We were in Chengde for a few days and today I tried to mail some things from the post office; it didn't work, it was hot, we'll try again tomorrow.
Today had plenty of those warm fuzzy study abroad moments, like talking to the manager at the restaurant to create a new kind of kong pow ji din (kung pow chicken) to have tofu instead, which was fantastic. There was reading about saving and giving face, which was something I'd discussed in English plenty of times with my dad, or thought about to myself. But today I thought about it and talked about it in its mother language. And what was interesting about that is the character used for face isn't necessarily 'face,' but more like a plane - that kind of abstract word. It's the same character you use for 'aspect,' and I'm realizing as I type this that I can't really explain it.
I taught Tan Qing how to say 'your MOM's blah blah blah,' and it turns out Chinese has kind of an equivalent. The best translation I can give is, "this food is his MOM'S good." I tried it out on one of the roommates I don't know very well and she laughed pretty hard. I asked if she was laughing at me (as opposed to with), and she said she was not. Success.
But I'm not really in China in my mind, I'm just thinking about place and my relationships with people, about the future, about how in the world will I find a job for this summer during a time period of five weeks.
I changed my major to a double major in Psychology and Chinese with a minor and Philosophy, and I'm super excited. I think I've been hiding for Psych for too long. There are a few reasons. One is that Guilford's psych department leaves a little to be desired and left a bad taste in my mouth for psych majors. I won't lie, I've met my share of psych majors that don't have two brain cells to rub together - and I find that ironic. But I figure I'll do it right - I'll do research, I will not tell stories from my own life in all my classes, and I will not diagnose myself or my friends with disorders that I do not have. I won't be like the Anth major in my Chinese class who answers our grammar questions, "What bad habits to Chinese people have that they should work on fixing?" with, "Every culture is different, there's no such thing as a bad habit." which is not only rude because it blatantly didn't use our grammar, but is also wrong. Unless you consider 'maladaptive' a neutral word, or something. In America, I'm sick of looking at women without curves, girls who are far skinnier than I am calling themselves fat. In China, I'm sick of seeing people throw bottles or ice cream wrappers or used tissues on the ground outside or to the side of a room. Someone will clean it up later.
I was on a train and a woman ate an apple, when she was done she dropped the core on the carpet. Then I saw her go back to her business, but interrupted herself later to look down at the apple. This is a critical moment, I thought, she feels remorse for littering on this train. Then she got up and walked to the closest seat. I'm guessing she wasn't happy with her seat now that there was an apple core there. Then one of the workers on the train walked over and she too took her time to stare at the apple. This is the someone later, I figured. Here she comes to clean it up, I guess things aren't terrible so long as there is someone there. But then she kicked the apple under the table. She went through great effort with her shoe to get it pushed to the side, out of sight. Then she walked away.
I'm not lying, she came back five minutes later with a broom, and I realized it was for some other purpose when she used the broom to again push the apple to the side. At this point the carpet had apple mung all over it and, to everyone's surprise, I guess, the apple was still there.
That's just something I don't quite understand, and to be completely honest it scares the crap out of me.
I don't mean to sound distant, but it is a weird time. Less than a month left in China - who knows when I'll be back? I've made friends with Tan Qing, real friends, and I'm not sure what'll become of our friendship when I go back to America. But I think this is something to talk about in a real journal.
It's too weird to me that in Chapel Hill everything's wrapping up now, that everything is hot and has bloomed, and in China things are only still thawing. I like to think about how that actually affects everyone's actual outlook. Making everyone twitterpated.
I need to go to sleep!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
a quote from a movie
"Every single cloud, every single tree, is beautiful. So why aren't we all, too?"
and Hello, You!
My, my, my.
When we last spoke, I believe I had just gotten back from Xi'an, and had about two weeks till Spring Break.
Those weeks went by rather quickly, the second one especially stressful. Finally getting my phone situation sorted out (kind of), applying to this stuff on campus, I can't even remember. It's documented somewhere but I'm not going to waste typing space.
Two weeks after getting back from Xi'an I had my midterm on a Friday, and my grade ended up being rather disappointing based solely off of several stupid mistakes.
Then off we went to Chengdu, Sichuan for a week of spring break. That was a blast.
Chengdu was kind of like a dirty Hawaii, except no ocean in sight.
We took a 30 hour hard bed train to get there. The couple riding on the bottom beds was super friendly, and they only flipped into another dialect a few times. I think I've finally realized why in English (and kind of in Chinese) all the different languages of certain areas are referred to as "dialects" and not "languages," (dialects would be the wrong word because they indeed are not mutually intelligible). My guess is that for one, the writing is exactly the same. But then for two, Chinese people think they SHOULD be mutually intelligible. Even though they know when they can't understand each other, they still feel like they're speaking the same language - the language of China. More on this later.
First night in Chengdu we went out to eat some hot pot, which is the specialty of Sichuan. I didn't really get to partake because all the meat is together in the pot, but I did have my own cute little pot where I was able to add spice to my liking. I watched as my friends tried duck tongue - but none of us knew what the word was in Chinese at first - so we were convinced that what my friends were eating were praying mantises.
The hostel was gorgeous and cheap, and it was fun surprising the management with our speaking Chinese. It was weird to see that many Westerners together for the first time outside of CET. It was the usual hostel crowd, like stepping into the Astor Museum Inn, only in Chengdu. Except I found it odd that everyone was eating the hostel food and not venturing out where things are cheaper and obviously better. Then I realized, they can't speak Chinese! How do you order food in China if you can't speak Chinese?! Well, I could happily tell you that you POINT to PICTURES that they have for the convenience of I don't even know who. And a lot of restaurants do have English versions, but I've never been clear as to why, because there isn't one place in China that I've been to so far that has many foreigners - except that one bar. I think it'd be kind of hard to travel to China without knowing any Chinese.
Anyway, the second day (Sunday) we woke up bright and early to go to Jiu Zhai Gou, a huge park in China where Hero was filmed. But at the bus station they wouldn't allow us to buy bus tickets. "Foreigners aren't being allowed in, it's way too dangerous. You can fly in if you want."
But then the bus driver ran up to us and was trying to get us to buy his ticket. Other people gathered around, as they do... all the time, whenever we're having a dialogue about getting some help. They kept shaking their heads and saying not to trust the bus driver.
As we were leaving a shady looking dude came up and said that we should look at his bus for the 9 hour trip. He said, "Take a look, I'll take you guys, we'll work something out." But we kept insisting that he asked his boss if it was all right if he took foreigners (though we never really planned to go with him, we were curious). Finally he called, and he looked surprised and disappointed. "Actually it's too dangerous, we can't be taken responsible for whatever happens to you guys."
But we had heard the route is fine! They kept saying that it's because the route still hadn't been cleaned up from the earth quakes.
Back we went to the hostel, and now it was maybe 8:00 AM. We opened up our lonely planet and checked out what was in our proximity, and discovered that we were within a few hours of one of China's four sacred mountains - Emei Shan (Mt. Emei) - famous for its Golden Summit, and the "playful monkeys" that line the trail. Hey man, let's do it, we figured, and we'll be back to Chengdu by Wednesday at the latest.
By that afternoon we were basically lost hiking around the base of the mountain, just trying to find where to buy tickets and where the main trail was. We went and asked a guy who looked about thirty, who said, "I myself am not too clear! Hey, maybe it's this way." After learning we were American he started asking us about how we felt about Obama, etc. Turns out that the Chinese are in love with Obama because they see him as the economic savior of America. I hear he has something like a 90% approval rate here.
