17:32BST 7/29/08
SHANGHAI PUDONG TO CHICAGO O'HARE
i hate this feeling. i hate it so much. i was totally late to the airport (im not sure i know how else to arrive), so i was too busy running through the airport and skipping people in lines upon lines to get nostalgic. as the plane was taking off, i realized this would be the last time on sino-soil in quite some time and immediately became very sad. im so so grateful for all of the help and support that i got to come here and for all of the tremendous hospitality i was shown here that its almost too overwhelming to describe. on the plane, i asked the first flight attendant that i saw (asian) in chinese if i could switch my seat to one that had a power outlet. she answered back in perfect english that the flight was full. without realizing why, this made me very sad. most of the flight attendants on this flight are american. they look american. they are fat and have over-dyed blonde hair and they speak english. for this past leg of my trip, ive listened to and used more chinese than ever... and its wonderful. i got this awesome feeling everytime i figured out a new way to ask for something or when someone would explain something to me and i would actually catch it. and now its gone. like the last one, on this international flight, the americans are somehow sequestered in their own section and the chinese grouped in theirs. all around me, i hear happy people talking about how nice its going to be to use regular toilets and be among people who speak english. ... . maybe its just a readjustment funk, but i hate it. i actually came to like the squatters... you never have to worry about whether the seat is clean or not. aside from the countryside and one kunming toilet covered in poo (out of three whole weeks), i didnt really encounter any problems and like them better i think. and maybe im just being silly, but when i saw the chinese attendent asking a man a couple rows up ta yao he shenma (what did he want to drink) i was filled with this longing for him to ask me the same. i caught him and said 'qing wen, wo de duzi bu xufu de, nimen you meiyou yao?" (excuse me, my stomach hurts, do you have medicine?). he answered back in perfect english, we only have aleve, maybe i could ask for something else? stubbornly, i tried again. "wo xiangyao ne ge huang ling pian haishi ne ge fen hong se de yao" (i want the little yellow pill or pepto bismal). in english, "your chinese is very good! i will ask someone if they have either." actually, i know im being silly bc the flight attendents on the chinese planes would do the same, regardless of how hard you were trying to yong putonhua. i think im just going to miss the giddy satisfaction of communicating. i guess.
last night, after feeling beaten and bruised by that awful woman, mike and i cozied up and watched some episodes of a show he likes, "greek." this morning, after waking up too late again, we forewent mcdonalds delivery for a crazy delish thai restaurant (the experience that kunming (or robbo lol) could never give me). it ended up taking a little too long so we had to make a mad dash back to the house, to a cab, to the subway, to the MAGLEV! to get to the airport. i thought that i wouldnt like the maglev bc youre pretty muched forced to use it to get to pudong (shanghai's eastern airport) and it costs 50 kuai, but honestly it was pretty cool. like, they post the speed of the train (which is actually hovering above the track via high powered magnetic levitation (ergo 'maglev')) and it goes as fast as 431 kph (which, if my quick conversion is correct, is about 267 mph). and you can see the whole time, its pretty nutty. im glad i took it. when i got to the airport, idk how i managed it with ALL of my luggage, but i straight up ran from the maglev station to the AA desk, easily over half a mile. i had to argue with the lady to let me on... maybe it was my awesome broken chinese that won her over. they sent a guy with me up until customs that helped me cut everyone in line. this was really helpful bc when i tried to jump the AA line by myself, my "wo de feiji kuai qu, qing, wo ke bu keyi xianzai qu?" didnt really seem to register. it was either incorrect or the people at the front of the line didnt take kindly to me telling them (i think) that my plane was soon leaving, could i please go right now? like i said, it was pretty quick moving. and so were back here, on the plane.
to dwell on more positive thoughts, things that im def happy to get back to include my bed, my theodore, my roommates, autonomy, and calling my parents whenever i want. i felt like there were so many things in china that i would love to call and tell them about, but wasnt really able to. im a little sad bc as well as i tried to document my travels, i find it hard to remember some of the more trivial but amusing things. im also a little anxious to get back to work to finish up some loose ends and get on with my last year in grad school. im excited to get it on and over with! i also really want to find some sort of sneaky way to find everyone's address in china and send them goodies :).
i feel like, since this will be my last china post (that i can think of anyways), i am obligated to say something profound that i learned. im kind of grasping for straws here though... instead, i think i might comment on general things that i picked up on that may be amusing. if anything, i feel that i learned that the culture is not so much different but slightly shifted. just like americans, chinese people are modest about somethings and open about others. only here, most chinese people with whom i spoke were very conservative about sexuality and more open about nudity. for instance, a lot of public restrooms dont have doors. on the four hour trip from mi le back to kunming, we stopped at a gas station where there was a long rectangular trench carved out of the concrete with two short dividers to suggest the existence of three stalls. ni yong ce sua de shihou, qita de ren hui kandao ni (yingwei, tamen bu xihuan deng). ... . . :( im still upset about saying goodbye lol. but when youre going to the bathroom, people can watch you, and will sometimes glare bc youre taking too long and they dont like to wait! its these little shifts in culture that stuck out more than anything. other things learned?
-chinese hospitality is better than anything ive ever experienced before.
-also... chinese people dont like to wait. at all. they push... like crazy... even when its not important or honestly possible to go anywhere.
-OMG! chinese drivers are freaking nuts! i know theres the stereotype in america that chinese people are bad drivers. its not true! what it is is that they drive COMPLETELY differently here! lanes? yeah theyre good sometimes, but not when its inconvenient. motorbikes on roads, sides of roads, sidewalks, and general pedestrian pathways? YES PLEASE! changing lanes and a cars there? so? hahaha, oh god its so fun to watch! so yeah, chinese people arent bad drivers, american traffic is just more passive than what theyre used to.
-mmm, chinese parents are really dedicated to their kids, and at the same time, dont really care what kind of career path they choose as long as it will bring in some money.
-oh! chinese people are homophobes!
-this ones easy, chinese babies are the cutest things in the world. on the subway to the airport today, i had a little extra bribe candy leftover from camp in my luggage pocket and politely offered it to a xiaohai. in three seconds, the look on his face went from confusion to excitement to concern over whether his parents would let him have it (they would) back to extreme jubilation. i could have snatched that kid and put him in my pocket!
