but I will be able to start anew next semester.

Anyhow, the issue gave me the opportunity to reflect on differences between the American and Chinese educational systems. I think it is dangerous to always be on the lookout for differences between countries, especially if you are living in another country for a relatively long period of time, as it can make your time there really negative and prevent you from integrating into the local culture and really enjoying what the country has to offer. It happened in Germany for a time, and I have been cautious not to focus too strongly on differences, particularly unfavorable ones, in China. Still, at times it is unavoidable, particularly after moments of great frustration.

Freedom of Speech. Freedom of the Press. They’re wonderful, and I take them for granted in America. Though the press may cover ludicrous stories (see CNN’s recent obsession with everything pop culture, and FOX News’s obsession with everything untrue), they’re free to cover them under US law. And while I would like to see some more control on FOX’s propensity to distort facts and tout lies, I recognize that the introduction of controls is a slippery slope (as much as I hate the phrase) and is probably best avoided. Beijing recently announced that foreign journalists would be allowed to travel and write freely during the 2008 Olympics, though this freedom will be only temporary and will be curtailed in conjunction with the closing of the Games. Freedom of the Press is simply nonexistent here. It’s no wonder that all of my students have one opinion (though some of them do seem to be aware that everything they read is highly slanted). It’s also no wonder that plagiarism is so accepted in the world of academia here. Whereas it’s punishable by expulsion in America, it is almost expected that students plagiarize the thesis that allows them to graduate from university. Advisors do not have time to guide the theses of 30 or 40 students, and reading plagiarized work in essence reduces the amount of corrections they have to make. When they are told how and what to think, the duplication of another’s work is not but a small step further. Indeed, I am handed at least a couple of pieces of substantially plagiarized work every time I collect an assignment. Why come up with one’s own opinion for something as mundane as a 5-paragraph essay when you’re not even entitled to have your own for more pressing issues like Taiwan? Why think about how another person might view a situation when you’re not free to agree with them?

Another facet in which this issue operates is in the job market upon graduation. One of my friends here has only a few unimportant classes this semester, his next to the last before he graduates, so he has decided his time would be better spent primarily in Beijing and commuting to Weihai only when he has an exam. Anyhow, the job he has now is the same one he will have when his degree makes the completion of his university education final (though in all respect, it already is). His job? Filling internet orders for Sony-Ericsson. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a person in the US or Europe with a college diploma who desired such a job. But here, this is a job my friend feels he can’t pass up. Sure, many college graduates in China go on to find intellectually stimulating and rewarding jobs, but many end up as receptionists or factory workers, jobs reserved for the lower end of the educational spectrum in the western hemisphere. But when a college graduate in China may not, and indeed probably will not, have acquired the ability to think independently, he or she can be relatively effortlessly pushed into a job with only menial tasks, whereas in the west a graduate almost without exception will soon become unsatisfied with such work and seek something more intellectually demanding.

Well, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’ll reflect on a few more basic elements of life here in China. I’ve said that there are about 40 or so Westerners in Weihai, and the Saturday after Thanksgiving about 15 of us gathered for a potluck dinner. I was in charge of mashed potatoes and “special drinks”, and both turned out really well, despite almost all of my previous cooking experience working against me. For the potatoes I used the last of the cheese in Wehai (I had been saving it for more than a month, though a new shipment has arrived in the past week) along with some garlic and salt and milk. For the “special drinks” I decided to produce a spiked and spiced apple cider, a decision that was made more complicated by the fact that apple cider can’t be purchased in China (at least not in Weihai). My friend Allyssa helped me throw some ingredients together (hawthorne nectar, apple juice, orange juice, lemon zest, cloves, cinnamon, orange and apple slices, and rum), and it turned out to be pretty much the best cider I’ve ever had, save for the apple cider in Illinois that a certain Benjamin Campbell introduced to me. While no turkey was had, we did have a couple of chickens. Other than that, many of the dished were not what you would normally expect for Thanksgiving, especially since only about 6 of the Westerners were American. The Kiwis brought mini pizzas and ice cream cake, while some Chinese guests brought Chinese dumplings and spicy seafood and shrimp (with the head and legs still attached). This also marked the first time that I’ve ever attended a Thanksgiving dinner at which chopsticks were used.

