Of course you do. You may be under the impression that the Chinese are completely genetically skinny, almost putting forth no effort to maintain their size negative physique. They inhale large bowls of rice and noodles without taking a breath. They never really partake in sports, unless if it involves a racket. Their main form of exercising is drawing anime and studying (mainly math equations). While some of these stereotypes are true to an extent (a large one at that) many of you may be shocked to find that the Chinese exercise. Quite a bit at that.
I discovered this secret a couple weeks ago. It was a random night, and it was around 10 PM. I was feeling the stress of China and my large amounts of exams so I decided to go on a late night run around the track outside my dorm. I figured I would be alone given the time of night and my previous assumptions of the Chinese. I was surprised to find thousands of people running, walking, sauntering, and in general lugging themselves around the track. Okay not thousands, but there had to be at least 100 to 200 people running around the track. Most not even listening to music, some jogging and gossiping with friends. In the middle of the track there was a large group practicing Kung Fu and Tai Chi. I looked over towards the Communist Chinese playground and every single plaything was occupied by at least three people. The monkey bars seemed to be the most popular. I really need to get a picture of it, because it is completely insane. Now I understand why I get such funny looks when I run around the track during the daylight. I can't figure out why everyone runs at night. One of my more logical theories is that they are too busy having class all day, but I think it's because no one can see anyone. I kind of like it as well because I blend in pretty well.
Also, many Chinese girls have taken up the American habit of constantly stating to their friends (or anyone) that they are "fat". To this I usually respond "well then what am I?". Seriously, these girls are skinny to a point that they wouldn't be able to come close to fitting into woman's sizes. a size 24 would be sagging off of them. A double 00 (same thing) would not suffice, some girls are more around a size -4. Their thighs are half the size of mine, even with my couple pound weight loss I got goin on.
In other news, everyone here contracted some sort of plague from the Tibetan Mountain village they visited last weekend. My poor roommate spent the last night throwing up in the squatty, and the night before Craig, Mal, Bret and Audra were all infected. I think it must be food poisoning because neither me Dan, Scott, Shoji nor Sam contracted it. God that would be miserable.
It's really funny to hear the Chinese explanations of why we are sick. And the remedies they give us for our sickness. In America, when we have the stomach flu we just expel the fluids until there is nothing left. Our parents might give us some pepto bismal (which quickly gets thrown up)and some gatorade and saltines to help. I have yet to see any of those things in China. Winnie went to the student hospital and came out with about a thousand herbs for everyone to take. She also advised the girls to drink water, but only warm water. You see, it is not appropriate for women to eat or drink anything cold. It needs to be Lukewarm or Hot. I think it's because cold things cause infertility or something. Most things here aren't refrigerated anyway. Their frugality rivals Matt's. He refuses to turn up the heat when I am cold, but will give in a little. I'm pretty sure the Chinese don't have heat in any of their buildings, or refrigeration. It's always a shock when I reach my hand in what I think is a fridge expecting a cold drink to find it the same temperature as their friends on the shelves. The only thing they refrigerate here is yogurt.
Tuesday morning I woke up to quite a bit of commotion. People out in the hall were screaming. I had a bad migraine so I was slightly upset. I walked out to find Audra yelling about voodoo magic being performed in her room. Turns out the "voodoo magic" was another ancient Chinese healing tactic. Winnie's stomach hadn't been feeling well so she had Johanna scrape the skin off of the backside of her elbow on her right arm. I tried to ask her about it but she said it couldn't translate. She also told me a couple hours later she felt quite better. Hmmm.
I took another nap later that day because my migraine got pretty out of hand. I was awoken to two of my favorites, Tao and New year. Like most Chinese they only have one volume: LOUD. My stepmom would say that they had the loudspeaker on when they were talking. And oh, they do. They were asking Kara and I about how we were feeling and then proceeded to tell us the reason that we were sick was because of the weather, and how the air was changing. Then New Year opened the window and told us to drink warm water. Great. Well, as rational as that diagnosis sounded Kara was sick because she had food poisoning and I had a migraine because I was severely dehydrated. I try and drink three liters of water minimum here but sometime's it's not enough. I really don't know how the Chinese do it. They are very liberal with MSG, and many other salts and spices in Chinese cuisine, but especially in Sichuan cuisine. I usually get headaches from the little amount of MSG I eat at home but here it is just insane. You can't avoid it unless if you want to permanently be on the BRAT diet. I don't like bananas or applesauce and they don't have toasters here so I would just be on the R diet.
I guess that's all for now. I am going to Guang'an this weekend to meet New Year's family (who owns half of China) so I am looking forward to it! I am sure I will have plenty to say when I return.
Oh! Another interesting tidbit. Monday is some kind of holiday in China. So classes are cancelled that day. This is great, except in China, you make up those classes. We are going to have to Monday classes on Saturday. Good thing I'm going to be gone this weekend. Only in China.
Also this is my Chinese phone number: 13.880.752.4599 If for some reason someone wants to call me you can buy skype credit and call this number :)
I listened to the whole Let It Be album while writing this. It made me think of my dad. Hi dad!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
The sun rises in the East but Sets in the West
This morning I took advantage of the fact that I was not completely hung over by going on a long bike ride through Wenjiang. I headed out past the east gate of our school, down by the river and towards the epic teahouses that chengdu is known for. It was pretty busy, all tables were full so I rode on and kept riding. The tables were full of families, laughing, chatting and enjoying their tea. Ladies exchanged gossip, and old men played Chinese chess and smoked some cigarettes. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. As usual, I was spotted (my hair kind of lets me blend in but my face fools no one) and I got the usual stares, points, and lowai!! Greeting. I decided to come back later when it was less busy so I continued to weave in and out of traffic to discover new areas.
The driving here really is like an intricate dance, you just have to learn the moves and pay attention. I often ride my bike on the middle of the street now because I learned the rhythm and understand the hierarchy. If they honk, move the eff over or you are gonna get hit. It's actually kind of fun. Adds a little more Indiana Jones to my morning bike rides. I rode along the river and did some pretty good people watching and before I knew it I seemed to be out of the city, with the towering apartment buildings. I looked around. Old people everywhere. Riding bikes that were hauling food, produce, garbage and other goods. Chickens roaming around, dogs sleeping. And there were houses, lots of very old, run down houses. More Chinese people drinking tea and playing games. I got more stares than usual as I feel very few lowai have braved this part. I felt like I was seeing the China that most people never get to see.
Most foreigners just come to Beijing and Shanghai to see China. These cities are highly westernized and I feel like you cannot get the real feel of the whole diverse country. It's sad, because although I love the thought of the big city, more western life of Shanghai, I think that sichuan is beautiful. I can't really explain it, it's kind of like that one WSU quote. You kind of have to be out here to experience what I experience. All I know is that when I explore random streets and roads out here I always have a huge smile plastered to my face. I zip past flower fields and watch the people of China integrate their old life with the new, rapidly westernizing China. I often wonder what the elders think about it, and if they like it. Most of them adapt, but I use that term loosely. Many have moved to the cities but they bring their country lifestyle with them. It's really interesting, and I know I keep using this word a lot but it is beautiful. Maybe remarkable.
I zip past fields of flowers and stare into rickety old houses and shops. Most of the furniture is made out of bamboo. Some people were lighting off fireworks just for the heck of it, and when I smiled at the locals i got warm smiles back. Eventually I found myself back on the main road and towards a park where I hear music. I got closer and realized there was an exercise dance class going on. I rode onto the sidewalk and watched while still on my bike. It was mainly older women dancing, and reminded me of my Grandma Caroline. If she were still around and in China with me I could definitely see her dancing with the other older ladies! The funniest part was watching the older men who were itching to dance but wouldn't quite go for it. They would just stand to the side bobbing their heads. To the left of me there was a large tree that was full of Children climbing it. There were exotic birds in cages to the right of me, and when I looked up i could almost see sun and blue sky through the smog. It was a beautiful spring day in Wenjiang.
I was spacing out but my daydream was disturbed by an older woman who came up to me and started speaking at me in Chinese. She kept pointing at my arms. I had taken my jacket off because I had gotten on my bike, but she seemed kind of concerned about it. More old women came up and started pointing at my arms. Was there something wrong with them? I mean I know they aren't my best feature but I didn't know they would cause so much controversy! Self consciously I pulled on my jacket and that seemed to do the trick. Turns out they were concerned that I would catch a cold! That's another thing I love about China, they have their old ideals and believe they should apply to everyone and aren't afraid to tell you about it. I was once again disturbed by a different voice, speaking English with a thick Chinese accent. "EXCURRRSE ME BOOTIFURRL GRRRR, WELCUM TO WENJIANG WOURRLD YOU PREASE DANCE WIS ME?! BOOTIFUL GRRRR!" This woman would not take no for an answer. I got off my bike and busted a move with this woman. I must say it was pretty fun until I looked up and noticed we were the only ones dancing, and instead everyone had stopped what they were doing and stared. Even cars on the street. They were lovin' it. I started to love it again and got really into it. I mean, the locals are going to stare at me no matter what, so I might as well give them something good to stare at, right?
