I am not dead

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't made a post since the Shanghai airport. I have overcome quite a bit of adversity just to sneak a couple minutes on the internet a week! My faithful Dell XPS 16 just decided to completely stop working on me. Therefor I don't have access to any of the wonderful and exciting pictures that I have been taking since my arrival in Chengdu! Among the many things we are lacking in our dorms, internet is one of them. If we want internet we have to head to an international room (which is on par with dial up internet) or to a cafe where we have to pay 9 yuan for some milk tea to gather access. Although everything is made in China (besides meat and real food) it seems that they can't get a little Chinese man out here from Dell to fix my comp for another week so posting is going to be sketchy till then. I can't believe I have already spent a whole week here! It has gone by wayyyyy tooo fast and so much has happened. So I'll start with the beginning.

If I was nervous on any of the plane rides over my flight from Shanghai to Chengdu topped it. This was it. I was about to be at a place where I was going to call home for the next couple of months. If I didn't like it I was completely screwed. I was the only white person on the plane and everything kept staring into my eyes like they couldn't even understand why they were such an odd shape and color. I tried a "ni hao" but they just kept staring. Unblinking. Seriously it is a constant staring contest here. I got off the plane and was so nervous as to how I was going to get picked up and get to SWUFE as Bernie had given me very limited details. There I was lugging my now 73 pound bag (Thanks Tokyo) through the airport starting to freak out and then I saw it. A boy my age in a funny looking Christmas sweater holding a sign with a giant Cougar head on it. Awwww yeah I was in business.


Now, most people can attest to the fact that I have done some pretty stupid, downright reckless things in my life. My mom constantly badgered me about being safe in China, and for the love of God not doing anything stupid over here. My Stepdad told me to think before I walk outside. My dad patted me on the back and said have fun (which is definitely what I am doing). Let me just state right here that if I am going to die in China it is going to be from either A. Starvation or B. A taxi. Seriously. I can't even describe how effing crazy they drive over here. That's coming from me who had to pass my drive test three times. I'm not even sure why they have painted lanes on the roads. They don't obey any traffic laws whatsoever. No speed limit signs. Red light means speed up. Someone in your way? Rickshaw, moped, bike, person? Just honk and speed up. I actually took a video and will post it when I am able.

So I get to the dorm. Our place is called Shensi Garden (magic garden). I had to stand around a couple minutes while everyone pointed at me, stared at my eyes, and spoke in tongues (chinese). It was very cold, very gray, and I couldn't see out past three buildings. Finally another Chinese boy came out and grabbed my bags (His name is Tao) and led me to my room. I met Scott in the hall, we gave each other a quick hug and he said "uhh...so I don't think the rooms are what you quite expected". I took a step in mine. It was colder and grayer than outside if possible. The beds were raised up high with a desk underneath. There was literally a layer of cotton balls for a mattress. No mirror. No heat. I don't even want to go in depth about the "bathroom" which is literally a squattty potty with a shower head. I head a voice ask "is there anything we can do for you now?". I turned around. I forgot Tao and Vince were there. I looked at Scott. He looked back. My heart started beating and I knew I was entering fight or flight mode and I knew what was about to come next. I couldn't help it, I completely went into Princess Taylor mode. "Um we need to go to Wal Mart. Right now." Tao and Vince didn't quite understand because I guess they wanted to wait for the whole group. They shook their heads and were a little confused.

40 minutes later, and one crazy taxi ride we were at Carrefour. Which is a french sort of Wal Mart on par with Shopko. A shopko that's out of stock in everything you need. I quickly stocked up on as many essentials as I could. I was with Sam, Scott, and Dayton. It was an interesting experience. No one spoke English except for our trusty translators Tao and Vince. This one employee kept following me around the store and if she didn't think the quality of stuff I was picking out was good enough she would grab it out of my hand, put it back and grab me a different one. That is service. A different style, but definitely some service. We had an interesting check out experience (people kept trying to cut us. Lines and meat don't exist here). We all then went out to dinner in our little college district. It was a great little restaurant EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT THE DOOR AND WALL WERE MISSING TO THE ENTRANCE SO IT WAS FREEZING. Seriously. These Chinese are tough. I kept asking Tao what they do and he just responds "we get used to it". I just want to tell them that really, they don't need to torture themselves anymore. They can get toilets were they can sit down and relax and get some sort of heat. We have that available now. The only Chinese I have ever really liked was Kung Pao chicken so Vince and Tao got some for us. Well, there was plenty of kung pao but barely any chicken. Little did I know that would be the theme for the rest of my trip here.

