It’s My Way or the Taipei

Most compliments I get here aren’t worth telling you about. You bust out anything more complex than ni hao and there’s instant cooing. Walk down the street and I know I’ll turn a few heads, no big deal. Sometimes though, I still get my socks blown off. And the place where I talk the most English to the most girls is English Corner. For some reason the students there are predominantly female. I don’t know the ratio of the university, but even when I’m not there, I’m walking in or out, it’s always girls. Guys tend to be outnumbered around 3:1 or maybe even 5:1 some days. In my presence some get extremely shy and will literally not say a word all session. Others are just emboldened, so a group conversation usually ends up me engaging about 3 people. I try to periodically ask the others questions at some point, but this never really does much. So last Wednesday I was doing my time, asking my questions. “What’s your favorite food? Do you watch the NBA?” etc… The conversation was hitting somewhat of a lull as my last answer petered out into nowhere and I tried to think of a simpler way to explain it in English. Out of the blue, one of the girls whom were actively engaged in conversation says “I like your fur.”

I was not wearing any fur.

I looked at her, searching for a meaning. Faced with such a strange statement I decided to go with the blunt businesslike approach and informed her that whatever she mean she said it wrong.

She leaned over the table and pointed at my arm, quite close. Her face was wracked with hesitation – Do I dare touch the golden-haired giant?

She didn’t, but the pointing was enough and at first I grinned then couldn’t suppress the laugh. The hesitation melted away, replaced by a sense of dread. She had no clue what she just said. A quick chat with her neighbor made everything clear, and she quickly buried her face in her arms. I blushed too, but when she summoned courage again to face the table she was redder than Rudolph’s nose. She giggled, the rest of the table laughed, and for the next whole minute no one really strung together a coherent series of words.

Finally, I broke it: “You mean my arm hair.”

“Yes! Yes I like it very much.”

And so ends that encounter with weird stuff I’ve been complimented on. During the same teaching session I was also asked what girls do in America when they like a boy. At first I thought she was asking about guys pursuing girls but nope. So I borrowed a translator and looked up ‘flirt.’ When everyone saw it the response seemed to pretty much be ‘Girls don’t do that in Taiwan. We’re too shy.’

Could have fooled me.

Last English corner tidbit: I have found a new frontrunner for best name. Although I have heard a random person on the internet claim to meet someone who chose the English name ‘Toaster’ my best so far, from last week, is Smilina. I had met Smiles before, and people whose name meant smile in Chinese, but Smilina, of the storied etymology ‘Smile + -ina,’ is the best I have personally met.

I’ve noted how chaotically the classes seem to go here. Projects meetings don’t happen, information about classes goes out minutes before you need to know, and other minor fiascoes. One odd thing is the requirements made of students; one of my professors wanted to invite us to lunch Saturday, and had this planned for three weeks. I can handle a little weekend time relating to a class, especially when there’s no grading pressure. The lunch was supposed to be this Saturday, and in class at 5pm on Friday, he dropped some news on us. For starters, his car only held four passengers, and there were supposed to be seven students plus him. He then solicited the entire class for bikes. A guy next to me raised his hand, and the professor instantly assigned me to borrow his bike and follow along. Where exactly we still didn’t know. Then I found out it was to his house which was ten minutes away. By car. Saturday came and went and I definitely didn’t go. For one the guy never gave me his bike (though I never asked). And then there was my lack of desire to comply with arbitrary impositions made with little regard for anyone else involved. And for closure, that group project I’d been mentioning did finally happen Wednesday. After the replacement professor lectured for the first two hours, we presented. Our group leader was first and he was formidable. Then the heart of the order totally let us down. They took the microphone, mumbled into it and read off straight from slides or printed material. Then one guy showed a video for his presentation. When he put it on I thought it looked pretty well done. It was actually pretty high quality stuff. Too high quality, as it turned out. My suspicions gathered quickly when graphics beyond Windows Movie Maker appeared. Then I realized everything in the first minute was spelled correctly. At last I saw the word ‘fiefdom’ and all doubts were shattered. Coming back to the group, he admitted to the theft straight-up and without shame.

All of this is moot.

I am now in Taipei, along with all of my stuff. I am in a hostel room that is almost 60 square feet. I have left the Great Asia State University permanently. I didn’t let on about this earlier since I was still going through paperwork and talking to my new employer, Hess. Hess is a large English-teaching chain in Taiwan, and yours truly will be a cram school teacher dealing with rugrats in one month’s time. Training starts Nov 15^th, there’s a medical checkup Nov 12^th, and I got here earlier because I didn’t see much of a point in hanging around. Why did I leave? First, I wasn’t learning enough Chinese. Every class was in English, and I was always the one people wanted to speak English with. The dorm + class situation left me without much communication with locals. Most importantly though, I just couldn’t stand class. Every minute was pulling teeth. Short of Chinese class, I don’t think I could stand any class right now. Much as I love history, I think there would be a similar negative reaction to a history master’s in America. Signing up for a 2-year MBA program was simply a huge mistake. So here I sit in Taipei, planning nothing but to while away some days with photography and exploring.

Most of my ending time at Asia U was spent with Mongolians, specifically Jackie, Golden, and Yahoo. And here they are!

This was taken Sunday night, and Monday morning I departed. At 7:10AM I just walked out of the building. The student on desk duty just looked at me and Yahoo (he helped me carry some stuff) and while clearly confused, said nothing. Being white lets you get away with a lot over here. I am understandably forgiven for any cultural faux pas I commit, and no one ever approaches me to ask something important. I’m inundated with poorly-pronounced ‘Hello’ on an hourly basis, but again, nothing substantive. So away I went from the dorm and didn’t look back. I said goodbye to Yahoo and gave him a handshake. Hopefully I’ll meet up with some of them over winter break. I walked down the road, foregoing the bus-of-uncertain-schedule, and also not wanting to be spotted by a professor or anyone I know.

So I trundled off away from campus. I was only going maybe half a mile, but it took forever. I was weighed down by every single item I brought from America, plus a lamp and blanket I purchased here. Backpack on both shoulders, messenger bag sashed across from left to right, pulling a massive suitcase with a bulging duffel bag on top, which every so often would tilt and flip over to be dragged on the ground. I was probably averaging a grand 2 mph. My goal was just to walk to a main thoroughfare where I could find a cab. Eventually I did, but not before I had to go right by an elementary school that was just starting its day. The students were all in their uniforms and thronged the sidewalk. When they approached a crosswalk a huge line formed. I wasn’t inclined to wait however and went from the smooth road that served as sidewalk to the adjacent gutter. It was very shallow, only a 1” difference, but also had holes every meter or so. I accelerated a little to better hop these pitfalls. With each one my angled suitcase emitted a satisfying click-clack but seemed to handle them otherwise well. Where the crosswalk started a true sidewalk began from the opposite direction, and after an unceremonious hoist of my stuff I was on to smoother sailing. During this whole time, precisely zero of the students in line looked at me. In fact on this whole minitrip, I received fewer stares than I did during a walk to class. I don’t know if it’s legendary student discipline or what, but it was a pleasant surprise. Finally I hit the T-intersection I had been gunning for and waited.

Forty-five minutes later, I had my cab. They were still quite sparse out there. I rode on to the HSR (High Speed Rail) station where I found the McDonald’s and plunked down. I took some pictures  of the station, then went on a macro spree with the foliage nearby.

 My flickr stream has all the ones that aren’t abysmal.

After that I watched some TV, read more Dune, and had another go at a Chinese newspaper. It’s still tough reading, but it’s also fun to see characters appear in real life that I have just been studying. Finally 2pm rolled around and I was able to board my sleek Japanese-engineered carriage of the future. Naturally in total foreigner fashion I got on the train at the exact wrong end, and had to stumble past 15 rows of seats with all my luggage, bumping into others on the way. After just an hour even including the 3 extra stops, we arrived at Taipei main station. And that’s when this odyssey really began.

I disembarked and looked both ways. East exits and West exits out of the platform. Fair enough, I read online from my hostel’s website to take the east one. So far, so good. Good in the sense I almost-but-didn’t-quite let my overburdened suitcase fall down the escalator and into a crowd while alighting. At the top of that escalator I was able to locate a map. Unfortunately, when I looked for the hostel online the night before, I found that for starters, Google Maps could not agree on where it was. To add to the pain, the official hostel website had the address only in English – not terribly helpful when asking directions – and to make matters worse, there are actually two of the very same hostel within the same city block. I know not why. So there I stood, pondering this map. It didn’t actually show where I was but rather different places I could exit to, so I knew neither where I was nor where to be going which is always  a recipe for success. My choices were the Y district, R district, or M district. After consulting my comparative maps and prophetic tea leaves, I went with Y. But then I was faced with another problem: the Y area had exits both north and south of a huge street, the kind you can only cross on an underpass. Ultimately I trusted my innate sense of direction and went the way I felt was north. It worked, at least that time. I wish my east-west worked that well. (Kidding, I know they’re linked.) I also wish the hostel had been mapped halfway decently.

