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!

Cravings...

Have set in again. Last week was our break and I should have a post all about it up tomorrow. I’ll also try to fill in basically what has happened this month. Unlike with regular procrastinating, the clock keeps ticking and things keep accumulating so it helps even less. But I just wanted to share what may be the worst part about China.

There is no good food.

The food gets really repetitive at about the 2-month mark. This is even after eating imported Goldfish, McDonald’s, and sort-of Westernized tourist food. If I were on a straight Chinese diet I’d probably get sick of it within weeks.

So in class I composed a list of things I am going to eat when I get back.
Nikki special (Ultra-greasy cheeseburger with gyros meat as well)
Italian sausage/beef combo with peppers
Skillet with peppers, onions, bacon, cheese
Five Guys double cheeseburger with mushrooms grilled onions and BBQ sauce
Steak at Pete Miller’s
Panera Bread French Onion soup and Italian Combo sandwich
Pizza di Roma
Lucky Charms
Brats
Chipotle Barbacoa Burrito with Chips and salsa/guacamole
McDonald’s Chicken Selects
Taco Bell Grilled Stuft Burrito with steak and a Baja Chalupa both with Taco Bell hot sauce
A massive salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing and cold fresh carrots, cucumbers, olives, sprouts
Caprese salad
Mountain Dew
New Glarus

I miss them, very dearly.

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

7 pictures to go with 3,249 words -or- A long update, plus Beijing!

It’s been a long time since last update, and for that I apologize. If you have the attention span to read all of this in one sitting, I commend you.

Since we last left off, I was without internet for almost 4 days starting on the Friday 12th and going until Monday the 15th. It was terrible and excruciating. I read a lot (I have now finished Marley and Me and A Hope in the Unseen since arriving here) and did a better job of studying characters than when my internet was up.

Over that weekend, we again went out. If I haven’t touched on the blistering pace of change here, let me expound. At the beginning, we tried to go to a restaurant that was a favorite from last year. It is now a clothing shop. Also when we arrived, there was a Construction Bank of China branch that was quite gutted and most definitely under construction. Less than a week later it was up and running. The exact same goes for another sweet restaurant right next door. It’s incredible what can happen when labor is cheap, the economy is in the toilet, and there aren’t all these namby-pamby regulations and unions. As a rich foreigner benefiting from the process, I like it, but I also feel really guilty.

Anyway, over that weekend we planned on going out to a club again. I suggested we go to the Mayflower, which last year provided free drinks to foreigners. We sent an advance party in a cab, but they reported that this ‘promotion’ of sorts was no longer going on. So we went to Club 7, the first club that I went to last year. Our large party exited the hotel and we got in a caravan of taxis. After we knew they knew where they were going, we set off.

It’s only 6 city blocks or so down the road from our campus, but no one particularly wanted to walk it, and when a cab ride is $.30 per person, why not? It also gives everyone a chance to 聊天 (liao tian, chat) with the cabbies, which is usually fun. We cruised down the street, pulled awesome U-turns as the club was on the opposite side, and hopped out.

Remember that lecture on change and new establishments? Yeah. It was boarded up. Nothing had taken its place yet, but it had either moved (I doubt it) or gone under (probably). This made me very sad, as one of the highlights of the place was the LCD screens they had of Doraemon with trippy colors on loop. This is made doubly awesome when comfortably numb and zoning out, but focusing solely on the LCD screens for minutes on end.

Disappointed, we got back in our cabs (who were overjoyed to have another fare, as we had paid before getting out) and had them take us to 酒吧街 (jiuba jie, bar street) and back to Coco. This time we had a semi-private booth on the 3rd floor which was pretty cool. We could stand at the glass floor-to-ceiling wall/window and look out at the dance floor and DJ. It was cool, but we were there for a relatively short time. After our late start then false start I don’t think we got there until at least 11:00pm, probably later. I don’t recall exactly when, but at some point someone else on the program, who I don’t think we actually went to the club with, came up to us and said something about how some guy from Wisconsin pissed off some other guy and now the Triads or Police were going to come and we’d all get messed up something fierce. Even at the time it seemed that ridiculous, but no one seemed to mind leaving.