I finally peeled away from the dancing at the park and rode back to a smaller teahouse. I sat down and ordered some green tea in what I think was perfect mandarin. I guess it somewhat worked because I got the tea. I sipped it, stared at the river and listened to the birds and traffic and enjoyed a few more tranquil seconds until some excited Children approached me. They wanted to practice their English, and eventually more people came over to talk to the lowai as well. Old, young, whatever. They all wanted to come see what was up, and this led to me having some deep conversations with the locals. Like answering how old I was, and where I was from. Pretty inspiring all around. The little girl was really cute, she was around my sister's age. She was playing cats cradle (which I was pretty good at back in the day) and so I played with her for a few minutes. I was pretty happy when they all cleared out so I could go back to relaxing and enjoying my tea. I tell ya, it's real tough being treated like a celebrity in China...
The driving here really is like an intricate dance, you just have to learn the moves and pay attention. I often ride my bike on the middle of the street now because I learned the rhythm and understand the hierarchy. If they honk, move the eff over or you are gonna get hit. It's actually kind of fun. Adds a little more Indiana Jones to my morning bike rides. I rode along the river and did some pretty good people watching and before I knew it I seemed to be out of the city, with the towering apartment buildings. I looked around. Old people everywhere. Riding bikes that were hauling food, produce, garbage and other goods. Chickens roaming around, dogs sleeping. And there were houses, lots of very old, run down houses. More Chinese people drinking tea and playing games. I got more stares than usual as I feel very few lowai have braved this part. I felt like I was seeing the China that most people never get to see.
Most foreigners just come to Beijing and Shanghai to see China. These cities are highly westernized and I feel like you cannot get the real feel of the whole diverse country. It's sad, because although I love the thought of the big city, more western life of Shanghai, I think that sichuan is beautiful. I can't really explain it, it's kind of like that one WSU quote. You kind of have to be out here to experience what I experience. All I know is that when I explore random streets and roads out here I always have a huge smile plastered to my face. I zip past flower fields and watch the people of China integrate their old life with the new, rapidly westernizing China. I often wonder what the elders think about it, and if they like it. Most of them adapt, but I use that term loosely. Many have moved to the cities but they bring their country lifestyle with them. It's really interesting, and I know I keep using this word a lot but it is beautiful. Maybe remarkable.
I zip past fields of flowers and stare into rickety old houses and shops. Most of the furniture is made out of bamboo. Some people were lighting off fireworks just for the heck of it, and when I smiled at the locals i got warm smiles back. Eventually I found myself back on the main road and towards a park where I hear music. I got closer and realized there was an exercise dance class going on. I rode onto the sidewalk and watched while still on my bike. It was mainly older women dancing, and reminded me of my Grandma Caroline. If she were still around and in China with me I could definitely see her dancing with the other older ladies! The funniest part was watching the older men who were itching to dance but wouldn't quite go for it. They would just stand to the side bobbing their heads. To the left of me there was a large tree that was full of Children climbing it. There were exotic birds in cages to the right of me, and when I looked up i could almost see sun and blue sky through the smog. It was a beautiful spring day in Wenjiang.
I was spacing out but my daydream was disturbed by an older woman who came up to me and started speaking at me in Chinese. She kept pointing at my arms. I had taken my jacket off because I had gotten on my bike, but she seemed kind of concerned about it. More old women came up and started pointing at my arms. Was there something wrong with them? I mean I know they aren't my best feature but I didn't know they would cause so much controversy! Self consciously I pulled on my jacket and that seemed to do the trick. Turns out they were concerned that I would catch a cold! That's another thing I love about China, they have their old ideals and believe they should apply to everyone and aren't afraid to tell you about it. I was once again disturbed by a different voice, speaking English with a thick Chinese accent. "EXCURRRSE ME BOOTIFURRL GRRRR, WELCUM TO WENJIANG WOURRLD YOU PREASE DANCE WIS ME?! BOOTIFUL GRRRR!" This woman would not take no for an answer. I got off my bike and busted a move with this woman. I must say it was pretty fun until I looked up and noticed we were the only ones dancing, and instead everyone had stopped what they were doing and stared. Even cars on the street. They were lovin' it. I started to love it again and got really into it. I mean, the locals are going to stare at me no matter what, so I might as well give them something good to stare at, right?
I finally peeled away from the dancing at the park and rode back to a smaller teahouse. I sat down and ordered some green tea in what I think was perfect mandarin. I guess it somewhat worked because I got the tea. I sipped it, stared at the river and listened to the birds and traffic and enjoyed a few more tranquil seconds until some excited Children approached me. They wanted to practice their English, and eventually more people came over to talk to the lowai as well. Old, young, whatever. They all wanted to come see what was up, and this led to me having some deep conversations with the locals. Like answering how old I was, and where I was from. Pretty inspiring all around. The little girl was really cute, she was around my sister's age. She was playing cats cradle (which I was pretty good at back in the day) and so I played with her for a few minutes. I was pretty happy when they all cleared out so I could go back to relaxing and enjoying my tea. I tell ya, it's real tough being treated like a celebrity in China...
Weekends in the dirty 'Du
You're going about your day. You might be preparing some pastries, drinking tea and smoking with your friends while exchanging gossip. Maybe you are out on a walk with children or your husband. It's a normal day, but you see something a little off in the corner of your eye. You look up. Taller figure but with jet black hair. You go back to your business. But wait, something was different, so you look back. Those eyes! That hair is like yours, but that face is unmistakably Caucasian. You get excited. Lowai! You say to your friends. You point at the funny foreigner who is on her bike. She seems just as curious about you as you do her. Soon you and all your friends are staring. Meiguo you say excitedly, as this funny girl couldn't be anything but American. But what is she doing here in Wenjiang? Maybe someone snaps a picture, but soon she has ridden on and you go back to your business.
I go through that little ritual everyday when I bike past remote parts in Wenjiang. I don't know if that's exactly what they are thinking, but I have picked up on two words so far when I am around locals and I know they are referencing me. Lowai, means foreigner, and Meiguo is America, or American. I am pretty proud of myself for picking up on that, actually.
The best part of biking in Wenjiang is getting my 25 cent breakfast. I loooooooove street food. I don't even get off my bike I just hand my 2 yuan over to the lady and she hands me the goods. She knows what I want and she hooks me up. That's what I love so much. The people here remember who I am because I am one of the few white people that they have ever seen. I even have started to pick up on words when I am ordering. Like I can now successfully say that I would like some green tea, to the women at the tea shop. Nothing too useful, but hey it's a start! I am sure that after this summer I will be practically fluent!
This weekend was quite stressful, and I definitely needed to catch up on some much needed sleep. So I opted to stay behind and not go on the trip we had planned and instead hang out with Dan, Scott, Sam, and Eamon around Chengdu. While everyone got up at the crack of dawn to go on some freezing cold nature hike I slept till 2 pm and slowly got out of bed. Wow it was great. We decided that it would be a good idea to see some new clubs and hit the town. We got dressed to the nines, grabbed some road mons and took the bumpy ride into Chengdu. Eamon took us to the old SWUFE campus, where we should actually be staying. Man did we get screwed. The rooms at the foreigners dorm are like hotels. Beds on the ground, western toilets, heat...right in the center of Chengdu. And there are actually foreigners there! Like from Europe, and America and stuff. Lots of them! As much as I wish I was in the city and not out in Wenjiang, if I was never here I would have never made such good friends like Lisa and Eamon so I guess I am slightly thankful. But western toilets? Come on...
We trudged on towards the clubs and decided to grab some street food cause our stomachs were getting a little rumbly. I discovered that they could grill me up some Chicken feet so I decided to go for it. I'll upload the pictures later on facebook..it was pretty entertaining. You may say that I have completely lost it but I actually took a bit of the chicken talon and it was pretty tasty. yes the toenails were slightly off putting but really, it tasted just like chicken :) The boys were not having it so I chased them down a few streets of Chengdu with the chicken talon. Methinks the Chinese may have taken offence to this.
We hit the first pub, Shamrock. We were excited because we thought it would hold white people and we were right. In fact, that's all it held. We had found all the white people in Chengdu. All the old, creepy expats. It was amazing, there were literally maybe four Chinese people in the whole joint. We ordered a couple of drinks and I got a greek salad. Oh it was amazing! I mean the one I make and that Matt makes are way better, but beggars really cannot be choosers our here in the far rural west of China! It wasn't quite a dancing club and Eamon was trying to get his Caribbean on so we headed to Muse for the rest of the night.
It was better than last time, as we had a smaller group and were able to maneuver around way easier. We were the only white people there that night so we all set off to make some friends. And friends we made, about ten feet in to the club some old guy saw me and insisted I take about six watered down shots with him. I tried to say no in Chinese (and english) but he was too excited about the meiguo and insisted. He was a lot worse off than me, and eventually he pushed me down in the couch and gave me some sort of lap dance while the rest of his group took pics and cheered. Keep in mind this guy had to be about sixty. Hilarious. What I really like about the clubs is that no one there really speaks any English, and my Chinese is limited to compliments and ordering food so I'm kind of useless as well. But they don't care! They just get so excited that a lowai is there! I find it almost awkward cause we can't talk but they love it. I need to charge for getting my pic taken at clubs cause I could start making quite a few yuan off of it. I guess the sincere compliments are enough "you rrrrrrrr beautifurrrrr grrr!!! varrrrrlyyyy beutifurrrr!!!! I likkkeeyyy youU!)