I took one more escalator down and a final one up to get to the north side of Civic Boulevard. Finding the light of day at last, I stopped to take off the hoodie I was wearing for cargo-space purposes. Still carrying/dragging/force-pulling the nearly 100lbs of junk I slowly made my way in the totally wrong direction. I hit a large street, continued north, then decided I should go back the other way. Although correct, this proved to be a very, very bad move. I proceeded to get lost in crazy alleys and unmarked paved areas which could have been long driveways. I was tired, but not defeated, when suddenly I saw, Family Mart! The hostel said they were right next to a Family Mart! My heart leapt and pace quickened. Arrival! I got to the front of the store and started looking around intently. That’s when I descended into my own personal madness; I seemed to round every corner twice, but never see the same people. I thought I had mapped out lanes when a new one would spring up like a chasm sundered from hell. Where was I going? I had just made it back to the first Family Mart to buy a map. I was studying it intently. Without name or address in Chinese, asking around bore little fruit. Suddenly white Jesus approached.

“Need some help?” It was one of those non-American accents.

Approximation of walking path to hostel. Red is train station, blue is where the underpass spat me out, green is the hostel.

I acknowledged my utter inability to find this godforsaken place and he pointed me to the closest one, as he too seemed to realize there were several of this particular establishment. He had me head to the nearest big corner, turn right, then turn again at the next corner which would have a different Family Mart, and I should see it. Marvelous! I wanted to hug him but somehow felt it might not be acceptable. I was home free! I sort-of ran to the corner and turned right. I was on fire, and -*screeuncchhhh*.

Hmmm. That sounded suspiciously similar to plastic on brick, and there was sudden resistance to my suitcase moving forward I turned around and saw my duffel bag, being wider than the suitcase is, had clipped a slightly protruding wall where this new property started. I examined it to make sure there was no structural damage and decided this was as good as time as any to rearrange my messenger bag shoulder and suitcase hand. I had been facing the wall which gave way to a store window while doing this, but was rather preoccupied with looking down at the luggage situation. I turned toward the street and saw a woman give me a dirty look. Whatever, lady. I turned back to the sidewalk planning on finishing the last leg of my journey but the entire right side of my vision was bombarded by the store. A lingerie store, replete with pink panties, black bras, and whatever else they sell. And as far as this woman had seen, I was running, stopped abruptly as soon as the lingerie came within view, and turned to stare for a good half minute.

Hearts and minds, hearts and minds.

After feeling ashamed of something I didn’t even do, I found the hostel which can accurately be described in one word: janky. If you don’t know what that means, I suggest www.urbandictionary.com/janky definition #3. When you turn the light on in my room, it actually flickers several times like they do in movie interrogation scenes, and the wiring is entirely exposed. The climate control consists of one fan placed on my desk, which feels like it will break any second, and actually came with 3 unopened-yet-yellowing bars of Ivory soap. There’s no screen and I’ve kept the windows closed but I still have an unwelcome mosquito I’ve been trying to swat with my passport.

And that’s literally where I sit right now. A room not even 8’x8’, with clothes drying on my headboard, desk, luggage, doorknob, anywhere with a protrusion. Tomorrow I plan on exploring a little, then after that I might try to meet up with friends of friends that are also in Taipei. Other than moving into the training hotel on the 14^th there is very little set in stone.

It’s freedom, I can taste it, and I love it.

So long!

Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way...

Hey-o peng-you! (That rhymes, pronounce it puhng-yo)

Things have really died down here. I am not the only one who feels like they're treading water. Much talk has devolved into meals and activities planned upon returning to the glorious 美国 (meiguo, America) or how glad to be leaving soon. Some are leaving as early as Friday, most next Monday, and I'm not gone until the 23rd. I don't know if it's a sign but I almost just typed in 23th.

Aside from trying to memorize a bunch of characters and grammar patterns, a lot of my time recently has been spent focusing on things to do after graduating. I'll be done with school (or undergrad at least) this May and I'm going to want to try to figure out everything I'm applying for by November, which means brainstorming now.

You may have heard of the Rio Tinto incident that is ongoing. It's an interesting Goliath vs. Goliath case of a commodities multinational vs the PRC central government. Usually my faith in the Chinese authorities is less than zero and I'll take the reverse of their accusations as true, but this is a bit different. If there's one thing the Chinese seem to know how to do, it's attract foreign investment. From the rise of Shenzhen to the prevalence of McDonald's, they seem to have that down. And every investing company looks at long-term security. So for China to move and arrest an Australian and 3 Chinese executives of Rio Tinto it's hard to reject their assertions out of hand. There may be some backpedaling but China still seems to be (unsurprisingly) something of a Wild West legally speaking.

I don't think this will have much of an effect on me as right now I don't plan on going into business in China. Currently I'm looking at teaching English in Taiwan after graduating or getting a Master's through the National Defense Intelligence College. The Taiwan gig is the current frontrunner. It would be nice to get a full year of foreign experience, and a true, solo immersion. I have unquestionably learned a lot here, but sitting in a dorm with 50 other foreigners doesn't count.

I probably couldn't get a job teaching in one of China's top cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, or Hong Kong, and I'm not sure I'd want to spend a year in Xi'an, Tianjin, or the like. Qingdao would be the closest thing I might be able to accept. Taiwan pays better than the mainland, it is easier to get a job, and is cleaner, and Taipei is much more internationalized.

The NDIC program looks interesting too. Although attending 'regular' school, it also pays a salary which is nice. There's also no obligation for either party at the end of the year-long program but it gives great future contacts and if I do well, I'm confident I have the abilities to gain full-time employment. It might be nice however to have that extra year of foreign experience before doing this.

Finally, law school remains at outside chance. My parents would certainly like that route, and they are right that it opens a lot of opportunities, but it's also 3 full years and a lot of money so I have to weigh that very carefully.

So 2 of my 3 current possibilities are directly related to this program. To me that signifies money well spent. Studying abroad is awesome and I would recommend it to anyone, but you don't want to make it one big vacation.

In less dry news, we had a program talent show over the weekend. There was dancing, singing, and erhu action all by those more talented than I. Also, delicious pizza from Papa John's. In America it might have only been average, but it's the closest thing I've had here to an American style pie.

I'm getting even more excited about school and work this semester as these days progress. I'm looking forward to dying of brain overload in my History 600 class this semester. It'll also be nice to go back to my work and start up a positive cash flow instead of this dreadfully negative one I'm on now.

Just some other random thoughts: I'm not paid by them, swear, but I really like www.skritter.com for learning Chinese. It's subscription-based now, but totally worth it. Also, I have a friend in Beijing whose computer totally died on him. He's now running Ubuntu. I actually reformatted my computer twice over here, thankfully my recovery partition worked out. To be without a computer over here would be a pretty big downer. Pending acquiring train tickets, that same friend and I are going to Harbin after our programs end, on the 16th. We have 4 or 5 days there which should be plenty to see everything. The city is famous for its ice festival in winter, but summer is cheap which is a nice benefit.

And that's where I'm at right now. As the program winds down I'm looking forward and so far I like what I see. We have 1 day of class, 1 oral final, and 1 written final left before closing ceremonies. I'll try to get in at least another update, maybe 2 while in country and then 1 or 2 when I'm back.

下次

Basically the entirety of July

Sorry about the delay dear readers. I never really got the 4th of July update up, then things sort of snowballed.

We had a 3-day weekend over the 4th of July weekend. I and 3 other friends on the program went to Qingdao. You probably know the city but by a different name; Tsingtao, as in the Tsingtao beer. For the curious, Tsingtao Brewery Group is minority owned by Anheuser-Busch. Qingdao is also a totally awesome city in its own right however. It is sort of split into two different sections that are separated by a large overpass high over a valley, but it was a great place to spend our long weekend and the 4th.

We left Tianjin as soon as we could on Thursday. This ‘as soon as possible’ was after the continuous trainwreck that is my Erhu learning experience. After our end-of-week test, several 白人 (bairen, white people) congregate to continue our assault on the noble cultural tradition that is the Erhu. I’ve already shortly described the instrument, but let’s just say that my play of it has only marginally increased. Every time I create the unsatisfying chalkboard-screech, somewhere a baby Confucius is crying plum sauce tears. And there are a lot of them.

Anyhow, we got out of Erhu class and quickly got our bags and hailed a taxi for the new secondary Tianjin train station. This one is totally out in the sticks, a 60 kuai cab ride away. It replaced the old Tianjin West station which had a history of “more than a hundred years” when we asked the cabbie how old it had been before being retired. I believe that account though; having been there last year, I can attest to the fact that it is a grotesque shithole where people sit on newspaper, benches do not exist, and all the stall doors in bathrooms have been broken off so when once happens to wander in you are glared at by 3 Chinese dudes taking dumps. But enough about last year. This time we went to a gleaming station that when we went still had asphalt being laid down for the drop-off traffic circle and as-yet-unfinished steps. This is usually the cue for me to talk about change and slave labor but I’ve already gone off about that. Anyhow, we caught a D train for Qingdao and only 5 hours later or so were there. D trains are a very fast class of train. At the bottom are the 4-digit trains and the K, which stands for kuai, fast. These trains were classified as fast a long time ago in a far away bureaucratic office. These trains are those for the migrant workers, poor, and just plain unlucky SOBs who missed out on the other tickets. These are the trains that smell awful, the trains that you do not want to be in. After that there is the T-class of trains which I have heard stand for te’bie, approximately meaning special. These are your average train. Nothing terribly sinful, nothing great. And then you have the Z and D. Z is generally for overnight express trains containing only soft-sleeper berths. The Z goes from Beijing to Xi’an a full 6 hours faster than the K, a difference of 12 vs. 18 hours. D is a similar speed of train but used for shorter distances, and tends not to have sleepers but rather just soft seats. These trains can hurtle along at up to 330km/hr. Not quite maglev fast, but these things are blazing.