-mmm, a more interesting paradox that i encountered was that it seemed like both the chinese government and chinese people are more concerned with appearance than reality DESPITE the extreme directness of the culture. at the macro level, this manifests itself in the extent to which shanghai makes a show of being an environmentally friendly city when it is SO obviously not. on a smaller scale, a chinese girl (probably the most interesting one i met there), chelsea, embodies this trend in her actions. she is 28, a professional club dancer and a dj, and just recently married sam, an expat rapper. she has a tattoo (among others) across her back that says "dontfuckwithme" and her attitude shows it politely but firmly. and yet, she makes a really big effort to tone down her sexy badass ways in public. honestly, its kind of impossible for a city thats growing as much as shanghai to stop polluting as much as it does (though i think they could try harder), and theres no reason why chelsea should be concerned about what people think about her (when most people that i know would think shes cool as hell!). and still, both are concerned about their outward apprearance and the way they are perceived. i wouldnt call it hypocritical, so much as humorous.
all in all, this had been a trip of a lifetime, and i think as the plane pushes forward, im happy to be getting back. theres so much to come back to... and i guess ill just have to keep xiaolin close to me or teach amanda another song in chinese (i heard something about two tigers...). anyways, thats my trip. thanks to everyone for reading and for their comments. it made it easier to be away from everyone without contact for so long. hopefully the future will require more similar diaries. im hoping for taiwan, france, spain, thailand, turkey, and canada (i want to go to montreal!!!). all in good time! zai jian, au revoir, adios, aloha, and goodbye :).
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
THE SHANG
21:34BST 7/28/08
SHANGHAI
throughout the planning and execution of this trip, ive told myself that i have 21 days in china. i left on the 7th and i pretty much thought that i was coming back on the 28th. so as i began to type up this post and noticed that today was the 28th, i about had a heart attack. literally, i wasn sitting in mike's living room, face red, heart pumping, blood leaving face-type worried. im really glad that i was mistaken :).
today was awesome!! i slept in, had my first hot shower since... since.... a long time ago, and hit the town with my awesome friend mike. we went to a japanese conveyer belt sushi place (ill let you think about that one), took the subway to the peoples square, went to a museum with this accurate replica of the inner circle of the city, bought fake gucci glasses at an underground store, saw the bundt, BUSTED MY ASS SO HARD (why is there so much marble in china?!), took the "sight seeing tunnel" to pudong (the east side of the city), got lost, made out with jackie chan, went up to the 88th floor of the jin mao building, had the most amazing grapefruit-pineapple juice, stole a seat from a man on the subway, got the craziest massage of my life, and ate the most delicious taiwanese food over great convo with mike gen ta de muqin (w/ his mom). pretty crazy day. ill elaborate.
first, the bust ass. we were walking up thiese stairs and there was the most random patch of marble (literally, like a 4 inch stip that spanned the beginning of the stair case) that was the littlest bit damp and i busted ass. really and truly. i fell into a dirty puddle, i was wet and dirty, and i hurt my knee pretty bad. as the day went on, it hurt more and more. im almost afraid to go to bed because i know that when i wake up, after not sleeping for awhile, i wont be able to move around very well at all. whatever. we were supposed to go out tonight and we had to cancel it bc it would have been too prohibitive.
second - the massage. o.m.g. that was straight up violent. like, seriously and truly, straight up violent. the girl beat the crap out of me, and though she understood 'tai jiang!' (too hard), she didnt really let up at all. then she packed on a thick layer of ground up ginger, covered it in hot towels and wrapped me up for a half an hour. IT BURNED! it burned so hard, it was hotter than sitting in the volcano of the hot spring. but like, in what massage parlor in america will a missuse literally hit your spine over and over again?! i think im going to have two big welts on my thoracic vertebrae. :(. it was different though..
third - the taiwanese food was AWESOME! like, chinese food uses a lot of fei rou he qi you (fat and oil) all around its delicious delicious vegetables. taiwanese food, from what i can tell, has all the awesome food, but with less fat. i like. not only that, but mikes mom doesnt reeeeally speak english but seems to understand a lot. so she insisted that we would play chinese lesson at dinner and after. i was more than happy to play along. she would ask me a question that i should be able to answer, teach me the main word if i didnt know it, and then would repeat my answer with the correct grammar afterwards. i was able to take some notes later on, i feel like i really learned a lot.
to keep things interesting, im posting some pix to give you a better idea of what was up. enjoy!
outside of our subway stop and near the japanese restaurant below (mike pictured)
arial shot of the model city
arial shot of the real city!
can you feel the love tonight?
SHANGHAI
throughout the planning and execution of this trip, ive told myself that i have 21 days in china. i left on the 7th and i pretty much thought that i was coming back on the 28th. so as i began to type up this post and noticed that today was the 28th, i about had a heart attack. literally, i wasn sitting in mike's living room, face red, heart pumping, blood leaving face-type worried. im really glad that i was mistaken :).
today was awesome!! i slept in, had my first hot shower since... since.... a long time ago, and hit the town with my awesome friend mike. we went to a japanese conveyer belt sushi place (ill let you think about that one), took the subway to the peoples square, went to a museum with this accurate replica of the inner circle of the city, bought fake gucci glasses at an underground store, saw the bundt, BUSTED MY ASS SO HARD (why is there so much marble in china?!), took the "sight seeing tunnel" to pudong (the east side of the city), got lost, made out with jackie chan, went up to the 88th floor of the jin mao building, had the most amazing grapefruit-pineapple juice, stole a seat from a man on the subway, got the craziest massage of my life, and ate the most delicious taiwanese food over great convo with mike gen ta de muqin (w/ his mom). pretty crazy day. ill elaborate.
first, the bust ass. we were walking up thiese stairs and there was the most random patch of marble (literally, like a 4 inch stip that spanned the beginning of the stair case) that was the littlest bit damp and i busted ass. really and truly. i fell into a dirty puddle, i was wet and dirty, and i hurt my knee pretty bad. as the day went on, it hurt more and more. im almost afraid to go to bed because i know that when i wake up, after not sleeping for awhile, i wont be able to move around very well at all. whatever. we were supposed to go out tonight and we had to cancel it bc it would have been too prohibitive.