Oh! The most exciting part of the night was when I got straight up molested by a ninety pound Chinese girl that spoke broken English. At first I thought she was trying to grab my neclace, but nope she was going for booby. She straight up grabbed my boob, tried to kiss me then screamed "GIRLS GONE WILD"! Umm, no sweetheart. I know you may have seen it on TV but just because some girls in America like to do that doesn't mean we all enjoy getting molested by female strangers. Namely, me. I ran away from her and tried to seek refuge in the girls bathroom but unfortunately it was occupied. A girl and a guy walked out ten minutes later and I was completely shocked. Let me take a break from my riveting story to talk a little about Chinese (namely sichuan) culture. The Chinese, though integrating and picking up more onto our western world, still very much hold on to their old ideals and beliefs. From my understanding with talking to my peers here at SWUFE there is absolutely NO SEX before marriage. None. Most would not even think about it for a second because that is lowly and that is how it's always been. Maybe this is more with just the educated class, but it seems to be a pretty strict rule. Girls probably wouldn't get good husbands. Also, when talking to Winnie and my other female Chinese classmates there is a zero drinking rule. It's not like it's completely enforced, but I guess it is still looked down upon when females drink. Winnie told me that she would not be able to get a good husband at all if people knew she drank at all, and if she did get a good husband and he found out she drank before he might leave her. I was thinking about what a difference between here and America (namely Pullman) this was. I mean, no girl in Pullman would ever get married if these rules applied! I'm not so sure still about these rules because there seems to be quite a few girls at the clubs dancing and drinking...maybe just college students?
But yadda yadda yadda, I got drunk, everyone got drunk, we climbed into a taxi and babbled some nonsense about food to the driver. The next morning when I woke up I wanted to die, but more than that I wanted some salty food. Oh what I would have killed for some fries! I knew I wasn't going to get that so I stumbled to the market and tried to find some chips. Just some normal, regular, potato chips.
And here is my rant about potato chips to China. I love China. I think it's great. I am going to stay here all summer. Yeah, the spitting, pushing, grabbing, and such are a little hard to handle at times but I deal. The buildings are cold and the beds are hard but I have adjusted. But really, blueberry, cucumber, Italian red meat sauce, american turkey, steak and god knows what else are NOT adequate potato chip flavors! All I ask is for some normal, some salt and vinegar, maybe jalapeno, something! Come on China, throw me a friggen bone here!
I didn't get the chips but what I did get was better. Significantly better. I got a two hour long Thai massage for a mere fifteen bucks. Oh it was awesome. These women are half the size of me but I swear they could beat up a man twice my size. The massage parlor was a bit different than what I am used to though, as you get massaged with at least one to four other people in the room. You didn't get naked of course, but it was different. Also, typical of them they didn't have the heat on, but I guess I was warm enough since I was getting beat up by this 80 pound woman. After the massage we headed to this delicious tex mex restaurant that tasted just like home! Everytime I go to an American restaurant I always order way more than I can eat just cause I get so excited when I see all the choices! Seriously, you people back home don't know how good you have it. America has such diversity when it comes to food. You can get american, italian, chinese, japanese, thai, spanish, french whatever! China, at least in the western provinces you can mainly get Chinese food and more Chinese food and then maybe some stuff you can't even call food but they still eat it. Yum.
We headed back to the SWUFE campus to meet up with europeans to head to the clubs that night, but instead of meeting up with them I ran into seven new Europeans. One from Holland, one from Amsterdam, one London, oh and Americans. One from Pennsylvania and one from Delaware. I decided they would take me somewhere good so I followed them and was not dissapointed. One guy, Kent from Pennsylvania got into the cab and started spitting the dirtiest sichuan hua at the cab driver. I was impressed. He knew bot Sichuan and Mandarin and was impeccable at both. This is no easy task. You see, the Chinese have lots of dialects. It's not like America with our accents, because we can still for the most part always understand each other. Here it's like a completely different language. I mean I know this place has 1.3 billion people but come on China, unify, damn it! Make it easy for me to just learn one language and one type of tones.
The bar they took us too was cool. It was rasta themed and they had a stage with a guitar, drums, etc that anyone could just play at random. I sat outside chatting with my new friends for a while and we joked about China and life. It was nice to meet some new people that weren't Chinese and knew what I was coming from, and they also gave me some good advice. They think I should stay in Chengdu instead of Shanghai for the summer so that's definitely something to think about! Eventually they all started free styling and I must say they were pretty damn good. It made me think of Cyril and his band and how he better visit me in China this summer!
Nothing too good happened at the next series of clubs, except for when we all started throwing cake at each other. That was pretty exciting, and I think we kind of just solidified the fact more that Americans are crazy to the Chinese. Lisa spent the night with me in my dorm last night, as the dorms here kind of have curfews. Since it was past eleven she wouldn't be able to get into her dorm as they close the gate and they are pretty strict about it. They try to do it to the foreigners but we just play the whole "what? We are white we don't understand.." card so they begrudgingly let us in. Every time.
I go through that little ritual everyday when I bike past remote parts in Wenjiang. I don't know if that's exactly what they are thinking, but I have picked up on two words so far when I am around locals and I know they are referencing me. Lowai, means foreigner, and Meiguo is America, or American. I am pretty proud of myself for picking up on that, actually.
The best part of biking in Wenjiang is getting my 25 cent breakfast. I loooooooove street food. I don't even get off my bike I just hand my 2 yuan over to the lady and she hands me the goods. She knows what I want and she hooks me up. That's what I love so much. The people here remember who I am because I am one of the few white people that they have ever seen. I even have started to pick up on words when I am ordering. Like I can now successfully say that I would like some green tea, to the women at the tea shop. Nothing too useful, but hey it's a start! I am sure that after this summer I will be practically fluent!
This weekend was quite stressful, and I definitely needed to catch up on some much needed sleep. So I opted to stay behind and not go on the trip we had planned and instead hang out with Dan, Scott, Sam, and Eamon around Chengdu. While everyone got up at the crack of dawn to go on some freezing cold nature hike I slept till 2 pm and slowly got out of bed. Wow it was great. We decided that it would be a good idea to see some new clubs and hit the town. We got dressed to the nines, grabbed some road mons and took the bumpy ride into Chengdu. Eamon took us to the old SWUFE campus, where we should actually be staying. Man did we get screwed. The rooms at the foreigners dorm are like hotels. Beds on the ground, western toilets, heat...right in the center of Chengdu. And there are actually foreigners there! Like from Europe, and America and stuff. Lots of them! As much as I wish I was in the city and not out in Wenjiang, if I was never here I would have never made such good friends like Lisa and Eamon so I guess I am slightly thankful. But western toilets? Come on...
We trudged on towards the clubs and decided to grab some street food cause our stomachs were getting a little rumbly. I discovered that they could grill me up some Chicken feet so I decided to go for it. I'll upload the pictures later on facebook..it was pretty entertaining. You may say that I have completely lost it but I actually took a bit of the chicken talon and it was pretty tasty. yes the toenails were slightly off putting but really, it tasted just like chicken :) The boys were not having it so I chased them down a few streets of Chengdu with the chicken talon. Methinks the Chinese may have taken offence to this.
We hit the first pub, Shamrock. We were excited because we thought it would hold white people and we were right. In fact, that's all it held. We had found all the white people in Chengdu. All the old, creepy expats. It was amazing, there were literally maybe four Chinese people in the whole joint. We ordered a couple of drinks and I got a greek salad. Oh it was amazing! I mean the one I make and that Matt makes are way better, but beggars really cannot be choosers our here in the far rural west of China! It wasn't quite a dancing club and Eamon was trying to get his Caribbean on so we headed to Muse for the rest of the night.
It was better than last time, as we had a smaller group and were able to maneuver around way easier. We were the only white people there that night so we all set off to make some friends. And friends we made, about ten feet in to the club some old guy saw me and insisted I take about six watered down shots with him. I tried to say no in Chinese (and english) but he was too excited about the meiguo and insisted. He was a lot worse off than me, and eventually he pushed me down in the couch and gave me some sort of lap dance while the rest of his group took pics and cheered. Keep in mind this guy had to be about sixty. Hilarious. What I really like about the clubs is that no one there really speaks any English, and my Chinese is limited to compliments and ordering food so I'm kind of useless as well. But they don't care! They just get so excited that a lowai is there! I find it almost awkward cause we can't talk but they love it. I need to charge for getting my pic taken at clubs cause I could start making quite a few yuan off of it. I guess the sincere compliments are enough "you rrrrrrrr beautifurrrrr grrr!!! varrrrrlyyyy beutifurrrr!!!! I likkkeeyyy youU!)
Oh! The most exciting part of the night was when I got straight up molested by a ninety pound Chinese girl that spoke broken English. At first I thought she was trying to grab my neclace, but nope she was going for booby. She straight up grabbed my boob, tried to kiss me then screamed "GIRLS GONE WILD"! Umm, no sweetheart. I know you may have seen it on TV but just because some girls in America like to do that doesn't mean we all enjoy getting molested by female strangers. Namely, me. I ran away from her and tried to seek refuge in the girls bathroom but unfortunately it was occupied. A girl and a guy walked out ten minutes later and I was completely shocked. Let me take a break from my riveting story to talk a little about Chinese (namely sichuan) culture. The Chinese, though integrating and picking up more onto our western world, still very much hold on to their old ideals and beliefs. From my understanding with talking to my peers here at SWUFE there is absolutely NO SEX before marriage. None. Most would not even think about it for a second because that is lowly and that is how it's always been. Maybe this is more with just the educated class, but it seems to be a pretty strict rule. Girls probably wouldn't get good husbands. Also, when talking to Winnie and my other female Chinese classmates there is a zero drinking rule. It's not like it's completely enforced, but I guess it is still looked down upon when females drink. Winnie told me that she would not be able to get a good husband at all if people knew she drank at all, and if she did get a good husband and he found out she drank before he might leave her. I was thinking about what a difference between here and America (namely Pullman) this was. I mean, no girl in Pullman would ever get married if these rules applied! I'm not so sure still about these rules because there seems to be quite a few girls at the clubs dancing and drinking...maybe just college students?