About fifteen minutes in he said, "Hey, I'm going to go [hike] with you guys."
We found the tickets, and started up the stairs. We talked about all kinds of things that now I have absolutely no memory of. That's what happens when you don't journal. Every thirty minutes or so there'd be a rest stop where there'd be big glass jars filled with water and pineapples on a stick. Another reason why to love China - the fruit.
In the second or third hour, while we were resting a bit we said, "Well hey, what's your name?" He told us his (Song) and then gave us all the histories of all our names. Mickey's name, Li Hai'in, meaning Eagle of the ocean (a very bad ass name), Rebecca Russell's (and this is her actual Chinese name) being Mei Fang (I mispelled it many times on this very blog) - Fragrant aroma, and mine meaning Sincerity... or really, to be frank. Apparently many workers on the great wall had my name.
The whole day I was simply amazed at the beauty of the mountain. It was so lush. All I had seen for a few months was the cold winter gray of Beijing. I always love the way it looks when you're in a forest and you can see layers of canopy, something about that has always put me at great peace. I remember during sophomore year of high school one of my friends had her birthday party at Bur Mill park, and some friends and I ventured off to hike around in the woods. We came to a stop and I realized it was the first time I had felt connected to anything other than my studies in a long time. That summer I ended up making a lot more visits to the park, but now it's been two years since I've seen Bur Mill.
At one point we saw some whities. What were they doing here?! There was a rounder, bearded Australian man, followed by a stringy Welschman and one of the most beautiful Chinese women I've seen ... in all of China. As is the custom in China, when you meet a foreigner, you ask them why in the world they're here! Immediately, no introductions. "Hi! What are you up to?" Turns out they'd been searching for rare birds, Emeishan having 300 kinds. They also informed us that Jiu Zhai Gou was not accessible to foreigners right now because there are a lot of Tibetans living within it... and the Chinese government didn't want us getting into contact with them, I assume. Worried about our safety, my butt.
I asked the Australian what types of rare birds were there, and he wasn't able to give me an answer. Maybe I needed to pay him. They seemed to be regarding us as some kind of stupid American college tourists, or something. It aggravated me. I would get back at them, just you wait.
At one point we realized we were slowly but steadily going downhill, which didn't make sense, but I was enjoying my time anyway. Then we came to a lake surrounded by mountains, and we encountered plenty more people. Then the landscape really started looking like King Kong. Thaaat was cool.
We realized that the 3 hours or so we had hiked had largely been a waste of time, as we had basically just gone to another entrance to the base, which we could have gotten to by bus. No worries.
A woman with a cane approached us and said that as it was starting to get dark we'd need to stay with her in her hotel. We largely ignored her. She kept talking to us, and interpreted our ignoring her as us not understanding. She turned to Song, "It's so hard to talk to them when they don't understand!" In chorus: "We all understand what you're saying." Her: "Do you really understand?" In chorus: "Yes. We really understand."
That is super annoying. When we got here for orientation, our RA had us watch a clip from Harold and Kumar II, where the parents of Harold and Kumar, Korean and Indian Americans, respectively, are being interviewed. Rob Cordory refuses to realize that they in fact are speaking in clear English to him, which makes for a pretty funny scene. Our RA told us that we should realize this very scene may happen in China - people will refuse to understand that you are speaking Chinese to them, even if you speak VERY WELL. No way, I thought. If you're speaking Chinese, they'll know! It must just be if you're speaking quietly, or something.
Not the case. Sometimes I'll talk to people for a minute or so, and I know that my grammar, tones, and accent are pretty solid, and after having a conversation about real topics, they'll pause to say, "So can you understand me right now?" When I say, "...Yeah. I still understand you." they get excited. This is after I said sentences like, "Though I know America isn't necessarily the safest place in the world, it's my home and it's where I'd like to live."
Okay, so this woman started hiking with us too because she decided she was going to make sure she got some foreigners to stay with her that night. We checked a monastery for prices on sleeping with them, and it turned out their digs were more expensive, so with the lady we went.
That night she cooked us dinner, and we all ate with Song. Turns out he's a philosopher and was super excited when I told him that was my major. Sometimes what he said made me sad, "I like to come to this mountain just to have some time to think about things. I'll be thirty soon," he said, and I realized that he probably had no family of his own to speak of. Then I kind of realized maybe the context in which he met us. That night we all gave him our contact information, and he said he'd like to keep up with us through the years, we can practice our Chinese and he can learn about how his American friends are doing, and have "a cultural exchange."
He left the following morning, and we all ate this disgusting effing breakfast that still makes me want to puke but at the time it was fine. It was like a sweat watery oatmeal with boiled eggs in it.
The real hike began - which was a weird hike because the entire mountain was paved with stairs. Apparently the volume of Chinese people is too high to not pave every single mountain in China.
I was definitely the slowest hiker throughout most of the day, but I was pretty positive! Everything was so beautiful and I had enough time to think about the way I go about things in life that during it I kept emphasizing that even though maybe I was having a rougher time the experience was good. I kept imagining my mom there and what ever she'd say to me. The experience reminded me of family vacations and made me really miss my family.
I started feeling uneasy, and every time I thought about what we ate for breakfast I started to gag. That meant I couldn't really snack when everyone else was, and at one point during one of the easier parts of the hike, while I was walking, I started feeling super duper sleepy.
Then, even though at no point during this hike did I feel too sore to go on, I felt too tired to go on. I literally just could not move my feet much faster. At one of our rest stops I was explaining this to Mei Fang and she said, "I know just what to do." She walked off and then I heard the very clear sound of a drumming woodpecker. There is a story behind this, but I've always loved trying to find woodpeckers. I wouldn't call myself a bird watcher, but I certainly had a stage of my life where one of my favorite things to do would be to take out the North American Birds book from a tall book case in our living room and look through all the woodpeckers and talk about them with my dad. Mei Fang came back over with an orange and I pointed out what looked like a pileated a few trees away from us. "Huh." we said together.
She said when she was hiking volcanoes in Guatemala, the locals would all bring lemons to sniff to help them get up the cliff. Figuring any citrus might help, she used Mickey's key to scrape off some skin of the orange and handed it to me. I also ate an apple.
And that was that. I was cured. I don't know if it was mental, or what, I really don't think it was, but as we started our hike up into winter, every time I got tired I'd sniff that orange like it was my job and just keep on going.
Oh - the monkeys - yes. When I was at my most exhausted point, and after I had just walked passed by some monks who responded to my "Hello!" with, "Praise Buddha," my friend Jiajia (her name is Emily but I have never called her that out loud unless on Skype) turned around and said, "Monkeys!"
Turns out these sacred/endangered Tibetan Macaques or whatever they're called are exactly what you'd expect out of a monkey. They're cute and they want your stuff. Except maybe these monkeys were cute from afar, not up close. There was a man who worked there holding a cane whose sole job was to beat the monkeys off of hikers. I was watching the monkeys from afar and trying to catch my breath, when he signals to me angrily, "HURRY UP!"
I practically ran. When we ate our lunch the guard silently stood three feet away from us, his cane in hand, magestic, yet still funny to me.
Okay so YES. We had started our hike in summer, it cooled down to spring, and when we were nearing the top there started to be a good amount of snow. We finally heard a road in the distance and then once again we met our friends: the Australian with the Welschman and Chinese woman.