second - the massage. o.m.g. that was straight up violent. like, seriously and truly, straight up violent. the girl beat the crap out of me, and though she understood 'tai jiang!' (too hard), she didnt really let up at all. then she packed on a thick layer of ground up ginger, covered it in hot towels and wrapped me up for a half an hour. IT BURNED! it burned so hard, it was hotter than sitting in the volcano of the hot spring. but like, in what massage parlor in america will a missuse literally hit your spine over and over again?! i think im going to have two big welts on my thoracic vertebrae. :(. it was different though..
third - the taiwanese food was AWESOME! like, chinese food uses a lot of fei rou he qi you (fat and oil) all around its delicious delicious vegetables. taiwanese food, from what i can tell, has all the awesome food, but with less fat. i like. not only that, but mikes mom doesnt reeeeally speak english but seems to understand a lot. so she insisted that we would play chinese lesson at dinner and after. i was more than happy to play along. she would ask me a question that i should be able to answer, teach me the main word if i didnt know it, and then would repeat my answer with the correct grammar afterwards. i was able to take some notes later on, i feel like i really learned a lot.
to keep things interesting, im posting some pix to give you a better idea of what was up. enjoy!
outside of our subway stop and near the japanese restaurant below (mike pictured)
arial shot of the model city
arial shot of the real city!
can you feel the love tonight?
Sunday, July 27, 2008
DAY 20: LEAVING CAMP
12:59BST 7/27/08
MI LE TO KUNMING
so im trying to think of everything else weve been up to... its been a lot. i believe where we left off, we had a fun filled day of sun sun sun. that night i wasnt tired (amazingly) so i went for a crazy long run and played cards late into the night with the gang. we played this game called eucher, it was me, my partner cynthia, joe, and his partner erica. this card game is pretty addicting so itll be a reoccuring theme for the rest of the camp.
so the next day we went to have a personal tour of the tobacco factory. i wasnt really into this, as im not really into cigarettes at all (idk if you knew or not?), but i tried to be open minded and enjoy the experience. im not going to lie, seeing all of that machinery was pretty cool. i feel like i was watrching the unabridged version of good eats, only the adult edition. it was a little difficult for me though bc i had a really hard time separating all of the indiv cigs, the boxes, the cartons, the boxes of cartons, the crates of boxes, the four story stockpile of crates, im sure you get the idea by now, but i just really had a hard time disassociating the end product with the end user. i guess my hate for cigarettes is both inherent and thorough. anyways, when we got back, we ate, got dessert and tried to play cards but were informed that card playing was not allowed on campus, and then went to watch the talent show.
ahh, the talent show. they broke up the monotony of AWESOME entertainment with half hour segments of olympics trivia (show down style - buzzers and all). it was in chinese, and while i could pick up words here and there, i was lost for most of it and im pretty sure that even if i wasnt, i probably still wouldnt be interested. but anyways, there were a couple of superlatives among the rest. there was a dance act that was pretty cool. there were two girls that had played traditional instruments. one looked like a flute stuck through a gourd. the other looked like maybe a sitar? the aweful thing was, no one was controling the xiaohai (kids) so they were so loud and rowdy (not paying attn) that you couldnt even hear some of the acts. for the sitar, because it was just SO COOL, i got out of my sseat and walked right up to the side of the stage area to listen better. most of the other english teachers followed suit but then some of the kids came up too. then they started talking. it kind of defeated the purpose really. whatever. sam got up and danced with some girls in his class and then he performed two of his own raap songs. tht kid is so cool. one of the songs was something like "living in china" and the chorus was something like "1 2 3, MCA (?) is who i be, and im chilling in the PRC" - totally fun. robbo also danced with some of his kids and sang kan guo lai. the final act was leo.
ahh leo. leo is apparently only 15 years old but looks about legal. he wear like, roca wear p-diddy clothes, his manner is distictive and his english is pretty on point. the first day of camp, as i was jogging by him he gives me a sharp up-down followed by "eh girrl". during camp, leo fell in and out of love, tried to change class because his heart was broken, asked pretty much all of the english teachers for advice on everything, and most finally, he performed in the talent show. he sang "she will be loved" by maroon 5. it was hard to figure out if he was popular with the rest of the kids or not, but when it was his turn, everybody started stomping and clapping to "we will rock you", it was pretty cool. it wasnt a bad end to an overly long talent show/olympic bowl in a damp gym sock of an auditorium (most of the kids never changed their clothed the whole week).
saturday was nutty. we knew we were going to the mi le vinyard, but idk the we really knew what that entitled. we get there, get off the bus, and im expecting some tour in chinese about the vines. NOPE. we get there, and the grapes grow really high so tat they actually form this trellace type thing over your head. there are all of these corridors and there are some really low square tables that we are told to sit at when were ready. when were ready? yeah, we totally just got to walk around and grab our own grapes. these grapes were SO good! i know that wine grapes are different but i didnt realize that they would be soo good. then we were one by one, slowly served a doozy of a lunch. oh did i mention that the school administrator, venus, passed out CARDS for everyone while they were waiting? mmhmm. so we were totally playing eucher. some of the dishes weere okay, but those receiving honorable mention include fried bees and grubs, whole grilled fish, and this amazing mushroom and lotus seed soup. i wandered around, wanting to buy a bottle of wine, and stumbled in upon the CFO of the vinyard and his lunch party. HAH. we drank so much. bi jio, pao jio (like mead almost, only sssstronger), hong jio (red wine), all toasts, some gan bei's (bottoms up. literally, you have to finish the drink). we went out and played more cards for a while, but i got roped into doing 2 more gan bei's of pao jio with his excellence. the vinyard was really fun.
after a small nap, some of us got spruced up and hit the town. we grabbed food at this fried rice and drink place. nothing interesting (except for a bastardly time-release insane spicy dish of doom that almost ruined my meal/night and DEFINITELY ruined my morning). we then, on the way to KTV, discovered that we picked a really interesting night to come into town. every year in mi le, they have a torch lighting festival where they literally have vendors selling this 5 or 6' torches to light and walk around with. after watching a bunch of people with them and figuring that we still had some ways to walk, i TOTALLY bought one! we all shared it as we walked to KTV.