It’s convenient to be white here. You get ripped off, but you can get away with most anything. Taking a balloon from your local McDonald’s? Go for it. Yelling “BADGERSSSSSSSSSSS” in a crowded club parking lot? Sure, why not, shoot for the moon! And precisely both of those happened. After a hurried exodus from the club, a taxi-sized group of 4 of us got together. We needed to see if everyone else got out. We could call, but minutes are expensive and it’s such a pain to talk to people 1-on-1 when you’re trying to figure out the whereabouts of a whole group. So I yelled. A full-lunged shout, which probably didn’t even sound like an actual word but more of a primal scream to those who didn’t speak English.

“BADDDGERRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS”

My voice can be quite the boomer. Deep and loud, it rolled across the parking lot like thunder. Crashing up the ears of all, the mighty cry was heard for kilometers and kilometers. A little hyperbole there, but you get the idea. And the responses flowed back. Just like that, I had fulfilled my safety obligations. Everyone in the parking lot was now looking at me of course, but it was awesome. Is someone going to come up and chide me? No.

“Wait a sec Eric,” you might be saying right now, “Isn’t this perpetuating the stereotype of the loud American?” My response to that is “Naturally, it is.” But it is so, SO fun. And as stated earlier, there was legitimate purpose behind it as well and totally harmless. So take that.

Also that weekend we went to an all-you-can-eat-and-drink Japanese steakhouse. The cost was only 150 kuai per person. Flipping through the menu, I would point at things and say 七个，七个，七个 (seven of these, seven of these, seven of these…) and use the hand gesture . Those are a really convenient way to unambiguously say a number when you get lazy with tones, its loud, or whatever. It also makes you look a lot less white in the eyes of whatever Chinese person you’re interacting with, which can help from time to time, especially with bargaining.

Anyhow, we ordered some things from the menu, including some red bean ice cream, some plum juice, and a few shrimp and meat dishes. I went outside to help a friend find the place, came back, and they had come back into the room, informing us we needed MORE. Our order had been rejected for having too little. I then flipped through the menu, pointing at anything anyone remotely expressed interest in, and requesting seven. A veritable mountain of meat came to us only minutes later. Platters and plates of lamb, beef, chicken, shrimp, sushi, steak, more beef, and squid, oysters, and other fun edibles trundled our way on a cart. Also, gallons of Tsingtao (pronounced qing dao) and sake were on hand. We had a plastic one-gallon jug of sake, which we absolutely murdered along with the help of our hibachi chef and one of the waitresses. We also did several 干杯’s, (ganbei) which sort of translates to cheers. However, when you ganbei something, you finish it. And you’re supposed to start at full. We had mugs of beer, and shotglasses for sake. We tried to keep the amount of 干杯’s to under once every two minutes, but I don’t think we held to that. Thankfully sake isn’t 80 proof alcohol, and this was closer to 30-40, but the quantity was high. We lost track of beers ordered. Surprisingly, no one got particularly drunk.

This was mostly due to the sheer mass of food we consumed. The steak was positively divine, the best I’ve had in this country. It’s a good thing I’m not counting calories or the like, since that meal may have stretched into 5 digits after counting the alcohol. After that wonderful meal, we returned to the dorm briefly and then went to a KTV parlor. We met up with a lot more of our program classmates and went got a large room. We only had it for an hour though, and after a Titanic duet and some Britney it was time to go. A few of us returned to Alibaba’s where we met some cool French Canadians. Unfortunately they are gone this weekend and we were gone last weekend, but they have our phone numbers if they deem us worthy of talking to again.

The school week after that was pretty uneventful. We took a pretty easy test, there was a sweet thunderstorm, and I reformatted my computer. Not terribly much worth commenting on. Then on Friday, we went to Beijing.

After said easy test, we had Erhu class. Erhu is an instrument approximately a thousand years old. It has two steel strings (they were silk originally) and a standard horse-hair bow between them. The range is only a couple octaves, but it’s pretty fun. I’m absolutely terrible at it, but whatever. We have slowly been learning finger positions and the best way to hold the bow, and how not to make terrible screeching sounds. Not much of this is getting through to me, but most of the class is doing pretty well. This is a picture from our first Erhu lesson, when we were just getting our hands on them for the first time. All that concentration isn't helping me one iota.