"You hiked up this entire mountain today?!" The Welschman had been stoic and a little offputting the day before, now he was beaming at us. The Americans can accomplish something! I don't know. "That's at least 30 kilometers." We shrugged. I don't have really any hiking experience whatsoever but I'm pretty sure that's not a very impressive hike.
Then as they were about to go, I said, "Oh hey, I don't think I saw one of your rare 300 birds, but I did see a pileated woodpecker today!" The change on their expressions was hilarious. The Australian started to laugh, and the Welschman's pleasant smile faded quickly into what looked like a mix of fear and disbelief.
"A pileated woodpecker?" He asked like I wasn't supposed to know what that was.
"Yeah, at least it looked like the ones in North Carolina that I've seen. Maybe it's a different type of bird here."
"How do you know it was a woodpecker?" Come on, dude.
"Um, it was doing... its woodpecker thing, on the tree and not on a branch, drumming. And I'm pretty sure it was pileated because it had a red crest and a black and white wings." Then he almost sounded desperate.
"What about the breast. What color was the breast?!"
"I think it was white, I didn't see." Then he sighed.
Apparently the red breasted pileated or whatever it's called is pretty big doins... apparently, it was what the guy had been searching for, and had not found.
"He's pretty angry at you, all right!" said the Australian.
"I probably didn't see it! I didn't see the breast so it's probably just some other bird!" They both shook their heads. That's how we left them. ha-ha, that's what you get!
We did come to that road, and after again walking past some monkeys who ended up stealing Rebecca's water bottle and enduring the bad ass intimidation attempt of Mei Fang, we caught a gondola to the Golden Summit, which was not unlike the world of Narnia.
We were all exhausted and covered in sweat, only wearing tennis shoes, which didn't work well with the ice and snow. The sun was starting to set and we needed to find some place to stay, badly. We had read we could stay in the monastery, so again we hiked to where the fog was so thick there was probably nothing more than twenty feet visibility. Turns out only monks can live in the monastery. Crap.
We all collapsed at a table and Mickey went to go find somewhere. If we couldn't find some place to stay, we'd have to go back down the gondola and find a hotel there, and that would be another hour or so of wandering, which was something we all couldn't do. We just didn't have it in us (though I guess we would've had to!)
Mickey nearly ran back excited. He'd found a hotel AND haggled down to a good price. Though the hotel had no running water apparently there were electric blankets.
I set my backpack down in our room and the second I laid down on the bed I was incredibly nauseous. I've never felt nausea like that, it was awful. I had only eaten breakfast, a PB sandwich, and an apple that day, which I think didn't really help whatever situation I was in. I had enough energy to take off my sweaty clothes and pull a blanket over myself, but then I just kept shivering and writing and oh my god it was awful and I sound like such a whiner. I couldn't get up to get dinner and instead laid in bed from 6:30 PM to 6:00 AM, when I got up with everyone to go watch the sunrise.
Then I got sick. Gross. I would not type this usually but it's worth saying. When I finally did throw up, I checked my phone to see what time it was... and that was when I learned that UNC had become 2009 NCAA National Champions.
Me, Rebecca, and JiaJia finally got down to the bus stop and took an hour bus ride all the way down from the summit to the base of town, and then another bus from town back into Chengdu. All exhausted but in super good spirits, we checked back into the hostel. I took an incredibly appreciated shower and did my favorite thing to do when the weather's good and I feel clean: changed into a dress.
The rest of our time in Chengdu was relaxed and just wonderful. The city is in Southern China and people in Beijing like to make fun of Chengdu-ers because "all they do is hang out in tea houses and play majiang." You know what, it's true, and it's awesome.
We: went and got Chinese massage, went to the biggest market I'll probably ever see in my entire life, hung out in a tea house for four hours eating snacks and telling ghost stories, went to a touristy corner of town where I ended up buying this fabric I saw all over the place that I fell in love with, constantly stopped at fruit stands to try new things, went to the panda reserve, ate in a restaurant that was pretty much in a car garage, went to see a beautiful outdoor museum with statues of characters from the Three Kingdoms, and that's pretty much it! I enjoyed my time there so much, though during the last two days the air pollution was so terrible as I was walking I literally realized that I was going to be getting a cold from it. And I did.
Random things:
At the massage the man stuck his fingers in my ears and twisted them around. I started giggling nervously and kept asking him why that was necessary.
I was eating a fruit once and found a tiny caterpillar looking thing in the core. Mortified I resolved myself to go back to the stand and talk to the woman. I had no purpose, I just needed to have words. We got into an argument, and she won, because we were coming from completely other sides of the world. It is now hilarious, and it was even funny at the time. Our argument was in good spirits but was also incredibly bizarre. For this story ask me in person, it cannot be typed.
Most dialects of Chinese outside of Beijing don't have retroflexes, which sounds to me like they all have speech impediments, which is fun. I tried out my Sichuan accent and that was really fun. A dude from Yunnan told me I had a strong Beijing accent, which in some cases is not something to be proud of. But I am.
We got back and I realized that I DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT IN CHINA. I am so in love with Chinese people and the way life is here, though I am also... missing home a lot. But it's a healthy missing home.
The week after spring break I re-evaluated my study habits. For some reason, even though I'd been studying hard, my grades just weren't as great as they could be. I kept making 88s on things which is the most frustrating grade in the world. So then I reformatted my study time. now every night I do all my homework and then read all my dialogues exhaustively, usually for about an hour and a half. So now it's to the point where I'm doing 4-5 hours of homework a night. I love this program but I'm pretty sure it's not as relaxed as other study abroad programs. I don't really mind, I've gotten pretty accustomed to how my study life is. I go to class, then eat lunch in the cafeteria with everyone, then have my 1-1 or 1-2, then study all afternoon in my room. At one point maybe a few of the Chinese roommates or Tan Qing and her boyfriend will come back and I'll talk to them, and that's always really nice.
Every night there are one of two restaurants that we go to. That's my favorite time - I almost always go with Mei Fang and Mickey, generally Tan Qing and Li Xuan, and sometimes Jiajia, Guang Nan, or CETers who we might see walking there. We do... happy crappy. Every night. I love it.
So last Friday my test went way better, and I think this week it also went well.
There's a roommate here who pretty much serves as everyone's tourguide through China. He's incredibly friendly and loves teaching us about Chinese history and things like that, and he likes hearing about American phrases (though usually we just tell him how you'd say it, but use Chinese). He taught us how to play Majiang yesterday and I had the most fun time. I'm going to try and buy a set, and tonight we're going to have a majiang night in our room.
I've been typing this for about an hour, so I'm going to go now!
OH I met Tan Qing's family but I'll just talk about that later!
When we last spoke, I believe I had just gotten back from Xi'an, and had about two weeks till Spring Break.
Those weeks went by rather quickly, the second one especially stressful. Finally getting my phone situation sorted out (kind of), applying to this stuff on campus, I can't even remember. It's documented somewhere but I'm not going to waste typing space.
Two weeks after getting back from Xi'an I had my midterm on a Friday, and my grade ended up being rather disappointing based solely off of several stupid mistakes.
Then off we went to Chengdu, Sichuan for a week of spring break. That was a blast.
Chengdu was kind of like a dirty Hawaii, except no ocean in sight.
