Next in my saga of travels was a trip to Hunan. Just a few days after we got back from Hangzhou with ECNU we had our CIEE trip. The trip was divided into two halves. First we went to Zhang Jia Jie (张家界) which is one of China's most famous parks, and in my opinion deservedly so. For the second half of the trip we went to visit Feng Huang (凤凰) which is a combination of traditional minority culture and tourist central. All in all it was a great trip

We flew to Hunan since any alternate transportation was just going to take more time than we had to spare. The flight was fine... Except for the food... Each person was given a little snack box which upon initial inspection seemed perfectly fine, until I realized that the pack of cookies was flavored like onions and that the chips were actually apple slices... It only went downhill from there.

So, to begin: Zhang Jia Jie. If you have ever seen any of the recent famous Chinese movies (mostly the historical/fantasy ones) such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon there is invariably a shot where they are dashing through mountains that are kind of stony crags shooting up through the mists with trees growing out of the sides of them, that is Zhang Jia Jie. And for once, it looked exactly like it did in the movies. It really was that beautiful.

We went just before the start of true summer so we got no mist, but the effect was still absolutely stunning. Especially after living in Shanghai for eight months suddenly being somewhere naturally beautiful was a striking change.

We stayed in a hostel just outside the park and took a local bus over in the morning. One of the things that I love the most about China is the people watching, and the bus there provided a lot of good people watching. To start with there was a woman whose job was to collect bus fair. She was carrying a Louis Vuitton purse . Only in China. Our next stop was to pick up a police officer for the town. He brought his own chair, just in case the bus seats were full, and plopped it down in the middle of the bus isle. Because it is a small town the buses work a bit differently. There are no stops per say. The buses follow the same street routs every day and if you want to get on you wave as the bus passes and it stops. If you want to get off you yell at the bus driver. When we needed to get the bus the woman in charge of our hostel called up the bus driver’s cell phone and told him to be sure to hold it at the end of our street.

There was another really interesting thing that happened when we were in Hunan that made me think a lot about the foundations of our society. In Hunan they don’t trust coins. I don’t know if it was because they thought they could be faked or what, but they would only accept payment in bills. So even though we had a significant amount of money in coins it was valueless because no one would accept then. It made me think a lot about our monetary system, and that it only works because we have all decided that it should. After enough economics and history courses I intellectually knew that without people’s trust in it money is valueless, but it is different to read about money becoming valueless in a collapsing government and suddenly finding your own money worthless.

Another really interesting thing was the entrance to the park itself. The entry tickets to Zhang Jia Jie were some of the most advanced entry tickets I have ever encountered in my life. Every ticket was for two days. I got you ticket which was a credit card like item. I then proceeded to the front gate where they swiped my card. They then scanned my fingerprint so that I could not sell the second day of my card or anything. The next day when we reentered the park they scanned our thumb prints to validate our identity. It was actually a little bit creepy.

We were incredibly lucky in our timing to visit the park. We went the weekend before Labor Day (May 1^st in China) which, not surprisingly, is a big deal in China. Everybody gets a three day weekend and the entire country picks up and goes traveling. So, wince were there right before Labor Day, anyone who had thought about going to Zhang Jia Jie put it off for a week. That meant there was essentially no one there, which was awesome since it can get incredibly crowded apparently (there were 14.4 million visitors in 2005). The weather was also awesome. It was right before true summer hit (it is 95 out right now) so it was still in the 70s with a lovely breeze.

That being said, Zhang Jia Jie is a national park full of mountains… I have done my best to stay in shape since I got to Shanghai. I belong to a gym, I take spin classes or run a few times a week. I can certainly out exercise most of the Chinese women at the gym.

Zhang Jia Jie comes with two experiences for you to pick from. First there is the Chinese version of the park: you enter the park, a bus picks you up and carries you to the base of the tallest peaks. Then you purchase your ticket for the cable car which carries you to the top where if it suits you, you can take a mild hike around the top of the mountain, or just snap your photo and return down. That is the method my host mom apparently followed when she went last year. Except her group decided it was so nice that they walked down the mountain. She claims to have been unable to walk for a week afterwards (my host father and Jing Jing demonstrated for me what her walk looked like, I almost cried I was laughing so hard). There was also the option of being carried around in a sedan chair for those who wanted the nature walk minus the walk...