But yadda yadda yadda, I got drunk, everyone got drunk, we climbed into a taxi and babbled some nonsense about food to the driver. The next morning when I woke up I wanted to die, but more than that I wanted some salty food. Oh what I would have killed for some fries! I knew I wasn't going to get that so I stumbled to the market and tried to find some chips. Just some normal, regular, potato chips.
And here is my rant about potato chips to China. I love China. I think it's great. I am going to stay here all summer. Yeah, the spitting, pushing, grabbing, and such are a little hard to handle at times but I deal. The buildings are cold and the beds are hard but I have adjusted. But really, blueberry, cucumber, Italian red meat sauce, american turkey, steak and god knows what else are NOT adequate potato chip flavors! All I ask is for some normal, some salt and vinegar, maybe jalapeno, something! Come on China, throw me a friggen bone here!
I didn't get the chips but what I did get was better. Significantly better. I got a two hour long Thai massage for a mere fifteen bucks. Oh it was awesome. These women are half the size of me but I swear they could beat up a man twice my size. The massage parlor was a bit different than what I am used to though, as you get massaged with at least one to four other people in the room. You didn't get naked of course, but it was different. Also, typical of them they didn't have the heat on, but I guess I was warm enough since I was getting beat up by this 80 pound woman. After the massage we headed to this delicious tex mex restaurant that tasted just like home! Everytime I go to an American restaurant I always order way more than I can eat just cause I get so excited when I see all the choices! Seriously, you people back home don't know how good you have it. America has such diversity when it comes to food. You can get american, italian, chinese, japanese, thai, spanish, french whatever! China, at least in the western provinces you can mainly get Chinese food and more Chinese food and then maybe some stuff you can't even call food but they still eat it. Yum.
We headed back to the SWUFE campus to meet up with europeans to head to the clubs that night, but instead of meeting up with them I ran into seven new Europeans. One from Holland, one from Amsterdam, one London, oh and Americans. One from Pennsylvania and one from Delaware. I decided they would take me somewhere good so I followed them and was not dissapointed. One guy, Kent from Pennsylvania got into the cab and started spitting the dirtiest sichuan hua at the cab driver. I was impressed. He knew bot Sichuan and Mandarin and was impeccable at both. This is no easy task. You see, the Chinese have lots of dialects. It's not like America with our accents, because we can still for the most part always understand each other. Here it's like a completely different language. I mean I know this place has 1.3 billion people but come on China, unify, damn it! Make it easy for me to just learn one language and one type of tones.
The bar they took us too was cool. It was rasta themed and they had a stage with a guitar, drums, etc that anyone could just play at random. I sat outside chatting with my new friends for a while and we joked about China and life. It was nice to meet some new people that weren't Chinese and knew what I was coming from, and they also gave me some good advice. They think I should stay in Chengdu instead of Shanghai for the summer so that's definitely something to think about! Eventually they all started free styling and I must say they were pretty damn good. It made me think of Cyril and his band and how he better visit me in China this summer!
Nothing too good happened at the next series of clubs, except for when we all started throwing cake at each other. That was pretty exciting, and I think we kind of just solidified the fact more that Americans are crazy to the Chinese. Lisa spent the night with me in my dorm last night, as the dorms here kind of have curfews. Since it was past eleven she wouldn't be able to get into her dorm as they close the gate and they are pretty strict about it. They try to do it to the foreigners but we just play the whole "what? We are white we don't understand.." card so they begrudgingly let us in. Every time.
Chinese Dentist...say AHHHHHHH!!!
My tooth hurt too bad and I didn't have any other choice. I had to brave a Chinese dentist and I had to get to one fast. I noticed a tooth ache starting when I was Japan, sharp pain anytime I opened my mouth too wide or chewed on one side of my mouth. It faded in and out for the most part, but a couple days ago I couldn't handle it anymore. After much speculation I decided it was time to call up Lisa and have her take me to the dentist. She suggested we go to the dentist on campus. I was very skeptical of this plan because I know how Student Health is at WSU, and I couldn't imagine what it would be like here. Well, actually I've never been to student health I just go to Pullman family Medical, but you get the point. They also treated my roommate Kara at the student center here when she had a nasty bout of hives. She ended up having to go to Chengdu anyway because all they gave her was some Reindeer antler or grass or something.
As you can tell from the picture I painted I wasn't all that confident. That on top of one of the busiest weeks I have had in a while I was a nervous wreck. I waited for Lisa at my dorm and before we went we stopped by one of the room's of the foreign students and talked to Lisa's friend, Robina. Robina is from Uganda and she is soooo cool! All the foreigners are cool, they are either from the Caribbean or Africa. I always want to know how they got here to this dirty suburb in this Western province but then I realize that Africa isn't always the best of places either...anyway, Lisa and Robina are both seniors. Seniors at our University don't take classes. They just have a thesis that they have to get done sometime during the year. How awesome is that? Oh and the Chinese are just like us with procrastinating so of course none of them have even started to write it. School is actually way different here and they often come up to Bernie and ask him how they will even possible survive classes in America. You see, at University here classes are only 40 minutes long and they don't have hw...ever. They usually just have one final exam, maybe a midterm. The catch is most of the classes they take are in English so they have to study extra hard just to understand it.
But back to the dentist. Lisa and I walked past the grey buildings, on the grey concrete that meshed in with the grey smog clouds. I had the funeral march playing in my head as the student hospital loomed closer. Lisa spoke some tongues to the women and they led me back to a room with one dentist chair in it. There were about five other kids waiting, and watching some girl get her teeth cleaned. Awesome. Lisa didn't help calm my nerves at all when she kept pointing at the primeval dentist tools the guy kept jabbing at the patients. Finally it was my term and I hopped in the chair and waited for my sunglasses, or earphones like what Dr. Sugamura gives me back home.
Well, as I am constantly reminded China is not America and I did not get any of the usual amenities. Lisa and the Dentist chatted and I told him where it hurt. He started to poke at me with a QTIP. On all my teeth. Open, close, what not. He did this for a good fifteen minutes, then his phone rang. He picked it up, yammered loudly to whoever for a few minutes then resumed the poking with a qtip. Finally he turned to Lisa and said my teeth look beautiful and there is no problem. I wailed and protested. His next idea was that it wasn't my teeth, but my jaw. He thinks that I opened my mouth too wide to bite into an apple. Brilliant! The remedy? Don't eat hard food and massage my jaw. I mean, I got a free appointment so what more was I expecting? I complained more and made a pouty face. He looked excited and then spoke some more to Lisa and made me bite down on some paper. He told Lisa my back tooth sits lower than the others and offered to file down all my teeth for me. As good of an idea that was, I "politely" (shook my head rapidly and hopped out of the chair) declined and we were back out of there. Lisa was so confused by the whole process. She didn't understand why I wanted to go to the dentist if I didn't want anything done.
I did want something done, maybe an X-ray! I explained this to Lisa and she had no idea what I was talking about. So I called Bernie and we reasoned it might be my wisdom tooth. The next morning I skyped with my dentist back home and he laughed. Then he reccomended I go to Japan or Hong Kong to get my wisdom tooth out. I would rather brave the radiation than go to another Chinese hospital so I think I'm going to take his advice and head out in the next week or so! This place, sometimes. I tell ya.
As you can tell from the picture I painted I wasn't all that confident. That on top of one of the busiest weeks I have had in a while I was a nervous wreck. I waited for Lisa at my dorm and before we went we stopped by one of the room's of the foreign students and talked to Lisa's friend, Robina. Robina is from Uganda and she is soooo cool! All the foreigners are cool, they are either from the Caribbean or Africa. I always want to know how they got here to this dirty suburb in this Western province but then I realize that Africa isn't always the best of places either...anyway, Lisa and Robina are both seniors. Seniors at our University don't take classes. They just have a thesis that they have to get done sometime during the year. How awesome is that? Oh and the Chinese are just like us with procrastinating so of course none of them have even started to write it. School is actually way different here and they often come up to Bernie and ask him how they will even possible survive classes in America. You see, at University here classes are only 40 minutes long and they don't have hw...ever. They usually just have one final exam, maybe a midterm. The catch is most of the classes they take are in English so they have to study extra hard just to understand it.
But back to the dentist. Lisa and I walked past the grey buildings, on the grey concrete that meshed in with the grey smog clouds. I had the funeral march playing in my head as the student hospital loomed closer. Lisa spoke some tongues to the women and they led me back to a room with one dentist chair in it. There were about five other kids waiting, and watching some girl get her teeth cleaned. Awesome. Lisa didn't help calm my nerves at all when she kept pointing at the primeval dentist tools the guy kept jabbing at the patients. Finally it was my term and I hopped in the chair and waited for my sunglasses, or earphones like what Dr. Sugamura gives me back home.