The Thanksgiving Spread:

A Friend Eating Thanksgiving Dinner with Chopsticks:

Then this weekend, the local five-star hotel invited some foreigners to sing Christmas carols at their annual tree-lighting ceremony. Many foreign businessmen stay at the hotel, though Christmas is becoming more popular in China in general. Basically the only requirement was that the participants have white skin, as we clearly weren’t chosen for our singing capabilities. After we sang for about five minutes, we were given a free Christmas dinner as compensation, and this dinner actually did have turkey with homemade cranberry sauce, though most of the spread was more oriented toward Chinese taste buds. After dinner we played a few games of bowling in the hotel’s bowling alley. My bowling was pretty unremarkable, though I did win one game and bowl “the spare of the century”, as one onlooker described it. I had two pins on each side of the lane, and having no hope of getting all of them, I chucked the ball down the lane with a lot of spin on it, and it hit pretty much the only place that would even give one the chance of collecting all the pins. My ball hit a pin on the right side just enough to nudge it over to the left with barely enough strength to knock down the other two pins. I’m sure I’ll never be able replicate the bowl again, and I was pretty nervous I’d roll a gutterball on my next turn to make it look even more like an accident, but luckily that didn’t happen.

The first Asian Santa I've ever seen:

Another cool thing about last night was that I might have made a new friend. Perhaps this has been one of the hardest transitions from college to working life. I am making more friends here, but the rate is pretty slow, and many of them are significantly older than me. Other than Allyssa, who also just graduated from college, my primary friends include two families in their thirties with small children, and a 35 year-old Chinese man. I have a couple of other Chinese friend that are 21 years old, but they are both moving away in a couple of months. So, I was pretty happy to learn that a 22 year-old from Australia just moved to Weihai about a week ago. Again, the unfortunate thing is that he’ll only be here two weeks on and four weeks away, as he is based in Weihai but works for a mining company and must travel a lot. Even though he’s been here for only a week, he already knew about a club in Weihai that I had not heard about, so we went there with another girl named Melidy after the bowling subsided. I went to clubs quite often in Germany, but my few attempts in Nashville after I studied abroad were quite disastrous, so I was pleasantly surprised by the club in Weihai. Granted, it wasn’t your typical European disco, as it featured a scary woman in a mask trying to persuade club-goers to interact with her (including me); a couple of solo singers when music wasn’t playing; and martial arts performers with giant fans; but the DJs and music were great, and there were enough people dancing (including me) to make it fun as well. While it wasn’t too nice to my wallet, I hope I’ll be able to spend more time there in the future.

That’s all for now. If you’ve read to the end of this post, give yourself a big pat on the back. And send me a Christmas card.

Neal Palmer
Shandong University at Weihai
Wen Xuanyuan Room 402
180 Wenhua Xilu, Weihai, P.R. China 264209

Here is another picture for your personal pleasure, from a hiking trip in Weihai a few weeks ago:

100(ish) Things

2006-11-27T04:30:00.000-08:00

I'm stealing this idea from of a few of the other blogs I read. The list was supposed to be 100 things about myself, but I have a few more than 100.