I climbed into "bed" and waited for the boys and the rest of the Tokyo crew to get there and see what we had to work with. I dozed off and woke up to them a couple hours later. They came in my room and we all just started laughing. Because hey, what else can you really do in this situation? That would be our tool of bonding for the next week, discussing our exact techniques of the squatty potties. The girls have embraced it and it's actually starting to grow on me at this point. I mean, come on, think about it. It is pretty convenient to have a bathroom in the shower. The boys on the other hand, have not. There are western toilets in the handicapped stalls in the H building (where we have most of our classes) so if one of them has to go they often say "well I am about to head to the H building, anyone need to join me?) Very entertaining.

The next morning (Sunday) we went back to Carrefour to get everyone else things to make their dorm room livable. But before that we went to a large cafeteria style building (which Brett has named the Meat Locker) to get our meal cards. It was again colder than outside. It looked like a middle school cafeteria. We got our cards and grabbed the most intense looking metal trays and got served some nice, warm, chinese style slop. The lunch ladies love us. It was okay but it reminded me of a prison. In fact, American prisons might be a little nicer.

Okay I am going to take a break from my long winded story blog and just point out that although I am discussing how cold and depressing it seems here I don't ever remember the last time I was this happy in my life. My cheeks hurt from smiling so much. We are having so much fun here it is unreal. Yes, it is different than the Tokyo kind of fun but we have a solid group and we are all getting through the culture shock together. It also has gotten quite a bit warmer.

Anyway, after our meal of slop we headed off to do more shopping. The Chinese were shocked when they saw how much stuff we were putting in our carts. I guess they don't do Costco style shopping here. I got bored and started to ask Tao how to say some essentials in Chinese. Like cat, and panda. So there I was, minding my own business standing on the bus to get back to SWUFE and the bus driver turned around and asked me something in Chinese. I tested out my new skills by saying Shumao (Panda). The whole bus cracked up. Vince explained to me that he had asked me what my major was. oh well. It doesn't really matter what you say here the Chinese always seem to be laughing at you. Everywhere I go. It's like they are all in on some big inside joke and I was not invited to the slumber party of which it was made at. I like it though. They are all very friendly and love to compliment you. They all want to come up and talk to us and give us their phone numbers and eat and hang out with us. They get super excited whenever we show up in class and always stare and giggle. I am starting to not notice it as much now but it was slightly overwhelming at first.

We got some pretty sweet ghetto flip phones and grabbed a couple tsingtaos and headed back to our dorm to have a little hall party. This next part of the adventure gets good. You see, for some reason there are no white people here, but there are quite a few black people from the Carribean or warm parts of Africa (what are they doing in freezing Chengdu? I don't know). Anyway, Scott made a friend named Emon, who has been a huge help to us. He generally likes us and just wants to show us around. He was really surprised to hear that we didn't have heat in our rooms so he grabbed is remote and turned on all of our heat. OMG WAAAAAAAAAAARMMMMTTHHHHHHHHHHHHH you have no idea how awesome it was to feel heat again. I thought we were going to have to get used to wearing six layers everyday. We still aren't sure why SWUFE didn't want us to have heat but Bernie told us to keep it hush hush so as to not have it turned off. Seems a little sketch but we are in China and I would rather have heat than question it.