Well, as I am constantly reminded China is not America and I did not get any of the usual amenities. Lisa and the Dentist chatted and I told him where it hurt. He started to poke at me with a QTIP. On all my teeth. Open, close, what not. He did this for a good fifteen minutes, then his phone rang. He picked it up, yammered loudly to whoever for a few minutes then resumed the poking with a qtip. Finally he turned to Lisa and said my teeth look beautiful and there is no problem. I wailed and protested. His next idea was that it wasn't my teeth, but my jaw. He thinks that I opened my mouth too wide to bite into an apple. Brilliant! The remedy? Don't eat hard food and massage my jaw. I mean, I got a free appointment so what more was I expecting? I complained more and made a pouty face. He looked excited and then spoke some more to Lisa and made me bite down on some paper. He told Lisa my back tooth sits lower than the others and offered to file down all my teeth for me. As good of an idea that was, I "politely" (shook my head rapidly and hopped out of the chair) declined and we were back out of there. Lisa was so confused by the whole process. She didn't understand why I wanted to go to the dentist if I didn't want anything done.
I did want something done, maybe an X-ray! I explained this to Lisa and she had no idea what I was talking about. So I called Bernie and we reasoned it might be my wisdom tooth. The next morning I skyped with my dentist back home and he laughed. Then he reccomended I go to Japan or Hong Kong to get my wisdom tooth out. I would rather brave the radiation than go to another Chinese hospital so I think I'm going to take his advice and head out in the next week or so! This place, sometimes. I tell ya.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
A word on Chinese fashion, and other things
Wow it has been a while since I have updated this thing! I am so excited that I found a couple of hours to sit down and type to my hearts content. It's been a rough past couple of two weeks. Finance started, and though I love our professor I am really feeling the strain of taking 18 credits in 7 weeks. I will be sad to see him go but I won't be sad to have more free time to ride around on my bike and explore some more of Chengdu! I have also had my past two weekends packed full of exciting trips. I don't know if I will be able to get all the dirty details out in this blog post, but I assure you my dear readers that in due time you will know all the riveting details. Also, I mentioned the bunny Simba. Well, Shoji and I decided to let it go. It was cute, it was great, but it shit everywhere and I was tired of making hauls out to East Gate to buy it vegetables every couple of hours. Yes, I will make a horrible mother, I know. I hope it's still alive.
Oh, anyway, I wanted to take the time to say something about Japan. A lot of people keep freaking out about Japan being close to China but where I am there is absolutely no way I could feel any of the radiation. It is a horrible tragedy and I feel for the wonderful, strong people of Japan. It's no secret that I absolutely fell in love with Tokyo, so I donated a couple yen for the Japanese red cross. I encourage everyone else to do so as well. They are a wonderful people with an awesome culture, and my favorite ninja Shoji Hama comes from there. I would love to return there again someday so keep them in your thoughts, prayers, and maybe let your wallets be a little lighter for the week!
But what I really wanted to talk about was the Chinese fashion. A lot of Americans think that all Asians look the same and can't differentiate between the nationalities. Well, I Taylor Watson am here to tell you that at this point in my travels I can definitely tell the difference. More than appearance, the way they act is completely different, and more extremes are the way of dress. My god. I can't speak for all Chinese but I can say the majority of those living in Sichuan province could use a little help. A lot of help. I mean, yeah it's cold here. I'm not saying it's well lit here either but I swear these people close their eyes when they go shopping for clothes and again when they pick out their outfits. They could definitely use some Japanese influence. There are some girls who dress cute here, like our good friend Lisa. She knows exactly where to shop to find the coolest clothes and once I get done with the stress of the next two weeks I am making here take me out to find her pair of destroyed acid washed jeans and fitted metallic blazers. Oh goodness, I have been in Asia for a while haven't I? Lisa is almost perfect at English, due to the fact that she loves to hang out with the foreigners. She is dating a guy who lives in our floor. He is from somewhere in Africa. Nice guy but I can't remember his name. Maybe it's something like Chewbacca?
Lisa is also very helpful and overall just a great companion to have in China. She is funny, and like most Chinese very hospitable and go to great lengths to help you out. On Friday night, for example she took me to a salon to get my hair done because I was about to have a melt down. My hair had changed from purple, to red, to some nasty multicolored destroyed concoction. I wanted to cry. She took my to a salon at 10 PM (everything stays open late here...perfect for a night owl like me!) and we didn't get home until 1am. The salon was great, and a cut, color, and ten minute head massage came to a whopping total of 20 USD. They couldn't color it my usual dark brown so now after years of going increasingly darker my hair is all the way black. More and more asian everyday, I tell ya. The Salon was almost as hopping as the bar district that Friday night. It was full of gay Chinese men with the craziest anime haircuts prancing around and yelling. In most shops and businesses here the owners live in the back quarters with their family, so the whole family came out to see the American girl get her hair cut. I was surrounded by Grandma's, babies, and the likes. It was really cheery and upbeat and made me appreciate the warmness of the Chinese people even more.
I know I previously spoke about how small Wenjiang district is but now I take it back. Like the rest of China, there is so much more past what meets the eye. I decided to bike past East Gate a couple nights ago and see what I could find. It wasn't long before I was standing in front of a magnificent river with lights everywhere. There were teahouses on all sides and people sitting on benches enjoying themselves. I was there at night but during the day I am sure there are people outside practicing tai chi, reading the dao and overall passing down ancient Chinese wisdom from the elders. Or reflecting on the mass amount of smog everywhere.
A few weeks ago our Chinese friends Winnie, Helen and Spring took us shopping to HM as we wanted to feel good about ourselves and fit into our normal sizes, and not just barely squeezing into a China XL. I think we enjoyed it more than they did and I am sure they couldn't wrap their heads around the prices. We helped them pick out cute clothes that would flatter them in return for them being so hospitable with us all the time. I think one of the number one things I have learned in my travels abroad is the importance of friendship. The Chinese seem to have a different level of commitment with friendship than I am used to in America. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends back home. They're all awesome and I would do anything for them, as I am sure they would with me. But they don't go out of their way to buy me things and do things for me all the time. After HM we were hungry and stopped by east gate to grab some delicious street food. I mentioned to Winnie that I loved the dumplings and the next time she stopped by our dorm she brought some ones she had home made for me! When I mentioned to Helen that I really missed fruit she bought me a knife and apples so I could enjoy them. It's also great to have Chinese friends for bargaining. No matter what, the Chinese will always charge foreigners extra. When you make Chinese friends they find you discounts on everything, and I mean everything. I have found flights around Asia for as little as 50 dollars, and not to mention food and hair cuts!
This week will mark week 5 of our 8 weeks of the program. It's going by too fast and I am not too pleased about it. I don't think the rest of the group shares my same feelings as I don't think they are quite as adventurous as I am, and I don't know if they have fully embraced the culture as much as I have. I have officially been in Asia for a little over a month now, and though that doesn't seem like a long time to get the hang of most things I find myself to be pretty adaptable. I blame it on my mom (in a good way) who decided to yank my pre-teen self out of the school district I had attended my whole life and drop me in a tight nit private school. Sacred Heart turned out to be a great experience, and I made some lifelong memories and met my BFFLYYYFE there. Unfortunately she didn't always like me. Her sixth grade self reasoned that because we had the same name (ahem Taylor Wiesmann) we clearly couldn't be friends and since she was miss popular everyone else decided they really didn't want to be my friend either. Eventually everything turned out okay but the first couple months were rough for my eleven year old self and after breaking into that social circle I know feel like I can make friends anywhere and adapt to a new lifestyle. Obviously China is more extreme than this but I can still apply the same lesson.
At this point I actually crave the Chinese dishes and have gotten over the fact that I am not going to get a huge slab of meat, but rather little chunks. I have accepted it and now I am satisfied with what I have. I can't wait to bring some recipes back and cook them for my family and friends! I am sure my dad and stepdad will be digging through the dishes trying to find the meat but I am sure my mom and stepmom will love it. I have accepted that the bathrooms will be smelly and not what I am used to in the US. I actually prefer the Squatties over the westernized toilets. I mean, it is kind of gross when you think about it and the Chinese do kind of have a point. I'm not saying I don't get frustrated. The whole computer thing really tested my patience, the constantly cutting in line and pushing can be too much at times. I know it sounds dumb but the constant stream of people wanting to take my picture or speak to me in broken English can be too overwhelming. I have felt slight pangs of homesickness at times and had to fight back tears of frustration or sadness. But then something so wonderful happens that it cancels out any negative thoughts. Like the other night when I was ordering a China Pita from a street vendor. I tried to pay my three yuan but he wave it away and instead he handed me a flower. The cutest little girl I have ever seen in my life came up to me an had a small conversation with me in perfect English and offered me her apple. My Chinese friends in class are constantly giving me websites of where I can download free American movies and Music and offering to take me places and do things with me.
As I wrote in my last blog, there is just so much China to see. My plan was to stay in Asia until the middle of May, right before my 21st birthday. However, I don't think I will be satisfied with my trip if I leave then. I was toying with the idea of staying here for the summer, maybe in a city like Shanghai with a host family. I would teach them English and they would teach me Mandarin. I was very surprised this morning when I got a full blessing from my mother to do just that. I haven't completely made up my mind yet but so far I am 90% sure that that's what I want to do. If I end up doing the host program I will be here until August. I'll really miss everyone this summer but this is a great opportunity and I might not have another one like this in the future. I don't want to work or think about what I am going to have to do in the real world quite yet. I just want to travel around, learn languages, and meet people. Or maybe I just want a reason to continue this blog! perhaps my good friends would like to get a Chinese visa and join me in my travels here...? :)
I am tired and still have some more accounting to finish up so I got to wrap this up. I will try and update tomorrow about Xi'an. In other news I have a horrible toothache and I think I will need to brave a Chinese dentist. I will be sure to upload a blog about that whole experience...but I hope everyone had a fabulous spring break. I will be spending my "spring break" in Tibet with my lovely roomate Kara. We officially booked our trip and couldn't be more excited!