1. I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life, but I'm enjoying the ride.
2. I'd be enjoying it more if I didn't have a heap of college debt to worry about.
3. My favorite color is blue.
4. I've been to 17 different countries and 34 of the states in the US.
5. If I think a movie has a stupid name, I refuse to watch it, regardless of how good it otherwise looks.
6. I hate talking on the phone, which makes it hard to keep in touch with people.
7. I don't want to be an "easy detacher", but I think I am at times.
8. My grandmother taught me all I needed to know about lesbians when I was in middle school.
9. The same grandmother has pinched the butt of my best friend from high school.
10. I think Chicago is the best city in America, followed by San Francisco and Boston.
11. The longest I've ever gone without showering is a week; I was pretty busy and didn't think it was necessary since it was winter.
12. I now shower every day, given the chance.
13. My favorite city in the world is Krakow, Poland; my favorite country is Croatia.
14. I have two fully webbed toes, and two more that are half-webbed.
15. This does not enable me to swim better. I can't swim.
16. My favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip.
17. I hope to read through the list of the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century before I die, but I'm becoming increasingly distracted my more modern, more humorous offerings.
18. I did too much in high school.
19. I don't think golf is a sport.
20. I have a fear of heights, unless I'm securely fastened to something.
21. Large bodies of water also give me the willies.
22. Texture largely determines whether I like a food or not.
23. I don't like peeing in public places, but I don't mind being nude.
24. I don't think I'll ever save a lot of money, because I enjoy spending it traveling as soon as I get it.
25. I like to get presents, but I enjoy giving them even more, especially if I can see the recipient's reaction.
26. I would be happy learning a new language every couple of years for the rest of my life.
27. Currently, I can speak at least moderately well English, German, Spanish, and Chinese.
28. I played the trombone in middle and high school, but I always wanted to play the bass or piano more.
29. I really like going to clubs and dancing, though I often have trouble convincing my friends to do the same.
30. I've never successfully completed a turn while skiing in my life.
31. I'd be happy playing tennis everyday for the rest of my life.
32. I don't want to turn into a person whose only entertainment and joy in life derives from the television, but if the reality TV craze continues, it may happen.
33. I've been really skinny for most of my life, and one of my biggest fears is getting fat.
34. I also fear being old and alone.
35. I didn't drink more than a couple of sips of alcohol until I was 21. Germany changed that.
36. The next place I want to go is South America.
37. I've never really desired to go to Africa or Australia.
38. I hate the television show "Friends".
39. I still bite my nails, but no longer to the point that they become painful.
40. My brain is highly mathematically oriented. I always try to find patterns in things.
41. Whenever I ride as a passenger in a car on the highway, I am unable to keep from staring at the dotted lines as they pass by and trying to coordinate them with whatever music is playing.
42. I used to iron my socks.
43. Things like this make me wonder if I have a small case of OCD. My brother would probably agree.
44. My brother and I didn't get along until I moved away for college, but I think we're pretty good friends now.
45. I really don't enjoy watching people jam or practice on a guitar; my brother learned guitar when we were growing up.
46. I'm afraid that America is trapped in a spiral of suckiness leading only downwards.
47. When people misuse simple words like "you're", "your", "they're", "there", and "their", I can't help but disregard and ignore whatever opinion they have.
48. I hope I never live in the suburbs.
49. My kids will attend public schools.
50. Whenever I got my hands on the Guinness Book of World Records as a kid, I would turn immediately to the picture of the man from India with the longest fingernails in the world.
51. Crunchy peanut butter is much better than its smooth counterpart.
52. I used to fear public speaking, but my experience this year has converted that into mild indifference.
53. If I had to give up any sense, smell would be the first to go.
54. If I care about something, I am incapable of giving less than my best, much to my dismay.
55. Whenever I feel that I'm getting too involved in an activity and fear that my responsibility may be increased, I have a tendency to promptly check myself out of said activity.
56. Although I hate most popular music, Madonna and Britney Spears have somehow managed to infiltrate my otherwise impenetrable shield against it.
57. I hate to shave.
58. I hate getting ready for bed (brushing teeth, taking out contacts, washing face). When I'm ready to go to sleep, I don't want anything to get in my way.
59. If I start watching a movie after 9pm, my chances of finishing it before I fall asleep are no better than one in ten.
60. If I really like a certain food, I will eat it incessantly until I can practically never eat it again (cheerios, reeces pieces, fresh mozzarella).
61. I don't want to make money my object, but I also realize that it makes it a lot easier to do the things I want to do.
62. I am really impatient.
63. I can't stand people who think they're better than someone else because they're richer, more educated, or more "cultured".
64. I always use the Oxford comma.
65. I own more pairs of shoes than most girls, though I have only a few pairs with me at the moment.
66. My favorite number is 4, though this is the most unlucky number in China, as it has the same sound as the word for "death".
67. I don't say much until I'm ready to say it.
68. Accordingly, people may initially find me shy or boring.
69. I used to have really low self esteem, though that has improved somewhat in the last couple of years. Learning a new language and embarrassing yourself will do wonders.
70. My favorite kind of food hails from Italy.
71. I once ate pizza for 10 straight meals this summer.
72. I cope with extreme sadness by laughing, then crying.
73. Many people probably thought I was conceited in high school. I like to say I was just a teenager.
74. I once had the nickname "buns".
75. Some people think my butt is no bigger than average size, though.
76. I have had more nicknames than most people I know. Neallyweally, neallyworm, neallymouse, niels bohr, palm pilot, armstrong, wheels, and squeals are some of them, among many others.
77. I am more ticklish than any other person I know.
78. I make a really weird sound when someone tickles me.
79. I have always wanted a pair of moccasin house slippers.
80. My clothing size has only decreased since middle school.
81. I love almost all modern art more than anything Monet ever put his hands on.
82. I have eaten plentiful amounts of cow stomach in the past three months.
83. My least favorite holiday is July 4, even with the fireworks.
84. I love road trips, whatever the destination.
85. I can't pass up buying a used book if I have even the lightest desire to read it.
86. My room at home is too green.
87. I have been keeping a list of potential baby names since I was 14.
88. I can't wait to have my own house to decorate.
89. Craftsmen and bungalow styles are my favorite.
90. My favorite drink is a White Russian; my favorite beer is a Schneider Aventinus from Germany.
91. I wish I were more muscular, but that wish does not overcome my aversion to working out.
92. I miss my friends from college.
93. I also miss my family.
94. I don't miss America.
95. I have been to several NASCAR races; at the time I enjoyed them.
96. I've lost the majority of the elections I've entered in my life.
97. I still have hopes of becoming America's president.
98. But, I don't know if those hopes outweigh my fear of becoming a horrible person in the process.
99. Almost every time I am out walking during the night, a street lamp noticeably turns on or off.
100. Sometimes I convince myself that something within my body, like a gravitational field of sorts, causes this to happen.
101. I'm always compelled to make it to the highest point in the vicinity of wherever I am.
102. I prefer really soft beds to really hard ones.
103. My bed now is pretty hard.
104. I once worked at a radio station. I miss the music, but not the elitism.
105. I'm a Christian.
106. I think government and religion should be kept separate.
107. I'm bad at fake smiling.
108. People often think I'm lying because I usually laugh when people accuse me of doing so, even if I'm being perfectly honest.
109. I rarely lie.
110. The first thing I remember stealing was a multi-pack of Ninja Turtles tissues.
111. I also remember stealing one of every flavor of tic tacs. My parents probably thought I would be a lifelong klepto.
112. I think I have a memory from before I was able to walk.