We took a 30 hour hard bed train to get there. The couple riding on the bottom beds was super friendly, and they only flipped into another dialect a few times. I think I've finally realized why in English (and kind of in Chinese) all the different languages of certain areas are referred to as "dialects" and not "languages," (dialects would be the wrong word because they indeed are not mutually intelligible). My guess is that for one, the writing is exactly the same. But then for two, Chinese people think they SHOULD be mutually intelligible. Even though they know when they can't understand each other, they still feel like they're speaking the same language - the language of China. More on this later.
First night in Chengdu we went out to eat some hot pot, which is the specialty of Sichuan. I didn't really get to partake because all the meat is together in the pot, but I did have my own cute little pot where I was able to add spice to my liking. I watched as my friends tried duck tongue - but none of us knew what the word was in Chinese at first - so we were convinced that what my friends were eating were praying mantises.
The hostel was gorgeous and cheap, and it was fun surprising the management with our speaking Chinese. It was weird to see that many Westerners together for the first time outside of CET. It was the usual hostel crowd, like stepping into the Astor Museum Inn, only in Chengdu. Except I found it odd that everyone was eating the hostel food and not venturing out where things are cheaper and obviously better. Then I realized, they can't speak Chinese! How do you order food in China if you can't speak Chinese?! Well, I could happily tell you that you POINT to PICTURES that they have for the convenience of I don't even know who. And a lot of restaurants do have English versions, but I've never been clear as to why, because there isn't one place in China that I've been to so far that has many foreigners - except that one bar. I think it'd be kind of hard to travel to China without knowing any Chinese.
Anyway, the second day (Sunday) we woke up bright and early to go to Jiu Zhai Gou, a huge park in China where Hero was filmed. But at the bus station they wouldn't allow us to buy bus tickets. "Foreigners aren't being allowed in, it's way too dangerous. You can fly in if you want."
But then the bus driver ran up to us and was trying to get us to buy his ticket. Other people gathered around, as they do... all the time, whenever we're having a dialogue about getting some help. They kept shaking their heads and saying not to trust the bus driver.
As we were leaving a shady looking dude came up and said that we should look at his bus for the 9 hour trip. He said, "Take a look, I'll take you guys, we'll work something out." But we kept insisting that he asked his boss if it was all right if he took foreigners (though we never really planned to go with him, we were curious). Finally he called, and he looked surprised and disappointed. "Actually it's too dangerous, we can't be taken responsible for whatever happens to you guys."
But we had heard the route is fine! They kept saying that it's because the route still hadn't been cleaned up from the earth quakes.
Back we went to the hostel, and now it was maybe 8:00 AM. We opened up our lonely planet and checked out what was in our proximity, and discovered that we were within a few hours of one of China's four sacred mountains - Emei Shan (Mt. Emei) - famous for its Golden Summit, and the "playful monkeys" that line the trail. Hey man, let's do it, we figured, and we'll be back to Chengdu by Wednesday at the latest.
By that afternoon we were basically lost hiking around the base of the mountain, just trying to find where to buy tickets and where the main trail was. We went and asked a guy who looked about thirty, who said, "I myself am not too clear! Hey, maybe it's this way." After learning we were American he started asking us about how we felt about Obama, etc. Turns out that the Chinese are in love with Obama because they see him as the economic savior of America. I hear he has something like a 90% approval rate here.
About fifteen minutes in he said, "Hey, I'm going to go [hike] with you guys."
We found the tickets, and started up the stairs. We talked about all kinds of things that now I have absolutely no memory of. That's what happens when you don't journal. Every thirty minutes or so there'd be a rest stop where there'd be big glass jars filled with water and pineapples on a stick. Another reason why to love China - the fruit.
In the second or third hour, while we were resting a bit we said, "Well hey, what's your name?" He told us his (Song) and then gave us all the histories of all our names. Mickey's name, Li Hai'in, meaning Eagle of the ocean (a very bad ass name), Rebecca Russell's (and this is her actual Chinese name) being Mei Fang (I mispelled it many times on this very blog) - Fragrant aroma, and mine meaning Sincerity... or really, to be frank. Apparently many workers on the great wall had my name.
The whole day I was simply amazed at the beauty of the mountain. It was so lush. All I had seen for a few months was the cold winter gray of Beijing. I always love the way it looks when you're in a forest and you can see layers of canopy, something about that has always put me at great peace. I remember during sophomore year of high school one of my friends had her birthday party at Bur Mill park, and some friends and I ventured off to hike around in the woods. We came to a stop and I realized it was the first time I had felt connected to anything other than my studies in a long time. That summer I ended up making a lot more visits to the park, but now it's been two years since I've seen Bur Mill.
At one point we saw some whities. What were they doing here?! There was a rounder, bearded Australian man, followed by a stringy Welschman and one of the most beautiful Chinese women I've seen ... in all of China. As is the custom in China, when you meet a foreigner, you ask them why in the world they're here! Immediately, no introductions. "Hi! What are you up to?" Turns out they'd been searching for rare birds, Emeishan having 300 kinds. They also informed us that Jiu Zhai Gou was not accessible to foreigners right now because there are a lot of Tibetans living within it... and the Chinese government didn't want us getting into contact with them, I assume. Worried about our safety, my butt.
I asked the Australian what types of rare birds were there, and he wasn't able to give me an answer. Maybe I needed to pay him. They seemed to be regarding us as some kind of stupid American college tourists, or something. It aggravated me. I would get back at them, just you wait.
At one point we realized we were slowly but steadily going downhill, which didn't make sense, but I was enjoying my time anyway. Then we came to a lake surrounded by mountains, and we encountered plenty more people. Then the landscape really started looking like King Kong. Thaaat was cool.
We realized that the 3 hours or so we had hiked had largely been a waste of time, as we had basically just gone to another entrance to the base, which we could have gotten to by bus. No worries.
A woman with a cane approached us and said that as it was starting to get dark we'd need to stay with her in her hotel. We largely ignored her. She kept talking to us, and interpreted our ignoring her as us not understanding. She turned to Song, "It's so hard to talk to them when they don't understand!" In chorus: "We all understand what you're saying." Her: "Do you really understand?" In chorus: "Yes. We really understand."
That is super annoying. When we got here for orientation, our RA had us watch a clip from Harold and Kumar II, where the parents of Harold and Kumar, Korean and Indian Americans, respectively, are being interviewed. Rob Cordory refuses to realize that they in fact are speaking in clear English to him, which makes for a pretty funny scene. Our RA told us that we should realize this very scene may happen in China - people will refuse to understand that you are speaking Chinese to them, even if you speak VERY WELL. No way, I thought. If you're speaking Chinese, they'll know! It must just be if you're speaking quietly, or something.
Not the case. Sometimes I'll talk to people for a minute or so, and I know that my grammar, tones, and accent are pretty solid, and after having a conversation about real topics, they'll pause to say, "So can you understand me right now?" When I say, "...Yeah. I still understand you." they get excited. This is after I said sentences like, "Though I know America isn't necessarily the safest place in the world, it's my home and it's where I'd like to live."
Okay, so this woman started hiking with us too because she decided she was going to make sure she got some foreigners to stay with her that night. We checked a monastery for prices on sleeping with them, and it turned out their digs were more expensive, so with the lady we went.
That night she cooked us dinner, and we all ate with Song. Turns out he's a philosopher and was super excited when I told him that was my major. Sometimes what he said made me sad, "I like to come to this mountain just to have some time to think about things. I'll be thirty soon," he said, and I realized that he probably had no family of his own to speak of. Then I kind of realized maybe the context in which he met us. That night we all gave him our contact information, and he said he'd like to keep up with us through the years, we can practice our Chinese and he can learn about how his American friends are doing, and have "a cultural exchange."