Oh, anyway, I wanted to take the time to say something about Japan. A lot of people keep freaking out about Japan being close to China but where I am there is absolutely no way I could feel any of the radiation. It is a horrible tragedy and I feel for the wonderful, strong people of Japan. It's no secret that I absolutely fell in love with Tokyo, so I donated a couple yen for the Japanese red cross. I encourage everyone else to do so as well. They are a wonderful people with an awesome culture, and my favorite ninja Shoji Hama comes from there. I would love to return there again someday so keep them in your thoughts, prayers, and maybe let your wallets be a little lighter for the week!
But what I really wanted to talk about was the Chinese fashion. A lot of Americans think that all Asians look the same and can't differentiate between the nationalities. Well, I Taylor Watson am here to tell you that at this point in my travels I can definitely tell the difference. More than appearance, the way they act is completely different, and more extremes are the way of dress. My god. I can't speak for all Chinese but I can say the majority of those living in Sichuan province could use a little help. A lot of help. I mean, yeah it's cold here. I'm not saying it's well lit here either but I swear these people close their eyes when they go shopping for clothes and again when they pick out their outfits. They could definitely use some Japanese influence. There are some girls who dress cute here, like our good friend Lisa. She knows exactly where to shop to find the coolest clothes and once I get done with the stress of the next two weeks I am making here take me out to find her pair of destroyed acid washed jeans and fitted metallic blazers. Oh goodness, I have been in Asia for a while haven't I? Lisa is almost perfect at English, due to the fact that she loves to hang out with the foreigners. She is dating a guy who lives in our floor. He is from somewhere in Africa. Nice guy but I can't remember his name. Maybe it's something like Chewbacca?
Lisa is also very helpful and overall just a great companion to have in China. She is funny, and like most Chinese very hospitable and go to great lengths to help you out. On Friday night, for example she took me to a salon to get my hair done because I was about to have a melt down. My hair had changed from purple, to red, to some nasty multicolored destroyed concoction. I wanted to cry. She took my to a salon at 10 PM (everything stays open late here...perfect for a night owl like me!) and we didn't get home until 1am. The salon was great, and a cut, color, and ten minute head massage came to a whopping total of 20 USD. They couldn't color it my usual dark brown so now after years of going increasingly darker my hair is all the way black. More and more asian everyday, I tell ya. The Salon was almost as hopping as the bar district that Friday night. It was full of gay Chinese men with the craziest anime haircuts prancing around and yelling. In most shops and businesses here the owners live in the back quarters with their family, so the whole family came out to see the American girl get her hair cut. I was surrounded by Grandma's, babies, and the likes. It was really cheery and upbeat and made me appreciate the warmness of the Chinese people even more.
I know I previously spoke about how small Wenjiang district is but now I take it back. Like the rest of China, there is so much more past what meets the eye. I decided to bike past East Gate a couple nights ago and see what I could find. It wasn't long before I was standing in front of a magnificent river with lights everywhere. There were teahouses on all sides and people sitting on benches enjoying themselves. I was there at night but during the day I am sure there are people outside practicing tai chi, reading the dao and overall passing down ancient Chinese wisdom from the elders. Or reflecting on the mass amount of smog everywhere.
A few weeks ago our Chinese friends Winnie, Helen and Spring took us shopping to HM as we wanted to feel good about ourselves and fit into our normal sizes, and not just barely squeezing into a China XL. I think we enjoyed it more than they did and I am sure they couldn't wrap their heads around the prices. We helped them pick out cute clothes that would flatter them in return for them being so hospitable with us all the time. I think one of the number one things I have learned in my travels abroad is the importance of friendship. The Chinese seem to have a different level of commitment with friendship than I am used to in America. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends back home. They're all awesome and I would do anything for them, as I am sure they would with me. But they don't go out of their way to buy me things and do things for me all the time. After HM we were hungry and stopped by east gate to grab some delicious street food. I mentioned to Winnie that I loved the dumplings and the next time she stopped by our dorm she brought some ones she had home made for me! When I mentioned to Helen that I really missed fruit she bought me a knife and apples so I could enjoy them. It's also great to have Chinese friends for bargaining. No matter what, the Chinese will always charge foreigners extra. When you make Chinese friends they find you discounts on everything, and I mean everything. I have found flights around Asia for as little as 50 dollars, and not to mention food and hair cuts!
This week will mark week 5 of our 8 weeks of the program. It's going by too fast and I am not too pleased about it. I don't think the rest of the group shares my same feelings as I don't think they are quite as adventurous as I am, and I don't know if they have fully embraced the culture as much as I have. I have officially been in Asia for a little over a month now, and though that doesn't seem like a long time to get the hang of most things I find myself to be pretty adaptable. I blame it on my mom (in a good way) who decided to yank my pre-teen self out of the school district I had attended my whole life and drop me in a tight nit private school. Sacred Heart turned out to be a great experience, and I made some lifelong memories and met my BFFLYYYFE there. Unfortunately she didn't always like me. Her sixth grade self reasoned that because we had the same name (ahem Taylor Wiesmann) we clearly couldn't be friends and since she was miss popular everyone else decided they really didn't want to be my friend either. Eventually everything turned out okay but the first couple months were rough for my eleven year old self and after breaking into that social circle I know feel like I can make friends anywhere and adapt to a new lifestyle. Obviously China is more extreme than this but I can still apply the same lesson.
At this point I actually crave the Chinese dishes and have gotten over the fact that I am not going to get a huge slab of meat, but rather little chunks. I have accepted it and now I am satisfied with what I have. I can't wait to bring some recipes back and cook them for my family and friends! I am sure my dad and stepdad will be digging through the dishes trying to find the meat but I am sure my mom and stepmom will love it. I have accepted that the bathrooms will be smelly and not what I am used to in the US. I actually prefer the Squatties over the westernized toilets. I mean, it is kind of gross when you think about it and the Chinese do kind of have a point. I'm not saying I don't get frustrated. The whole computer thing really tested my patience, the constantly cutting in line and pushing can be too much at times. I know it sounds dumb but the constant stream of people wanting to take my picture or speak to me in broken English can be too overwhelming. I have felt slight pangs of homesickness at times and had to fight back tears of frustration or sadness. But then something so wonderful happens that it cancels out any negative thoughts. Like the other night when I was ordering a China Pita from a street vendor. I tried to pay my three yuan but he wave it away and instead he handed me a flower. The cutest little girl I have ever seen in my life came up to me an had a small conversation with me in perfect English and offered me her apple. My Chinese friends in class are constantly giving me websites of where I can download free American movies and Music and offering to take me places and do things with me.
As I wrote in my last blog, there is just so much China to see. My plan was to stay in Asia until the middle of May, right before my 21st birthday. However, I don't think I will be satisfied with my trip if I leave then. I was toying with the idea of staying here for the summer, maybe in a city like Shanghai with a host family. I would teach them English and they would teach me Mandarin. I was very surprised this morning when I got a full blessing from my mother to do just that. I haven't completely made up my mind yet but so far I am 90% sure that that's what I want to do. If I end up doing the host program I will be here until August. I'll really miss everyone this summer but this is a great opportunity and I might not have another one like this in the future. I don't want to work or think about what I am going to have to do in the real world quite yet. I just want to travel around, learn languages, and meet people. Or maybe I just want a reason to continue this blog! perhaps my good friends would like to get a Chinese visa and join me in my travels here...? :)
I am tired and still have some more accounting to finish up so I got to wrap this up. I will try and update tomorrow about Xi'an. In other news I have a horrible toothache and I think I will need to brave a Chinese dentist. I will be sure to upload a blog about that whole experience...but I hope everyone had a fabulous spring break. I will be spending my "spring break" in Tibet with my lovely roomate Kara. We officially booked our trip and couldn't be more excited!
Monday, March 7, 2011
The dirty yet beautiful streets of Wenjiang and Chengdu
I had a moment of realization today that I had somewhat assimilated pretty well into the Chinese culture. I was in a back alley street of Wenjiang (our suburb where our school resides) hanging out on my second hand bike, eating some local street food that cost about 40 cents, wearing my fake nikes that cost about 8 bucks, and I pulled out my flip phone with some panda bling hanging off of it to check the time. I don't even get phased by the squatty anymore and I can almost use chopsticks like a complete champ. Oh yeah, almost 100% Chinese.
I really do dig China and Asia in general. Something about this place. Like I have mentioned numerous times it can get dirty and smelly, especially my suburb but it still holds some sort of charm over me. At night it is absolutely beautiful in its own way. The street vendors are out selling all sorts of specialties, there are people everywhere yelling and screaming out there and the bright lights tie it all together and make it beautiful. I have always been one for big crowds, excitement, and loudness. I love people watching and don't really care about my personal bubble being non-existent. I guess China just suits me. I have been getting stressed out lately though, because I am not sure if everyone realizes this but China is a HUGE Country! From Tibet, to the Northwest which holds Mongolians, and an interesting middle eastern nomadic mix, to the north with all the important cities and somewhat influenced by Russia and north korea, from the scenic middle and the tropical south. There are so many places to see and just not enough time that I have here! This weekend we are taking a trip to Xi'an so that will be exciting. I just wish that we didn't have any classes so we could spend all day in Chengdu and other places!