Halloween Stories, Second Round

2006-11-03T22:48:00.000-08:00

(Untitled 3)
This is a story that happened in the girls' dormitory. It was very late in the night, already near midnight. A girl woke from her sleep and went to wash her hand. When she came into the wash room, she noticed a girl was washing her face. She couldn't see her face clearly, because her hair was so long and almost covered her face. When she came out of the washroom, that girl was still washing her face, so she felt very confused. Why should one wash one's face for such a long time? She washed her hands beside the girl who was still washing her face. When she looked into the mirror before them, to her horror and surprise, in the mirror the girl's hair and face were full of blood! The red blood, along her red hair, dropped one after one. She stiffened at the horrific sight. She turned her head towards that girl, but the blood disappeared. Then, the long-haired girl turned her head to her, too, staring at her eyes, and said, "Do you want to wash face, too?"

(Untitled 4)
One night, when Tom was doing his homework alone at home, suddenly he heard a woman calling his name in a low voice. He looked around only to find nothing. He thought it was his illusion, so he did what he just did and ignored it. However, it lasted several times. Out of curiosity, he walked around the house. Just as he stood before the mirror, he saw an ugly woman with long hair, big blue eyes, pale face and white gown behind him in the mirror. But when he turned back, there was nobody. He was so scared that he wanted to go to sleep. When he lay on bed, he found the woman hanging over his bed. He screamed and ran out of the house."

(Untitled 5, aka "The Dunghill")
Long ago, in the village, a widow lived a peaceful life with her children--two boys. The widow worked hard to support her family. Their life was unwealthy, but happy. There was a rogue that lived nearby who had his own family. He was always on his bad behavior, so the villagers disliked him. He had coveted the widow for a long time.
One afternoon, he got drunk and lurched to the widow's family. At that time, her boys went to school, so in widow's family, only she herself stayed at home. From then on, both people were lost. And from then on, rumor about the widow and the man were spread around the whole village. The boys of the widow were very sad and missed their mother very well. They had to live on themselves although they were very young. They had to work. Some day a month later, when they cleaned the dunghill in their courtyard, they found something unusual. They dragged the bag-like thing from the dunghill. Unfolding the bag-like thing, they were surprised the bag was full of bones.
After examining the bones, villagers knew that it was the man's. And later they knew that the widow was mad.
It's a true story.

(Untitled 6, aka "The Man with No Chin")
In one evening, a girl was on her way home, when suddenly she saw an old man squatting in the corner. She felt curious and she went towards him and asked what was wrong with him. The old man said nothing, but he turned his head to the girl. The moment she saw him, she was very frightened because he had no chin. She ran away as fast as possible, but the old man ran after her. She was eager to find someone to help her. But there was no one in the street. When she ran to home, she saw her father was standing out of the gate. She shouted to her father, "Dad, dad, an old man without chin is running after me!" Her father smiled to her, "Don't be so afraid. Do you see that I don't have chin, either?"

"Don't You Feel Strange?"
In a stormy night, the husband killed his wife by mistake and hid her body. Three days later, he felt very surprised and asked his son, "Peter, don't you feel strange? You haven't seen your mother for three days." "No," Peter said, "I just want to ask you, daddy, why do you shoulder mum all these three days?"

And, my favorite from round 2:
"The Black Cat"
I have a black cat. It's a very large cat and it has bright eyes. The cat always follows me. When I began drinking everything was changed. That day I drank I killed the cat. But the following day, I found another black cat. It looked like my cat. So I was scared. So I wanted to kill it. But my classmate didn't want to kill it. So I killed him. Then the police came and found it."