At 2:00pm we boarded a bus to Beijing. We were off a little bit later after making sure everyone was on board, and after a rest stop in the middle, we got to our Peking Duck restaurant at 5:00. I might catch some flak for this, but I find Peking Duck (北京烤鸭 beijing kaoya) to be highly overrated. I mean it doesn’t taste bad, but it’s super rich like duck always is, and adding some plum sauce and a little bit of sliced onions and cucumbers to duck is no great alchemical feat. It still tastes like Asian Boston Market, if such a thing existed. I hope the program didn’t pay too much for it is the bottom line I guess.

After said dinner, we walked up and down a boring street for half an hour or so, then returned to the front of the restaurant. I zoned out and tried to catch a nap while waiting for the bus to take us to the theater for another stereotypical Chinese experience, Peking Opera. After congested traffic, we arrived at the hotel/theater with a few minutes to spare. We took our seats, and the show began.
Last year, I was not a huge fan of the opera. It was boring. So boring, in fact, I decided to walk out and find myself a crisp refreshing drink and wander the streets. It was a decision I did not regret. I thought about doing so again this year, but felt that I should give it another go. Who knows, maybe it wouldn’t suck?
And that is precisely how I would describe it. It was a blissfully short hour and fifteen minutes. The first act was really boring, a 25-minute ordeal that had me worrying it would be a repeat of last year’s fiasco. It involved a lot of talking and not a lot of funny. Thankfully, it ended (Though the plot was not resolved, the entire thing was a woman trying to get on a boat to follow her lover in another boat. She got on a boat, then it ended.) and we were greeted with a new scene about Sun Wukong the Monkey King and his fight against 18 warriors. The ‘action’ got a little repetitive, but it kept me mostly entertained. It was pretty decent, and quite unlike pulling teeth.

We got to our hotel lateish, and found our rooms. My roommate decided it would be funny to wear a shower cap while not showering. I followed suit and put it on like a SARS/bird flu/swine flu mask. Some went out to clubs while a few of us just went around the corner for dinner. We stopped at a place near the end of a sketchy alley. They had the spiciest noodles, maybe the spiciest thing, I have ever tasted. It was obscene, and my friend who ordered it had to stop eating it because her mouth was on fire and she was on the verge of getting sick from the hotness. After second dinner we went back to the hotel and got to sleep. The next morning started before 8:00am.

Four of us gathered in the lobby at 7:50am. By 8 we were out. A quick taxi ride over to Tiananmen, met up with another friend, and we walked under the street, had our bags screened, and up onto the square. Big Brother, naturally, was watching. After the obligatory Mao portrait picture, we set off to cross the street again and head over to the Forbidden City.



The Forbidden City is monstrous. The 24 emperors that resided in it barely ever left its walls. It had harems, slave quarters, and other fun-filled places of joy in addition to the requisite temples, pavilions, and administration buildings. We spent a couple hours in it wandering around, admiring places such as the Imperial Garden and generally being regular tourists. The thing is, even all the other Chinese there were tourists too, so no one was particularly out of place. There was also one thing that I’m sure would have had Mao turning over in his coffin:
Note the bottom-right.

After the Forbidden City we took lunch at an incredible place, a holy place, known only as the Passby Bar. It served the most positively divine sandwiches ever. Sadly, I got the risotto for lunch (not bad itself) but it was so awesome, we decided to make sure it was not a one-time event. We would return.

And from lunch we went to Silk Street. It is an indoor bazaar, a carnival of consumers, huckster rodeo, all things new China. It has pushy vendors that speak good English to go with their French and Spanish as well. They hawk ties, Luis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabana, and all other sorts of brand names that are actually complete knock-offs. In proud Chinese tradition, they have posted a sign:
Just as “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” (the official Communist party line for the current system in China) really means “cut-throat no-regulations capitalism” the presence of this sign means the exact opposite of what it says. The shopkeeps themselves will readily tell you they are fakes. I bought a couple silver charms for my sisters (get pumped Kara and Liz) and a couple belts, because I was lacking in the snazzy belt department. After lots of browsing and everyone seemed to be satisfied, we returned to the hotel, dropped off our stuff and went to a great Muslim restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet. It was off on a side street but was totally packed, with Chinese, Arabs, Indians, and a couple other whites as well. The food didn’t disappoint either, with tender lamb and some great vegetable dishes.