Speaking of class, our Finance professor from WSU finally got in so for the next three weeks I will have class for over 8 hours a day! Barely enough time to grab some street food but I really can't complain that I am getting a semesters worth of Finance in three weeks. It's nice being with a bunch of WSU students, and since almost everyone is an accounting major we have lots to talk about and a lot of similar plans for the future. Most people on the trip with me plan on getting their master's degree in Accounting, studying for the CPA exam, hopefully passing, and working their asses off for the Big Four. After experiencing the cube life this summer and part of this winter I am not sure if I want to go down that same path right away. I want to explore and see more parts of Asia and the rest of the world. I am completely addicted to any sort of traveling, I feel like a junkie who is chasing the dragon. I need to see and explore more and more to feel satisfied! The only problem would be trying to find some adventurous souls who would like to come with me…
Kara and I have been doing a lot more exploring on our own. There isn't too much around Wenjiang but we work with what we have got. We vowed that we would try to only eat the food in the cafeteria once a day and eat street food for everything else. We gave it a try on Thursday and were pretty successful! Between classes we wandered into a random shop and I saw something that looked like a smoothie. Since all I know how to say is strawberry I just repeated that and got some sort of strawberry snow cone. I am surprised they didn't bring us out the whole menu! They were falling all over themselves with excitement that we were there! They didn't speak much English but insisted that we sit down and enjoy ourselves. We noticed that once we sat down the restaurant got progressively more busy…and that the employees and customers were taking pictures of us! Eventually we started posing and one of the employees hopped in a picture. I'm going to miss feeling like a celebrity everywhere I go! After leaving the shop and saying our thousandth goodbye we ventured further down the crowded streets of Wenjiang and checked out the food and people. Well, mainly the people checked us out. The old people are the best here, they always seem to have a complete look of shock and interest when we ride or walk past them. They will often keep walking with their heads turned and often will trip or run into something. Quite entertaining and I shouldn't be that surprised since China just started to be open to the public in the 80's! We stopped at a random stand that a couple of ladies were making some fried dough thing. We paid our 20 cents and rode back off with both the pastries and a smile. As much as I complain about missing meat I am going to miss the local dirty cheap Chinese food. It won't compare to anything in the states.
Friday night was…a complete blast. Seriously I don't think that I have ever had a more fun night in my life! We decided to go out and try Karaoke with the help of our favorite Caribbean friend Eamon, and our other favorite Chinese friend Lisa! Lisa is so sweet. She is an English major so she is completely fluent and very helpful. We all felt very comfortable with her right away as she is one of those people who is very naturally calm and maternal. You kind of need to feel comfortable with Chinese people right away in general though, because they are very grabby. Lisa would often hold my hand or grab onto my arm at random, and I had just met her! American girls can be somewhat touchy with each other (more when we are under the influence and need each other for physical support) but most of the time we aren't just mobbing down the streets holding hands. I guess Chinese people are all helpful in general anyway. I know I keep saying it but sometimes it's ridiculous. Today we got a group of Chinese people that followed us to class just to say hi and shake our hands! They are always inviting us over for dinner and trying to take us shopping. I don't think anyone at WSU would ever take such an interest in foreign students.
Anyway, Karaoke! Ah it was so fun! We had to wait around for a while, Eamon and Lisa bargained the price down for us so we got a huge room with three fifths of skyy for pretty cheap! While we were waiting some drunk Chinese men came out and were slurring their words pretty bad. One guy straight up sounded like Long Duck Dong and said to me "ahhhhh isss okay! I werrry sorry we had much funn!!! Okay!!" I didn't know what else to do so I just snapped a picture of him. We clambered into the elevator and got into our room and got real excited. It was huge and fancy, and they had a pretty decent selection of American tunes. The night started off pretty chill but then the shots started flowing and before I knew it I was up on the stage belting Dancing Queen with Scott. I am pretty sure we thought we were Abba at that point. Soon everyone was up dancing and screaming into the microphone. As the night (and shots) progressed I guess we got somewhat loud even for Karaoke and some employees came in to make sure everything was ok. I took this as that they wanted to dance with us. I grabbed one and started screaming "beautiful girl!" "handsome boy!" and started to dance. I think he was a little shocked at first but he quickly got over it when we all started to dance with him. We sang one last song (I'm so paid) and stumbled home still singing. I guess for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to skype my parents in my state so I hopped on Kara's computer, grabbed my rabbit Simba and babbled some nonsense at my stepmom. I'm sure she was pleased to hear from me. Then I called my mom, which I now regret because she had some bad news about my Diamond-Dog (RIP). According to Craig I was pretty upset about because I spent the next two hours crying (with a brief intermission in which I called my dad and left him a message singing three little birds).
Before I knew it I was being woken up at Kara at 9 AM because we had to make it to the bus by 10 so we could get out to Chengdu. It's a miracle I made it because I was definitely first class on the struggle bus. We were all in the same boat but luckily we were still pretty drunk and not hungover. The rough part was when we had to take a taxi ride and though we told the drivers all the same McDonald's we ended up at different McDonald's all over the city. It was unfortunate but I wasn't too concerned at the time because I knew French fries and a cheeseburger were in my future. My hangover hit hard after the food. It lasted until about 6 PM that day so struggling around Chengdu for the morning was not fun. We went to a huge mall full of the same Chinese stuff they sell everywhere so I don't think I missed out on too much. Eventually half of the group split up and my part headed to Pizza Hut. I ended up taking a two hour nap there since I couldn't eat the food anyway, but everyone was raving about it. Pizza Hut is comparable with a three star restaurant here and not the normal one. They have more gourmet Pizzas and Salads. And Western Toilets!
After Pizza Hut we trudged on to The People's Garden of Chengdu and saw a couple interesting things among the way. Not as interesting as the Garden turned out to be. When we entered there was a huge exercise class going on outside! Mainly old people but man were they workin it! Even though I still wasn't feeling that great I joined in and started kicking with the rest of them. It reminded me of something that my mom would absolutely love to do! We continued on from there and saw some cool booths to buy cheap Chinese trinkets but those did not interest me. No, no, what interested me was the bubbles these booths were selling! I bought two tubes and started to twirl around and blow bubbles. It was a pretty nice day and the smog was under control. I almost forgot about my hangover and was drifting off into Taylor zone. All of the sudden my bubble burst (ha…ha) and I heard an excited child scream. I looked up and the cutest Chinese baby in the world ran over and tried to pop my bubbles. So I played with him and before I knew it more screams and more Chinese children came to play! I was so distracted by them I was shocked to look up a couple of minutes later to see that almost a complete circle of Chinese people had formed around me. There were almost 60 people watching me blow bubbles for the kids and most of them were taking pictures, and a couple of them were taping it. Eventually some old people joined in on the fun! I was pretty happy in that moment, and I will probably always remember that Saturday in the Park! Eventually I had to move on with the rest of my group and I was sad to see the group go. I kept blowing bubbles and since we were still some of the only white people there Mal pointed out that we had a discreet following of ten people throughout the whole way. There were a couple more interesting things, like watching a bunch of old men play Chinese checkers in the park and some people doing water calligraphy.
After the Park we headed down to check out what I personally think is the coolest area of Chengdu. It's called Wide and Narrow road and it is awesome! It's got ancient Chinese Architecture and a bunch of nice restaurants and shops. I bought a couple of souvenirs and I hope to go back when I am feeling a little better and can enjoy it more! The best part (as usual) was the Starbucks! It was crazy architecture and probably the coolest Starbucks I have ever been to. They of course had western toilets. It's pretty funny though, when I went to go into the bathroom I noticed the toilet seat was a dirty brown. Gross! I though, Did the Chinese people just completely miss? But then I realized they were foot marks! The Chinese still climb on these toilets like Squatty Potties. Judging by the smell they didn't understand you could flush the toilet paper down the toilet as well! Can't teach an old dogs new tricks I guess. I also met a woman from Seattle who was in Chengdu training the baristas how to make coffee. I was so jealous, she has the best job I could think of! Starbucks and she gets to travel all over the world!
Sunday was a pretty relaxing day for us and we kind of lazed around and finished some HW. We were all excited for dinner though because a Chinese girl in one of our classes invited us over for dinner! Her name is Winnie and we ate with her roommates Spring (or was it Summer?) and Zoe. I seriously love the American names they give themselves. I no joke heard a girl introduce herself as Doris. Seriously? Anyway, we bought Winnie a cake to thank her for inviting us over so we carried it to her apartment. Her apartment is amazing and nothing like our communist style dorms. They even had a western toilet and modern amenities! She made us amazing Chinese food with lots of meat (one dish had chicken feet and it remained untouched by me…I'm not quite there yet!) and we all enjoyed ourselves in general. It was funny as we showed them the cake. There was lots of fruit on top of it and they were kind of confused. They thought you ate the fruit and maybe the cake later. Zoe told us she didn’t want any cake because she thought she was fat! If this girl was fat, I would be grossly, morbidly obese.