He left the following morning, and we all ate this disgusting effing breakfast that still makes me want to puke but at the time it was fine. It was like a sweat watery oatmeal with boiled eggs in it.
The real hike began - which was a weird hike because the entire mountain was paved with stairs. Apparently the volume of Chinese people is too high to not pave every single mountain in China.
I was definitely the slowest hiker throughout most of the day, but I was pretty positive! Everything was so beautiful and I had enough time to think about the way I go about things in life that during it I kept emphasizing that even though maybe I was having a rougher time the experience was good. I kept imagining my mom there and what ever she'd say to me. The experience reminded me of family vacations and made me really miss my family.
I started feeling uneasy, and every time I thought about what we ate for breakfast I started to gag. That meant I couldn't really snack when everyone else was, and at one point during one of the easier parts of the hike, while I was walking, I started feeling super duper sleepy.
Then, even though at no point during this hike did I feel too sore to go on, I felt too tired to go on. I literally just could not move my feet much faster. At one of our rest stops I was explaining this to Mei Fang and she said, "I know just what to do." She walked off and then I heard the very clear sound of a drumming woodpecker. There is a story behind this, but I've always loved trying to find woodpeckers. I wouldn't call myself a bird watcher, but I certainly had a stage of my life where one of my favorite things to do would be to take out the North American Birds book from a tall book case in our living room and look through all the woodpeckers and talk about them with my dad. Mei Fang came back over with an orange and I pointed out what looked like a pileated a few trees away from us. "Huh." we said together.
She said when she was hiking volcanoes in Guatemala, the locals would all bring lemons to sniff to help them get up the cliff. Figuring any citrus might help, she used Mickey's key to scrape off some skin of the orange and handed it to me. I also ate an apple.
And that was that. I was cured. I don't know if it was mental, or what, I really don't think it was, but as we started our hike up into winter, every time I got tired I'd sniff that orange like it was my job and just keep on going.
Oh - the monkeys - yes. When I was at my most exhausted point, and after I had just walked passed by some monks who responded to my "Hello!" with, "Praise Buddha," my friend Jiajia (her name is Emily but I have never called her that out loud unless on Skype) turned around and said, "Monkeys!"
Turns out these sacred/endangered Tibetan Macaques or whatever they're called are exactly what you'd expect out of a monkey. They're cute and they want your stuff. Except maybe these monkeys were cute from afar, not up close. There was a man who worked there holding a cane whose sole job was to beat the monkeys off of hikers. I was watching the monkeys from afar and trying to catch my breath, when he signals to me angrily, "HURRY UP!"
I practically ran. When we ate our lunch the guard silently stood three feet away from us, his cane in hand, magestic, yet still funny to me.
Okay so YES. We had started our hike in summer, it cooled down to spring, and when we were nearing the top there started to be a good amount of snow. We finally heard a road in the distance and then once again we met our friends: the Australian with the Welschman and Chinese woman.
"You hiked up this entire mountain today?!" The Welschman had been stoic and a little offputting the day before, now he was beaming at us. The Americans can accomplish something! I don't know. "That's at least 30 kilometers." We shrugged. I don't have really any hiking experience whatsoever but I'm pretty sure that's not a very impressive hike.
Then as they were about to go, I said, "Oh hey, I don't think I saw one of your rare 300 birds, but I did see a pileated woodpecker today!" The change on their expressions was hilarious. The Australian started to laugh, and the Welschman's pleasant smile faded quickly into what looked like a mix of fear and disbelief.
"A pileated woodpecker?" He asked like I wasn't supposed to know what that was.
"Yeah, at least it looked like the ones in North Carolina that I've seen. Maybe it's a different type of bird here."
"How do you know it was a woodpecker?" Come on, dude.
"Um, it was doing... its woodpecker thing, on the tree and not on a branch, drumming. And I'm pretty sure it was pileated because it had a red crest and a black and white wings." Then he almost sounded desperate.
"What about the breast. What color was the breast?!"
"I think it was white, I didn't see." Then he sighed.
Apparently the red breasted pileated or whatever it's called is pretty big doins... apparently, it was what the guy had been searching for, and had not found.
"He's pretty angry at you, all right!" said the Australian.
"I probably didn't see it! I didn't see the breast so it's probably just some other bird!" They both shook their heads. That's how we left them. ha-ha, that's what you get!
We did come to that road, and after again walking past some monkeys who ended up stealing Rebecca's water bottle and enduring the bad ass intimidation attempt of Mei Fang, we caught a gondola to the Golden Summit, which was not unlike the world of Narnia.
We were all exhausted and covered in sweat, only wearing tennis shoes, which didn't work well with the ice and snow. The sun was starting to set and we needed to find some place to stay, badly. We had read we could stay in the monastery, so again we hiked to where the fog was so thick there was probably nothing more than twenty feet visibility. Turns out only monks can live in the monastery. Crap.
We all collapsed at a table and Mickey went to go find somewhere. If we couldn't find some place to stay, we'd have to go back down the gondola and find a hotel there, and that would be another hour or so of wandering, which was something we all couldn't do. We just didn't have it in us (though I guess we would've had to!)
Mickey nearly ran back excited. He'd found a hotel AND haggled down to a good price. Though the hotel had no running water apparently there were electric blankets.
I set my backpack down in our room and the second I laid down on the bed I was incredibly nauseous. I've never felt nausea like that, it was awful. I had only eaten breakfast, a PB sandwich, and an apple that day, which I think didn't really help whatever situation I was in. I had enough energy to take off my sweaty clothes and pull a blanket over myself, but then I just kept shivering and writing and oh my god it was awful and I sound like such a whiner. I couldn't get up to get dinner and instead laid in bed from 6:30 PM to 6:00 AM, when I got up with everyone to go watch the sunrise.
Then I got sick. Gross. I would not type this usually but it's worth saying. When I finally did throw up, I checked my phone to see what time it was... and that was when I learned that UNC had become 2009 NCAA National Champions.
Me, Rebecca, and JiaJia finally got down to the bus stop and took an hour bus ride all the way down from the summit to the base of town, and then another bus from town back into Chengdu. All exhausted but in super good spirits, we checked back into the hostel. I took an incredibly appreciated shower and did my favorite thing to do when the weather's good and I feel clean: changed into a dress.
The rest of our time in Chengdu was relaxed and just wonderful. The city is in Southern China and people in Beijing like to make fun of Chengdu-ers because "all they do is hang out in tea houses and play majiang." You know what, it's true, and it's awesome.
We: went and got Chinese massage, went to the biggest market I'll probably ever see in my entire life, hung out in a tea house for four hours eating snacks and telling ghost stories, went to a touristy corner of town where I ended up buying this fabric I saw all over the place that I fell in love with, constantly stopped at fruit stands to try new things, went to the panda reserve, ate in a restaurant that was pretty much in a car garage, went to see a beautiful outdoor museum with statues of characters from the Three Kingdoms, and that's pretty much it! I enjoyed my time there so much, though during the last two days the air pollution was so terrible as I was walking I literally realized that I was going to be getting a cold from it. And I did.
Random things:
At the massage the man stuck his fingers in my ears and twisted them around. I started giggling nervously and kept asking him why that was necessary.