Again we went to the hotel while the 女生 (nüsheng, girls) got ready. I read some and watched terrible Chinese dramas on TV. We reconvened at 10:30 or so and went to a club called Banana. There are a couple in Beijing called Banana, and we actually went to the wrong one first, as seems to be a theme now. There was actually a cover charge at this one, which means it’s pretty high-class or at least tries to be. Getting in, the music was deafening as expected. However, this club also had fire, and bubbles. Occasionally a bubble machine would go off and bubbles would float through the air. This proved immensely entertaining. Also, the bartender would occasionally light things on fire. Sometimes he juggled them as well. Then there was the tower of bottles with some flaming bottle at the top. It was quite a feast for the eyes, especially when all sound was pounding chaos mixed with such regal tunes as Soulja Boy.

I ordered a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, which for some mystifying reason is referred to here as “rum.” I don’t know why, but that’s how it is. This was mostly done using hand signals as the club was far too loud and our table was literally next to the dance floor. After the waiter spilled some on me, robbed me of 10 kuai (maybe he thought it was a tip) and basically failed at being a high-end waiter, the bottle was magically empty, the victim of 8 or so people and one birthday girl. And just as sure as Charlie don’t surf, Eric doesn’t dance. Or at least not while sober. With that obstacle eliminated I got up danced for a long, long time. As we slowly lost people, the remaining 4 of us returned to the hotel at some unknown time. After some discussion, it was decided that a McDonald’s run was necessary. So we stumbled over to McDonalds, changed minds, and went to KFC. I ordered a chicken sandwich. It was the longest I have ever had to wait for fast food. It felt like an hour eternity, but was probably closer to 15 minutes. Still, that is a ridiculously long time to have to wait. After finally getting the sandwich, we returned to the hotel and slept it off. Sleep was fitful however, as the cleaning staff could not keep from talking really loudly in the hallways, in addition to early morning knocks and checkout-reminder calls. Going to bed when it was once again light out didn’t help either.

The original plan for the Sunday was to go to the Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace. Neither of those happened, as we were all dead tired. Instead, we went to the Passby bar again and ordered these:

Truly, heaven on bread. Incredible, would order again, A++++++
And after that we basically wandered around. There were some small hutong off to the side of the street the Passby was on, so we just sort of went through those. Eventually we decided on walking to a nearby park. “Nearby” turned out to be relative however, and after we almost got there we decided to turn it in and get a taxi back to the hotel. From there we just sat and relaxed for an hour and some until the bus was ready to take us back to Tianjin.

And then there were this week’s classes. Mine is slowly getting harder and more interesting. We had a midterm today which wasn’t too bad. Tomorrow early in the morning we are heading out to Taishan, the holiest of the Taoist mountains in China. From there we will be able to climb it, watch the sunset, sleep on the summit, and watch the sunrise. Hopefully it will live up to the hype. The weekend after is our 3-day during which I am going to Qingdao. These upcoming travel opportunities should be pretty fun.

More than 3000 words but that’s all I have for now. I’ll try to be a little more 认真 (renzhen, earnest) about updating this thing.
再见！

Pleasant Weekend and Wolves in ATM Clothing

Classes started a week ago, but my Classical Chinese class is pitifully easy. Each day we go over a short story, character by slow and painful character, for two hours and fifteen minutes of class time. I feel like I die a little bit inside every time in class, and the last half an hour is like pulling teeth. Okay maybe it’s not quite as bad as that, but it’s really slow, really easy, and I question the usefulness of the content. It’s required for the major however so I don’t really have an option to switch out of it anyway.

The easiness of the classes has at least permitted more free time. We are basically able to eat, drink, and be merry whenever. One easy thing to do here is take advantage of the not only the cheap beer, but also cheap bootleg DVDs.