ahh KTV. it was me, robbo, cynthia, erica, joe, and both mikes. the selection was good, the company was great, and the beer was COLD! (a lot of times its not?). after we were about done, we decided to crash someone else's karaoke experience but i think the joke was on us as we got gan bei'd three times in a row and the room was SOO smokey that my eyes were tearing up. both mikes left a little early, though we soon followed.
when we got back to campus, we were all pretty drunk and feeling pretty rowdy. we had to use our chinese SKILLZ to convince the C-3 dorm guard to let girls from C-4 in past midnight. i think our exact words were, "danshi women shi ing yu de laoshi, mei guan xi!" "eh, shi women de mi mi ba" or rather "but were the english teachers, its okay!" "hey, its our secret okay?". then we jusst walked past. hah. mike and joe shared a room so we woke his ass up to play cards with us. two of us girls jumped on him, but i think it was robbo's sensual massage that got him awake enough to defend himself from the drunkards attacks. we then played cards until late in the night.
when it was time to go to bed, i was pretty dismayed to find myself locked out of my room... at 3 in the morning... at a kids camp. after much toil, cynthia and i managed to find the feind that locked my door in the first place. im sure she didnt appreciate being woken up to open my door, on the third floor no less, but i also dont appreciate being lied to when she told me she understood my broken chinese request to keep my door unlocked. tit for tat really.
there was a closing ceremony this morning but my stomach was in such bad shape (damn you devil spice rice) that it was just a better idea to stay in and repack everything i owned a couple times (third times a charm). i came at the end of the ceremony to discover that i had won an award but missed it. eh. :). we had a nice last lunch and loaded on the busses to say goodbye to beautiful qinglai and the city of mi le that has been so hospitable to us. i think the plan is, back to kunming for an hour or two and then over to the airport to get to shanghai. there, im staying with little mike at his house. weve already agreed that were going to order mcdonalds delivery breakfast in the morning and tear the city up tomorrow. i want a massage! until then, im just dreaming about pepto bismal and a soft bed again. zai jian!
MI LE TO KUNMING
so im trying to think of everything else weve been up to... its been a lot. i believe where we left off, we had a fun filled day of sun sun sun. that night i wasnt tired (amazingly) so i went for a crazy long run and played cards late into the night with the gang. we played this game called eucher, it was me, my partner cynthia, joe, and his partner erica. this card game is pretty addicting so itll be a reoccuring theme for the rest of the camp.
so the next day we went to have a personal tour of the tobacco factory. i wasnt really into this, as im not really into cigarettes at all (idk if you knew or not?), but i tried to be open minded and enjoy the experience. im not going to lie, seeing all of that machinery was pretty cool. i feel like i was watrching the unabridged version of good eats, only the adult edition. it was a little difficult for me though bc i had a really hard time separating all of the indiv cigs, the boxes, the cartons, the boxes of cartons, the crates of boxes, the four story stockpile of crates, im sure you get the idea by now, but i just really had a hard time disassociating the end product with the end user. i guess my hate for cigarettes is both inherent and thorough. anyways, when we got back, we ate, got dessert and tried to play cards but were informed that card playing was not allowed on campus, and then went to watch the talent show.
ahh, the talent show. they broke up the monotony of AWESOME entertainment with half hour segments of olympics trivia (show down style - buzzers and all). it was in chinese, and while i could pick up words here and there, i was lost for most of it and im pretty sure that even if i wasnt, i probably still wouldnt be interested. but anyways, there were a couple of superlatives among the rest. there was a dance act that was pretty cool. there were two girls that had played traditional instruments. one looked like a flute stuck through a gourd. the other looked like maybe a sitar? the aweful thing was, no one was controling the xiaohai (kids) so they were so loud and rowdy (not paying attn) that you couldnt even hear some of the acts. for the sitar, because it was just SO COOL, i got out of my sseat and walked right up to the side of the stage area to listen better. most of the other english teachers followed suit but then some of the kids came up too. then they started talking. it kind of defeated the purpose really. whatever. sam got up and danced with some girls in his class and then he performed two of his own raap songs. tht kid is so cool. one of the songs was something like "living in china" and the chorus was something like "1 2 3, MCA (?) is who i be, and im chilling in the PRC" - totally fun. robbo also danced with some of his kids and sang kan guo lai. the final act was leo.
ahh leo. leo is apparently only 15 years old but looks about legal. he wear like, roca wear p-diddy clothes, his manner is distictive and his english is pretty on point. the first day of camp, as i was jogging by him he gives me a sharp up-down followed by "eh girrl". during camp, leo fell in and out of love, tried to change class because his heart was broken, asked pretty much all of the english teachers for advice on everything, and most finally, he performed in the talent show. he sang "she will be loved" by maroon 5. it was hard to figure out if he was popular with the rest of the kids or not, but when it was his turn, everybody started stomping and clapping to "we will rock you", it was pretty cool. it wasnt a bad end to an overly long talent show/olympic bowl in a damp gym sock of an auditorium (most of the kids never changed their clothed the whole week).
saturday was nutty. we knew we were going to the mi le vinyard, but idk the we really knew what that entitled. we get there, get off the bus, and im expecting some tour in chinese about the vines. NOPE. we get there, and the grapes grow really high so tat they actually form this trellace type thing over your head. there are all of these corridors and there are some really low square tables that we are told to sit at when were ready. when were ready? yeah, we totally just got to walk around and grab our own grapes. these grapes were SO good! i know that wine grapes are different but i didnt realize that they would be soo good. then we were one by one, slowly served a doozy of a lunch. oh did i mention that the school administrator, venus, passed out CARDS for everyone while they were waiting? mmhmm. so we were totally playing eucher. some of the dishes weere okay, but those receiving honorable mention include fried bees and grubs, whole grilled fish, and this amazing mushroom and lotus seed soup. i wandered around, wanting to buy a bottle of wine, and stumbled in upon the CFO of the vinyard and his lunch party. HAH. we drank so much. bi jio, pao jio (like mead almost, only sssstronger), hong jio (red wine), all toasts, some gan bei's (bottoms up. literally, you have to finish the drink). we went out and played more cards for a while, but i got roped into doing 2 more gan bei's of pao jio with his excellence. the vinyard was really fun.
after a small nap, some of us got spruced up and hit the town. we grabbed food at this fried rice and drink place. nothing interesting (except for a bastardly time-release insane spicy dish of doom that almost ruined my meal/night and DEFINITELY ruined my morning). we then, on the way to KTV, discovered that we picked a really interesting night to come into town. every year in mi le, they have a torch lighting festival where they literally have vendors selling this 5 or 6' torches to light and walk around with. after watching a bunch of people with them and figuring that we still had some ways to walk, i TOTALLY bought one! we all shared it as we walked to KTV.
ahh KTV. it was me, robbo, cynthia, erica, joe, and both mikes. the selection was good, the company was great, and the beer was COLD! (a lot of times its not?). after we were about done, we decided to crash someone else's karaoke experience but i think the joke was on us as we got gan bei'd three times in a row and the room was SOO smokey that my eyes were tearing up. both mikes left a little early, though we soon followed.
when we got back to campus, we were all pretty drunk and feeling pretty rowdy. we had to use our chinese SKILLZ to convince the C-3 dorm guard to let girls from C-4 in past midnight. i think our exact words were, "danshi women shi ing yu de laoshi, mei guan xi!" "eh, shi women de mi mi ba" or rather "but were the english teachers, its okay!" "hey, its our secret okay?". then we jusst walked past. hah. mike and joe shared a room so we woke his ass up to play cards with us. two of us girls jumped on him, but i think it was robbo's sensual massage that got him awake enough to defend himself from the drunkards attacks. we then played cards until late in the night.
when it was time to go to bed, i was pretty dismayed to find myself locked out of my room... at 3 in the morning... at a kids camp. after much toil, cynthia and i managed to find the feind that locked my door in the first place. im sure she didnt appreciate being woken up to open my door, on the third floor no less, but i also dont appreciate being lied to when she told me she understood my broken chinese request to keep my door unlocked. tit for tat really.
there was a closing ceremony this morning but my stomach was in such bad shape (damn you devil spice rice) that it was just a better idea to stay in and repack everything i owned a couple times (third times a charm). i came at the end of the ceremony to discover that i had won an award but missed it. eh. :). we had a nice last lunch and loaded on the busses to say goodbye to beautiful qinglai and the city of mi le that has been so hospitable to us. i think the plan is, back to kunming for an hour or two and then over to the airport to get to shanghai. there, im staying with little mike at his house. weve already agreed that were going to order mcdonalds delivery breakfast in the morning and tear the city up tomorrow. i want a massage! until then, im just dreaming about pepto bismal and a soft bed again. zai jian!
AND JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU COULDNT PACK MORE INTO ONE DAY...
19:19BST 7/24/08
MI LE - QINGLAI XUEXIAO
today was bonkers. last night after writing up my post, i completely zonked out, only to wake up late this morning. i ran down to breakfast only in time to grab some spicy noodles and hot dou nai (soy milk). class was good, we learned the rest of the food groups, learned about physical descriptions, played a couple games, had a DANCE OFF! and watched the rest of happy feet. after class we came together to eat lunch and were told that there were busses leaving at 14:00 and 14:30 to take us to the hot springs. since it was only 1230, i figured we would have time to try to go see the giant golden budha that i mentioned yesterday. how naiive is this? i thought that perhaps we could just hop a taxi over and up to the budha shrine, see it, and come back in like an hour and 15. so silly.
999. the number of steps it took to get up to his magnificence. i knew we were in trouble when, after climbing for about a half an hour, cynthia said, "these arent even the stairs we saw from your lense... we must not even be half way there yet!" id say she was about right. i really like how, in china, if you pay to see something, you really HAVE to spend some time there to take it in. it really is an honest way of doing things. along the way, there was a small covered area with 20' statues of some budhas (there are more than one in eastern culture). i thought that was pretty cool. psh. at the next stop, there was a big covered house that had huge gates that were only open a little. when you peaked in, you could see the beautiful painted and tranquil face of a 30' golden statue. finally, when you feel broken, bruised, and too hot to go on, over the stairs you see the round head of the GIANT golden budha. i think he is 50' tall, maybe taller. hes alone up there near the top of this mountain, but hes so shiny and bright that you can see him from MILES! really awesome. good build china, good build. we hot footed it back down the mountain to the cab and tried to get back in time to catch the 230 bus to the springs. fat chance.
we took a taxi over to the place, it was in the same compound as that really nice restaurant yesterday. i thought that maybe a hotspring was a medium sized pool that was pretty warm. OMG i was wrong. this place was insane. there were beautiful big rocks that formed the sides of all of the pools and the partitions as well. from what i could tell, there were three large spring areas. in this large springs, there were three partitions: hot, hotter and too cold. in the hot ones, there were these sectioned off 'volcanoes' from where the hot water would come. these were about the size of a three person hot tub and about as shallow. members of our group would take turns seeing who could stand it the longest. im fairly confident i won each time... at my own expense though, my legs were red and blotchy for awhile after i got out. no pain no gain right? so in florida, when i say there were three large springs, you would probably think that there was a large flat land with three open spring areas right? i think the chinese understand subtlety a little more. they are tucked away at different levels on the side of this low mountain. all througout and in between, there were little private warm pools that were sometimes completely hidden by boulders or trees. though absolutely stunning and private, these pools were obviously man-made (not without finesse though) and the water was only tepid. there was also a large cold water swimming pool at the top of the resort. this pool was pretty cool though because in the middle and in a few other places, there were large soft boulders in the water so that you could hang out on your own little island just under the water. the whole experience was just insane and rightly topped off with a refreshing 4 kuai yezi nai (coconut milk). tell me, in what high class resort in america would you find coconut milk for about $.50? i know right?
there was one downside that has been a reoccuring theme in this trip. there is such poor communication between the staff and the volunteers that, when we toweled off and got out, looked, and finally called venus, she told us that she was dry, back at school, and sitting down to dinner. no one told us they were leaving, when to come back, how to get back, or if we were expected at dinner. it took half of our group about 15 min to get a taxi bc there werent really any around that area. we were some of the last ones to come to the dinner hall, half wet, and all a little angry at the lack of communication.
on the plus side, theres no denying that every experience today was pretty awesome... and im not even done yet. tonight is the first night that i dont have class so i think im going to go for an evening run and then plan out a big gameshow-type quiz for my last day with the chitlins. im also kind of in the mood to hit the town honestly. i dont think theres much going on in mi le, but this getting out thing is pretty awesome.
finally, they say that if bad food gets to you, it usually takes about 4-6 hours. im honestly starting to doubt that. the people that ive talked to about the dragon's revenge (china's montezuma if you will) is the worst because you never know what it was. so far ive felt like ive always had a good idea. who knows.
anyway, now that its several hours that ive been out of the sun, my skin has turned to the most pleasant shade of strawberry. i think ill go educate the kids what a real sunburn looks like. ive come to the realization that im the only european-decent gal on this trip. some of the american volunteers and chinese staff tell me that they catch the kids whispering that im beautiful. i could definitely be called worse :).
oh, funny joke. we were talking about drinking games and joe said that the chinese had a lot of drinking games. i jumped on it and quickly said, "like what, eat the dinner?!" heeheehee. its actually really funny considering how much weve been forced to drink at a lot of our meals.
MI LE - QINGLAI XUEXIAO
today was bonkers. last night after writing up my post, i completely zonked out, only to wake up late this morning. i ran down to breakfast only in time to grab some spicy noodles and hot dou nai (soy milk). class was good, we learned the rest of the food groups, learned about physical descriptions, played a couple games, had a DANCE OFF! and watched the rest of happy feet. after class we came together to eat lunch and were told that there were busses leaving at 14:00 and 14:30 to take us to the hot springs. since it was only 1230, i figured we would have time to try to go see the giant golden budha that i mentioned yesterday. how naiive is this? i thought that perhaps we could just hop a taxi over and up to the budha shrine, see it, and come back in like an hour and 15. so silly.
999. the number of steps it took to get up to his magnificence. i knew we were in trouble when, after climbing for about a half an hour, cynthia said, "these arent even the stairs we saw from your lense... we must not even be half way there yet!" id say she was about right. i really like how, in china, if you pay to see something, you really HAVE to spend some time there to take it in. it really is an honest way of doing things. along the way, there was a small covered area with 20' statues of some budhas (there are more than one in eastern culture). i thought that was pretty cool. psh. at the next stop, there was a big covered house that had huge gates that were only open a little. when you peaked in, you could see the beautiful painted and tranquil face of a 30' golden statue. finally, when you feel broken, bruised, and too hot to go on, over the stairs you see the round head of the GIANT golden budha. i think he is 50' tall, maybe taller. hes alone up there near the top of this mountain, but hes so shiny and bright that you can see him from MILES! really awesome. good build china, good build. we hot footed it back down the mountain to the cab and tried to get back in time to catch the 230 bus to the springs. fat chance.
we took a taxi over to the place, it was in the same compound as that really nice restaurant yesterday. i thought that maybe a hotspring was a medium sized pool that was pretty warm. OMG i was wrong. this place was insane. there were beautiful big rocks that formed the sides of all of the pools and the partitions as well. from what i could tell, there were three large spring areas. in this large springs, there were three partitions: hot, hotter and too cold. in the hot ones, there were these sectioned off 'volcanoes' from where the hot water would come. these were about the size of a three person hot tub and about as shallow. members of our group would take turns seeing who could stand it the longest. im fairly confident i won each time... at my own expense though, my legs were red and blotchy for awhile after i got out. no pain no gain right? so in florida, when i say there were three large springs, you would probably think that there was a large flat land with three open spring areas right? i think the chinese understand subtlety a little more. they are tucked away at different levels on the side of this low mountain. all througout and in between, there were little private warm pools that were sometimes completely hidden by boulders or trees. though absolutely stunning and private, these pools were obviously man-made (not without finesse though) and the water was only tepid. there was also a large cold water swimming pool at the top of the resort. this pool was pretty cool though because in the middle and in a few other places, there were large soft boulders in the water so that you could hang out on your own little island just under the water. the whole experience was just insane and rightly topped off with a refreshing 4 kuai yezi nai (coconut milk). tell me, in what high class resort in america would you find coconut milk for about $.50? i know right?
there was one downside that has been a reoccuring theme in this trip. there is such poor communication between the staff and the volunteers that, when we toweled off and got out, looked, and finally called venus, she told us that she was dry, back at school, and sitting down to dinner. no one told us they were leaving, when to come back, how to get back, or if we were expected at dinner. it took half of our group about 15 min to get a taxi bc there werent really any around that area. we were some of the last ones to come to the dinner hall, half wet, and all a little angry at the lack of communication.
on the plus side, theres no denying that every experience today was pretty awesome... and im not even done yet. tonight is the first night that i dont have class so i think im going to go for an evening run and then plan out a big gameshow-type quiz for my last day with the chitlins. im also kind of in the mood to hit the town honestly. i dont think theres much going on in mi le, but this getting out thing is pretty awesome.
finally, they say that if bad food gets to you, it usually takes about 4-6 hours. im honestly starting to doubt that. the people that ive talked to about the dragon's revenge (china's montezuma if you will) is the worst because you never know what it was. so far ive felt like ive always had a good idea. who knows.
anyway, now that its several hours that ive been out of the sun, my skin has turned to the most pleasant shade of strawberry. i think ill go educate the kids what a real sunburn looks like. ive come to the realization that im the only european-decent gal on this trip. some of the american volunteers and chinese staff tell me that they catch the kids whispering that im beautiful. i could definitely be called worse :).
oh, funny joke. we were talking about drinking games and joe said that the chinese had a lot of drinking games. i jumped on it and quickly said, "like what, eat the dinner?!" heeheehee. its actually really funny considering how much weve been forced to drink at a lot of our meals.
SMOKE!
21:23BST 7/23/08
MI LE - QINGLAI GAO ZHONG
remember how i said that i was in the middle of tobacco land and i wanted to learn more about it? well i did! today, walking back to my dorm around 15:30 michael g. (62YOA) shouts to me that we are all supposed to meet at the library at 17:00. okay? mike and i ended up going on this BA hike to a pagoda (more in a minute) and come back covered in clay to meet the heads of the school and program, dressed rather nice. venus, the programs main teacher liaison, tells us something about the big potato? we get in this black buick (clay covered shoes and all) and are carted off to this really nice part of town to a really nice restaurant. ive started to gauge the swank factor of a restaurant by whether or not it has a toilet and soap dispenser... check and check.
when we arrive (just a fraction of our group) we are told to sit and wait for the rest of the group and the big potato. okay? almost an hour goes by as the rest of the english teachers, school administrators, and finally, this big potato shows up. its a high level VIP of HongHe Group - tobacco conglomerate extraordinaire. we are each told to smoke one of the finest of their cigs. i was horrified when, after saying he didnt smoke, matt was told that he needed to take one to be polite. i was really conflicted, but not for long. I DONT SMOKE. the big potato (i later told venus that the phrase was big cheese) came to our table and told us a lot about the town of mi le, and also told us how his company fit into that structure. apparently a lot of the schools, roads and city projects are a direct result of honghe's involvement in the town. when he passed around a second pack of honghe's finest and all but one (the smoker) rejected, he said (translated) "if you dont smoke, dont start. but if no one here smokes, they cant tell me how to make a better product, which means we wont sell a lot and will not be able to fund schools." ... . :(. i wanted to take a shower. i know that when i come here and am treated with overwhelming hospitality, its not just because the people want to practice their english or have their kids practice - i feel like they really are excited to share their culture. this though? it really made me feel dirty. i still enjoyed the amazing array of food (including frog and pig liver), the yummy wine (before i taught class, lol), and the good company. but i really hated seeing top school officials being so close to someone like a tobacco company exec. maybe im just being narrow minded (and def biased), but i just really hate cigarettes.
this dinner adventure was but one tale in today's awesome story. i got up early enough to go running... and get chased by a big german shepard and some other large dog (at the same time... im pretty sure i was going to be mauled on the side of campus where no one would ever find me). all of a sudden, this scary ass grounds keeper lady came out of nowhere and ran after the dogs with a big garden spade. thank you qinglai for your insane groundskeeper to student ratio. :). i missed bfast but thats okay. today in class, we went over american holidays. even though i had to use a lot of chinese, i think the lesson in culture was worth it. afterwards, i went to the kids' team building exercise. they had to stand in a line facing the next person and then, keeping that formation, form a tight circle to sit down and then scoot around in a circle. it was pretty hysterical to watch.
after a subpar lunch, we all grabbed the bus (1 kuai, ahhhh yeah) to the city. robbo and i walked around and looked for stuff to buy. while i didnt find any of the tshirts i was looking for, i now know several places to buy a broom (like, 4 stores), where to find live snakes, frogs, and chickens (in this awesome side alley/market); and where not to find DVDs (on the street marked DVDs). this got boring quick to we grabbed a cab back to the school. i wasnt ready to call it quits, so mike and i decided to climb the mountainside to get to the pagoda.
overlooking qinglai is an AMAZING seven story cylindrical pagoda on the top of a hill. from what i understand, you can either walk off campus, around this mountain, and finally up this winding path to the pagoda. OR! you can brave the thicket, endure a small stretch of pretty hardcore steepness, and enjoy a quick fiver up the mountain. which do you think i chose? i know right? only the funny thing was that it had rained all day yesterday, so the ground, normally pleasant soft clay, was reeeeeallly slippery. for the first part of the climb, we were scrambling to plant our feet on a tree or root structure. throughout the rest, we just had to work to avoid the crazy spiders everywhere. the pagoda itself was AWESOME. at 214 steps, it offered a floor by floor panorama of the school and of mi le - all very beautiful. in the far distance is a HUGE golden budha. i think i would like to visit him tomorrow.
then dinner.
THEN! haha, i would say that i was near giddy off of the wine. i get back (30 min late - we were assured that our TAs were informed and would keep the class in line) to half of a class thats screaming and running around in the room. the other half? the TA? your guess is as good as mine. eventually, all was sorted out (my chinese works when it needs to), and we learned about foods today. they were really into it. i think i was finally able to engage two of the smartest girls in class. i think tomorrow we are all going to a hot spring, you must already know how i feel about that. only, all of this salty food in mi le is making me all puffy... i dont like it!
random sidenote and then bed. normally after night class, all the english teachers head to the library to get work done. i was so tired today that i came back to the dorm. ... . so ive never been to the dorm this early. GOOD GOD these kids are up screaming and yelling at 22:10! i kind of feel like waking up at four to bang pots and pans and let them enjoy the turn in kind. eh. good thing theyre all cute. night!
MI LE - QINGLAI GAO ZHONG
remember how i said that i was in the middle of tobacco land and i wanted to learn more about it? well i did! today, walking back to my dorm around 15:30 michael g. (62YOA) shouts to me that we are all supposed to meet at the library at 17:00. okay? mike and i ended up going on this BA hike to a pagoda (more in a minute) and come back covered in clay to meet the heads of the school and program, dressed rather nice. venus, the programs main teacher liaison, tells us something about the big potato? we get in this black buick (clay covered shoes and all) and are carted off to this really nice part of town to a really nice restaurant. ive started to gauge the swank factor of a restaurant by whether or not it has a toilet and soap dispenser... check and check.
when we arrive (just a fraction of our group) we are told to sit and wait for the rest of the group and the big potato. okay? almost an hour goes by as the rest of the english teachers, school administrators, and finally, this big potato shows up. its a high level VIP of HongHe Group - tobacco conglomerate extraordinaire. we are each told to smoke one of the finest of their cigs. i was horrified when, after saying he didnt smoke, matt was told that he needed to take one to be polite. i was really conflicted, but not for long. I DONT SMOKE. the big potato (i later told venus that the phrase was big cheese) came to our table and told us a lot about the town of mi le, and also told us how his company fit into that structure. apparently a lot of the schools, roads and city projects are a direct result of honghe's involvement in the town. when he passed around a second pack of honghe's finest and all but one (the smoker) rejected, he said (translated) "if you dont smoke, dont start. but if no one here smokes, they cant tell me how to make a better product, which means we wont sell a lot and will not be able to fund schools." ... . :(. i wanted to take a shower. i know that when i come here and am treated with overwhelming hospitality, its not just because the people want to practice their english or have their kids practice - i feel like they really are excited to share their culture. this though? it really made me feel dirty. i still enjoyed the amazing array of food (including frog and pig liver), the yummy wine (before i taught class, lol), and the good company. but i really hated seeing top school officials being so close to someone like a tobacco company exec. maybe im just being narrow minded (and def biased), but i just really hate cigarettes.
this dinner adventure was but one tale in today's awesome story. i got up early enough to go running... and get chased by a big german shepard and some other large dog (at the same time... im pretty sure i was going to be mauled on the side of campus where no one would ever find me). all of a sudden, this scary ass grounds keeper lady came out of nowhere and ran after the dogs with a big garden spade. thank you qinglai for your insane groundskeeper to student ratio. :). i missed bfast but thats okay. today in class, we went over american holidays. even though i had to use a lot of chinese, i think the lesson in culture was worth it. afterwards, i went to the kids' team building exercise. they had to stand in a line facing the next person and then, keeping that formation, form a tight circle to sit down and then scoot around in a circle. it was pretty hysterical to watch.
after a subpar lunch, we all grabbed the bus (1 kuai, ahhhh yeah) to the city. robbo and i walked around and looked for stuff to buy. while i didnt find any of the tshirts i was looking for, i now know several places to buy a broom (like, 4 stores), where to find live snakes, frogs, and chickens (in this awesome side alley/market); and where not to find DVDs (on the street marked DVDs). this got boring quick to we grabbed a cab back to the school. i wasnt ready to call it quits, so mike and i decided to climb the mountainside to get to the pagoda.
overlooking qinglai is an AMAZING seven story cylindrical pagoda on the top of a hill. from what i understand, you can either walk off campus, around this mountain, and finally up this winding path to the pagoda. OR! you can brave the thicket, endure a small stretch of pretty hardcore steepness, and enjoy a quick fiver up the mountain. which do you think i chose? i know right? only the funny thing was that it had rained all day yesterday, so the ground, normally pleasant soft clay, was reeeeeallly slippery. for the first part of the climb, we were scrambling to plant our feet on a tree or root structure. throughout the rest, we just had to work to avoid the crazy spiders everywhere. the pagoda itself was AWESOME. at 214 steps, it offered a floor by floor panorama of the school and of mi le - all very beautiful. in the far distance is a HUGE golden budha. i think i would like to visit him tomorrow.
then dinner.
THEN! haha, i would say that i was near giddy off of the wine. i get back (30 min late - we were assured that our TAs were informed and would keep the class in line) to half of a class thats screaming and running around in the room. the other half? the TA? your guess is as good as mine. eventually, all was sorted out (my chinese works when it needs to), and we learned about foods today. they were really into it. i think i was finally able to engage two of the smartest girls in class. i think tomorrow we are all going to a hot spring, you must already know how i feel about that. only, all of this salty food in mi le is making me all puffy... i dont like it!
random sidenote and then bed. normally after night class, all the english teachers head to the library to get work done. i was so tired today that i came back to the dorm. ... . so ive never been to the dorm this early. GOOD GOD these kids are up screaming and yelling at 22:10! i kind of feel like waking up at four to bang pots and pans and let them enjoy the turn in kind. eh. good thing theyre all cute. night!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
JUST A QUICKIE
14:57 7.23.08
MI LE - QINGLAI GAO ZHONG
so in class, of my twenty students there is one obvious trouble maker. hes the one that is always trying to sneak away, beat on some other kid, and is the last to get in line. i naturally named him nicky. i found out this morning that, of the 200 students at this camp, nicky was caught smoking... the kids like 12! the parallels are amazing. this kids working hard to make the brother proud.
MI LE - QINGLAI GAO ZHONG
so in class, of my twenty students there is one obvious trouble maker. hes the one that is always trying to sneak away, beat on some other kid, and is the last to get in line. i naturally named him nicky. i found out this morning that, of the 200 students at this camp, nicky was caught smoking... the kids like 12! the parallels are amazing. this kids working hard to make the brother proud.
PICTURE POST!!
22:38BST 07/22/08MI LE - QINGLAI GAO ZHONG
so im not in most of these, but id rather you see what i saw instead of you seeing me :).
this first one is a picture of the sweet sweet internet cafe. since you cant smell it, just imagine pungent cigarettes, noodles and the stench of public. actually, it wasnt sooo bad but it felt icky.
next is a video of a part of the walk from the cafe to the apartment in kunming. receiving notable mention are the beautiful trees and the raised yellow stripe down the sidewalk - it is to help guide the blind. funny enough, they had a similar raised stripe all the way up at the heaven temple, but i was assured it was not for that.
wang laoshi's apartment sweet home. while the housing was a little less chic than down the street with keisha, this building had an elevator!!
after a day or two on peanut butter, fruit leather and lychee, i gave in. shame on me.
sorry, two food pix in a row. but come on! an enchilada in china?! who has that!
so im not in most of these, but id rather you see what i saw instead of you seeing me :).
this first one is a picture of the sweet sweet internet cafe. since you cant smell it, just imagine pungent cigarettes, noodles and the stench of public. actually, it wasnt sooo bad but it felt icky.
next is a video of a part of the walk from the cafe to the apartment in kunming. receiving notable mention are the beautiful trees and the raised yellow stripe down the sidewalk - it is to help guide the blind. funny enough, they had a similar raised stripe all the way up at the heaven temple, but i was assured it was not for that.
wang laoshi's apartment sweet home. while the housing was a little less chic than down the street with keisha, this building had an elevator!!
after a day or two on peanut butter, fruit leather and lychee, i gave in. shame on me.
sorry, two food pix in a row. but come on! an enchilada in china?! who has that!
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