I was eating a fruit once and found a tiny caterpillar looking thing in the core. Mortified I resolved myself to go back to the stand and talk to the woman. I had no purpose, I just needed to have words. We got into an argument, and she won, because we were coming from completely other sides of the world. It is now hilarious, and it was even funny at the time. Our argument was in good spirits but was also incredibly bizarre. For this story ask me in person, it cannot be typed.
Most dialects of Chinese outside of Beijing don't have retroflexes, which sounds to me like they all have speech impediments, which is fun. I tried out my Sichuan accent and that was really fun. A dude from Yunnan told me I had a strong Beijing accent, which in some cases is not something to be proud of. But I am.
We got back and I realized that I DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT IN CHINA. I am so in love with Chinese people and the way life is here, though I am also... missing home a lot. But it's a healthy missing home.
The week after spring break I re-evaluated my study habits. For some reason, even though I'd been studying hard, my grades just weren't as great as they could be. I kept making 88s on things which is the most frustrating grade in the world. So then I reformatted my study time. now every night I do all my homework and then read all my dialogues exhaustively, usually for about an hour and a half. So now it's to the point where I'm doing 4-5 hours of homework a night. I love this program but I'm pretty sure it's not as relaxed as other study abroad programs. I don't really mind, I've gotten pretty accustomed to how my study life is. I go to class, then eat lunch in the cafeteria with everyone, then have my 1-1 or 1-2, then study all afternoon in my room. At one point maybe a few of the Chinese roommates or Tan Qing and her boyfriend will come back and I'll talk to them, and that's always really nice.
Every night there are one of two restaurants that we go to. That's my favorite time - I almost always go with Mei Fang and Mickey, generally Tan Qing and Li Xuan, and sometimes Jiajia, Guang Nan, or CETers who we might see walking there. We do... happy crappy. Every night. I love it.
So last Friday my test went way better, and I think this week it also went well.
There's a roommate here who pretty much serves as everyone's tourguide through China. He's incredibly friendly and loves teaching us about Chinese history and things like that, and he likes hearing about American phrases (though usually we just tell him how you'd say it, but use Chinese). He taught us how to play Majiang yesterday and I had the most fun time. I'm going to try and buy a set, and tonight we're going to have a majiang night in our room.
I've been typing this for about an hour, so I'm going to go now!
OH I met Tan Qing's family but I'll just talk about that later!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Over two weeks have gone by since I last posted
First, the Summer Palace. We went there two weekends ago.
Not very much needs to said about this that you couldn't read on wikipedia, except that in that last picture you're looking at the view of, get ready: The Temple of the Dragon King. I'm not sure if there's a cooler title of a building than that. The Dragon King doesn't sit around protecting gold like those lame European dragons, no, instead he controls the weather and gets into fights with the monkey king.
I took too many pictures in painting class last week. I got all my homework finished up early last Tuesday so I could stay after and work on mei huar - beautiful flowers. I wasn't super successful, but it gave me peace of mind to devote some extra time to it.
Then, we celebrated Tan Qing's birthday and one of our friends brought over her new kitten, Chuanr. That means 'boat,' though she said it doesn't have any particular meaning. This cat looks like a fox. I can't stand how cute he is, and his meow is now coming in. Sometimes when I'm studying his mom (she lives the floor below me) brings him up and he runs around the apartment meowing his sweet little kitten meow. For some reason, he's fascinated with our toilet, so I chase him around the place trying to shoo him away, "I can't take it!! I can't take it!! He's too cute! I'm taking him home to America!"
I took too many pictures in painting class last week. I got all my homework finished up early last Tuesday so I could stay after and work on mei huar - beautiful flowers. I wasn't super successful, but it gave me peace of mind to devote some extra time to it.
Then, we celebrated Tan Qing's birthday and one of our friends brought over her new kitten, Chuanr. That means 'boat,' though she said it doesn't have any particular meaning. This cat looks like a fox. I can't stand how cute he is, and his meow is now coming in. Sometimes when I'm studying his mom (she lives the floor below me) brings him up and he runs around the apartment meowing his sweet little kitten meow. For some reason, he's fascinated with our toilet, so I chase him around the place trying to shoo him away, "I can't take it!! I can't take it!! He's too cute! I'm taking him home to America!"
On Thursday evening all of us CETers hopped onto a sleeper train, excited and all slowly getting sick (thanks to yours truly), onward to Xi'an. These pictures are us settling in. The especially terrifying one is everyone pretending to be ghosts? In Asia, ghosts usually have their hair in front of their face with their arms out stretched. And are really tall, from what I hear. In this rendition, they also like giving the middle finger.
That night we played the Chinese version of Never Have I Ever and Would You Rather. It turned out being really cute. I didn't get any pictures in of the set up, but the T sleeper train (T for tebie kuai, meaning "especially fast") has two sets of bunks, each bunk with three beds. The lights go out at 10:30, and we pulled into Xi'an around 8:00 AM. But at 7:00 loud music started playing, "welcoming" us into the city. There were rice fields. In one of those pictures you should be able to see a person, to give some perspective.
I'm not going to go into it, but CET absolutely loves to make us play the "Amazing Chase." Sound familiar? You know, that wonderful show on ABC where people run around the world seeking out cultural places etc. Really fun to watch. Maybe a little stressful to watch. Maybe more stressful to play, in the real world. It was me and my roommate, Rebecca (whose Chinese name is Mei Feng, by the way, and I might interchange those) and her roommate, Xiao-ou.
Fun fact, Mei Feng means beautiful breeze. Xiao-ou means... little seagull. Xiao-ou, how do I describe this girl? I can't. She kind of reminds me a little of my aunt Kathy. Every day is different - sometimes a little gangster, sometimes super femme, but always looking good.
Tan Qing and I have the perfect roommate relationship. When we're working in the room, there might be total silence for hours. When we talk there's plenty of mutual understanding and giggling, even if our conversations are often buffered by my saying, "I know that grammar's weird, but do you understand what I'm saying?"
Back to the story.
We were on our own to get to our hotel. I mean, that was easy enough, but kind of a uh...refreshing wake up call. I stole a shower in. Yessss.
Then we were given our first assignment - go to the Muslim quarter of Xi'an and get yourself some food. Take pictures of you eating the food. Love the food. Be the food. Well, not all that, but I'll tell you that this trip ended up being a very big eating food sort of deal.
Chinese has a phrase called xiao chi, which means "little eats/foods" - basically whatever you see on the street is a xiao chi, and then some restaurants are called xyz xiao chi.
I xiao chi'd the crap out of Saturday. Xi'an was filled with vendors selling all kind of dried fruit, ground up walnuts (tasting like the inside of a Butterfinger), meats, pumpkin rolls filled with whatever, tons and tons and tons, and it was all delicious. My absolute favorite of them all was some dough filled with dates and red bean paste. The fatter, more delicious and wonderful cousin of the Fig Newton.
After breakfast we meandered around the streets, and then went to an Islamic temple. Well, first we went to another one but women weren't allowed. "But that other lady's in the temple." "She's a journalist." "Oh... okay bye!"
Then to the real temple. It was there that we got a little tired of waiting for directions as to where the next location was. We bailed on the Amazing Chase after the second destination. So sue us. You would have, too. While whining we snacked and took pictures.
Where we went next just so happened to be the next stop on the Chase, which was this artist's shop in this little alley. Some really great folk art, I may have snagged a few pieces for 30 kuai a piece, myself.