Class the next day was a little rough after a two month break. It was also freezing. You could see your breath. I had to wear gloves, even to write. I wish we had less class time but I guess we have to put in some hours since we are getting so much credit. It's really funny here. They have this happy upbeat jangle every forty five minutes when it is time to switch classes or take a break. I need to upload an audio file of it it is quite enjoyable. The next week everything got progressively better. We learned that we can actually flush the toilets, we got second hand bikes (EVERYONE has a bike here), the weather got nicer, we discovered that there was a place in the cafeteria where they serve bomb PF Chang style dishes, Chinese keep calling us beautiful, and we got to try hot pot (kind of like melting pot buy spicier and with monkey brains and shit like that) and we met a new friend whose name is New Year! We are slowly starting to adjust to our new lifestyle here. It's not easy, and particularly hard on me with my lack of computer but I do love China. Yes, people are pushy and a little grabby, they do spit everywhere, the streets smell like shit and they refuse to eat more than a bite of meat at a time but it is very fun and the people and very friendly. The shopping is also amazing.

Finally, after endless nights of having hall parties between the thirteen of us it was Friday and it was time to hit the city. It was going to be a special night because we were celebrating Mal's birthday! We got the the clubs and we were all speechless. There was just a row of them everywhere, like in Cabo but much brighter, bigger, weirder clothes, and probably better music and more lights. We were completely starving so we hit up the KFC first. Finally some american food! It was a little different than the KFC we were used to as they served whole crab and shrimp but hey you take what you can get here. The meat was slightly sketchy so we didn't look at our chicken burgers and I wolfed mine down in about a minute. I couldn't help it. I haven't had something like that in so long. I've definitely lost a couple pounds since being here as my pants hang kind of low even after washing and drying. I don't know if it's the lack of protein or all the walking but I might recommend the China diet to overweight Americans. If I don't find some protein soon I am gonna come back looking like a nasty little refugee.

But back to the club scene! We went in and it was kind of a bust at first cause we were kind of late and it was super crowded. It was good to dance to some music but trying to get a drink in there was as hard as trying to find some meat over here. We tried a couple different clubs but eventually went to a smaller bar type place to get our drink on. We danced to some crazy techno music with some very interesting locals but then cabbed back the main strip of bars. It was a little less crowded and I guess we ran into the right people because before we knew it they wouldn't stop shoving henessey (diluted with water) down our throats. The guys were very surprised that they were getting offered drinks too. I think besides the toilets the biggest culture shock for the guys is how touchy the males are here. Dan kept thinking every guy was gay in the club when they offered him drinks. But really they just liked him cause of his hair color and eyes! One thing led to another and the ten of us were ferried to some back VIP room with this one Chinese guy who was getting us all the drinks. He spoke Japanese so Shoji could translate for us. He took out his black card. Oh yeah, now that night was getting good. He ordered more whiskey and beer, and Shoji told us that him and his brother were both karate champions or something ridiculous like that. He wanted to drink with us because we were American and mainly just wanted us to watch him dance. He would keep pulling us up at random and teaching us his moves and we were all doing this weird hand holding thing. Then some ladies rolled in.

They were wearing sweaters in converse so we really didn't think of it. Later we found out they were prostitutes! I definitely wasn't expecting that one but the Chinese boss man told us to tell him if we wanted any of them. Hmmm. We kind of stayed our distance and just enjoyed ourselves in the VIP. This slightly scary looking chinese mafia man walked in wearing furs and glasses and sat in the corner and watched the festivities. I noticed that they all had some knives in their pockets. Around 3:20 AM the guy wanted us to sing us a Japanese song and then wanted us to all leave and part our separate ways. One of the prostitutes sat down next to me and held my hand. Then started to stroke my thigh. Oh no woman, I thought. I don't swing that way so it was bathroom time! I'm sad I missed his song he sang but he gave us his business card if we needed or wanted anything (hmmmm...) and let us take two bottles of henney! All in all a successful, late night. I will try and upload pictures a little later but now it is time to head back into Chengdu. We are going to go shopping and tomorrow maybe see some pandas! I'll update again when I can!!