I found my stomach growling late at night so Shoji and I headed to East Gate to grab some more street food. I got the most delicious noodles I have ever tasted in my life. The streets of Wenjiang would be drunk person's dream after the bars. Well, enough of my rambling for now. Unfortunately I have two exams this week. One of them is in Finance and we haven’t even had our first class yet! Dell still hasn't contacted me but hopefully they do soon cause I need a computer! Mom, since I know you will be the first person reading my blog I need you to keep harassing Dell! Thanks!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
All the light that touches the kingdom shall be yours
I woke up yesterday morning and realized I didn't feel well. Everyone in our group kind of has a cold and despite my best efforts I think I may have finally caught it. I gracefully fell off my bunk bed and wandered into my favorite Japanese man's room to see if he had anything to cure my troubles. He didn't offer me any medicine but he did offer me a present. He handed me a bundled up shirt and told me to bring it to my room and not freak out when I opened it. Knowing Shoji I figured it was some weird Japanese sex toy. I didn't think much when I brought it back to my room with Shoji closely following behind until I realized whatever he handed me was warm and...MOVING! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I screamed! Shoji wanted me to open it on the floor but I didn't make it that far. Out hopped a live bunny! At first I freaked out because how responsible is that to just buy a random bunny off the street and where were we going to keep it, does it have rabies, how were we supposed to feed it? Then Shoji told me it was a present for me and I looked back down at it. It looked back at me with its little bunny eyes and I fell in love. I don't know how old it is but it fits in two hands. I went into my maternal mode that I try and keep secret from everyone. I googled how to take care of bunnies and what they eat (Shoji had tried to feed it a banana) and we set out to the nasty streets of Wenjiang and bought some leafy greens for the little guy.
We decided to name it Simba because for some reason we were thinking of the Lion King in our most boring, three hour long class (mgtops 491). To christen it properly I held it above the sink Rafiki style and then told it that "all the light that touches the kingdom shall be yours". It fell asleep. We don't have a cage for Simba yet so we made it a nice little nest area in one of Shoji's cupboards. I know he gave it to me as a present but I don't want it shitting all over my stuff. The girls are all in love with it but the boys don't quite seem to see the appeal. Craig keeps threatening to drop it down the squatty potty hole. Nice. Having Simba around made me have a tiny pang of homesickness as I thought about Lemur (RIP) and Mia, who I haven't met but Taylor says is lovely so I will go with that. He is a happy little creature. Currently he is hopping around and nibbling at my boots. he is all white with brown ears and I am not quite sure what we are planning on doing with him when we have to leave...
Class is going okay so far. I am going to be receiving 18 credits for 8 weeks so I can't complain about that! The Chinese seem to enjoy trying to learn in a second language and we enjoy them giggling all the time. Our least favorite class is 3 hours long and kind of like pulling teeth. Even the Chinese are bored in class. Our prof is nice but we never really know what she is trying to talk about unless she brings up cars or Mcdonalds. We get excited when she brings up American food and German cars. I really like my accounting classes because Bernie teaches them and he usually has food examples as well. I can't get over that the Chinese want to take classes from a foreign professor. At WSU if we see a foreign name for our class list we usually try and drop that as fast as possible, and usually roll our eyes if we have a large number of Asians in our classes. Here they love it! Speaking of languages, I have the opportunity to teach English to the Chinese. It would be 4.5 hours a week and you get paid but I am not sure yet. I am sure it would be completely rewarding but I want to focus on learning Chinese! I don't know, does anyone have opinions on teaching English as a second language?
Today in class Bernie told us to try a Chinese restaurant that would be more like the Chinese food we were used to in America (General Tsao's, Mongolian Beef, Orange Chicken) and gave us a card. We still can't read so we rode our bikes into Wenjiang and tried to match the Hieroglyphs on the card with those on the restaurants. We rode past the restaurant a couple times and most Chinese kept coming out to try and get us in their restaurants. We finally found the one. There were dogs everywhere. Outside, inside, on the roof...etc. They don't seem to care about any health codes or requirements at the restaurants. That's why I usually don't look at the food while I eat it. We sat down and after lots of debates and us just repeating "gi" "gi" !! (chicken, chicken) they brought us out some dishes. Definitely not what we were used to. I have no idea what I ate and we tried to not eat too much because none of it was good. It was more traditional Chinese food than anything. Dan said that one of the dishes tasted like a urinal. I don't know about that but it is definitely something we are not trying to eat again. We paid our 80 cents or whatever it cost to eat there (honestly I think they end up paying us money to eat at places most of the time) and we headed off to get "chicken burgers" a couple of shops down. My stomach wasn't feeling the best but I ordered a burger and fries for a grand total of 50 cents. I wasn't feeling the chicken and I made the huge mistake of looking at what I was eating. Oh no, I was not gonna finish that burger after I saw it's innards. I bid adieu to everyone and hopped on my bike and rode back to campus.
I ran all the way up to the second floor of the Cafeteria (where all the rich SWUFE kids eat because it costs about 90 cents a meal) and ran over to my favorite station, The noodle station. The woman who always serves me my food (noodle beezy as I affectionately refer to her as) was there and I couldn't have been more happy to see her. As she handed me my Chow Mien or something that resembles it I looked her dead in the eye and said "noodle beezy, I will never leave you again. I love you". She just nodded and smiled. I might take her and the rabbit home with me.
I think tonight we all realized whenever things don't go our way it's not the Chinese fault. Things are different here and we get frustrated when things don't go our way and they can't understand us but we we're the ones that came into their country not knowing a word of Chinese. This seems like a simple concept to think about but you would be surprised at how often we forget that not everything is up to American standards nor is everything going to be. I mean, it would be nice if they just all spoke English. Hmm. I might just teach that English class after all..
We decided to name it Simba because for some reason we were thinking of the Lion King in our most boring, three hour long class (mgtops 491). To christen it properly I held it above the sink Rafiki style and then told it that "all the light that touches the kingdom shall be yours". It fell asleep. We don't have a cage for Simba yet so we made it a nice little nest area in one of Shoji's cupboards. I know he gave it to me as a present but I don't want it shitting all over my stuff. The girls are all in love with it but the boys don't quite seem to see the appeal. Craig keeps threatening to drop it down the squatty potty hole. Nice. Having Simba around made me have a tiny pang of homesickness as I thought about Lemur (RIP) and Mia, who I haven't met but Taylor says is lovely so I will go with that. He is a happy little creature. Currently he is hopping around and nibbling at my boots. he is all white with brown ears and I am not quite sure what we are planning on doing with him when we have to leave...
Class is going okay so far. I am going to be receiving 18 credits for 8 weeks so I can't complain about that! The Chinese seem to enjoy trying to learn in a second language and we enjoy them giggling all the time. Our least favorite class is 3 hours long and kind of like pulling teeth. Even the Chinese are bored in class. Our prof is nice but we never really know what she is trying to talk about unless she brings up cars or Mcdonalds. We get excited when she brings up American food and German cars. I really like my accounting classes because Bernie teaches them and he usually has food examples as well. I can't get over that the Chinese want to take classes from a foreign professor. At WSU if we see a foreign name for our class list we usually try and drop that as fast as possible, and usually roll our eyes if we have a large number of Asians in our classes. Here they love it! Speaking of languages, I have the opportunity to teach English to the Chinese. It would be 4.5 hours a week and you get paid but I am not sure yet. I am sure it would be completely rewarding but I want to focus on learning Chinese! I don't know, does anyone have opinions on teaching English as a second language?
Today in class Bernie told us to try a Chinese restaurant that would be more like the Chinese food we were used to in America (General Tsao's, Mongolian Beef, Orange Chicken) and gave us a card. We still can't read so we rode our bikes into Wenjiang and tried to match the Hieroglyphs on the card with those on the restaurants. We rode past the restaurant a couple times and most Chinese kept coming out to try and get us in their restaurants. We finally found the one. There were dogs everywhere. Outside, inside, on the roof...etc. They don't seem to care about any health codes or requirements at the restaurants. That's why I usually don't look at the food while I eat it. We sat down and after lots of debates and us just repeating "gi" "gi" !! (chicken, chicken) they brought us out some dishes. Definitely not what we were used to. I have no idea what I ate and we tried to not eat too much because none of it was good. It was more traditional Chinese food than anything. Dan said that one of the dishes tasted like a urinal. I don't know about that but it is definitely something we are not trying to eat again. We paid our 80 cents or whatever it cost to eat there (honestly I think they end up paying us money to eat at places most of the time) and we headed off to get "chicken burgers" a couple of shops down. My stomach wasn't feeling the best but I ordered a burger and fries for a grand total of 50 cents. I wasn't feeling the chicken and I made the huge mistake of looking at what I was eating. Oh no, I was not gonna finish that burger after I saw it's innards. I bid adieu to everyone and hopped on my bike and rode back to campus.
I ran all the way up to the second floor of the Cafeteria (where all the rich SWUFE kids eat because it costs about 90 cents a meal) and ran over to my favorite station, The noodle station. The woman who always serves me my food (noodle beezy as I affectionately refer to her as) was there and I couldn't have been more happy to see her. As she handed me my Chow Mien or something that resembles it I looked her dead in the eye and said "noodle beezy, I will never leave you again. I love you". She just nodded and smiled. I might take her and the rabbit home with me.
I think tonight we all realized whenever things don't go our way it's not the Chinese fault. Things are different here and we get frustrated when things don't go our way and they can't understand us but we we're the ones that came into their country not knowing a word of Chinese. This seems like a simple concept to think about but you would be surprised at how often we forget that not everything is up to American standards nor is everything going to be. I mean, it would be nice if they just all spoke English. Hmm. I might just teach that English class after all..
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)