Caught a taxi to the Pagoda built where the monk who first brought Buddhism from India to China translated thousands of texts. First walked around a bit,
smelled the incense, then climbed the seven stories of the pagoda,
and took pictures! That isn't fog.
The yard by the Pagoda was the most real-seeming green that I've seen since coming to China. We sat and relaxed for an hour or so. The green made me miss home.
Xi'an was pretty fun in general, though I could have done without the added stress. Doing that same kind of activity in New York would be stressful enough, I was thinking, but in China I already have trouble understanding what's going on to add on some competition to it. That day I was exhausted and sick and so my Chinese was especially bad. Some times I just have bad Chinese days, even if I haven't been reading or speaking a lot of English (not with CETers but when talking with home etc).
That night we went to one of the most famous dumpling places in China. I don't know, it was all right, but I realize that my palate is now totally spoiled to the food here. Check out this dish.
You might want to click on it to see it.
Take a guess at what it is. This is the type of stuff that only my dad is totally into. Actually, I'd eat it if I ate meat. Anyway, it's jellyfish!! Mm mmm. Are you... shocked?! Hee hee. Please forgive me.
On Saturday we went to see the Terra-cotta soldiers. I felt so grateful to see them, though I think the most interesting part of the whole story was that the man who discovered them was just some farmer trying to dig a well. And the site where he was digging the well was maybe like... three feet into the entire site of the Terra-cotta soldiers. So had he been just a hair farther away... we'd never have what we do today. It's kind of like the butterfly effect, you know? How many Terra-cotta soldiers have you missed out on in your life time, or what do you already have that you almost didn't?
The only thing that I'll add that Wikipedia couldn't tell you is that surrounding this wonderful UNESCO get away is America's own KFC. I've seen more KFCs here than McDonalds's.
Now I'm back here and another week has gone by. This post took me SO LONG to put up because blogspot didn't want to put pictures up, and I refused to post without pictures. I've literally been trying since Monday.
The weather is getting kind of better, sometimes it's in the 50s now. At any rate, that's good enough for me to walk around some and... sample Beijing's street vendor's stuff!
For instance, five feet away from our dorm is a couple who sell pineapples. Get yourself two freshly-skinned pineapples for 5 kuai.
"I have kind of a not very smart question..."
"Hey, don't worry about it!"
"Okay. I want to buy your pineapple... but I don't know how to eat it."
"You just... eat it! Hold the stem and eat it."
Needless to say, the Chinese are my kind of people. I bought two and brought them back to the dorm. Rebecca and I crouched over the trash can, held the stems, and ate like animals (with opposable thumbs, Reed adds). Let me tell you, best pineapple eating experience of my life, though I had to wash my face afterwards. I will be finding the tool they use to skin the pineapples. It's too neat.
That was last week, so now me eating pineapples like that is old news!
This week there was a man selling what looked to be bamboo on the street. But my teacher said it was NOT bamboo, something sweet! "Like candy!" she said.
I walked up to the man and looked at what he was selling. Oh. OH! Sugar cane!
But these canes were, like, five feet tall.
"How much is that? I just want a really really small piece. NO NOT THAT BIG. Small. The smallest. Smaller! EXTREMELY SMALL. Perfect!"
Then he had me hold it as he took out this machete or something to slice it. "PLEASE DON'T CUT ME I'M SO NERVOUS." "Hey, it's nothing! I'm not going to cut you! Relax!" Then I handed him 3 kuai. He said I didn't speak Chinese too badly, and then asked if I was German.
Again, I went back to my dorm and learned for the eighth time that it is perfectly okay just to gnaw at some things. Bags of milk, pineapple, sugar cane, just gnaw! Meiguanxi!
A couple days ago I realized in a panic that I only have a little over two months left here. What?! My friend made me list out all the things that I want to do while I'm still here. After I did that, I actually felt pretty good - I don't have the loftiest of plans.
But Spring Break is going to be amazing.
We'll leave April 3rd, Friday night, and get on a train to Zhang You. Fast forward to early Sunday morning, when we arrive in Zhang You. Then on a bus to Jiu Jia Gou, one of the biggest and from what I hear most beautiful parks in China, to hike around. If you remember the scene from Hero where they sword fight over water... we're going to see that lake! On the 8th we'll head to Song Pan and spend a day or two there, and ride horses! Afterwards, to Chengdu. I'm so excited to see real green space here, and it's just a week away! I'll be going with Rebecca, Mickey, and Jiajia - all very cool and fun people who I'm looking forward to getting to know better. The only thing I'm afraid of is the food that awaits us. Sichuan is the spice capital of China. We'll be bringing lots of peanut butter.
Tomorrow me and Tan Qing and maybe some other people are going to go get an authentic Chinese massage. This is another thing that I've wanted to do since coming here. My back has been oddly tight since I've gotten here. One of my friends who will not be revealed felt my back after I told her how tense it was and said, "Dang. I'm going to let you in on a secret. I took a massage class a few years ago and you're the first person who I've felt like revealing that to. I will help you." Things might work out there.
I'm also working on procuring an erhu teacher... as well as an erhu.
The final plan is to see some real Beijing opera. I know that's not necessarily something that every college aged Beijinger is super into, but I figure that I'm here and ever since seeing Farewell, my Concubine in that Chinese culture class at Guilford I've wanted to see some.
Other than that, I'm happy just going to restaurants and wandering here and there. When the weather gets better, I hope that I'll be able to be outside more and experience Beijing.
Tonight... we're venturing to a Mexican food restaurant. Hah! The Chinese roommates are pumped. I'm also curious to see if it's Mexican or American Mexican. When I ate Mexican in Scotland it was ridiculously good but also unlike any Mexican food I'd ever eaten.
I have discovered a favorite food here, and that would be maladoufu - tingly/numb tofu. Chinese has two words for spicy, ma (numb) and la (tingly). I can handle ma, not la.
I just got finished talking about spring break plans with the group and I'm so pumped.
That night we played the Chinese version of Never Have I Ever and Would You Rather. It turned out being really cute. I didn't get any pictures in of the set up, but the T sleeper train (T for tebie kuai, meaning "especially fast") has two sets of bunks, each bunk with three beds. The lights go out at 10:30, and we pulled into Xi'an around 8:00 AM. But at 7:00 loud music started playing, "welcoming" us into the city. There were rice fields. In one of those pictures you should be able to see a person, to give some perspective.
I'm not going to go into it, but CET absolutely loves to make us play the "Amazing Chase." Sound familiar? You know, that wonderful show on ABC where people run around the world seeking out cultural places etc. Really fun to watch. Maybe a little stressful to watch. Maybe more stressful to play, in the real world. It was me and my roommate, Rebecca (whose Chinese name is Mei Feng, by the way, and I might interchange those) and her roommate, Xiao-ou.
Fun fact, Mei Feng means beautiful breeze. Xiao-ou means... little seagull. Xiao-ou, how do I describe this girl? I can't. She kind of reminds me a little of my aunt Kathy. Every day is different - sometimes a little gangster, sometimes super femme, but always looking good.
Tan Qing and I have the perfect roommate relationship. When we're working in the room, there might be total silence for hours. When we talk there's plenty of mutual understanding and giggling, even if our conversations are often buffered by my saying, "I know that grammar's weird, but do you understand what I'm saying?"
Back to the story.
We were on our own to get to our hotel. I mean, that was easy enough, but kind of a uh...refreshing wake up call. I stole a shower in. Yessss.