Arrival in Qingdao was early-evening. We got to our hostel and discovered they had one room for two people and then 2 dorm beds in a room, and no other beds. We took them, checked in and then checked out the hostel’s common area. It was a pretty cool hostel, and had a decent bar as well as available hookah, a movie room, a PlayStation 2, and a pool table. It was here, on this glorious green velvet battlefield, that it was proven, my pool prowess. And by that I mean the 4 of us played a team match against each other in what may have been the slowest-moving most scratch-ridden competition involving the sinking of opponents’ balls ever to have resembled a game of billiards. The quality of play was terrible, but a decent way to pass one of the humid afternoons. Back to the Qingdao arrival night however; we went out exploring the nearby streets. It was here that we discovered the joy of bagged beer.

I have never before purchased beer measured by weight. In Qingdao however, on the streets next to the little kabob places and small convenience stores, were people selling beer right out of the keg. And when you sell beer to people that are walking the streets, how do you get it to them? Well you could put it in little plastic cups, but that limits you to about 16 oz per serving. In a bag however, you can double that by serving a kilogram of beer! Beer is roughly equivalent to water in density since so much of it is water, so that’s a liter of beer! More than a 7-Eleven Big Gulp! Verily, is there anything in this pioneering country that is not possible? Well, a fair judicial system probably isn’t but whatever. Let’s not get too picky shall we? Settling for cheap beer over rights, we continued to walk the streets. We discovered many seafood and produce markets, I had some meat kabobs, others had egg-and-vegetable burrito-type things, and we generally walked around getting the regular stares. After finding a place for an informal dinner and some more walking, we returned to our hostel a few hours later and went to sleep.

The next morning was brewery day. We got up at a reasonable hour and took a cab over to old brewery. It still functions as one of their several factories, though it is also a museum. It was pretty cool to see the history of Tsingtao, including both the cosmetic and real changes it went through as it was alternatively owned privately, then by the Japanese, then Nationalists, then Communists, then privately again. (It was recently privatized about a decade and a half ago.) We also got to see the bottling and canning process in live action, in addition to seeing all the machinery that they use both currently and from years past. It was pretty cool, and we got to taste a batch of their unfiltered beer (it wasn’t that different) and at the end of the tour we were given a small 1.25L pitcher to split between the 4 of us. I bought some nice souvenirs in the attached gift shop, and they were actually quite reasonably priced.


We walked around the restaurants near the brewery but they appeared to be pretty dead. When you don’t know the restaurants in an area, and don’t have any recommendations to go by, we stick pretty well to the common tactic of ‘if there are no other locals present eating, you shouldn’t either’ so we returned to our hostel. I had a halfway decent sandwich which, like much of the Western food in China, served only to remind me of glories I am missing out on and did little to sate my desire for grease and preservatives in the same dish. After the pool fiasco and a game of hearts which involved moon-shooting by yours truly, we went out to a really awesome seafood place. Here we were able to get fresh crab, fish, prawns, and all other delights. We were also able to see the waiter absolutely smack the living daylights out of a fish after we selected it. For our second fish, the second waiter was a lot less enthusiastic and just tapped it, so it probably wasn’t even stunned when it encountered the boiling water. But it was sure as hell dead when it entered my belly, swimming in delicious juices and practically falling off its tiny bones. After this delicious-but-expensive dinner, we returned to the hostel and then walked down to the beach. I got big time déjà vu, having walked down the exact same stretch of beach and out to the exact same pavilion precisely one year ago, but it was still really cool. Last year I was only in Qingdao for less than a full day, so it barely counted anyway. After marveling at a cool phenomenon which had the ocean water we kicked up looking a fluorescent blue and observing the sketchy old men going for a swim, we returned to the hostel to turn it in. The next morning would be pretty early.

The others got up sometime around 7:00AM. I kept sleeping until I got a call from them at 8:30. They were already at “Old Person Beach,” a stretch of sand a few kilometers long and many more kilometers away from our hostel. After a pricey cab ride, I met them there and we proceeded to walk along the pretty clean beach, which is always a notable accomplishment in China. We considered hiring jet skis, but they only had 2 available and required the passenger seat to be taken by one of their supervisor guys, so we didn’t go for that. We also could have taken a boat ride, but no one seemed particularly interested in such a pedestrian activity for the cost of 100 yuan. So we walked along the beach, made fun of the Chinese for their terrible fashion sense and its extension to bathing suits, built a sandcastle, made sand graffiti, and attempted to jump over waves. Despite that short description we managed to spend a while at the beach and I got an awesome burn over my shoulders and part of my torso.

Once more we made our way to home base and basically zoned out for the afternoon. The heat and humidity was stifling, and there was no inclination by anyone to go out exploring in the sun. However in the hostel common room we met another group of 4 from our program who were staying at the next door hostel. We decided to go to dinner, and being as it was July 4th, a Mexican restaurant seemed pretty fitting.

I ordered some mediocre fajitas. Some got burritos and your other standard Tex-Mex food. We decided to cheap out and BYOB since it was so cheap and nearby. At this dinner, our waitress was wearing a shirt that declared “Free Hugs” and I found this pretty entertaining. At the end of the meal, we turned on her and demanded what her garment promised.

Now imagine you are a petite Chinese girl, probably in your early 20s, weighing not more than 100lbs and coming in certainly no higher than 5’4” but probably more like 5’2”. You have just served 8 loud Americans. You may not realize it is their national holiday, but they have been drinking. Drinking in quantities such that, were it your body metabolizing the alcohol, you would probably be struggling to stand. (No one in our party was drunk yet, we had had less than a liter of beer each.) Suddenly, without warning or apparent reason, this blonde, 185 centimeter/77kg foreign devil is approaching you, arms wide, with an oafish smile. Do you:

A) Cower and look panicked?
B) Yell for your boss and start swearing?
C) Take a shot of liquid courage and approach?
D) Cry and then kick said whities?

Sadly the answer isn’t terribly surprising or entertaining, and the correct one is A. Nonetheless, the four of us who approached got what was duly owed, and then explained to her what her shirt meant. Discussing it later, we determined it was unlikely she would wear that shirt again while working. Victory for English and America.

We walked around the corner looking for more places to eat drink and be merry. We found a happening place and asked for a few pitchers of Qingdao beer and cooked peanuts and edamame. And it was there we stayed for many hours.

I was saddened that when we saw the foreigners sitting just a couple tables away with shirts containing disparaging remarks about Ann Arbor, they refused to join us. They were Ohio State University students. We explained that we were Badgers, and could at least come together under the banner of the Big Ten and Michigan antipathy, and more importantly than any idiotic sports associations, we also happened to be citizens of the same great country when it just so happened to be that country’s birthday and we were all stuck in China. Instead they made rather inappropriate gestures in our direction. So we invited some nearby Brits to join us and they were a blast. We played a large and rather rowdy game of Circle of Death/Ring of Fire/King’s Cup with British rules. One of these was that without possessing a Jack, one is not allowed to go to the bathroom. If a player is to do it anyway, the rest of players are to come up with a punishment. This resulted in pushups, random hugs, and 2 girls from the other group we met standing on chairs singing “I’m a Little Teapot.” Also during the game we twice broke into song, once being for the national anthem, and another for God Bless America. It was truly beautiful. I am one of those saps who probably puts way too much stock into gimmicky patriotic stuff like that, but reflecting on being in China, and how much we really do have in America, it was easy to get sentimental about very concept of freedom.

After a long night which involved 30*1.25=37.5 liters of beer split amongst us, as well as our share from dinner, we made one last taxi pilgrimage to our hostel. And 1 liter of water later, I was asleep. This all occurred pretty early on in the night since we had a train to catch at 7:46 the next morning. We were able to make the train just fine, though I sadly left my Say No To Scurvy shirt hanging in the hostel room. It had a good run though, and I hope it enjoys its next life being worn by a Chinese person who has absolutely no clue what it could possibly mean.

After the long weekend things settled down pretty much. The weekend afterward, our AC broke and since it was on a weekend it took a couple days to get fixed. I have still been demolishing reading material. My sandal broke as we were leaving Qingdao, which was a pretty big bummer. I have replaced the nice American ones with some crappy-quality foam Chinese sandals that have tiny little glittery plastic beads in them. They were the most manly thong-style sandals available, so go figure.

Also in the past month some of my classmates have been diligently preparing for the speech contest, held this Sunday. I elected not to participate as although I see a great value in improving my speaking skills, it is mostly about face. You probably already know the importance of saving face in East Asian cultures, and getting face is what this contest is all about. A few students are picked to represent Wisconsin in Beijing, and these students are groomed into speaking machines. Wisconsin always wipes the floor in this competition, and wants to continue to do so, so the speakers are given non-stop tutoring in an effort to perfect this one speech. I know for a fact that the students selected are great at Chinese, (half of them are good friends) and given who they selected I probably wouldn’t have been able to qualify anyway, but I didn’t want any surprises. I just didn’t see the value in delivering a speech memorized rote, repeated hundreds of times, containing vocabulary inserted by teachers.

Since the conclusion of our week break, we have also switched into new classes. I am now done with Classical Chinese and into Fourth Year. It is a thrill to be back in something that is more intellectually stimulating. I am able to pay attention in lecture, and furthermore have to in order not to fall behind. In short, it is back to how normal classes function. I am back to learning new vocabulary and grammar patterns. Classical was major-required so I don’t really feel like it was a waste, and though getting back into standard classes has made life here more rigorous, it’s still a nice change. Also, I helped myself to a magazine from the train we took to Beijing at the beginning of the break, and also one from the plane when we flew back to Tianjin. (More on the break later.) I’m a big time believer that reading real magazine articles and then highlighting new characters and grammar constructs is a great way to learn. This has also been our source for third and fourth year class as well and has probably been a common language teaching tool since the invention of the periodical, but it’s nice to have as-real-as-it-gets content to draw from and relate to. For example, one of the articles is about Culture Street, a wildly popular tourist trap in Tianjin.

A little before the break I went shopping and happened upon some glorious 100% imported Land-o-Lakes cheese. Imported stuff is a dead giveaway when it has not only the label you are familiar with from America, but has a massive sticker just pasted on in Chinese since there is absolutely none on the original packaging. I also found a cool fountain pen that draws from a real inkwell and looks super fancy. I also got a care package from America (thanks mom!) including all sorts of salted snacks including Goldfish and Cheez-It Snack Mix, which is delicious. But those are all long gone by now, and in fact have been since the break. It’s about time I actually tell you about that mythical break I keep mentioning.

Technically, it is a field trip as it involved choosing a topic and then asking questions of locals where we went. But that is boring and our report hasn’t been written yet so I’ll spare you the academic details. This thing had been in planning since even before the 3-day. From Friday to Sunday, July 17-26, it included a total of 10 days when considered generously, so it is also called the ten-day. Five of us went, and we met up with the boyfriend of one of the girls who was starting a trip to China. We quick a took train to Beijing and then caught our major one down to Guilin, a city in Guangxi. This second one was 23 hours chock full of the standard sketchy middle-aged Chinese men and broken air conditioning that seem to be part and parcel of the China experience. Between reading, sleeping, and chatting the time somehow slowly passed, and we arrived in Guilin significantly smellier but not permanently scarred. Thankfully our hostel was right across from the train station, as we couldn’t really be bothered to go anywhere. Unthankfully, they informed us that though we had booked for two nights, they only had beds available for one. Wonderful. There wasn’t much fight in us left though, and we got in, showered, and got some food. Bedtime was early, as we had reserved a tour for the Dragon Back Rice Terraces at 8:00AM.

We got up, put all our bags into the luggage room, and departed. I feel obligated by my pride to mention here that I managed to cram every single thing I needed for this ten-day expedition into a single, regular-sized school backpack. Adequate shorts, shirts, toiletries, my camera and swimswuit, my Lonely Planet and a novel, everything was made to fit within my Bag of Holding. Just thought you should know. We got on the bus for the terraces which took a while itself. It was a big bus with lots of pickups and plenty of waiting for others, so we didn’t actually leave Guilin until past 9:00 and then got there a couple hours later. We then took a minibus farther up the mountain, and ate at a restaurant that served bamboo chicken and rice. Basically, these were just cooked inside the bamboo. It was delicious however, and the rice was extra sticky and the chicken extra juicy. One of the culinary highlights of the trip. We then walked up a little bit and made it to the actual rice terraces. It was awesome.



I took a ton of pictures but a lot of them look very similar. Lots of them are just me messing around with exposure/field depth as well as saturation and contrast. It was basically like being in the Discovery Channel. We were also able to walk out to the end of one of the terraces. Again, it was just really cool and a great sight to behold. After feasts for our eyes and stomachs, we went back to the base of the mountain and walked around a village of the local minority population. Ever since it was opened to tourists in 2002, many people are basically making bank and new construction (all in the same old style still) could be seen along the banks of the little river the village was straddling. More pictures and a little relaxing ensued, and we got back to Guilin around 6PM.

Then we checked into an establishment of questionable reputability.

We got to the hotel and checked in. In the elevator we noticed there were pictures of some absolutely gorgeous girls, clad in bikinis or nothing at all, shown basically having a good time. There were also a few giving massages. We got to our rooms, and in ours there was a picture of another of these bikini girls, laying quite suggestively. The little card was “welcoming” us. It also had a phone number.

I don’t think it requires much of an imagination to figure out what was going on here. I should also note that, according to China Road by Rob Gifford, this is a completely normal experience. Usually in China I am way too cheap to stay in a hotel instead of a hostel so I can’t really comment, but I am utterly unsurprised, and have heard stories to this effect before.

The next day we prepared to go to Yangshuo but first stopped at the train station to get tickets back to Beijing. Half of us waited in line while half stood over all our luggage. It took maybe an hour for us to get to the front, an hour of excruciating sweatiness and smelly migrant workers. Thankfully no one wanted to chat us up. Then, just as our party got to the front of the line, the woman simply closed the ticket window. There was no advance warning, no invitation to step over to another line, just a curtained ticket window. This was exactly the time I noticed on the big board that there were no tickets left for our train, not for Saturday, or even Sunday. In fact there were no non-standing tickets left for this train for the next ten days. I broke the news, and after a collective sigh we basically decided that our only option was to fly. That, or an almost 40-hour K train. So we got on the bus to Yangshuo, a tiny hamlet of 300,000 people that is a major tourist destination and filled with expats. We arrived at our first Yangshuo hotel (the hostel we would go to later for 4 nights was full the first night) and ordered our plane tickets, got ripped off for $200 on a one-way domestic flight, and then went to sleep.

The next day I had one of the many Western style breakfasts available in Yangshuo. Fried eggs, toast, bacon, are all in plentiful supply there. Although not quite on par with Baker’s Square greatness, Chinese breakfast is so vile that it was divine by comparison. Another theme of this trip was the sweltering heat. Being in a sub-tropical climate in summer can have pretty predictable results. Going out for a walk would result in a drenched t-shirt. Making the hike from our old hotel to new hostel was basically walking across the town, which was also unpleasant. After that we walked around and explored the city. It has one main pedestrian drag called West Street that is filled with restaurants, bars, tour companies, KTV, and shops. It was a pretty happening town, thanks to the endless supply of tourist dollars. After grabbing a surprisingly good pizza, we walked around some more. And then the sickness started.

The next morning, the first of us fell ill. He had a basic cold and fever. The rest of us rented bikes and got out to see the countryside, including plenty of locals, and water buffalo. After a couple hours on the bikes we decided we had gone past some village famous for fans that we were looking for. I didn’t really mind and kept looking at the scenery. It was incredible. There was farmland and then massive karst peaks rising like teeth on the blade of a saw.


We turned around and biked back. In keeping with the glorious Chinese tradition of not giving a damn about safety, part of this bike ride was through a tunnel. A very, very dark tunnel with insufficient lighting that lacked sidewalks. This tunnel was often frequented by massive tour buses, regular cars, and large trucks. And they absolutely love to be insane and pass each other, completely consuming the other lane. Usually this is not a problem, as each direction has a wide lane, then shoulder, then a gravel/packed dirt side. The tunnel removed any room for error. If some bus decided to pass us (and they all did) and some other large bus was coming at them head on. We would have been made into hamburger by a quick sideswipe. And there was absolutely nothing we could do, other than pedal as fast as possible and get out of the danger zone. So that was slightly unnerving, but again, completely expected.

Bike ride over and showers done, we headed over to dinner. There I ordered some peppered beef. I asked for super spicy and it came out pretty weak. The flavor itself was still great but the spiciness was lacking. After more walking around we ended up at a bar that served 8 kuai Brandy and Coke. The owner turned out to be a cool Belgian guy who had been in Yangshuo studying, then shortly after becoming a patron rented a room above the bar, and shortly after that bought half of it. We chilled there for the rest of the night.


The eclipse (日偏食, ripianshi) happened during breakfast. It was sort of underwhelming since where we were it was just a partial eclipse. A few hundred km north and it would have been incredible I bet.
The next day we planned on going to cooking classes in the morning, but we were late to rise (maybe 9:00AM) and were all hankering for breakfast. We decided to put it off until the afternoon. Instead we attempted to watch the new Harry Potter. We bought a pirated DVD copy, but the quality was so bad it was completely unwatchable. So instead we went with The Hangover, which I must say was a really great movie. It had some pretty crude jokes, but considering how the movie was billed it is in its own way reasonably realistic, and the characters were pretty funny. After that movie we then made our way to the class.


It started out with a trip to the local market. There were plenty of vegetables, lots of butchering going on, basically everything you’d expect to find in a really authentic market. We picked up eggplant, dumpling stuffing, dumpling wraps, chives, and probably some others I didn’t notice. We went back to the restaurant/cooking school and started to make Gongbao aka Kung Pao chicken, pork and chive dumplings, and breaded fried eggplant stuffed with the dumpling mix. The eggplant thing was very rich due to the fried breading and melted like a jalapeno popper. The dumplings were alright, but I must say I make a damn fine Gongbao chicken. Now if only I get all those ingredients again and have a skilled cook looking over my shoulder, I’d be set. The lesson took us to dinner and sort of was dinner, but we elected to go for secondsies, and after that, more wandering. This night we hopped around more from a couple different places, but ended up at our old standby which by the way is named Kaya.

The next day was a nature-filled extravaganza. First we went to a water cave. This involved a couple bus rides, some off-roading, and a rickety boat that may or may not have had puke on it. This boat took us into the cave where we saw some interesting looking rock formations. They all had labels and were supposed to resemble figures or certain shapes, but for the most part they were a big stretch and just part of the touristiness of it. Then we got to the mud pool, which was really fun. There’s basically no other way to describe it. There was one pool, and it had standing, cool, soft mud that was maybe a foot or two deep, depending on where you were. Lying down in it, you float so high it’s unbelievable. Sadly I have no pictures since I wasn’t really thrilled with the prospect of taking my camera into the cave, but it was really fun. My swimsuit still has a beige tint where all the white was. And finally in the cave we got to the hot springs. The source was at the top so they got warmer the farther you went up, and it was really nice to lie down in the mini-pools and just relax. We were supposed to be timed, but we just got out when they were all filled and a line started to form.

After the mud caves, we went back to the city proper, ate lunch, and rented some kayaks. They were the typical cheap plastic shell types, and the life jackets were questionable, but it was awesome to kayak down the river, starting in the late afternoon and then ending at dusk.

The next day was just a day of rest. Others had gotten the same cold, everyone except me. And I wouldn’t get it either, but instead caught a rather nasty stomach bug. Sometime on this final full day, this day of rest (Friday the 24th for those at home keeping score) I got food poisoning. It started with some light diarrhea in the afternoon. I figured that was it, and it was gone. My stomach felt good. After dinner, I returned with the early group (those who were also just getting their share of the cold started) and after curling up in the fetal position, staggered into the bathroom, and puked. After several fountain-like heaves, I brushed and rinsed a few billion times, then went to bed. A couple hours later, I woke up, got out of bed, and visited the bathroom again. More lunch and dinner into the toilet. This then became a regular occurrence in what can only be described as the night from hell. Every hour or so, I would get up and puke. On the 3rd or 4th time, it was bile. But still it kept coming. I tried drinking little sips of water, I tried no water, I tried a liter of water. The only thing that changed was tint of the green bile. My last time puking was at 8:30AM, and then our friend diarrhea came back for a couple rounds. At this point my stomach was completely void of anything. That Saturday my stomach was still not feeling good enough to ingest anything, though I had 1/3 a cup of ramen noodles and two of the airplane snacks since I figured I should eat something. We got back to Tianjin at around midnight, and I weighed myself, clothes on, and was 73.7kg. That is less than 163 pounds. That is less than I weighed sophomore year in high school. Yes, I was very hungry.

And that is basically it. On Sunday I did see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and in theaters no less. It was awesome, even though I haven’t read the 6th or 7th book yet. I maintain that Rowling didn’t give me much of a reason after the boring, emo fiasco that was the 5th book, but now I’ll get around to those. Like I said before, we have new classes and they’re great, and both my lecturer and TA were my teachers last year in Tianjin while taking second year Chinese. This program is 2 weeks from being over, and after that I still have 1 week traveling with my friend from high school who is currently studying in Beijing. I really miss American food, and am looking forward to the start of school again though I know this semester is going to be a rough one academically.

But I’ll keep the updates coming in this time I have left! Promise!

The Sound of Separating Skin and Flesh

Last weekend we made a voyage to Tai Shan, or Mount Tai. It is holiest of the 5 sacred Taoist mountains of China . Because the city of Tai’An is on the whole worthless, dirty, and generally unpleasant, it was decided we would not bother spending Friday night there. Instead on Friday night we watched the fifth Harry Potter movie, and then went to bed pretty early. Our train was for 7:21am which meant we wanted to leave the dorm at 6:15 just to be safe. After waking up at 5:00 and not being able to go back to bed, we eventually left the dorm and caught a taxi to the train station. At the beautiful new train station that a year ago only serviced the Tianjin-Beijing high-speed train, we waited for about half an hour and met up with some other Badgers going to Tai Shan who took an earlier taxi. I also drank two bottles of juice as I seemed to have come down with a late June cold which I am just now getting over. They called our train over the loudspeaker and we were off.

We found our seats. Unsurprisingly, they were occupied by people with standing tickets. Trains are the main way of transport in China, since flying, though cheaper than in America, is still really expensive. And for distances longer than a couple hundred kilometers, buses are not efficient in terms of fuel, labor, or bodies moved. For migrant workers therefore, the only way to really get from point A to point B is the train, and the cheapest ticket is the standing class. Some trains are high-class and only have hard sleepers (cots) or soft sleepers (luxury cots) and no standing space. Alas, this was not our train. When we took our seats, the people in them seemed a little miffed that these young, rich, white kids had the audacity to take the seats that they had claimed fair and square. I felt a twinge of guilt, but it’s not my fault that the purchasing power of my dollar is inflated because their government has created a sort of de facto peg to the American dollar and has artificially deflated its value in order to attract more exports. My guilt having been rationalized, we sat down. We had a row of 5 seats, 3 on one side of the train and 2 on the other. Across from us were 5 very 地道 (didao, authentic) Chinese people. One of them was an old man who had fought for the North Vietnamese against the Americans in the Vietnam War, and also fought the Russians in the Sino-Soviet border conflict. He had an awesome Mao pin on his shirt that I considered offering him 100 kuai for, but more rational people on the train pointed out this might be highly offensive. Another of our train buddies was a total slob. He ate peanuts out of his hand as one might expect a dog to do, lapping them up and munching on them, mouth totally open. He also had a thinly veiled antipathy toward America. In the course of our conversation he insulted my friend’s shoes, tried to make us guilty for being educated, told us our government was evil, and was miffed when informed that we actually buy our MP3 players in the US, not China, because we want them to last longer than a month. He quite accurately represented the China that has slowly been dying since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms; xenophobic, reactionary, jealous, small-minded, and jingoistic. Unfortunately, this is still common in the rural and poor parts of China, which is exactly where this man was from. His home province of Anhui is the 5th-poorest in China based on GDP per capita.

After the lectures and naps that went on and off for 4.5 hours, we arrived at Tai’An, the city at the base of Tai Shan. As I said before, it is not a great place to be. Some small cities in China have a certain charm based on an old city, or have been spruced up because of tourist traffic, or are in some other way redeemable. Tai’An is not. It is dirty. By the end of our 24-hour excursion, we were only half-jokingly referring to Tianjin as a cosmopolitan metropolis. We took a small lunch at a restaurant near the train station, then got cabs to the base of Tai Shan. And then we started climbing. I’ll let some pictures take over for now.






The climbing got harder and harder. Not only did fatigue grow, but it became ever and ever more vertical, and eventually it became a sheer wall of stairs. Thousands of stairs. We started out, and then midway through our faces turned red from the huffing and puffing. By the end, it was declared that I looked ghastly pale and very sick. When we got to the top, a tout immediately spotted us and took us to a hotel. We go the room for 400 kuai, which isn’t too bad when split five ways. Cheaper than I had expected to pay for lodging on top of a mountain. I passed out while waiting to shower and my lungs were threatening to collapse. The day after my chest felt weak and I coughed constantly. It was perfectly exhausting. We fell asleep by 8:00pm. We were plenty tired to do so, and we also wanted to get up in time to see the sun rise, which is supposed to be a big draw for Tai Shan.

We got up at 3:45am and left the hotel to venture out into the dark. The entire mountain was misted in, and visibility was perhaps 20 feet. As we started to follow a small crowd of Chinese people whom we figured knew the way to the observation point, we noticed they were wearing ponchos. Sure it was so foggy my camera flash was turning the haze into a mirror, but the forecast called for a 10% chance of showers, and the day before had looked okay. We poked fun at them and laughed.

And karma cackled back.

About a third of the way to the observation point, it started drizzling. Half a minute later, it was raining. Then the lightning came. Keep in mind, we are on top of a mountain. This was lightning that was simultaneously accompanied by thunder. For those not meteorologically inclined, this means the storm is not 10 miles away, not 1 mile away, it is right above you. And when you’re 1500 meters in the air, it’s not far above. We ran for cover, and there wasn’t much. We found an outcropping on the rock wall and hid under it. The rain refused to stop however, and a moat started forming, as if to box us in. And it kept growing, encroaching, swallowing my sandaled toes. I moved to higher ground, but it kept coming. Finally there was a slight lull in the rain. I took my chance, and we fled to the hotel. Cold, damp, and annoyed at the lack of sunrise, we just sat for a bit, regaining feeling in the extremities. We then checked out and headed for the gondola line – there was no way we were going to make it down a rain-slicked mountain with aching legs in time to make our 9:56am train back. We got to the gondola line at 5:30am, precisely when the hotel staff recommended. We were not only the first ones there, but no one else actually showed up until about 6:15. So we loitered. Finally, a man came out of the ticket booth hut (he slept there) and opened up the gate. A mass of humanity followed, but we had a gameplan and stuck to it. Three of us rushed to the roped line to secure first place and block it off from others, while 2 went to the ticket window. This plan was executed to perfection. After buying the tickets, the pair joined up with us and we got the first gondola off that rock. It was actually a really cool ride, it started with an eerie view of mist then below that we had a really good view of the landscape.



The gondola took us halfway down the mountain, and then we caught a bus for the other half. It was pretty incredible to see what we had climbed just yesterday, and took almost 5 hours to do so. When we got to the bottom there were plenty of taxis waiting to take tourists like ourselves to the train station. So we hopped in, and 10 kuai later were there. After a true breakfast of champions – Pepsi, soggy fries, and a spicy chicken sandwich – at a KFC imitator, we went to wait for the train. We had bought our return tickets when we arrived the day before, but on such short notice, there wasn’t exactly space. So we got standers.

The 无座 means “no seat” and the 学 is short for 学生, student. We were actually able to find a very convenient nook and sit 4 cramped people down at a time out of 7, so it wasn’t too bad. Not a pleasant experience, but when you’re paying $4.18 to go 600 kilometers, how can one possibly complain?

We got back at around 4:00pm and from there it was dinner then a pretty early 10:00 bedtime, this due mostly to the fact we had been up for your typical 18 hour day, and had been standing for a good chunk of it.

It was an odd weekend. I can’t really point to anything and say affirmatively “that was fun” except for maybe the gondola, but it was still enjoyable. And the weekend in Tianjin would have just involved basically sitting around anyway so I feel it’s good we at least did something.

This is our three-day weekend, and after the test and culture class on Thursday I am out of here to Qingdao. You may be more familiar with the postal-map spelling of Tsingtao, and yes it is the very same city of the beer. The Germans set up shop there when they colonized, and there are also supposed to be nice beaches, along with churches and some other cool stuff to see.

And that’s basically it. Three-day, then regular weekend, then 10-day to Guangxi. We’ve already been here more than a month, and when the 10-day starts I’ll be halfway through my 12 weeks here. (The program is 11 and I have a week at the end with a friend who is in China on a Northwestern University program.) The title of this post is lifted from the vocab list we got in class yesterday. It is about a butcher, and how good he is at his craft and how it sounds like music when he slices and dices a cow. It also felt appropriate given the difficulties involved with our Tai Shan trip.

下次

I do not have a fever

Or so the PRC Health Bureau tells me. After a quick 12+ hour flight, we landed, and sat and waited as health officials came onto the plane and took our temperature by zapping us on the forehead with what is evidently some sort of hi-tech thermometer. Fourth amendment concerns fell by the wayside as everyone on the plane simply wanted to get off. We did, and the dozen or so of us on the United 851 flight congregated then went through immigration, swine flu check, and customs. Customs, by the way, is a joke and the only exit is nothing to declare.

We exited the airport and waited for our bus. When it came, we boarded and suddenly everything seemed very surreal. Almost as though I had never left, and this was merely a regular commute. The perfectly paved highway, the ridiculous signs discouraging reckless driving, the people biking on the side of the 高速公路 (highway) as we trundled toward Tianjin.

One thing I noticed immediately was the blue sky. Last year our flight was delayed by about 5 hours and when we arrived it was dark. By the next morning, it was a solid light gray. This year it was really blue, clouds are visible, and it has only slightly darkened since getting to Tianjin. It’s really quite refreshing. I’m not sure how this happened, or what the impetus was now that the Olympics are long gone, but I like it.

We arrived at the hotel and proceeded to check in without drama. My 同屋 (roommate) Kevin had already arrived at the hotel/dorm, having been in China for a couple weeks already. I started seeing things and perceiving the building was moving all around me, so made the effort to stay up until 10:00 PM then crashed. Madison is 13 hours behind Chicago, so I had been awake for almost 30 hours, and had the additional fatigue associated with an intercontinental plane ride.

Our room:

Our quarantine officially started then too. Like many other policies of the glorious 中华人民共和国 (People’s Republic of China) this exists in name only. Upon arrival, we were given little cards that suggested a self-quarantine of 7 days. No thanks. The quarantine we are under is apparently not directed from the federal government in Beijing. I don’t know if it’s some local party hack who is trying to make a name for himself by protecting China from the sickened whiteys or what, but basically the American Embassy apparently helped us negotiate a shortened quarantine of 3 days. This has had no effect other than to provide us with free food for the period, as well as delay classes for a couple days. In theory we are not to leave the campus. We can come and go as we please however, and no one seems to care.

After withdrawing 1500 kuai/renminbi/yuan on Saturday I headed over to Homeworld and Carrefour to stock up. Toothpicks, Coke, bottled water, hangers, and pleother mundane items were all had for about 180 kuai. At 6.8 kuai to the dollar, it ran me less than $30 for a ton of crap. Cheap consumer goods get even cheaper when the distance between factory and store is two provinces instead of 150 degrees of longitude. One of the items was some incredible Doraemon-packaged toilet paper. Sadly the sheets themselves do not have any special printing.

That night several of us took advantage of the cheaply priced 啤酒 (beer) that is available throughout all of China. After playing the very un-PC named card game Tourette’s and a rousing rendition of Journey’s epic Don’t Stop Believing, a few of us went about a block or so north, crossed a fetid canal, and got to Alibaba’s, a very popular foreigner/expat bar. It was pretty popular among the students on the program last year but I actually never made it. After watching Manchester United for a little bit and mostly just sitting, drinking, and talking with other students, we came back.

On Sunday, I went again to Carrefour for no reason in particular. Didn’t have much better to do really. That night I also bit into my first, fantastic bite of McDonald’s since being back. The chicken is just as delicious as I remember. That same night six of us also went to my favorite massage parlor in Koreantown, the place with 90-minute full-body massages for 58 kuai. Sufficiently relaxed and having ate a dragonfruit from the nearby fruitstand, I returned and fell asleep.

Yesterday was a pretty slow day as well. I continued my habit here of waking up early, got on and surfed around on the internet, or at least while the internet was up and functioning. Later I took an oral test which turned out to be more of a chat with one of the professors about the problems the current generation of old Americans face, and who can solve their problems how. Not the easiest, and it involved some dumb pauses while I searched for words, but on the whole not too bad and it shouldn’t matter anyway. Later yesterday night, a much larger crowd of us went over to Alibaba’s again. In addition to thoroughly standard beer that cost 8 kuai (2-3 times a supermarket or convenience store) we also rented 2 hookahs. The only flavor we had was apple, though that might be because it was the only one we could translate into Chinese that they had. I was not in charge of procuring the hookah. Anyhow, it was decent but nothing near Memories. After one member of our party 喝醉了地呕吐 (I’ll let you look that up, and no it wasn’t me) we headed back. I played a couple games of euchre, won both (and actually came back from 6-0 to win 6-10 in one game) and then again made the nightly voyage to McDonald’s. I’m lovin’ it.

Today we had our orientation, met our teachers and tutors. Tomorrow my cell phone will be reactivated with minutes which should be convenient. We also went on a bus tour around the city and saw assorted sites like the foreign concessions, Olympic Stadium, and others. Finally to cap off the first official day of the program since being out of quarantine, we had a program banquet with very Americanized Chinese food and our teachers.

Classes start tomorrow, and we’ve already been assigned some preview material. It should be nice to get back to focusing on Chinese for a few hours a day, and start absorbing it again. The handouts I have so far don’t seem to difficult but it’s going to be a 4 person class for 3 hours which allows plenty of time for each of us to make lots of mistakes. Or learn. Or both.

再见

Up, Up, and Away from all the other Zhong Guo Ren

I'm now almost exactly 24 hours from boarding the great silver bird and taking off. Currently I am debating the virtues of staying up the entire night before and whether that will help me adjust, which in truth will all depend if I can fall asleep right away on the plane.

I also got an email from the program coordinator this morning:
Dear all,

We received urgent notice from the Bureau of Public Health today regarding a decision by the P.R.C government on dealing with persons from the infected areas of human cases of H1N1. This government regulation states that all persons who have been to the infected areas within the last 2 weeks shall be quarantined for 7 days.

Since all of you are coming from countries within which H1N1 human cases have been found, no-one could be exempted from this new regulation.

With the support of our local institutes, program staff negotiated on the terms and conditions related to the quarantine. The result turned out to be quite successful: instead of being quarantined for 7 days, we will only need to do it for 3 days. In the meanwhile, food will be provided by our hotel for free, as well as other complimentaries such as shampoo, towels, toilet paper, etc. Internet and room phone will also be set up by the time you check in.

What you need to do:

1. Make sure you don't have a fever when you enter China. Officers from Beijing Entry/Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau (Beijing CIQ) will check every passenger once the plane lands. If you already have a fever, please do not board the plane.

2. During the quarantine, please do not leave our hotel building.

We understand that this governmental policy may cause you inconvenience. Please be reassured that we will adjust our schedule accordingly to make up for the class hours missed during the quarantine.

We appreciate your cooperation and will accommodate you as much as we can.
------
3-day quarantine upon arrival. I'm not sure if this will be in a different hotel or the one we are scheduled to be in, but it sounds like our hotel in Tianjin. This will run into our scheduled city tour the first day after arrival, and will likely run into the first day of class as we'll since we arrive in China Friday afternoon and will likely get to our hotel Friday night. It'll probably be pretty boring, but oh well.

学期结束了

大家好! (Hello)

I’m now only 9 days away from getting on my 13 hour flight from O’Hare to Beijing. I finished finals last Wednesday so since then I’ve basically been hanging out with friends and slowly getting ready to go. I just ordered new contacts which should arrive before I leave, and have been slowly (as my mother can attest to) unpacking everything I brought home from my Madison apartment. It’s quite a lot of stuff and much is still sitting in the basement, where it will probably stay for the next 8.5 days.

I haven’t really started packing yet, other than to make a mental list. I’ll need to remember to bring hand towels, among other things, as they don’t provide those despite the fact we are living in a ‘hotel.’ Mostly though, packing will be sort of like for a long vacation: laptop, camera, large bottles of toiletries instead of travel-sized, tons of shorts and shirts, 1 pair nice pants, 1 pair jeans, and that’s it. The room I’m in will be lacking a proper dresser so I’ll be living out of my suitcase, technically speaking.

One fortunate thing is that I have been granted a multiple-entry visa. This will allow me to visit Hong Kong, Macau, or some any other country if I so desire. The visa is in my passport below:

Last year I was given a single-entry visa, so this may end up being more convenient. The 多 means many, more, multiple, etc… We have a ten day field trip during the program, and I have also decided to stay in China for a week after the program ends. I have a friend from high school who goes to Northwestern University and we will have some time to go wherever. Macau is China’s gambling capital (it is illegal on the mainland) so that might be fun.

When actually in Tianjin, I’ll be taking Classical Chinese along with one semester of fourth-year Chinese. The textbooks for these will all be available in China so I don’t need to pick them up here. I did however go to the bookstore and buy plenty of Wisconsin-themed gifts. Last summer I met a friend named Shino (her Chinese name is actually Xiaohuan) and her parents and aunt invited me to eat with them several times, and simply everyone in China loves American stuff and anything with English on it, so they should like the various clothing items I got them.

That’s all I’ve done to prepare. Spring Break (in Guatemala) took care of all the shots and such that I need. I have already notified my bank that I’ll be in China. The next week will breeze by then I’ll be back in Tianjin again. I’m already salivating over the food I’ll be having soon.
----
This post was made on my new blog, http://blog.studyabroad.wisc.edu/index.php/archives/category/summer-2009/eric-mathis a week ago. I will be dual posting to both blogs probably.

Pains, Trains, and Automobiles The Second

Have I mentioned yet that I hate Chinese breakfast? In Penglai we were served corn porridge, fish-flavored corn cakes, and some greasy long bread. What Eric, did you just say fish-flavored corn cakes? Why yes, I did in fact. Imagine a small disc of cornbread. Now, salt it up something fierce and add fish flavor. Bam, Chinese coastal breakfast. I am convinced that it can somehow be quantitavely found that Chinese breakfast sucks more than a Western breakfast, be it bacon and eggs, cereal, or cinnamon-sugar toast. Maybe someone can do a study determing what induces more endorphins, the Western breakfast in a Chinese person or the Chinese breakfast in a Western person. I've got $50 says my side wins.

The "charter fishing" expedition was not what I thought it would be. We got in an extremely rickety looking boat and pushed off from the beach. A one-paddle system was used, and it basically involved rotating the oar on a knob while it was out of the water then giving it a quick jiggle while in. It's hard to explain without a picture or drawing, and not really worth it either. Suffice to say that this exact same technology was likely in use several millennia ago. Anyhow, as we boarded our boat with a few "crew" members, we started out to the sea and what I thought was going to be a short trip out to one of the powerboats anchored off shore. Well, we got to them, then went past them. On the way we ran into a rock that was just inches below the water. It made a most satisfyingly movie-sounding grating noise, just like you would imagine if a wooden hull were splitting open. If we had been going any decent sort of speed it might have done just that, but since our top speed was never more than a couple knots (a knot is 1.15 landlubber miles per hour) it was not a significant threat. In case you were wondering, there was absolutely no form of life preservers on our vessel. To give you an idea what our brave ship and its motley crew looked like, I give you this picture:
The girl standing in the top left seemed to operate the restaurant where we ate all our meals, and the guy squatting may or may not be related to the woman who owned the house/hotel place we stayed at, but he certainly worked for her. The man chilling in the boat might have owned the boat or something, he was just along for the ride. The front right is Shino probably looking at a starfish (海星, literally 'sea star') or one of the various other sea creautres we captured. Here you can also sea basically how most of the day was spent; Shino and I looked for cool things to play with as described in the last post, while our hosts took the time to fish. The older guy sat looking contemplative for much of the time.

Here is also where we get to the "Pains" part of the title, the Trains and Automobiles having already been covered. I didn't wear sunscreen. Well, I put it on well after I was burnt. Oddly enough though, I actually tanned. The burn wore off quite quickly and I tanned a reasonable amount, finally getting in both a true farmer's tan and sandal tan. Shino got a tan too, which turned out to be a major bummer for her. Here, the lighter and whiter the better. Thanks to cultural imperialism and the power of the marketing department, America has already won the hearts and minds of young Chinese. Not only is McDonald's everywhere, the proportion of white people in advertising to the amount living here is ridiculously high compared to all minorities in America featured in ads. After a couple hours frying in the sun and harvesting creatures, we returned to dry land. After a nap and dinner, we returned to the beach. We held a funeral for animals so unceremoniously starved or suffocated to death by burying them a few inches deep in some sand. Once again I tried out some night photography, and was pretty happy with how this one turned out. I still need to get better at manipulating the angle of the camera, both for snapshots and long exposure pictures, but oh well. I suppose that just means I need to take more pictures and practice. In continuing the trend of getting very little sleep, we were once again forced to go to sleep early to make the 5:00 AM wakeup to be out of our room by 5:30 and make the bus at 6:00 that would take us to Qingdao.

We got on the bus and there were only 2 other people on. We left at a few minutes past 6 and there were at most 10 on. We pulled out of the station, and hit the open road. Sort of.

As soon as we got to the main through street we slowed to not more than 5 mph, probably slower, and just sort of idled along. I asked Shino why this was, and she responded quite matter-of-factually that the driver was trying to pick up more passengers, like some sort of long-distance taxi. The thing is, this tactic was wildly successful. We picked up half a dozen more people before getting to a highway. Once traveling, we kept getting more people every so often. Just people who were headed to Qingdao and wanted to hitch a ride (for the regular ticket price of course) flagging down our bus. It did add a small amount of time to the ride, but for a minibus like we were on, I think it worked quite well as a system. It is also not the same as making a Greyhound pull over because while we were on a 'highway' this was closer to the Wisconsin roads labeled Conty K that never have a limit higher than 55mph and you frequently have to go slower because of all the small towns scattered about. This was not some hitchhiking hippie hopping a bus blazing down I-90. Also on this ride, the bus driver was actually kind enough to give us some entertainment, putting on two movies, the first being Police Story 3: Supercop featuring Jackie Chan and the other was of the Governator's best ever, True Lies. I Mystery Scienced the first half of Supercop much to Shino's delight. She, in addition to my tutor, some teachers, and quite possibly a majority of Chinese youth believe that English is genuinely a pleasant-sounding language. I have tried to convince her otherwise, including using some French, but to no avail.

Perhaps I have not stated it here, but traffic in this country is crazy. That over-quoted Pirates of the Caribbean line about guidelines is genuinely true here. After arriving in Tianjin Monday morning, by the time we got a taxi it was 4:00 AM. As usual, the city was pretty bright, the ambient light mixing with pollution to give a sense of constant sunrise. (Did you know that even our sunrises are as brilliant as they are because of pollution? Rewind a few hundred years before the Industrial Revolution, and with only natural particles in the sky, the brilliant oranges and purples would have been less common. The reason has to do with the tiny pieces reflecting light or something, I read it in my Physics textbook freshman year.) While we were in the taxi on the way to my dorm, we stopped at a red light. A car across from us approached and also stopped. Then, 3 cars--all vacant taxis and all in quick succession--flew through the intersection. They came from behind, left, and right, and thankfully at different times. This was also not anything like aggressively running an amber and gunning it to beat the light. The light was as red as a commie and was not going anywhere soon. Still, 60% of all the cars that came to the intersection simply blew straight by. Yes, it was 4:00 AM, but still, if they had come at exactly the same time, it would have been game over for someone. These were two fairly main roads intersecting. In addition to this, some genius decided that it would be awesome to program lights to give a green dot and green arrow in both directions at the same time. Now, obviously human restraint keeps from rush-hour pileups, but it is still rather suspect. Honking is quite standard and lanes are wimps. So when I tell you that our bus nearly rear-ended a car while arriving in Qingdao, don't be too surprised. The bus stopped short and started choking up, and everyone was jerked forward into the seat in front of them. In accordance with true non-OSHA standards, the 'co-pilot' of the bus, basically the ticket collecting guy that worked for the company, was standing up in the mini-stairwell at the front. Like any bus, the windshield was one giant piece of some sort of clear plexiglass or plastic. And because corners were cut on every aspect of production, this was not the sturdiest windshield. I think you can see where I'm going here. He did not quite smash through the windshield. Rather, he headbutted it and it cracked in a quite impressive fashion.

ASIAN MAN USES HEADBUTT ON THE WINDSHIELD! IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!

The too-fragile bus got us to Qingdao before noon and our train did not depart until after 8:00PM. We had almost 9 hours. The first course of action however was to eat a delicious delicious lunch at the McDonalds less than a block away from where we were dropped off, and literally across the street from the beach. I have already extolled the virtues of the food here, but there is another thing which contributes to their trendiness here; they are in premier locations and extremely large. I have not yet seen a McDonald's which does not have 2 stories. Almost all of them have been located on major street corners, with the second floor having an entirely glass wraparound wall, so you can sit and watch the city outside as you eat. The exact same applies for KFC. It is simply a classier experience here. One difference however is the size of the drinks. The large ("upsize" on the receipt) here is a medium in America, and the small here is a kid's size, which is basically the same as a small. For anyone curious, McDonald's does not actually serve a drink called a "small" in some locations, though a kid size is always available.

After the quick refueling, we went to the waterfront, where many Chinese were milling about on a sort of balcony overlooking the beach. In the 30-yard walk over, I see a little kid holding his dad's hand with a t-shirt on it and lettering. For a split second, I can see YA in collegiate block lettering in an arc, red letters on a gray shirt. Yale, I'm thinking. I guess someone's dad got a good American education. It says YAMP. On the actual beach, thousands of volunteers had gathered to clear away a massive algal bloom in the harbor where the Olympic rowing events are to be held. Thousands of volunteers, and that one earthmover I previously mentioned. The video is up and you can see the sea of workers grabbing and bagging the stuff, as well as one of the backhoe doing one full removal. In the video of the volunteers on the beach, there is actually a second beach with a few hundred more volunteers that extends beyond the natural sort of pier that juts out. After marveling at the sight and taking in the scenery for a couple minutes, we walked over to the pier then back, bought some shells that might make for some nice tacky jewelery for my sisters, and finding some shade on the beach for yet another nap. (Detect a theme here?) This time I wore sunscreen. This all took a surprisingly long time, and when I came to, it was almost dinnertime. Naturally, this meant more seafood. Only this time, it was a dumpling place so it was slightly more tolerable. By the end of dinner it was time to hail a cab to get to the train station, which is where I took the movie I have on my webspace. This was not as crowded, and was a little less dirty than the Tianjin West station. Well, not the bathrooms. I have had the unfortunate experience of taking a leak in a Chinese train station, and there is really not much to say, it's all about smell. Just entering it was enough to make a small child pass out. Once I did, I held my breath as long as I could. It was like someone decided it would be a great idea to take all the latrines in all the summer camps in the US, put them in the same place, then never clean or empty them. Furthermore, privacy is apparently not too important to some people. On my way to a stall (the urinal trough looked suspect, though I later regretted not choosing it) I passed an occupied stall. In it was a man, clearly using the stall for the intended purpose of going no. 2, to put it delicately. Now, how do I know this? Well, it would probably be because he did not close the stall door and was staring out as he was squatting over the toilet. Yes, he looked at me. It was rather unnerving. He had a frown on his face, though I think it may have stemmed from the fact that he happened to be in that foul-smelling place, or because he saw a white man, or because well... yeah... Anyhow I booked it out of there. I planned on giving my hands a thorough scrubbing at the sink, until I discovered there was no soap. And it's a wonder I only had to take one vaccination shot according to the CDC's recommendations for this country.

With ticket in hand and methane in lungs, I boarded the train. We found our seats. Now I stated earlier that a hard seat is something like purgatory. Allow me to elaborate. You have a seat about as wide as an airplane seat, and half as comfortable. You are sitting directly opposite from a frowning middle aged Chinese man who when he sleeps is snoring, nose straight up in the air. Also, if we both sat at perfectly right angles with knees directly toward each other, they would touch. If you are lucky (I was) you are on the side of the train with two columns of seats instead of 3. There is a tiny table attached to the side of the train, which most people use as a pillow anyway. I found the 13 hour flight from Chicago to Beijing infinitely more enjoyable. The lack of space creates pains in aches in entirely new muscles in your body. Before I could settle into all the glory of this authentic experience however, Shino pulled out her purse and said "I'm going to tell you a secret." Oh wonderful I'm thinking, she is going to show me some ridiculously cutesy thing she bought me or maybe we actually got upgraded to sleeper class as we had tried to do.

No such luck. What followed was one of the most confusing five minutes of my life. This was about as jarring as when the Camp Anokijig waterfront staff start doing a massive waterfront manhunt for my sister because they think she drowned and they gather the entire camp into the cafeteria to take role while you try not to cry. Not as sad, but about as shocking.

Shino opened her bag, and unzipped an inner pocket. She pulled out a shiny and very official looking card.

Cool I thought, a passport? "这是什么？" What is this, I ask her. I can read the last of the three biggest characters, and it alone basically means ID card. I have no clue what the first two are, or what the bottom line means.

"It's my identity card. I'm in the army."

Oh hey, that's cool I mean it's like the reserves or something right? I open it up.

Hmmmm. I can read her birthday, sex, name, ethnic group, and home location. Some of the stuff I can't read. Mostly, it's the important things I can't read. I'm very nervous; this looks very, very official. I start looking for any chance it's forged, look for a phony photo, but the emobssing is real and as far as this untrained eye goes, everything is in order. I start talking quickly, and asking lots of questions.

Do they pay you? Have you been through basic training? What rank are you? Some others too, I can't remember them anymore. I reiterate the pay question a couple times, and reassure her I don't want to know how much, just if she's paid or it's like a loyalty-to-your-country type deal.

She tells me she pays the army. I think: this is most unusual. Where is this going?

I don't know if she understood the other question or just decides to tell me: "Do you know what level I am? Do you know what this is?" She points to the bottom right box.　上尉. The first character, 上, is a prefix or suffix in tons of words, and often means above, higher, etc... I have never seen the second character in my life. She goes to her cell phone and looks it up.

上尉
Captain

My friend is a captain in the People's Liberation Army. "Shit, Eric, you are very dumb." is all I can think. Her mom and dad both work for the army. Her dad was an officer on a ship and was part of the Second Artillery. Her family is set. No wonder she's in the army. In China Road the author talked about how now it was the best and brightest being encouraged to join the Communist Party. Was the same true of the army? Was it a bad idea to look up the word for "propaganda" on your cell phone and ask her what she thinks of it? While you were at her house no less? And why did you have to drop in unsubtle references to voting while there too?

She presses on. "Do you want to know what I do? What my job is?" I think I said yes. She doesn't know how to say it, and pulls up her cell phone again. I'm not looking at the character this time, just the English definitions. There are at least half a dozen. I'm looking at a few.

intelligence agent; emissary; spy; espionage; covert

Blown away only begins to describe it. I just kept looking at the ID, and then looking at the cell phone. I look at her. She is smiling, I think. I don't know what is going to happen. For the first time ever, I am paralyzed with fear. I know I can't run, I'm on a moving train and hundreds of kilometers from everything I have on this continent, in this hemisphere. She literally knows where I live. Up until this point, the CCP, Red Army, and secret police had all been jokes. Sitting in the seat, I am slowly beginning to consider the possibility that at the very best I will be deported. I get other thoughts too.

The smile gets bigger.

Finally, she says two magic words: "It's fake." I immediately believe her, because I so desperately want to. I ask her why she has it, and she says that it is in case she ever gets into a "situation" where she needs it, and it also lets her into some places like some parks for free. I ask where she got it; she borrowed her aunt's uniform for the photo. Her mother has a friend in the clerical office. It was easy. The next five minutes are spent in quiet relief. We then get on to more hangman (she actually beats me once) and sleeping. The hours pass quickly for the first half,then the second half turns into a mental fight to try to sleep, and stay sane while awake. I also have something from the window poking my side.

We finally arrive close to 4:00 AM. We have to walk a few minutes to a main road so as not to take one of the "seedy" taxis hanging around the train station. I get back to my dorm at 4:15, knowing I have to get up in less than 4 hours. Incredibly, I beat my roommate back by only 15 minutes, as he walks in while I'm still awake. It turned out his train was delayed 3 hours. I successfully wake up in time for class, and along with a few other students sleep through most of lecture perhaps not to the surprised of anyone, teachers included.

A good weekend, and I'm back to being only a week behind in updating now!