Yes, 10 kuai DVDs. Sure, the default settings are set to Chinese, the packaging is questionable, they don’t play on some computers, and the menu titles are sometimes in Chinese, but it’s still sweet. For less than a buck and a half you have a movie that you would have paid 10x for in America. Also, movies that haven’t exactly been released yet on DVD such as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, or occasionally even movies that aren’t even out in theaters yet (The Dark Knight last year). Combine these all-region/region-free discs with a cheap DVD player and it’s quite nice. I’ve already seen Night At The Museum, Yes Man, Wolverine, and half of He’s Just Not That Into You. (I fell asleep halfway through, brought on by a case of overwhelming boredom.)

The sketchy/cheap part of China has its downsides however. As I noted last post, I took out 1500 yuan and went happily on my way. What I neglected to mention was that I tried two ATMs before the third one let me have my money. These first two were both on campus, and neither worked last year, however I decided to give them a try and see if they were back up. Sort of. The first one told me it was broken and I moved to the second. It seemed to be working okay, but when I put in the amount I wanted it told me that there was no money left and gave me back my card and I took a receipt. Normally, I am so very good at keeping receipts and other paper-trail items. I keep gas receipts for a week or so. However after I got my money from the third ATM, I returned to my room and the receipt was chucked in the trash. After all, the result was the exact same as last year, so I figured no problem.

A couple days later when doing a routine check on my bank account, I noticed there were two withdrawals, on the same day. One of these was for $148 from an ATM on Weijin Lu, which happens to be the street our campus is on. I immediately commenced a search for the receipt but the trash had already been taken out (it is done daily) and I was feeling quite royally screwed. After cursing a few times, I asked my bank (UW Credit Union) to dispute it and explained what happened. They responded that after the machine is audited which is done every week or so, the money in the machine may not add up with the withdrawals. So basically the fate of my $148 is in the hands of some sketchy-ass local bank official who is probably taking large chunks out of the dumb 老外 (laowai, a slightly derogatory term for foreigner literally meaning “old outsider”) who decide to use their ATM. My bank explained that it could be up to 45 days for an answer since it’s an international thing, but I’ve basically already written it off as a loss. In my account right now I see I have been reimbursed (minus a $1.50 fee but whatever) though I’m not sure if that is the credit I have been extended by my bank, or if I won this small battle. I’ll see if it goes away and then talk to my bank. Lessons can be expensive.

On Saturday we took a ridiculously easy test and were out of class by 9:00AM. The supposed afternoon classes to compensate for missing earlier never materialized, thankfully. After a small talk by a 警察 (jingcha, police) on the dangers of not respecting local customs and which bars not to go to, we settled in, watched movies and ate, then promptly went to one of the clubs we were warned against.

This is not some stupid rebellious move that is seeking trouble. The truth is that the program does not particularly want to be liable for what happens when a dumb American gets belligerent drunk in a night club, makes a pass at some Chinese guy’s girlfriend and gets punched up something fierce. And if one were to avoid all human contact, you could also avoid the same fate. But where’s the fun in that?

So the girls took a few hours to beautify, and I changed into a never-fail classic in China: my Say No To Scurvy shirt.woot.com shirt. This shirt has everything. First, it is awesome, even in America. Second, it has English on it that 特别少 (very few) Chinese people will be able to understand, which makes me look awesome. Thirdly, that ridiculous looking cutesy orange with a smiley face is completely in line with the rest of this country’s unhealthy obsession with things like Doraemon and 喜洋洋. So it’s a born winner basically. At the club we bought a bottle of whiskey, and my night ended up playing a lot of the totally awesome game of Liar’s Dice which involves way too much thought given it is a drinking game. Though I guess that provides extra incentive not to suck.

Coming back to the club, I was once again feeling a craving. For a massage. So a friend and I went to the massage place at 2:00AM or something and got foot massages. They are open 24 hours, as I loudly noted several times. There is very little that feels better than getting a foot massage while starting to nod off and still a little bit intoxicated.

And being as how it was a one-day weekend, that is basically it. Class has resumed and is still easy. My tutor and I usually read those Pleasant Goat books together, because they are just a little bit above my level so are a pretty good way to learn, and there is not much for her to tutor me on really. I think some of us are planning some travel this weekend, but I’m not at all sure where. Our Beijing trip will be coming up the weekend after that, and I should have a veritable cornucopia of pictures from that.

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