Then we were given our first assignment - go to the Muslim quarter of Xi'an and get yourself some food. Take pictures of you eating the food. Love the food. Be the food. Well, not all that, but I'll tell you that this trip ended up being a very big eating food sort of deal.
Chinese has a phrase called xiao chi, which means "little eats/foods" - basically whatever you see on the street is a xiao chi, and then some restaurants are called xyz xiao chi.
I xiao chi'd the crap out of Saturday. Xi'an was filled with vendors selling all kind of dried fruit, ground up walnuts (tasting like the inside of a Butterfinger), meats, pumpkin rolls filled with whatever, tons and tons and tons, and it was all delicious. My absolute favorite of them all was some dough filled with dates and red bean paste. The fatter, more delicious and wonderful cousin of the Fig Newton.
After breakfast we meandered around the streets, and then went to an Islamic temple. Well, first we went to another one but women weren't allowed. "But that other lady's in the temple." "She's a journalist." "Oh... okay bye!"
Then to the real temple. It was there that we got a little tired of waiting for directions as to where the next location was. We bailed on the Amazing Chase after the second destination. So sue us. You would have, too. While whining we snacked and took pictures.
Where we went next just so happened to be the next stop on the Chase, which was this artist's shop in this little alley. Some really great folk art, I may have snagged a few pieces for 30 kuai a piece, myself.
Caught a taxi to the Pagoda built where the monk who first brought Buddhism from India to China translated thousands of texts. First walked around a bit,
smelled the incense, then climbed the seven stories of the pagoda,
and took pictures! That isn't fog.
The yard by the Pagoda was the most real-seeming green that I've seen since coming to China. We sat and relaxed for an hour or so. The green made me miss home.
Xi'an was pretty fun in general, though I could have done without the added stress. Doing that same kind of activity in New York would be stressful enough, I was thinking, but in China I already have trouble understanding what's going on to add on some competition to it. That day I was exhausted and sick and so my Chinese was especially bad. Some times I just have bad Chinese days, even if I haven't been reading or speaking a lot of English (not with CETers but when talking with home etc).
That night we went to one of the most famous dumpling places in China. I don't know, it was all right, but I realize that my palate is now totally spoiled to the food here. Check out this dish.
You might want to click on it to see it.
Take a guess at what it is. This is the type of stuff that only my dad is totally into. Actually, I'd eat it if I ate meat. Anyway, it's jellyfish!! Mm mmm. Are you... shocked?! Hee hee. Please forgive me.
On Saturday we went to see the Terra-cotta soldiers. I felt so grateful to see them, though I think the most interesting part of the whole story was that the man who discovered them was just some farmer trying to dig a well. And the site where he was digging the well was maybe like... three feet into the entire site of the Terra-cotta soldiers. So had he been just a hair farther away... we'd never have what we do today. It's kind of like the butterfly effect, you know? How many Terra-cotta soldiers have you missed out on in your life time, or what do you already have that you almost didn't?
The only thing that I'll add that Wikipedia couldn't tell you is that surrounding this wonderful UNESCO get away is America's own KFC. I've seen more KFCs here than McDonalds's.
That last picture shows the site of the well.
Now I'm back here and another week has gone by. This post took me SO LONG to put up because blogspot didn't want to put pictures up, and I refused to post without pictures. I've literally been trying since Monday.
The weather is getting kind of better, sometimes it's in the 50s now. At any rate, that's good enough for me to walk around some and... sample Beijing's street vendor's stuff!
For instance, five feet away from our dorm is a couple who sell pineapples. Get yourself two freshly-skinned pineapples for 5 kuai.
"I have kind of a not very smart question..."
"Hey, don't worry about it!"
"Okay. I want to buy your pineapple... but I don't know how to eat it."
"You just... eat it! Hold the stem and eat it."
Needless to say, the Chinese are my kind of people. I bought two and brought them back to the dorm. Rebecca and I crouched over the trash can, held the stems, and ate like animals (with opposable thumbs, Reed adds). Let me tell you, best pineapple eating experience of my life, though I had to wash my face afterwards. I will be finding the tool they use to skin the pineapples. It's too neat.
That was last week, so now me eating pineapples like that is old news!
This week there was a man selling what looked to be bamboo on the street. But my teacher said it was NOT bamboo, something sweet! "Like candy!" she said.
I walked up to the man and looked at what he was selling. Oh. OH! Sugar cane!
But these canes were, like, five feet tall.
"How much is that? I just want a really really small piece. NO NOT THAT BIG. Small. The smallest. Smaller! EXTREMELY SMALL. Perfect!"
Then he had me hold it as he took out this machete or something to slice it. "PLEASE DON'T CUT ME I'M SO NERVOUS." "Hey, it's nothing! I'm not going to cut you! Relax!" Then I handed him 3 kuai. He said I didn't speak Chinese too badly, and then asked if I was German.
Again, I went back to my dorm and learned for the eighth time that it is perfectly okay just to gnaw at some things. Bags of milk, pineapple, sugar cane, just gnaw! Meiguanxi!
A couple days ago I realized in a panic that I only have a little over two months left here. What?! My friend made me list out all the things that I want to do while I'm still here. After I did that, I actually felt pretty good - I don't have the loftiest of plans.
But Spring Break is going to be amazing.
We'll leave April 3rd, Friday night, and get on a train to Zhang You. Fast forward to early Sunday morning, when we arrive in Zhang You. Then on a bus to Jiu Jia Gou, one of the biggest and from what I hear most beautiful parks in China, to hike around. If you remember the scene from Hero where they sword fight over water... we're going to see that lake! On the 8th we'll head to Song Pan and spend a day or two there, and ride horses! Afterwards, to Chengdu. I'm so excited to see real green space here, and it's just a week away! I'll be going with Rebecca, Mickey, and Jiajia - all very cool and fun people who I'm looking forward to getting to know better. The only thing I'm afraid of is the food that awaits us. Sichuan is the spice capital of China. We'll be bringing lots of peanut butter.
Tomorrow me and Tan Qing and maybe some other people are going to go get an authentic Chinese massage. This is another thing that I've wanted to do since coming here. My back has been oddly tight since I've gotten here. One of my friends who will not be revealed felt my back after I told her how tense it was and said, "Dang. I'm going to let you in on a secret. I took a massage class a few years ago and you're the first person who I've felt like revealing that to. I will help you." Things might work out there.
I'm also working on procuring an erhu teacher... as well as an erhu.
The final plan is to see some real Beijing opera. I know that's not necessarily something that every college aged Beijinger is super into, but I figure that I'm here and ever since seeing Farewell, my Concubine in that Chinese culture class at Guilford I've wanted to see some.
Other than that, I'm happy just going to restaurants and wandering here and there. When the weather gets better, I hope that I'll be able to be outside more and experience Beijing.
Tonight... we're venturing to a Mexican food restaurant. Hah! The Chinese roommates are pumped. I'm also curious to see if it's Mexican or American Mexican. When I ate Mexican in Scotland it was ridiculously good but also unlike any Mexican food I'd ever eaten.
I have discovered a favorite food here, and that would be maladoufu - tingly/numb tofu. Chinese has two words for spicy, ma (numb) and la (tingly). I can handle ma, not la.
I just got finished talking about spring break plans with the group and I'm so pumped.
P.S. - as per some requests, here is a picture of a really nice Chinese bathroom.
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