So that was the Chinese way… And then there was our way which consisted of the philosophy “If you didn’t hike for four hours and climb stairs from below sea level to twelve hundred plus feet then the view isn’t worth it” Yep, that “in shape” that comes from working out a few times a week at the gym, LIES LIES LIES!!! My plight was not helped by the fact that I am five inches shorter than anyone else in the program. They all thought it was perfectly comfy to take the steps two at a time. My legs did not agree.

The issue was not actually hiking. I think that I would have done better on an actual hike. However, in case any Chinese person should ever decide to actually attempt the walk up we can’t have them hiking, thus we must use STAIRS! I am not a big fan of stairs. Even in the height of my being in shape I got more tired climbing stairs than doing anything else, toss me a 10k or a distance swim any day, so taking a winding rout of straight stairs up to the top of Tian Zi Shan (天子山) or heavenly mountain just plain hurt. Though I can’t argue with the fact that it was absolutely gorgeous, and now that I can walk again without inordinate pain, I probably agree that it was worth it.

At the top of Tian Zi Shan we ran into two girls who were students at the local university. There were incredibly sweet and gave us a short history of the area and tour guided us around for while in exchange for w few pictures.

At the top of the pagoda at the top of Tian Zi Shan there is a room. In that room is a man doing calligraphy. the walls are completely covered in scrolls and unbound sheets of calligraphy. We stood and watched him for an inordinately long time, but could not figure out if we could purchase a scroll if we wanted to, forget how much a scroll cost, or weather we could get one custom made.

We finished the hike out that day along a river which was awesome. Nate and I ditched our shoes and waded across which felt sosososososo good.

That night we went for traditional food of the area. For whatever reason it is customary in that region to sit on very small chairs at very low tables. It was pretty funny. I felt a little like I was babysitting and participating in a tea party at a child sized play set. If I felt that way I can't even imagin how six foot two made of legs Nate managed it.

Another thing that Zhang Jia Jie did well was signage. I don't know who they got to write and or translate their signs, but they were completely hilarious, some of them the actualy meaning was beyond my comprehension and some of them were just funny.

Sorry I can't get this one rotated...

Megan, Lillian, and I ran out to get breakfast the next morning. We were going to settle for some noodles which were not what we were particularly in the mood for when we met a really nice local woman. She walked us down to the bao zi place that all the locals thought was the best and shich did in fact have very good breakfast. One of the things I like the most about getting out of Shanghai is the people are frankly curious and more than happy to stand and talk with you and show you around their hometown.

The next day was also spent in the park. We started out the day with a slightly more tame hike along the side of a river that cut through the mountains. Then, much to Nate's chagrin, we decided to take the cable car up to the top of the second highest peak, but don't worry, we did walk down!

On the way up we didn't want to walk next to the road with all the busses on it so we took a side trail. Unfortunately that side trail did not actually connect back with the cable car entry so we had to do some off roading. We essentially just climbed off the path and scrambled back down the path of least resistance.

A fun side quirk of Zhang Jia Jie are the monkeys. They live along the sides of the trails in the lower part of the mountains and despite the copious number of signs requesting that you do not feed the monkeys, they were clearly frequently fed as they showed absolutly no fear. On that note, on the way backdonw Lillian made a friend. We were walking by a group of mokeys and suddenly behind me I hear Lillian start to freak out. We all turned around and there was a monkey attatched to her backpack trying to get a pack of brightly colored tissues out of the mesh water bottle holder. Lillian was just standing there flapping her arms around. And what did we do? Good friends that we are? We all went for our cameras.

That day we ended up on a different side of the park so we had to take a bus back. The one bus turned into two busses. We were in the middle of a highway in the middle of no where and our bus driver informed us that this was the place to stop, and if we waved the next bus/glorified van would stop and pick us up. So we dutifully stood by the side of the road waving like lunatics at the next van that came by. A very confused young man informed us that he was going in the other direction, at which point we saw another van come by which we sprinted after until it stopped, which was in fact our "bus." Seating was a very carpe dium sort of affair. I ended up sittig on the median thing between the drivers seat and passenger seat facing backwards. This particular medium was covered with fake grass, which I have to say is not the worlds most comfortable sitting material.

We did eventually make it back to the hostel though, so I guess it was a success. After another outside dinner sitting at tiny tables we called it a night.

The next day we headed off to Feng Huang, which I will write about another day, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Talking about climbing the mountains make me think about going to the gym in China so for this blog you get a special additional feature: anecdotes from the gym in China.

MoB, Mind over Body, is an endless source of hilarity to me, as is my existence to the Chinese gym members. First let’s talk about Chinese gym goers. In the States if I am in a workout class when it gets really hard I tend to draw inspiration from the people around me “well if he/she/it can really evil sit up number 247 well then so can I” I’m pretty sure that’s what most people do and it kind of keeps the whole class going. In your standard Pilates class in Shanghai as soon as it gets hard the Chinese collapse back on their yoga mats and throw their hands back as if to say “no, it is too much, my strength has been overcome, I can do no more. Sigh.” This invariably results in me, flushed to the color of a tomato and dying, struggling along only to look around at thirty people around me lying down and chilling. Then I get the eye contact moment with the teacher who looks at me and decided that “hey, there is one person who can finish my exercise class. Lets do twenty more sets while I go over and torture her personally!” That being said, I cannot touch the Chinese for flexibility. I was sitting on my mat before class the other day sadly attempting to coax myself into something resembling flexibility when another woman walks in. She plops down next to me IN THE SPLITS and then PUTS HER FORHEAD ON THE FLOOR!!!!!!!! WITHOUT STREATCHING!!!!!!!!! WHY?

The other thing that I do at the gym a lot is take spin classes. The spin classes in the states are definitely harder and 15 minutes longer, but they have nothing on the Chinese spin classes for sheer ridiculousness. The spinning room in MoB is lit with blue lights. The walls are studded with color changing LEDs and behind the teacher (whose bike is on a stage) is a giant lit up MoB sign that also changes rainbow colors. There are street lane lines painted on the floor to complete the feeling that we are riding outdoors on road bikes… And then there is the music. The music they use is just more awesomely ridiculous that American spin teachers could ever conceive of. Oh, and the music is not in Chinese. Some of my favorite pieces include “You Are My Voodoo Child,” “We Will Rock You: The Techno Remix” and “A Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” yes, that song does exist at a tempo fast enough to spin at, it even includes sprints.

One of the best thing by far though, are the classes that the Chinese take (I’m too afraid). The number one rule for any of these classes is: If you plan to attend class you must not forget your costume! I love walking into the gym right before belly dancing class starts. What could possibly be funnier than a group of Chinese women wandering around the gym wearing full belly dancing outfits complete with jingly scarves. Oh wait, they might be beaten by what I like to refer to as “cowboy dancing class” which involves the women in skirts and vests and the men in suits and cowboy hats.

I have also been the source of more than my fair share of amusement to the rest of the gym goers. A perfect example happened about a month ago. I had finished working myself out and wanted to do some core work, but all the studios were occupied with classes. So Lillian and I grabbed yoga mats and dragged them into the spinning room. We didn’t bother turning on the lights on since there was enough coming through the windows. I guess that a few of the gym employees were giving some prospective members a tour of the gym facilities. Anyway Lillian and I were in the midst of various exercises, when the doors open and the lights come on and there are a group of Chinese people staring in trying to figure out what in the world we were doing in the dark in the spinning room with yoga mats. I think the tour got an added few lines of commentary to the effect of “and our gym comes with the occasional gratuitous foreigners, there is no accounting for them…” The rest of the group then walked out and the last gym employee sort of looked back and flipped the lights back off.

杭州 Hang Zhou

So, I am going to blame this latest bout of blogging lateness on my midterms...

On April 9th and 10th I went with all the foreign students at my university to 杭州 (Hang Zhou) A city around four hours by bus from Shanghai.

We were really lucky. We went from a really ugly portion of spring with, honestly, record breaking amounts of rain (which lead to the destruction of several of my shoes) to really beautiful weather.

I am completely in awe of the organizational skills of my school. We have all been on school trips where they try to take 60 kids in two or three buses somewhere for a few hours and loading up the buses takes as long as the rest of the trip just to get everyone on the bus and accounted for.

The Hua Shi Da staff managed to load seven buses of foreign students who's only common language was broken Chinese with baggage and passports and bus us around for two days without us ever feeling the delay. We even got in and out of a hotel (of which we occupied three floors) without a hitch.

The first day we went to a beautiful set of gardens. It turns out that they were the same gardens that I stopped at with my host family when we were driving back from our travels during Spring Festival, but they couldn't have looked more different. They were in full spring bloom and it was awesome.

Though I will have to admit I was paying more attention to my classmates that they surroundings. I am in class with a bunch of goofballs from around the world and traveling with them is a complete blast. We spent the day riding around in boats, eating ice cream, trying on traditional straw hats, and generally frolicking around like idiots.

We had the evening free. First I went out to dinner with the rest of the CIEE crowd one of my classmates and his friends who are also Lillian's classmates. We went for traditional Hang Zhou style food which was all really really good. After we had sat through the meal for a good long time, chatted for a while, made sure all the plates were clean, and plaid the bill we decided to get up and leave. However as we put on our jackets and got ready to go the waiter comes running up and says "wait but don't you want your duck???" "Duck???" we thought... It turns out that Jeff had ordered a duck and forgotten about it... so there was nothing to do but go back and eat the duck ^^,

Hangzhou is famous for bordering on 西湖 (Xi Hu) or west lake. Our hotel was only a few blocks from the lake so decided to walk down to the lake and see what it was like at night. Unfortunately the lake had bats... Lillian is deathly afraid of bats... She dealt with it though so we kept strolling. It was really nice to be somewhere with some natural beauty, because although Shanghai is awesome natural beauty is not its forte.

As we were walking along the edge of the lake we started to hear music. It turned out that in the square ahead of us there were a couple hundred Chines people line dancing. Going with my newly adopted life policy "why not do it?" I managed to convince Lillian that it was necessary for us to go join in the massive Chinese line dance, which we then did. I'm not sure that anything quite that entertaining had ever happened in Hangzhou before. So we stood and watched for a few minutes to get the hang of it and then jumped in. That of course was the cue for the music to change to double time. I have to admit that after years of ballet Lillian was definitely better than I was, but I had a blast nonetheless.

After we had walked around for a while longer we sat down at a lakeside cafe and got ice cream while we sat and chatted. Then we headed back to the hotel. Megan went to sleep and I went to visit some of my Korean classmates from lass semester who I hadn't seen in a while.

We had heard that Hangzhou had a great midnight snack street so Lillian and I decided that we needed to take advantage of it. We got the hotel to write out the address and grabbed a taxi out to the street. It turned out to be more a street of tiny restaurants. They all seemed to be specializing in craw fish, and there were massive tubs of live craw fish outside the restaurants, so of course we had to give it a try. I don't know where all the people came from but despite it being around one in the morning on a Thursday/Friday all of these restaurants were full. There was a little table for two crammed between two bigger tables that was open in one of the more popular places, so we grabbed it when we could. We ended up with a massive bowl of craw fish between us and some chopsticks. We looked at the massive bowl of whole craw fish, we looked at the chopsticks, we looked at each other, then we reached over and snagged the box of tissues of the table next to us and went to town.

I don't really understand it but all the Chinese people where eating the craw fish with a very minimal amount of mess, while Lillian and I were practically bathing in them. In can deal with a whole crab with my chopsticks, I can peal a shrimp in my moth, but I have yet to figure out how to eat a craw fish without my hands... oh well... They were delicious, and I was wearing black...

We went back to the hotel and I went to Lillian's room and met a few of her classmates which was fun before heading off to bed.

Far too few hours later we headed off for day two. We drove around the lake to the official tourist visit portion of the lake and had essentially a free day to take in the lake. I hung out with Megan, Nate, and Jonas. First we saw that across from where we were dropped off there was a bike rental place that had a sign up saying bike rental for 1 kuai (about 14 cents) we thought that was a good idea. So began "mission bicycle." We went over to inquire about renting bikes and the woman in charge said that she had bicycles, but no cards that you needed to rent bikes but if we went to the next rental station up the road they might have some. So we did. Rinse and repeat... Four bike rental stations later one of the people told us that the only place with cards was the place at the front of the park. At that point we demanded to know why. Her answer: "I don't know, it doesn't make any sense to me, but the boss says so..." We finally made it to the place at the front of the park only to be informed that although we could rent the bike for one kuai we would need to pay 300 in various deposits... So ended "mission bicycle"

It turned out fine though, because from there we wandered back into the park and our small hike had taken us off of the main tourist track so we had a little breathing room to walk. We ended up renting a boat and boatman to take us around the lake which was absolutely lovely.

Finally we grabbed some lunch and hopped back on the buses to head home.

I seem to have misplaced my Hangzhou pictures so if you want to see them they are posted on my facebook. I am now going to head to the gym. When I get back if I am feeling like a really good person I will write about My trip to Hunan which I left for two days after I got back from Hangzhou.

TTFN

大家好!














So after the entertaining but mildly traumatic events of my last blog life has been remarkably calm. So much so that last time I sat down to blog I realized that I had nothing to write about… But finally: An Event! Last weekend we went to Nanjing, we being Megan, Lillian, Jonas, Nick, and I.

We took the train out Saturday morning and stayed through Monday night. (yes I did play hookie, so sue me) We stayed at a Hostel that one of our fellow students suggested. It turned out to be a great spot. It was right next to Confucius’s Temple and a really cool walk street/night market area. It was also clean and nicer than I expected, especially for the oh so expensive $6 a night I was paying for it. It was also cool to be in a place with tons of other traveling kids from all over the world. I ended up having a fun Chat with a group of German kids who were studying film in Shanghai.

The first afternoon we decided to go to the Nanjing Massacre Museum since it is a “must do” from everyone who has gone to Nanjing. Since there were five of us taking a taxi was pretty much out of the question no matter what because we would always be stuck taking two, and our direction giving ability was iffy at best, so it would be particularly bad if we got separated. So… On to the Bus system!!!!

We found the right bus line and the stop nearest us and walked down. We saw quite a few brand new shiny buses go by, but our bus had yet to arrive. But the, from down the street, we saw it… The red bus, chipping paint and all, that looked like it was built in the early 70s and had yet to be remodeled with a large number 63 painted on the front. We looked at each other and asked Megan “we do really want the 63 right?” “yep” so we all headed on… Lillian described it as “it’s like the bus is in a time warp that no one else is stuck in” The windows rattled… Actually the whole bus kind of rattled. But we did get there… And in one piece too!

I still have mixed feelings about the Massacre Museum. Initially I was incredibly impressed. The architecture was amazing and the various outside courtyards were beautifully laid out. There was some quite disturbing statuary, but it really bought the emotions home in a still relatively tactful way. The whole thing was constructed in Black Marble and gray concrete which, in conjunction with the grey weather, made quite an impression.






























When we got there we wandered through the outside courtyard before getting in line with a massive tour group to go inside. However, when we were only a little way into the line the guard monitoring the line announced “外国朋友请先来” Or “Will the foreign friends please come first” so we got to cut the whole line which was pretty nice. In my opinion the museum went down hill from there.

We proceeded to a recreation of the excavation of the mass grave left behind after the Nanjing massacre that, in my opinion, was done in extremely poor taste.

However, there was something extremely interesting. At various points throughout the museum there were huge chains of thousands of paper cranes. I guess that Japanese tour groups came and brought them to leave in apology. I thought that was incredibly interesting for several different reasons. On one hand it was really interesting that the Japanese were admitting that it was a mistake on their part enough to bring a symbolic offering of apology. On the other hand it was equally interesting that the Chinese were willing to leave the chains out for visitors to view, since the rest of the museum seemed essentially devoted to perpetuating the hatred between Japan and China.

After we walked through the mass grave there was an eternal flame, and then we walked out into a large open arcade. At the end was a massive statue of “Peace” portrayed as a western woman, which I thought was really interesting.

At the same time as we were there, there was also a large group of Chinese soldiers visiting. Groups of them got together in front of the statue and take pictures, with V for victory signs and all. It was really adorable.

Lillian and I were walking along and there was a man trailing us who was determined to take a picture of us using his cell phone. I am pretty used to it at this point. