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!
DAY 15: OWWWWW
16:38BST 07/22/08
MI LE - QINGLAI GAO ZHONG (QINGLAI HIGHSCHOOL)
the last two days have flown by. first and foremost, this school is AMAZING! its in its own little valley, surrounded by beautiful green rolling mountains. the grounds are insane. there are a couple little lakes, and through the large one on campus, there is a sidewalk that snakes through it at water level. i thought that when it rained the sidewalk MUST flood, but its been raining all day today and no flooding. those chinese are smart. but anyways, the grass is perfectly manicured and from what ive seen, im starting to think that theres like a 1:4 ratio of groundskeepers to students - a dropped bottle doesnt stay on the ground for long. the architechture of the main buildings is pretty edgy, and the dorms and some classroom buildings are just really tasteful. over the dining hall, there is this big 4 or 5 story tower with a clock on all four sides. just last night i discovered that at night the clock lights up in glowing red... it TOTALLY looks like the eye of sauron! on the top of the hill with the waterfall, there is a huge pagoda that i wanted to go to today (but its raining). instead, after lunch, the gang (which grew to include erika, cynthia, and mike2) went to the on campus restaurant and bought a round of ba si pingguo (apples that have been deep fried, and then covered in this simple syrup and fried again). you put the hot apples in a bowl of cold water to harden the sugar shell.
two heart attacks later, i find myself in the library not only to roll around in the internet but also to rethink my lesson plans. like i said, we werent given any lesson plans so weve been kind of left to feel out what everyone knows. unfortunately, they didnt test the kids, so we all pretty much got a hodgepodge of students. i have three that dont speak any english and 4 or five that shouldnt be in my class. all of the english teachers have chinese teaching assistants... and for some reason i think mine hates me. hes been really dodgey about what the schedule is (its only in chinese and different for every teacher) and about how the class should be run. im trying to be as accomodating as possible but i think i need to be more prepared. the kids do best when bribed with treats. tonight, i think i will teach them foods and about holidays and then i will do charades about feelings. we have a lot of free time right now so ive been able to plan lessons and go running and whatnot. its almost time for dinner, but i wanted to write to catch up. i hope everyone is well!
MI LE - QINGLAI GAO ZHONG (QINGLAI HIGHSCHOOL)
the last two days have flown by. first and foremost, this school is AMAZING! its in its own little valley, surrounded by beautiful green rolling mountains. the grounds are insane. there are a couple little lakes, and through the large one on campus, there is a sidewalk that snakes through it at water level. i thought that when it rained the sidewalk MUST flood, but its been raining all day today and no flooding. those chinese are smart. but anyways, the grass is perfectly manicured and from what ive seen, im starting to think that theres like a 1:4 ratio of groundskeepers to students - a dropped bottle doesnt stay on the ground for long. the architechture of the main buildings is pretty edgy, and the dorms and some classroom buildings are just really tasteful. over the dining hall, there is this big 4 or 5 story tower with a clock on all four sides. just last night i discovered that at night the clock lights up in glowing red... it TOTALLY looks like the eye of sauron! on the top of the hill with the waterfall, there is a huge pagoda that i wanted to go to today (but its raining). instead, after lunch, the gang (which grew to include erika, cynthia, and mike2) went to the on campus restaurant and bought a round of ba si pingguo (apples that have been deep fried, and then covered in this simple syrup and fried again). you put the hot apples in a bowl of cold water to harden the sugar shell.
two heart attacks later, i find myself in the library not only to roll around in the internet but also to rethink my lesson plans. like i said, we werent given any lesson plans so weve been kind of left to feel out what everyone knows. unfortunately, they didnt test the kids, so we all pretty much got a hodgepodge of students. i have three that dont speak any english and 4 or five that shouldnt be in my class. all of the english teachers have chinese teaching assistants... and for some reason i think mine hates me. hes been really dodgey about what the schedule is (its only in chinese and different for every teacher) and about how the class should be run. im trying to be as accomodating as possible but i think i need to be more prepared. the kids do best when bribed with treats. tonight, i think i will teach them foods and about holidays and then i will do charades about feelings. we have a lot of free time right now so ive been able to plan lessons and go running and whatnot. its almost time for dinner, but i wanted to write to catch up. i hope everyone is well!
THE WHEELS ON THE BUS
10:41BST 07/20/08
KUNMING TO MI LE
i noticed that i tend to start all of these posts with 'so yesterday' - i think today ill begin with 'well yesterday'.
well yesterday was interesting. it felt like it wasnt a day at all. we woke up, packed, left wang laoshi's apt, now with nannan (another volunteer) and rob. we picked up michael gilner, a retired foreign service officer, and went to this hotel a km or two from the university. mike and i grabbed some pretty rough lunch (a raw pork fat ball and some funky ass peanuts) and then walked around for a little bit. i got my charicature done in this park in what had to be one of the more embarrassingj moments of my life:
there were three artists and when one got me to sit still to do my visage, the other two sat and drew as well. geeeeat. it gets better though, about twenty or so people crowded arond to watch... and when i say crowded around, i really mean it... like, there were kids in my face saying "ah, hen piao liang" (ohhh, how pretty). of course i couldnt move... it was all a really weird experience (though the kids could have said worse).
when mike and i got back to the hotel we soon all gathered to meet with wang laoshi and the rest of the volunteers. there was me rob nannan and mike, now added to the fold are matt (cornell), ru shen (wheaton), and chealsea and husband sam (kunming), and later came joseph(vanderbilt). its a pretty interestign mix of people. anyways, we went through this orientation that was really kind of silly because they didnt tell us anything we didnt already know and on top of it, they didnt give us any class materials. they pretty much told us tht it was our class and that if we needed to make any copies to let the teachers know. kind of silly huh? im glad that in this case ive come prepared with my own thoughts on how to teach the kids.
after the orientation we all filtered back to the hotel and some of us went out to the city center to grab some grub. again, feeling a little rebelious against chinese food, we got italian but i somehow ended up ordering hot an sour soup and... an enchilada? lol. it was all pretty good, but iven noticed that my stomach is a lot rounder when i dont eat chinese food... perhaps its time to get back to that funky sctufff. after dinner we all went to KTV (aka KARAOKE!). i think rob and matt and i had the most fun. ru shen didnt really get into it, and poor mike, although hes got the spirit of a youngin, his 62 year old self didnt know any of the songs we picked though it was still pretty fun. we came back to the hotel to straighten out our outbound fligths with wang laoshi and then i retreated to my ooom to work on my lesson plans for the kids.
ah the kids. this begins what im guessing is the next chapter in the china story. today we headed to the busses at 8:30 and met a bunch of CRAZY OVERCONCERNED PARENTS and their kids, who are, from what i can tell, about 11 or 12. they seem to be at different levels though. im sitting next to an 11 year old boy who dosnt know much more than his abc's and colors, but the boys to my right are the same age and seem to know a lot more. either way, ive made up my mind that their normal method of memorizing words needs a more oral approach to learning. the kids seem to know a fair amount of words, but cant really tie them together into sentences. i think thats what my class is going to focus on. i just hope they dont get bored.
right now, im pretty satisfied... aside from this hunger that i cant seem to quell (i think i need some soup), i havent been uncomfortable in any way. the people here are still really great and the countryside that we are driving through is absolutely beautiful.
apparently, the school that we are going to is this really rich private school that is funded by tobacco money. i want to understand more how the tobacco industry works in china. from what i understand, china has the largest population of smokers in the world, almost all of the guys smoke here (outside and in), and the tax revenue taken in from tobacco funds a nice chunk of the government. robo told me that bill gates wanted to come to china and make reducing the amount of smokers his new pet project. mike said that that would be a near impossible feat though, who knows.
back to it.
KUNMING TO MI LE
i noticed that i tend to start all of these posts with 'so yesterday' - i think today ill begin with 'well yesterday'.
well yesterday was interesting. it felt like it wasnt a day at all. we woke up, packed, left wang laoshi's apt, now with nannan (another volunteer) and rob. we picked up michael gilner, a retired foreign service officer, and went to this hotel a km or two from the university. mike and i grabbed some pretty rough lunch (a raw pork fat ball and some funky ass peanuts) and then walked around for a little bit. i got my charicature done in this park in what had to be one of the more embarrassingj moments of my life:
there were three artists and when one got me to sit still to do my visage, the other two sat and drew as well. geeeeat. it gets better though, about twenty or so people crowded arond to watch... and when i say crowded around, i really mean it... like, there were kids in my face saying "ah, hen piao liang" (ohhh, how pretty). of course i couldnt move... it was all a really weird experience (though the kids could have said worse).
when mike and i got back to the hotel we soon all gathered to meet with wang laoshi and the rest of the volunteers. there was me rob nannan and mike, now added to the fold are matt (cornell), ru shen (wheaton), and chealsea and husband sam (kunming), and later came joseph(vanderbilt). its a pretty interestign mix of people. anyways, we went through this orientation that was really kind of silly because they didnt tell us anything we didnt already know and on top of it, they didnt give us any class materials. they pretty much told us tht it was our class and that if we needed to make any copies to let the teachers know. kind of silly huh? im glad that in this case ive come prepared with my own thoughts on how to teach the kids.
after the orientation we all filtered back to the hotel and some of us went out to the city center to grab some grub. again, feeling a little rebelious against chinese food, we got italian but i somehow ended up ordering hot an sour soup and... an enchilada? lol. it was all pretty good, but iven noticed that my stomach is a lot rounder when i dont eat chinese food... perhaps its time to get back to that funky sctufff. after dinner we all went to KTV (aka KARAOKE!). i think rob and matt and i had the most fun. ru shen didnt really get into it, and poor mike, although hes got the spirit of a youngin, his 62 year old self didnt know any of the songs we picked though it was still pretty fun. we came back to the hotel to straighten out our outbound fligths with wang laoshi and then i retreated to my ooom to work on my lesson plans for the kids.
ah the kids. this begins what im guessing is the next chapter in the china story. today we headed to the busses at 8:30 and met a bunch of CRAZY OVERCONCERNED PARENTS and their kids, who are, from what i can tell, about 11 or 12. they seem to be at different levels though. im sitting next to an 11 year old boy who dosnt know much more than his abc's and colors, but the boys to my right are the same age and seem to know a lot more. either way, ive made up my mind that their normal method of memorizing words needs a more oral approach to learning. the kids seem to know a fair amount of words, but cant really tie them together into sentences. i think thats what my class is going to focus on. i just hope they dont get bored.
right now, im pretty satisfied... aside from this hunger that i cant seem to quell (i think i need some soup), i havent been uncomfortable in any way. the people here are still really great and the countryside that we are driving through is absolutely beautiful.
apparently, the school that we are going to is this really rich private school that is funded by tobacco money. i want to understand more how the tobacco industry works in china. from what i understand, china has the largest population of smokers in the world, almost all of the guys smoke here (outside and in), and the tax revenue taken in from tobacco funds a nice chunk of the government. robo told me that bill gates wanted to come to china and make reducing the amount of smokers his new pet project. mike said that that would be a near impossible feat though, who knows.
back to it.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
SOOO HUNGRY!
01:09BST
KUNMING - WANG LAOSHI'S APT
so yesterday was pretty awesome. this whole not being chaperoned thing is pretty cool in the sense that i dont feel forced to eat all of the time. instead of concentrating really hard on a language and communicating with a host, i was able to just walk around, ask people things at my own leisure, and buy everything in the world. i talked to this jamaican guy for awhile, that was pretty cool. after a couple of hours of floating around near the university, i met up with rob and lou ke ji (this really cool kid whos engaged in more than one thing) to grab some more korean food and frollick around town. we went to a 'cool' record store and then walked to a park to watch some people play traditional chinese music. when we finally headed over to the gym to play some ping pong qio, i was ready to do something active. playing against wang laoshi was pretty scary. she (along with most chinese people i guess) hold the paddle differently and she mad smacked that ball around.... but i still beat her!!! considering her skill, i think that will have to be my crowning achievement of being in china. afterwords, i successfully refused a giant dinner and got to bed at a decent hour.
this morning, i slept way later that i should have, but whos counting? rob de dutze bu xufu de (tummy ache) so i just went out on my own today. i spent a good four hours finding this market that i thought i could walk to (I COULD!), talking to people on the street, HAGGLING!!, and enjoying this beautiful city. when i got back, yang laoshi took me to a tea mall to get some goods, and then got back (i took a cab by myself!) to rob who was still dying. i went out to the internet cafe (BY MYSELF!) to get some stuff done. the rest of the day was pretty quiet from there. the boy went to l'hopital for several hours, i repacked my goods and chatted with wang laoshi's son for awhile.
tomorrow we are going to go to a hotel to do a camp counselor orientation and the next day we are off to camp. im not sure what the internet sitch is going to be, but it sounds like there are going to be some pretty cool counselors and whatnot.
and now, some random factoids that only i would appreciate:
distance from apt to bank: 437 steps
distance from apt to internet cafe: 700 steps
distance from apt to red stick things: 220 steps
distance from apt to beginning of city center: 1100 steps
distance from city center map to secret market (not a secret but hey): 689 steps
im not going to end this in priceless.
KUNMING - WANG LAOSHI'S APT
so yesterday was pretty awesome. this whole not being chaperoned thing is pretty cool in the sense that i dont feel forced to eat all of the time. instead of concentrating really hard on a language and communicating with a host, i was able to just walk around, ask people things at my own leisure, and buy everything in the world. i talked to this jamaican guy for awhile, that was pretty cool. after a couple of hours of floating around near the university, i met up with rob and lou ke ji (this really cool kid whos engaged in more than one thing) to grab some more korean food and frollick around town. we went to a 'cool' record store and then walked to a park to watch some people play traditional chinese music. when we finally headed over to the gym to play some ping pong qio, i was ready to do something active. playing against wang laoshi was pretty scary. she (along with most chinese people i guess) hold the paddle differently and she mad smacked that ball around.... but i still beat her!!! considering her skill, i think that will have to be my crowning achievement of being in china. afterwords, i successfully refused a giant dinner and got to bed at a decent hour.
this morning, i slept way later that i should have, but whos counting? rob de dutze bu xufu de (tummy ache) so i just went out on my own today. i spent a good four hours finding this market that i thought i could walk to (I COULD!), talking to people on the street, HAGGLING!!, and enjoying this beautiful city. when i got back, yang laoshi took me to a tea mall to get some goods, and then got back (i took a cab by myself!) to rob who was still dying. i went out to the internet cafe (BY MYSELF!) to get some stuff done. the rest of the day was pretty quiet from there. the boy went to l'hopital for several hours, i repacked my goods and chatted with wang laoshi's son for awhile.
tomorrow we are going to go to a hotel to do a camp counselor orientation and the next day we are off to camp. im not sure what the internet sitch is going to be, but it sounds like there are going to be some pretty cool counselors and whatnot.
and now, some random factoids that only i would appreciate:
distance from apt to bank: 437 steps
distance from apt to internet cafe: 700 steps
distance from apt to red stick things: 220 steps
distance from apt to beginning of city center: 1100 steps
distance from city center map to secret market (not a secret but hey): 689 steps
im not going to end this in priceless.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
DAY ??: COUNTRYSIDE WRAP UP
07:38BST 07/17/2008
KUNMING - WANG LAOSHI'S APT
okay so maybe the countryside wasnt thaaat bad. the first day took a lot of getting used to because there were so many people (none of whose names i could keep straight), they didnt know how much chinese i did or did not speak, and their putonhua had a really heavy accent on top of being really fast. other things that put me on a slight edge were the scary toilets, the bugs everywhere (side note: im not really afraid of spiders or whatever, but there were just SO MANY all the time that i figured id probably end up dead soon), and stray dogs and cats probably with rabies like no ones business. but honestly, after about two days i got used to it.
whats more, the fact that there was no english was really a plus. even if i couldnt keep up with the convo, just listening to the sentence structure really helped me out. also, the kids there were a lot more at my level, and my adorable mei mei (little sis) was so cute that every time i would used jacked grammer, she would go, 'bu dui' (not correct) and say the sentence right.
the second day was pretty interesting. i woke up early and went for a nice run. i dont know how far, but i was running for around 50min so you can guess. the road took me down and around two small mountain slopes and along much farm land. i stopped when i got to the city because i didnt want to push my luck on not getting kidnapped. there were a lot of people on the road, and many of them had never seen a white person before (yang laoshi told me later) because they all stared pretty hardcore. after i got showered up, we went out to the gong shan (public mountain) (im not sure if all the mountains are public or not but this one was) to pick wild mushrooms. i think i may have said this before, but yunnan province is reknowned for its many different variety of mushrooms that take to the temperate climate. we, however, only found three. either way, it was a nice walk!
that night, to my excitement and great relief, we did a huo guo or 'hot pot' for dinner. id been hearing about this and its pretty cool. so you get a big pot on a hot plate in the middle of the table and start with a stalk of water, spicy, and oil (side note: everything in yunnan is spicy - they use a red powder with pepper seeds in it among other things, hereinto referred to as 'spicy') and you literally just throw a bunch of stuff in. ours had these fantastically cut bologna rounds (so that they looked like a sea urchin), a whole chicken, tofu chunks, tofu skins (they look like lasagna noodles), green beans, mushrooms, cabbage, tomatoes, ... i feel like there was more but ive forgotten already. anyways, as people eat away at the hot pot, you just add more junk in, let it come to a boil, and continue to chi fan (eat food). i was excited to experience the 'huo guo' but also happy because i didnt feel crazy obligated to eat all of the fifteen thousand dishes that are usually on the table - i could just pick as i saw fit. after dinner, rob threw in the movie 21 and i dont even remember how fast i fell asleep to that one :).
the next morning i had another great run, only i ran into some trouble when i was chased by a big stray dog for about fifty meters. i tried to look really fierce and yell kuai qu! (get lost) but he only chased me more. it wasnt until i passed a bunch of people on the road that i think he got distracted and left. rob and i watched some 'sunny in philly' and the i play gymnastics with the chitlins while we waited for wang laoshi to pick us up. thus ends my story in the countryside.
when we got back into kunming, i wasnt really sure how this was going to go (as per usual) so when wang, then yang laoshi left and rob said we were on our own, i got really excited. we went to an internet cafe for like, three hours (we both had nutty stuff to get back to) and then we went down by yun da (the university) to try to find some NOT chinese food. we were shooting for thai but after roaming several blocks, we gave up and settled on indian. we had garlic naan, chicken korma (spicy please), chicken something else (it was yellow and pretty mild), two big bowls of (not basmati?) rice, and two bottles of tsingdao (china beer). the service was slow but the atmosphere, the food, and the company was great! the bottles of beer here are big enough to fill two whole mugs, so between the two of us we downed three. not ready to resign, we looked around for a rowdy bar and grabbed two more giant bottles of lan cang jiang (the yunnan beer). when we realized that the apt's guard was probably going to shut the gate, we hurried home and got some sleep. i know i came to china to soak in the culture, but it was a nice pause for a minute. OH! and food and all of our drinks was like, 15 bucks (and i think we were honestly at an expensive restaurant). AMAZING!
today i think im going to get some more shopping done by the university and see what kind of trouble i cant get into. wang laoshi is, i think taking us out to lunch and then over to a 'ping pong chio jian' (a house of ping pong). all and all, this trip just keeps getting better.
oh, shout out to amanda for the bug spray in the survival kit. i think youve saved my life 5 times over. thanks!!!
j
side note: i also havent figured out how to reply to comments. to ms. petersen, the nest was under a security run through and no one could get near it... i saw the outline of it driving by at night though :/. to amanda: omg i know right?! that camel and i had chemistry. i have something esle that i think youre going to like. to everyone thats reading and posting: thank you for your interest and well wishes, you know youre getting presents!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
PICTURE POST
okay, im back in kunming and have more to say, but im paying for the internet time now so ill leave the update for later and show you guys some of what ive been fortunate enough to experience.
ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: im new to this blogsite and havent figured out the formatting yet. go ahead and laugh if you want.
jes goes to the heaven temple in beijing. the air got really smoggy as the day went on, so i was really lucky to get such a clear picture in the morning.
the respectable chairman a la tienamen square. i have a picture of me in this, but apparently the chinese ideal is to have yourself centered with the building and the flag in the background.... unfortunately this does not fit in with MY ideal profile pic entitled "mao is my homeboy". this will have to do, perhaps digital editing to come later.
KUNMING! aka, the awesomest city ever. this is near the city center and the building pictured in the background has a sister that kunming is known for.
wo de pengyou!! left is danny, one of the tallest people in china; center is sunny, the fashionista and secret gf of danny; and the right is keisha the hostest with the mostest who is never full. they are standing in front of the steps to yunda, the university of yunnan province. i only saw a part of the campus, but its french architects and talented landscapers knew what they were doing.
the bell tower at the golden temple in kunming. even though the park entrance is to visit the temple, this tower is about three times the size of it.
upon some deep reflection, i dont think, even at the zoo, that i had ever seen a camel. after we had climbed probably 11 or 12 flights of steep stairs, i came around the corner to see this sexy beast. it was only about $.70 to sit for a picture... i couldnt say no!!!
this is lake dianshi (see blog for description). despite being overgrown with -im going to call it- swamp weed, the sheer size of the lake in the city and, here, the contrast of orange on green with a foggy background are things to be appreciated.
cut to the countryside about 45 min outside of kunming. there was a gated village in the mountains and each house (usually 2 or 3 stories -however dicrepid (sp?)- has its own courtyard and wall. notice the fine detail of raised glass at the top of the yang's wall - a common characteristic in this village.
outside the gate was a xiao go (pup) and inside was a family of cats (one mommy and four kittens). apparently, the dog watches the gate and the cat eats the mice - no free rides thank you. (i believe this cat is the neighborhood stud).
the villages high tech sewage system. in my three days and two jogs there, i never figured out where the ditches led, but i assume its some lake where they draw their water... who knows?
okay now that ive painted an awful picture of the countryside, let me show you the wonderful family with golden hearts with whom we stayed (ill do my best with descriptions). left is robo, american man of mystery; next to her in the red is yang laoshi's sister (also a laoshi); next to her in the white is yang laoshi (whom robo believes may be wang laoshi's assisant?); bah! hiding behing yang laoshi is mi, the adorable 15 year old that was my savior out in the wild; on the right in the orange and grey are the family's grandparents (in grey is actually THE original yang laoshi, lol i guess teaching is in the family); the nuhai (little girl) up front is ying yu, yang laoshi's little one. shes nine years old and NEVER tired. next to her in the yellow is wo de didi (little bro). i never caught his name, but i think hes five and always cranky lol.
i have a million more to post but i think youll just have to come hang out with me for that (who am i kidding, you could also go to facebook at some nondescript point in the future). id like to give a shout out to kerbear for making these photos possible (thanks!!). i hope you guys are enjoying the blog thus far.
and now, a signpost for the organizationally retentive:
soon to come is a mini series in wang laoshi's second appartment which should be interesting because theres no supervision there. next will be the largest chapter of the camp from this saturday (my time not yours) to the next and then finally we will have (i presume but who knows) the denumont in shanghai (more than likely followed by a lengthy epilogue).
ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: im new to this blogsite and havent figured out the formatting yet. go ahead and laugh if you want.
jes goes to the heaven temple in beijing. the air got really smoggy as the day went on, so i was really lucky to get such a clear picture in the morning.
the respectable chairman a la tienamen square. i have a picture of me in this, but apparently the chinese ideal is to have yourself centered with the building and the flag in the background.... unfortunately this does not fit in with MY ideal profile pic entitled "mao is my homeboy". this will have to do, perhaps digital editing to come later.
KUNMING! aka, the awesomest city ever. this is near the city center and the building pictured in the background has a sister that kunming is known for.
wo de pengyou!! left is danny, one of the tallest people in china; center is sunny, the fashionista and secret gf of danny; and the right is keisha the hostest with the mostest who is never full. they are standing in front of the steps to yunda, the university of yunnan province. i only saw a part of the campus, but its french architects and talented landscapers knew what they were doing.
the bell tower at the golden temple in kunming. even though the park entrance is to visit the temple, this tower is about three times the size of it.
upon some deep reflection, i dont think, even at the zoo, that i had ever seen a camel. after we had climbed probably 11 or 12 flights of steep stairs, i came around the corner to see this sexy beast. it was only about $.70 to sit for a picture... i couldnt say no!!!
this is lake dianshi (see blog for description). despite being overgrown with -im going to call it- swamp weed, the sheer size of the lake in the city and, here, the contrast of orange on green with a foggy background are things to be appreciated.
cut to the countryside about 45 min outside of kunming. there was a gated village in the mountains and each house (usually 2 or 3 stories -however dicrepid (sp?)- has its own courtyard and wall. notice the fine detail of raised glass at the top of the yang's wall - a common characteristic in this village.
outside the gate was a xiao go (pup) and inside was a family of cats (one mommy and four kittens). apparently, the dog watches the gate and the cat eats the mice - no free rides thank you. (i believe this cat is the neighborhood stud).
the villages high tech sewage system. in my three days and two jogs there, i never figured out where the ditches led, but i assume its some lake where they draw their water... who knows?
okay now that ive painted an awful picture of the countryside, let me show you the wonderful family with golden hearts with whom we stayed (ill do my best with descriptions). left is robo, american man of mystery; next to her in the red is yang laoshi's sister (also a laoshi); next to her in the white is yang laoshi (whom robo believes may be wang laoshi's assisant?); bah! hiding behing yang laoshi is mi, the adorable 15 year old that was my savior out in the wild; on the right in the orange and grey are the family's grandparents (in grey is actually THE original yang laoshi, lol i guess teaching is in the family); the nuhai (little girl) up front is ying yu, yang laoshi's little one. shes nine years old and NEVER tired. next to her in the yellow is wo de didi (little bro). i never caught his name, but i think hes five and always cranky lol.
i have a million more to post but i think youll just have to come hang out with me for that (who am i kidding, you could also go to facebook at some nondescript point in the future). id like to give a shout out to kerbear for making these photos possible (thanks!!). i hope you guys are enjoying the blog thus far.
and now, a signpost for the organizationally retentive:
soon to come is a mini series in wang laoshi's second appartment which should be interesting because theres no supervision there. next will be the largest chapter of the camp from this saturday (my time not yours) to the next and then finally we will have (i presume but who knows) the denumont in shanghai (more than likely followed by a lengthy epilogue).
TOILET HUMOR
17:05BST 7/15/2008
COUNTRYSIDE - YANG LAOSHI'S FAMILY'S HOUSE
!DISCLAIMER! this post is pretty crass-core and not for the faint of heart.
i keep laughing at the thought of that one rugrats episode where chucky is being potty trained and hes terrified to go. i feel like chucky completely. you know its bad when youd straight up rather find a nice spot in the woods instead of using the hellish outhouse. the outhouse here is divided between men and lady's - note the reserved modesty in mixing the sexes. in the lady's room there are two 8" x 24" rectangles carved into the ground with rather shallow holes. in fact, the holes are so shallow that when you pee it splashes god knows where. for safety from rats or new spider webs, one must quickly glance to make sure theyre not squatting to their own disaster, and the visual of waste and maggots makes the experience all the more unpleasant. to add to the general horror, there are spiderwebs at the top of the door (which isnt really a door but an entrance) that the tall visitor continuously walks into on accident. as if the whole kit and kabudal werent bad enough, the first time i worked up the courage (AKA was going to die of septicemia) to use this death trap, mid-squat, a woman comes right in and starts going right next to me. if theres one fine point to an outhouse, its a locked door. im ready to say it, despite the sweet smell of clean mountain air and burning firewood, I WANT TO GO BACK TO KUNMING! go ahead, call me a brat or a city slicker, i dont really care, i want to go home! hahaha, i lasted for more than a day, i should get something for that at least.
until next time,
gan jie se xiaojie
COUNTRYSIDE - YANG LAOSHI'S FAMILY'S HOUSE
!DISCLAIMER! this post is pretty crass-core and not for the faint of heart.
i keep laughing at the thought of that one rugrats episode where chucky is being potty trained and hes terrified to go. i feel like chucky completely. you know its bad when youd straight up rather find a nice spot in the woods instead of using the hellish outhouse. the outhouse here is divided between men and lady's - note the reserved modesty in mixing the sexes. in the lady's room there are two 8" x 24" rectangles carved into the ground with rather shallow holes. in fact, the holes are so shallow that when you pee it splashes god knows where. for safety from rats or new spider webs, one must quickly glance to make sure theyre not squatting to their own disaster, and the visual of waste and maggots makes the experience all the more unpleasant. to add to the general horror, there are spiderwebs at the top of the door (which isnt really a door but an entrance) that the tall visitor continuously walks into on accident. as if the whole kit and kabudal werent bad enough, the first time i worked up the courage (AKA was going to die of septicemia) to use this death trap, mid-squat, a woman comes right in and starts going right next to me. if theres one fine point to an outhouse, its a locked door. im ready to say it, despite the sweet smell of clean mountain air and burning firewood, I WANT TO GO BACK TO KUNMING! go ahead, call me a brat or a city slicker, i dont really care, i want to go home! hahaha, i lasted for more than a day, i should get something for that at least.
until next time,
gan jie se xiaojie
MORE THOUGHTS
16:23BST 7/14/2008
COUNTRYSIDE - YANG LAOSHI JIAREN DE FENGZI
so ive stewed upon it and have more to say. im in this big house right and there are two small girls. yang laoshi de nuhai (her little one) brought a mouse in a cage to play with. before we left, i asked her how old the laoshu was, she said brand new. i can now guess why. what started as innocent carelessness quickly turned into downright carnage. now in the countryside and hopped up on sugar, she was tossing the little mouse high and higher into the air. on the highest one, she let it fall to the ground. i thought that would be the end of the xiao laoshu, but i guess theyre on the cat system of nine lives.
speaking of cats, this house has one, and while it looks way cleaner than a lot of the street animals (usually dogs), i didnt trust it for a second. sure enough, when it was just me in the living room tap tap tapping away, the cat comes and plants itself in front of the coffee table. it sat there, not moving for maybe 3 minutes when all of a sudden it launches itself at the now caged mouse on the table. the cat knocks the cage off the table and begins furiously swiping for the mouse... i sincerely doubt that the poor laoshu will make it to see wednesday.
after seeing the restroom facilities, im a little concerned about making it to wednesday. ive got this amazing habit of not eating or drinking a lot when i know its in my favor, but wednesday? i just dont know. while i didnt go inside, the restroom is outside the house, outside the courtyard, down the road and without a door. im guessing its like an outhouse, only i think id be happier using a squatter than a western outhouse. still, if theres no running water, i wonder where you take a shower? in the bathrooms that ive seen thus far, the showers are over the squatter so that it all goes down the same hole (maybe george wouldnt have gotten busted for peeing in the shower over here). so maybe theres a seperate facility? who knows.
more than anything, im afraid of getting sick out here. ive dodged the bullet thus far (knock), but seeing all of the flies and knowing the quality of the water makes me wonder.
theres one darling little girl here, shes 15 and i think her name is mi. she practiced some of her english with me and shes not too bad. she likes to draw (hua hua) and shes very good at it. she wanted me to give her an american name, so i rattled of a list of western names that i could think of. i was really happy when she chose kerry!!! i will have to remember to take a picture of her so that the roomie can see her namesake :).
COUNTRYSIDE - YANG LAOSHI JIAREN DE FENGZI
so ive stewed upon it and have more to say. im in this big house right and there are two small girls. yang laoshi de nuhai (her little one) brought a mouse in a cage to play with. before we left, i asked her how old the laoshu was, she said brand new. i can now guess why. what started as innocent carelessness quickly turned into downright carnage. now in the countryside and hopped up on sugar, she was tossing the little mouse high and higher into the air. on the highest one, she let it fall to the ground. i thought that would be the end of the xiao laoshu, but i guess theyre on the cat system of nine lives.
speaking of cats, this house has one, and while it looks way cleaner than a lot of the street animals (usually dogs), i didnt trust it for a second. sure enough, when it was just me in the living room tap tap tapping away, the cat comes and plants itself in front of the coffee table. it sat there, not moving for maybe 3 minutes when all of a sudden it launches itself at the now caged mouse on the table. the cat knocks the cage off the table and begins furiously swiping for the mouse... i sincerely doubt that the poor laoshu will make it to see wednesday.
after seeing the restroom facilities, im a little concerned about making it to wednesday. ive got this amazing habit of not eating or drinking a lot when i know its in my favor, but wednesday? i just dont know. while i didnt go inside, the restroom is outside the house, outside the courtyard, down the road and without a door. im guessing its like an outhouse, only i think id be happier using a squatter than a western outhouse. still, if theres no running water, i wonder where you take a shower? in the bathrooms that ive seen thus far, the showers are over the squatter so that it all goes down the same hole (maybe george wouldnt have gotten busted for peeing in the shower over here). so maybe theres a seperate facility? who knows.
more than anything, im afraid of getting sick out here. ive dodged the bullet thus far (knock), but seeing all of the flies and knowing the quality of the water makes me wonder.
theres one darling little girl here, shes 15 and i think her name is mi. she practiced some of her english with me and shes not too bad. she likes to draw (hua hua) and shes very good at it. she wanted me to give her an american name, so i rattled of a list of western names that i could think of. i was really happy when she chose kerry!!! i will have to remember to take a picture of her so that the roomie can see her namesake :).
DAYS 5 & 6 - JES GETS TOO LAZY TO TYPE
15:02BST 7/14/08
THE BIG CITY TO THE SUBURBS TO THE COUNTRYSIDE
so yesterday we woke up early and went out for a fun day of sightseeing with sunny, keisha and robo. we went to lake dianshi, kunming's famous landmark. its supposedly so beautiful that a king made a lake in beijing and called it kunming lake. yesterday, however, it was overgrown with vegetation so it looked like a gigantic swamp. it was also a little hazy out so it was hard to see the pretty mountain backdrop. whatever though. we walked along there for a little bit and then went to sunny's dad's construction site. he is overseeing the construction of this huge A-list complex that will house a meeting center and have sassy residences for big whigs. we ate lunch there even though it wasnt built yet. i think the sassiest thing on the table was this cool flower root that was sliced like tostone and fried, it was sooo good.
afterward we went to this chinese nationality park. there are fifty something nationalities in china outside of the han and 26 live in yunnan province. the park, as per usual was HUGE. of the villages in the park that i can remember, there were the dai's that were basically thai people in china; the mongu's, the misuo that are a matriarical culture; the lahu's that have the hottest guitar players ever; and many more that i cant recall at this time. oh, when we were entering the park, sunny asked us for our student id's so that we could get a discount. i only had my highschool ID (dont ask) but rob laughed and told me that he uses his work ID because, again, they dont know the difference.
oh, before i forget, when we went to korean food the other day, on the menu one of the selections read fresh steamed crap. i really wanted to take a picture but the fu wu yuen (waitress) came and i didnt want to be rude. back to the story.
at the nationalitie park, most villages have their traditional music playing. so when we went to the mongu village i couldnt help but laugh when they had what must have been traditional music with crazy techno in the background. so traditional, so good. about an hour and a half after the giant lunch, we were walking by some food carts when keisha bought a big thing of noodles... omg they were hungry! why are the people thin here?! all they do is eat!! ugh. anyways, robo got tired and we headed for the entrance. there, we parted ways with sunny and took a taxi back to town.
danny took robo and me out to dinner on the north side of kunming. we went to an upscale sichuan restaurant with danny, his dad, his mom, his grams, her sister, and her husband. the food was crazy good. there was i think its call mung fish, its really expensive. i tried some and it was sooo good. so thee, i ate fish in china. there was also pork elbows, a couple fungus dishes (yum!) and a whole bunch of other stuff. we drank this warm corn juice that seriously tasted like corn on the cob. aside from this really interesting davory pinapple, that drink was probably the most interesting on the menu. after dinner i came home and fell asleep almost immediately.
i woke up really early this morning to shower, clean up my bathroom and room and repack. robo and i were to go to a house in the countryside and i didnt want to bring all of my bags so i rearranged stuff and packed a smaller one. wang laoshi picked me up and took me to robo's apt (which is actually her son's school apt - an apt that most kids have bc its closer to school) which is where i will stay when we get back. luckily, that building has an elevator (dian ci) so i dont have to cart my giant ass shingli (suitcase) up nine flights of stairs. and then we were off. it was me, robo, wang laoshi, yang laoshi and her little one. we drove about 45 minutes out of town and into the mountains toward a crazy different stlye of living than what ive been used to.
when they told me that life in the countryside wasnt the same, i thought maybe it meant a more rudimentary bathroom and less clean or modern quarters. i didnt think that when i walked inside i would be covered in flies lol! also, in china, almost every house ive been to has a water cooler bc you shouldnt drink the water. my waterbottle was only half full so i went to fill it up before we went hiking... OMG the water from the bottle wasnt clean! i think what they do is refill the jug so that it gives them hot water for tea. so i ruined that bottle of water. for a minute, i thought i wasnt going to be able to drink anything for two days, but luckily, yang laoshi brought big bottles for us.
we are staying with yang laoshi's family which consists of what looks like a mom, a 15yoa, a 5yoa nanhai (boy), grandma and pops... i think? we ate what was finally a reasonable sized lunch (which was still too big lol) of brazed cabbage, beef stew, zuccinni, SMOKED PORK (YUM!), fried small fish that you eat whole, rice, and spicy red beans! i was able to eat rice and beans in china, i was sooo happy. unlike everyone else so far, they didnt force a ton of food on us, so i finally feel like i had a normal lunch (that was still totally delish).
afterwards we hiked 3k to the small mountain town to check out the schools there. robo's research compares urban and rural school systems so hes been traveling around and surveying principals of schools and whatnot. we saw the xuexiao (elementary school) and the zhong xue (middle school) btu they werent in session so we didnt do much.
i think we will be here until wednesday and im not really sure what we wil be doing. after this update i think i will work on some homework. this i think will be a small pause in the vacation for now though. zai jian!
THE BIG CITY TO THE SUBURBS TO THE COUNTRYSIDE
so yesterday we woke up early and went out for a fun day of sightseeing with sunny, keisha and robo. we went to lake dianshi, kunming's famous landmark. its supposedly so beautiful that a king made a lake in beijing and called it kunming lake. yesterday, however, it was overgrown with vegetation so it looked like a gigantic swamp. it was also a little hazy out so it was hard to see the pretty mountain backdrop. whatever though. we walked along there for a little bit and then went to sunny's dad's construction site. he is overseeing the construction of this huge A-list complex that will house a meeting center and have sassy residences for big whigs. we ate lunch there even though it wasnt built yet. i think the sassiest thing on the table was this cool flower root that was sliced like tostone and fried, it was sooo good.
afterward we went to this chinese nationality park. there are fifty something nationalities in china outside of the han and 26 live in yunnan province. the park, as per usual was HUGE. of the villages in the park that i can remember, there were the dai's that were basically thai people in china; the mongu's, the misuo that are a matriarical culture; the lahu's that have the hottest guitar players ever; and many more that i cant recall at this time. oh, when we were entering the park, sunny asked us for our student id's so that we could get a discount. i only had my highschool ID (dont ask) but rob laughed and told me that he uses his work ID because, again, they dont know the difference.
oh, before i forget, when we went to korean food the other day, on the menu one of the selections read fresh steamed crap. i really wanted to take a picture but the fu wu yuen (waitress) came and i didnt want to be rude. back to the story.
at the nationalitie park, most villages have their traditional music playing. so when we went to the mongu village i couldnt help but laugh when they had what must have been traditional music with crazy techno in the background. so traditional, so good. about an hour and a half after the giant lunch, we were walking by some food carts when keisha bought a big thing of noodles... omg they were hungry! why are the people thin here?! all they do is eat!! ugh. anyways, robo got tired and we headed for the entrance. there, we parted ways with sunny and took a taxi back to town.
danny took robo and me out to dinner on the north side of kunming. we went to an upscale sichuan restaurant with danny, his dad, his mom, his grams, her sister, and her husband. the food was crazy good. there was i think its call mung fish, its really expensive. i tried some and it was sooo good. so thee, i ate fish in china. there was also pork elbows, a couple fungus dishes (yum!) and a whole bunch of other stuff. we drank this warm corn juice that seriously tasted like corn on the cob. aside from this really interesting davory pinapple, that drink was probably the most interesting on the menu. after dinner i came home and fell asleep almost immediately.
i woke up really early this morning to shower, clean up my bathroom and room and repack. robo and i were to go to a house in the countryside and i didnt want to bring all of my bags so i rearranged stuff and packed a smaller one. wang laoshi picked me up and took me to robo's apt (which is actually her son's school apt - an apt that most kids have bc its closer to school) which is where i will stay when we get back. luckily, that building has an elevator (dian ci) so i dont have to cart my giant ass shingli (suitcase) up nine flights of stairs. and then we were off. it was me, robo, wang laoshi, yang laoshi and her little one. we drove about 45 minutes out of town and into the mountains toward a crazy different stlye of living than what ive been used to.
when they told me that life in the countryside wasnt the same, i thought maybe it meant a more rudimentary bathroom and less clean or modern quarters. i didnt think that when i walked inside i would be covered in flies lol! also, in china, almost every house ive been to has a water cooler bc you shouldnt drink the water. my waterbottle was only half full so i went to fill it up before we went hiking... OMG the water from the bottle wasnt clean! i think what they do is refill the jug so that it gives them hot water for tea. so i ruined that bottle of water. for a minute, i thought i wasnt going to be able to drink anything for two days, but luckily, yang laoshi brought big bottles for us.
we are staying with yang laoshi's family which consists of what looks like a mom, a 15yoa, a 5yoa nanhai (boy), grandma and pops... i think? we ate what was finally a reasonable sized lunch (which was still too big lol) of brazed cabbage, beef stew, zuccinni, SMOKED PORK (YUM!), fried small fish that you eat whole, rice, and spicy red beans! i was able to eat rice and beans in china, i was sooo happy. unlike everyone else so far, they didnt force a ton of food on us, so i finally feel like i had a normal lunch (that was still totally delish).
afterwards we hiked 3k to the small mountain town to check out the schools there. robo's research compares urban and rural school systems so hes been traveling around and surveying principals of schools and whatnot. we saw the xuexiao (elementary school) and the zhong xue (middle school) btu they werent in session so we didnt do much.
i think we will be here until wednesday and im not really sure what we wil be doing. after this update i think i will work on some homework. this i think will be a small pause in the vacation for now though. zai jian!
DAY 5 ONLY NOT REALLY
00:58BST 7/13/08KEISHA'S HOUSE - KUNMING
today i became overwhelmingly aware of my lack of progress on a project at home. i decided that since i can barely sleep here anyways that i will try harder to work on the project in my downtime.
back to the fun stuff. i skipped breakfast with the thought of another delicious lunch. instead of going to the lake, me, sunny, danny, and sunny's mother went to sunny's grandma's house to visit with their family. for lunch we were served these unreasonably large bowls of noodle soup. there was all kinds of goodies in the soup like veggies here and there, sauce, spices, and then this brownish paste. as soon as i smelled the dish i knew what it was - pig intestine. i dont mean to sound judgemental but it literally tastes and smells like fecal matter! i tried my hardest to be polite and force some down but i couldnt finish my bowl by a long shot.
after lunch we went to the golden temple in kunming. just absolutely gorgeous. we climbed a million flights of stairs. we went to the temple at the top of the hill and then to a nearby bell tower that was over 400 years old. i find that in chinese parks that you have to pay to get into, they have so many things to see and do that you can(ad have to) spend the whole day to see the whole park. good bang for your buck no? oh, there were also a giant collection of green houses at the temple. i took a lot of pictures of some of the species that i hadnt seen before. it was pretty BA.
sunny's uncle picked us up from the temple and took us back to her grandmothers house where we... sat. we sat and watched chinese tv for some time. some good did come of it, i think i want to try to download a show called fen hong nu long - it means pink fashion lady i think. but aside from that golden nugget we were pretty bored. sunny and her mom got into a pretty big argument (in kunming hua so i couldnt really understand) to the extent that sunny started crying. i found out later that she felt that since i will only be here for a little bit, i should see as much as possible instead of sitting on a couch. i was really touched about how much she cared - opeople here are really so wonderful.
later we picked up rob (aka robo) and went to a restaurant on the side of a hill. again, more food than anyone should eat.. ever. this was the first meal where i was pressured into drinking beer and it was sooo good. it was the local beer of yunnan, called lan cang jiang (details to come). im actually filling in the details a couple days later so im a little foggy as to what all we ate that night. however, after we had eaten for quite some time, sunnys uncle (who is a racecar driver btw) asked me what was my favorite on the table. i told him i liked all shucai (veggies) and he ordered another plate of delicious greens. im in love with china's vegetables.
on the drive back to the city i realllllly had to pee but the restaurant's cesua was pretty raunch so i thought i could hold it. oh GEEZ! we were stuck in traffic hardcore for like, at least an hour. i thought i was going to die. when we got back to the city sunny, keisha, robo and i went to play majong. oh god i love that game. keisha's renties were out of town so sunny stayed the night - this ended up being a really good thing. there was a giant cockroach in my room ON MY BED. the room has a lot of nooks and crannies so i was afraid it would try to kill me in the night. sunny came to the rescue and tried her hardest to chase it out and kill it while keisha and i huddled scared in the dining room. too much excitement for one day i think.
today i became overwhelmingly aware of my lack of progress on a project at home. i decided that since i can barely sleep here anyways that i will try harder to work on the project in my downtime.
back to the fun stuff. i skipped breakfast with the thought of another delicious lunch. instead of going to the lake, me, sunny, danny, and sunny's mother went to sunny's grandma's house to visit with their family. for lunch we were served these unreasonably large bowls of noodle soup. there was all kinds of goodies in the soup like veggies here and there, sauce, spices, and then this brownish paste. as soon as i smelled the dish i knew what it was - pig intestine. i dont mean to sound judgemental but it literally tastes and smells like fecal matter! i tried my hardest to be polite and force some down but i couldnt finish my bowl by a long shot.
after lunch we went to the golden temple in kunming. just absolutely gorgeous. we climbed a million flights of stairs. we went to the temple at the top of the hill and then to a nearby bell tower that was over 400 years old. i find that in chinese parks that you have to pay to get into, they have so many things to see and do that you can(ad have to) spend the whole day to see the whole park. good bang for your buck no? oh, there were also a giant collection of green houses at the temple. i took a lot of pictures of some of the species that i hadnt seen before. it was pretty BA.
sunny's uncle picked us up from the temple and took us back to her grandmothers house where we... sat. we sat and watched chinese tv for some time. some good did come of it, i think i want to try to download a show called fen hong nu long - it means pink fashion lady i think. but aside from that golden nugget we were pretty bored. sunny and her mom got into a pretty big argument (in kunming hua so i couldnt really understand) to the extent that sunny started crying. i found out later that she felt that since i will only be here for a little bit, i should see as much as possible instead of sitting on a couch. i was really touched about how much she cared - opeople here are really so wonderful.
later we picked up rob (aka robo) and went to a restaurant on the side of a hill. again, more food than anyone should eat.. ever. this was the first meal where i was pressured into drinking beer and it was sooo good. it was the local beer of yunnan, called lan cang jiang (details to come). im actually filling in the details a couple days later so im a little foggy as to what all we ate that night. however, after we had eaten for quite some time, sunnys uncle (who is a racecar driver btw) asked me what was my favorite on the table. i told him i liked all shucai (veggies) and he ordered another plate of delicious greens. im in love with china's vegetables.
on the drive back to the city i realllllly had to pee but the restaurant's cesua was pretty raunch so i thought i could hold it. oh GEEZ! we were stuck in traffic hardcore for like, at least an hour. i thought i was going to die. when we got back to the city sunny, keisha, robo and i went to play majong. oh god i love that game. keisha's renties were out of town so sunny stayed the night - this ended up being a really good thing. there was a giant cockroach in my room ON MY BED. the room has a lot of nooks and crannies so i was afraid it would try to kill me in the night. sunny came to the rescue and tried her hardest to chase it out and kill it while keisha and i huddled scared in the dining room. too much excitement for one day i think.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
DAY 4 QUICK CATCH UP
08:03BST 7/12 KEISHA'S HOUSE - KUNMING
alright where were we? we went to wang laoshi's friends apt where their daughter keisha lives. the apt is i guess small but i dont really think so. they have an extra guest bedroom and bathroom thats big enough for me and im american, so who knows. keisha is 19 and studying to teach chinese. she is going to school in sweden next year - how cool is that?! her friends, sunny f/20 and danny m/20 (they are a secret couple) came over and we hung out for a bit. sunny is going to school in s. korea next year and danny goes to NYU. dannys english has been without hiccups but keisha and sunnys english is very very good. these kids are crazy hip and really into fashion and having fun. i guess the way it works here is that the parents play patron until you have a real job and college is much much easier than their highschool. so right now, all they do is hang out. its a pretty nice life.
so keisha was tired but sunny and danny and i went 'shopping'. at first, we went to the kind of shopping that they liked - all brand names, all high fashion in a big new mall. after awhile they figured out that that wasnt what i was looking for. we then went to an awesome street market and bought some candy. then to a smaller mall to buy textiles and.... JADE BRACELETS!! omg, so my wrist is the same size as jackie's and a little bigger than mom's. i wanted to use mine as a reference to buy theirs. good god the woman about broke my hand. so they have a bucket of water and some soap and they force it past your thumb, its really painful. i bought three, one for jax, one for mom and one for myself. i kind of want to get nice gifts for the roommates too, im keeping my eyes open. we went back to the real mall and had some drinks, i had a grapefruit tea with rose tips, and keisha met up with us. we all then went to dinner.
alright, im starting to catch on, the chinese eat everything all the time. our dinner was huge, there was so much food on the table. i think the most interesting thing was the tulip bulb. it tasted so beatuiful, i cant describe it. after dinner we play MAJONG!! omg, so fun. after two hours i figured out what i was doing and won three games! ::end scene 1::
yesterday, we all slept late and decided for a lazy day over at yunnan university. a lot of the buildings were built by the french in kunming so it looked like a very european campus. we walked around there and a park for awhile and then went to the international street for some traditional KOREAN BBQ!!! oh it was so good! every single thing on the table was just delicious. im going to try to list it off. there was this really cool cabbage stuff in a vinegar liquid and it tasted really fresh; there was this kind of tomato-y soup with zuccini, braised greens, rice and seaweed, peanuts, tofu, this specialty that had chunky veggies and congealed rice tubes (idk how else to call them) in this hot red sauce, rice, these thick rice noodles with black bean and pork sauce; and then in the middle of the table there was a big gas grill where we cooked our own plate of marinated prok, mushrooms and squash. this was just lunch!!
then we looked in some nearby shops, i found some tshirts with engrish on them, and went to this amazing coffee house to hide from the rain. i only now realize that i forgot to take pictures :(. it was all wood, two stories, and very lounge-like with low low tables and cushions to sit on. the ceilings had low hanging wood beams that i had to duck to miss. oh and the staircase was one of those cool cast iron tendrils in the middle of the cafe - soo cool! we ordered neat drinks (i had an irish coffee, it was time) and played cards for about 3 hours (bc the rain was so bad). we grabbed a taxi back to the house, got changed and went out to dinner with sunny's parents and co.
dinner was in this crazy upscale restaurant. everyone had to drink and eat until they were full. my beverages alone included watermelon juice, water, crysanthemum (sp?) tea, and bi-jio. *note, bi-jio isnt like normal white wine... its like liquor. you drink it in these tiny finger tip-sized glasses and toast with someone before you drink. food items included braised greens, two kinds of muchroom dishes (yunnan is know for it's abundant variety of mushrooms), fried sliced pork with caper-type things, vinegar noodles, chunks of duck fat (literally chunks), two whole fried birds of some sort (when i say whole i mean it), a plate of little micro shrimp, roasted pumpkin, fish and sprouts with peppers in a big pot, mmm i know im forgeting stuff... oh everyone had their own "western style" beef steak (teehee, not really western style but still really really good), and after dinner they brought individual bowls of yunnan-style spicy rice noodle soup. OH and everyone had their own little teapot full of chicken broth that you could sip on throughout the meal. SO MUCH FOOD. i really really had to use the restroom and heres a testament to how nice the place was: in our private room, we had our own restroom.... THAT HAD A TOILET! yes!!! i almost cried when i saw it.
afterward we came home and keisha and i (seriously) ate a bag full of lychee and talked about america and china for a long time. it is interesting how little the chinese know about their own culture or about what the world thinks about them. maybe its just easy for americans to assume that everybody doesnt like us because of our attitude so we feel like we know how we are perceived. but this darling smart girl had no idea that china is as big as it is (in terms of economics) or how the government acts or is perceived. keisha was thinking of changing her major because she didnt think that anyone would want to learn chinese! i tried my best to convince her otherwise.
today i think we are going to dianshi lake with keisha, sunny, her mom, danny, and robo (rob's chinese name). i should probably get ready for the day. how's that for an update though!
DAY 2 AKA BEST DAY EVER
23:06BST 7/10/08KUNMING
so on the plane, zhao nushi really opened up. she didnt speak any english, but with the help of some magazines and her saintly patience, we had an interesting conversation about a lot of stuff. i feel like im picking up vocabulary right and left here, i love it! on the plane, we got the choice between american or chinese breakfast. zhao nushi answered for me so i never found out what i was missing. instead, i got an interesting serving of eggs with green peas, one cherry tomato, two small hashbrown rounds, a small croissant, peaches, ... oh and a hot dog - so pretty much my normal breakfast.
in kunming, our plane arrived early so wang laoshi was not there to meet me. zhao nushi was sooo nice that, even though her xiaohai and husband were there and very happy to see her, she stayed with me until my escort arrived. people here are so nice.
wang laoshi is amazing. shes very very pretty and totally hip. though she speaks really fast, i somehow was able to understand most of what she said. she must have a lot of practice talking to beginners. anyways, we drive through the city that is worlds cleaner than beijing to a beautiful side street with these amazing trees providing nearly full cover. we went passed an old woman selling chickens from a basket into an ally that somehow became a rickety restaurant. we continue upstairs to a small room filled by a big round table and 9 people. they all spoke either chinese or kunminghua (the local dialect), no english. it was an older crowd, and they were so full of life and a passion for fun, it was just amazing. i realizedd that my hand was nervously tapping just because i how lucky i am to be here.
after gigantolunch, we went to wang's ...
i cant finish this, im falling asleep.
so on the plane, zhao nushi really opened up. she didnt speak any english, but with the help of some magazines and her saintly patience, we had an interesting conversation about a lot of stuff. i feel like im picking up vocabulary right and left here, i love it! on the plane, we got the choice between american or chinese breakfast. zhao nushi answered for me so i never found out what i was missing. instead, i got an interesting serving of eggs with green peas, one cherry tomato, two small hashbrown rounds, a small croissant, peaches, ... oh and a hot dog - so pretty much my normal breakfast.
in kunming, our plane arrived early so wang laoshi was not there to meet me. zhao nushi was sooo nice that, even though her xiaohai and husband were there and very happy to see her, she stayed with me until my escort arrived. people here are so nice.
wang laoshi is amazing. shes very very pretty and totally hip. though she speaks really fast, i somehow was able to understand most of what she said. she must have a lot of practice talking to beginners. anyways, we drive through the city that is worlds cleaner than beijing to a beautiful side street with these amazing trees providing nearly full cover. we went passed an old woman selling chickens from a basket into an ally that somehow became a rickety restaurant. we continue upstairs to a small room filled by a big round table and 9 people. they all spoke either chinese or kunminghua (the local dialect), no english. it was an older crowd, and they were so full of life and a passion for fun, it was just amazing. i realizedd that my hand was nervously tapping just because i how lucky i am to be here.
after gigantolunch, we went to wang's ...
i cant finish this, im falling asleep.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
BIG ERECTIONS
07:33BST 7/10/08PEK
i dont think there's a word in chinese for subtlty. everything here is gigantic. the highway system, the cities, the hotels, the temples, the monuments, and most definitely the airport. i thought pudong was big, i was mistaken. i think mr. lei told me that the beijing airport is the biggest in the world - and i believe it. i wanted to take a bunch of pictures, but for some reason, whenever i see the chinese guards i feel like if i take pictures they will think im a spy or something. youll have to forgive my paranoia and ensuing lack of pictures. dui bu qi.
so last night i went to dinner with mr. feng bei and his underling, lily. i now understand why mr. feng couldnt play tour guide with me, hes kind of a big deal. he is a general manager of a company, owns his own car, and is pretty much a baller. i dont know if it was a front or not, but he made a point to let me know that he worked hard and had a lot of money. his assistant, lily was mongolian, very pretty and very smart. she actually got her masters from northwood! when i heard this, i exclaimed that it was a really good business school, she was really happy to hear this and told mr. feng that she deserved a raise. ah awkward moments. i wanted to practice my chinese, but they wanted to practice their english so i of course obliged.
dinner was awesome, we had traditional peking duck, asparagus and duck tongue (note to self, dont ever eat duck tongue again ::shudder::), sweet corn and pine nuts, turnip cakes, chinese cabbage and some sort of large nut in congealed sauce, garlic toast with what im calling fois gras, and some sort of duck fat-laden soup. quick review: good god the duck was amazing, the corn was tastey, the cabbage and nuts were good but the sauce was a bit much, the asparagus rocked, the tongues ill leave to your imagination, the soup was too heavy, the cakes were reminiscint of sweet potatoe and the fois gras was really good.
we went back to the hotel and i pretty much fell asleep... at 830. i had to be in the lobby at 530 so i was pretty dismayed when i woke up and it was 515. sorry shower, you will just have to wait. i said goodbye to mr. lei but picked up a new friend, zhao hong. she lives in beijing but her xiaohai (little one), husband, and parents live in kunming. she is mr. lei's friend. we have the same flight, but she doesnt speak a lot of english - our conversation thus far has been pretty shallow. thats okay though, im excited enough to talk to her at all.
im not sure how long the flight will be, but i hope the beverage service is soon. im terrified of drinking anything not in a bottle, so i often go unwatered. this cloud has a silver lining as it helps me achieve my goal of limiting my use of the squatters. however, i think i will die of thirst if i dont drink something soon. im boarding now, goodbye beijing, hello kunming!
update 09:02BST, no beverage service yet. i cant believe how much pollution is in the air. when i look at pictures taken of famous buildings in the cities, i wonder how much doctoring the photos required to not appear smoggy.
DAY 1 (FOR REALSIES)
15:45BST 7/9/08HOME INN - BEIJING
so last night, mr. lei told me that i needed to get a good rest and then to call him when i woke up. he was horrified when i called him at 6:30. come on, if i only get one day in beijing, do you really think im going to waste it on sleep? you can do that when youre dead (ps, its unseemly to talk about death in the morning). so we had to choose which places to go to because a lot of stuff closes early here and we are on a schedule. lei xiancheng had never been to the heaven temple so we decide we would both be tourists (yo che?) for the day.
after grabbing some street food (eeeeek! still alive, dont worry), we took the ditian (subway - $.35 for a ticket!) to the temple grounds. HOLY GOD this place is huge. leave it to the chinese. the grounds were beautiful, there were random pagodas and statues and gardens and fields and huge ancient junipers that smelled amazing. i learned a lot about the big buildings we saw, but im afraid im going to mislable them so instead i will post a couple pictures [later] to give you an idea and go from there.
potent potables include the 70 year old door that is only opened for emperors over the age of 70 (dont want the youngins getting lazy); the nine heavenly circles whose center enables you to speak 'sonorously'; more animal sacrifice than your body has room for; and a shirt on a passing girl that said 'go go sprash' (i reeeeeeeally wanted a picture of that one).
because we got such a headstart, there was time to go to tianmen square and gaze upon the amazing face of the good chairman. my battery died just as i got one picture with him. we paraded around the mao museum (literally around it - its only open in the morning :( ), the people's great museum (could be goofing the name, sorry), and then went to the national theatre which is affectionately called ji dan (chicken's egg). i find it humorous that mr. lei was confused when i told him that western media dubbed the olympic sports complex 'the birds nest' (because it so obviously looks like a birds nest!!) yet thought it was supposed to be obvious that this rounded glass building would be called the chicken's egg. sidenote: its not any old egg, it is a chicken's egg, get it right or pay the price.
oh, and i used a squatter... ugh.
now im deader than a doornail and trying not to fall into a beautiful deep sleep that would have me miss my dinner date with dr. zhou's friend, feng bei.
so last night, mr. lei told me that i needed to get a good rest and then to call him when i woke up. he was horrified when i called him at 6:30. come on, if i only get one day in beijing, do you really think im going to waste it on sleep? you can do that when youre dead (ps, its unseemly to talk about death in the morning). so we had to choose which places to go to because a lot of stuff closes early here and we are on a schedule. lei xiancheng had never been to the heaven temple so we decide we would both be tourists (yo che?) for the day.
after grabbing some street food (eeeeek! still alive, dont worry), we took the ditian (subway - $.35 for a ticket!) to the temple grounds. HOLY GOD this place is huge. leave it to the chinese. the grounds were beautiful, there were random pagodas and statues and gardens and fields and huge ancient junipers that smelled amazing. i learned a lot about the big buildings we saw, but im afraid im going to mislable them so instead i will post a couple pictures [later] to give you an idea and go from there.
potent potables include the 70 year old door that is only opened for emperors over the age of 70 (dont want the youngins getting lazy); the nine heavenly circles whose center enables you to speak 'sonorously'; more animal sacrifice than your body has room for; and a shirt on a passing girl that said 'go go sprash' (i reeeeeeeally wanted a picture of that one).
because we got such a headstart, there was time to go to tianmen square and gaze upon the amazing face of the good chairman. my battery died just as i got one picture with him. we paraded around the mao museum (literally around it - its only open in the morning :( ), the people's great museum (could be goofing the name, sorry), and then went to the national theatre which is affectionately called ji dan (chicken's egg). i find it humorous that mr. lei was confused when i told him that western media dubbed the olympic sports complex 'the birds nest' (because it so obviously looks like a birds nest!!) yet thought it was supposed to be obvious that this rounded glass building would be called the chicken's egg. sidenote: its not any old egg, it is a chicken's egg, get it right or pay the price.
oh, and i used a squatter... ugh.
now im deader than a doornail and trying not to fall into a beautiful deep sleep that would have me miss my dinner date with dr. zhou's friend, feng bei.
JFC SOO AWESOME
01:47BST 7/9/08HOME INN - BEIJING
first of all, i have to skip ahead and say INN my ass! this place is awesome! my room is huge and has everything a girl could want. im on the top floor, i have a king size (albeit uncomfortable) bed, a proper toilet, a sanitized water dispenser, desk, free internet, tv, and it just goes on and on. im down the street from the forbidden city right now. from what i was able to see, this is going to freaking rock!
i dont want to spend all night typing, so i figured i would jot down a couple things and fill in later PRN. 1. met an austrailian from melbourne who's here to train the army. he was wearing a route 66 t-shirt (the road, not the brand) and we chatted based on that. his name was RIFF, cool dude. 2. met mr. lei wenglin at the airport and chatted while driver mr. li, took us to the hotel. mr. lei lives right down the street from the hotel so it works out nice. 3. my plane leaves from kunming early thursday morning so we will have to make the best of tomorrow. mr. lei seems hesitant to go to the great wall but its near the top of my want to sees :(. well see. 4. chinese learned today: yi zhang feng ka - a room key. wu(4) - fog. btw, apparently its not foggy in beijing right now.... apparently. night!
first of all, i have to skip ahead and say INN my ass! this place is awesome! my room is huge and has everything a girl could want. im on the top floor, i have a king size (albeit uncomfortable) bed, a proper toilet, a sanitized water dispenser, desk, free internet, tv, and it just goes on and on. im down the street from the forbidden city right now. from what i was able to see, this is going to freaking rock!
i dont want to spend all night typing, so i figured i would jot down a couple things and fill in later PRN. 1. met an austrailian from melbourne who's here to train the army. he was wearing a route 66 t-shirt (the road, not the brand) and we chatted based on that. his name was RIFF, cool dude. 2. met mr. lei wenglin at the airport and chatted while driver mr. li, took us to the hotel. mr. lei lives right down the street from the hotel so it works out nice. 3. my plane leaves from kunming early thursday morning so we will have to make the best of tomorrow. mr. lei seems hesitant to go to the great wall but its near the top of my want to sees :(. well see. 4. chinese learned today: yi zhang feng ka - a room key. wu(4) - fog. btw, apparently its not foggy in beijing right now.... apparently. night!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
RUNNING ON FUMES
22:08BST 7/8/08
PUDONG to PEK
ive been trying to not scare people, though im fairly positive i look like a zombie. i tried to work on dr. wilson's book while i was in the airport, but i could only stare. just sit, stare, and think about a hot shower. i thought i was doing good until i got to pudong. it was pretty much downhill from there. between having to trek back and forth between ticket counters and the switch between extreme cold and too warm, i had become not sweaty but filmy. theres not other way to describe it.
i havent tried to straight up engage anyone in proper conversation, but i did manae to win that battle of the feiji piao (plane ticket), get through security checkpoints without english, ask why we were getting on a bus to go to a plane, and try to figure out if i would be able to see the shanghai shi zhong xin (city center) from the flight out. whether or not i was able to fully grasp the answers that came ENTIRELY TOO FAST (why do they talk so fast?!) and with words i didnt know is a different story.
i cant tell if the couple in the seat next to me think im an idiot or hysterical. most of the american looking people seem to keep their eyes to themselves and, as such, i havent seen a lot of cross cultural engagement. perhaps they all assume we dont shua any putonhua? when i got on the plane and confidently told the lady that she was in my seat, but if she would like the window, i didnt mind, her and her man just raised their eyebrows like, well then. when i told the flight attendent that i should maybe sit in another seat because i might not understand enough chinese to work the emergency exit, the couple rolled their eyes while the flight attendant really nicely said that if i could manage all of that i should be fine. when i ordered cha (tea), no reaction, but when i offered the guy my sandwich, again they both laughed.
so what does all of this mean? well im feeling a little disheartened bc i feel like i would expect this in france, not the good china. at the same time, why the hell would i care if someone with a heavy accent was trying to talk to me in broken english at the end of a long day? i think ill keep trying my luck with the flight attendants, they have that delighted vibe im looking for. even halfway around the world i guess im still just as vain as ever. maybe its not that though. when i was training to be a TL, dr. wang told us that it is a particular trait of honors students that they seek positive affirmation for their actions; first to double check along the way and second to encourage further growth or exploration.
im looking forward to getting into a nice hotel tonight. after all day sunday monday and tuesday with nothing but a half an hour of dozing here or there, i think im ready to collapse. the posts probably wont be as frequent when i have things to do, so soak up the minutia while its here okay? :)
PUDONG to PEK
ive been trying to not scare people, though im fairly positive i look like a zombie. i tried to work on dr. wilson's book while i was in the airport, but i could only stare. just sit, stare, and think about a hot shower. i thought i was doing good until i got to pudong. it was pretty much downhill from there. between having to trek back and forth between ticket counters and the switch between extreme cold and too warm, i had become not sweaty but filmy. theres not other way to describe it.
i havent tried to straight up engage anyone in proper conversation, but i did manae to win that battle of the feiji piao (plane ticket), get through security checkpoints without english, ask why we were getting on a bus to go to a plane, and try to figure out if i would be able to see the shanghai shi zhong xin (city center) from the flight out. whether or not i was able to fully grasp the answers that came ENTIRELY TOO FAST (why do they talk so fast?!) and with words i didnt know is a different story.
i cant tell if the couple in the seat next to me think im an idiot or hysterical. most of the american looking people seem to keep their eyes to themselves and, as such, i havent seen a lot of cross cultural engagement. perhaps they all assume we dont shua any putonhua? when i got on the plane and confidently told the lady that she was in my seat, but if she would like the window, i didnt mind, her and her man just raised their eyebrows like, well then. when i told the flight attendent that i should maybe sit in another seat because i might not understand enough chinese to work the emergency exit, the couple rolled their eyes while the flight attendant really nicely said that if i could manage all of that i should be fine. when i ordered cha (tea), no reaction, but when i offered the guy my sandwich, again they both laughed.
so what does all of this mean? well im feeling a little disheartened bc i feel like i would expect this in france, not the good china. at the same time, why the hell would i care if someone with a heavy accent was trying to talk to me in broken english at the end of a long day? i think ill keep trying my luck with the flight attendants, they have that delighted vibe im looking for. even halfway around the world i guess im still just as vain as ever. maybe its not that though. when i was training to be a TL, dr. wang told us that it is a particular trait of honors students that they seek positive affirmation for their actions; first to double check along the way and second to encourage further growth or exploration.
im looking forward to getting into a nice hotel tonight. after all day sunday monday and tuesday with nothing but a half an hour of dozing here or there, i think im ready to collapse. the posts probably wont be as frequent when i have things to do, so soak up the minutia while its here okay? :)
STOP 1: THE DRAGON LAUGHS
3:48am EST/ 15:48BST
PUDONG
so throughout the plane ride, i kept thinking that it would almost be awesome not to go. that this was going to be so difficult. that i could potentially run into some pretty awful circumstances that i wouldnt be able to get out of. the sense of foreboding didnt ebb as i was gathering my stuff to get off of the plane and onto the soil that ive wanted so badly to tread upon. you see, i didnt have a connecting ticket, i was told i would have to get one at the counter in shanghai - this only added to the anxiety. however, the second i stepped off of the plane and into the GINORMOUS airport (that is so so clean and designed to a T), i couldnt help but have a big stupid smile on my face.
i got through customs just fine, not without a little flirting with the official of course. the trouble really started when i wanted to get my connecting ticket. i waited in line and though i was reassured that they would all speak english, my girl and her neighbor did not. this is where i first kicked ass! "ying meiyou feiji piao." "SHENMA?!" "dui bu qi, women meiyou ni de ji piao, woman neng mai ni yi xin de piao" "bu shi, wo yijing mai yi chang feiji piao. zai meiguo, AA de ren gou su wo qu zhe li ye ba wo de piao. ru guo nimen zhen de meiyou, qing, gao su wo zai na li wo zao dao bang?" YES!!! translation? bitches, if you dont have my ticket you tell me who does! (only a lot nicer).
im now at an overpriced international center where im playing limited internet and plug in time. there are random plugs along the wall in the general airport, but theyre in really awkward places where guys with guns are walking around casually. so ill pay $4 for this amazing amazing mushroom soup and try to figure out how much to tip. do they tip in china? ughhhhh, so much i forgot to reference. i think i will pop into a bookstore (shu dian) to see if i can buy (mai) a loney planet guide or something... and then maybe a book cover so im not so obvious... bc my appearance isnt already lol.
if my calculations are correct, i still have 5 hours and three minutes to kill here. im tempted to see whats for dessert just so i can stay here longer... perhaps i will.
my next stop is beijing where i will be whisked away to [insert hotel here] to try to beat the jet lag before it beats me. im hoping that i dont get it. they gave me all day tomorrow to recover. im hoping that the combination of waking up early for a run on sunday morning, staying up all night on sunday night (i cant believe its already tuesday!), not sleeping on any planes and not trying too hard to think about what time it should be, perhaps i can one up this flaming doucheball they call jetlag.
i decided upon the green tea mousse cake. ITS DELICIOUS. everything ive had so far (soup and cake) has been seasoned perfectly. ohhhh fatness, how i embrace thee.
PUDONG
so throughout the plane ride, i kept thinking that it would almost be awesome not to go. that this was going to be so difficult. that i could potentially run into some pretty awful circumstances that i wouldnt be able to get out of. the sense of foreboding didnt ebb as i was gathering my stuff to get off of the plane and onto the soil that ive wanted so badly to tread upon. you see, i didnt have a connecting ticket, i was told i would have to get one at the counter in shanghai - this only added to the anxiety. however, the second i stepped off of the plane and into the GINORMOUS airport (that is so so clean and designed to a T), i couldnt help but have a big stupid smile on my face.
i got through customs just fine, not without a little flirting with the official of course. the trouble really started when i wanted to get my connecting ticket. i waited in line and though i was reassured that they would all speak english, my girl and her neighbor did not. this is where i first kicked ass! "ying meiyou feiji piao." "SHENMA?!" "dui bu qi, women meiyou ni de ji piao, woman neng mai ni yi xin de piao" "bu shi, wo yijing mai yi chang feiji piao. zai meiguo, AA de ren gou su wo qu zhe li ye ba wo de piao. ru guo nimen zhen de meiyou, qing, gao su wo zai na li wo zao dao bang?" YES!!! translation? bitches, if you dont have my ticket you tell me who does! (only a lot nicer).
im now at an overpriced international center where im playing limited internet and plug in time. there are random plugs along the wall in the general airport, but theyre in really awkward places where guys with guns are walking around casually. so ill pay $4 for this amazing amazing mushroom soup and try to figure out how much to tip. do they tip in china? ughhhhh, so much i forgot to reference. i think i will pop into a bookstore (shu dian) to see if i can buy (mai) a loney planet guide or something... and then maybe a book cover so im not so obvious... bc my appearance isnt already lol.
if my calculations are correct, i still have 5 hours and three minutes to kill here. im tempted to see whats for dessert just so i can stay here longer... perhaps i will.
my next stop is beijing where i will be whisked away to [insert hotel here] to try to beat the jet lag before it beats me. im hoping that i dont get it. they gave me all day tomorrow to recover. im hoping that the combination of waking up early for a run on sunday morning, staying up all night on sunday night (i cant believe its already tuesday!), not sleeping on any planes and not trying too hard to think about what time it should be, perhaps i can one up this flaming doucheball they call jetlag.
i decided upon the green tea mousse cake. ITS DELICIOUS. everything ive had so far (soup and cake) has been seasoned perfectly. ohhhh fatness, how i embrace thee.
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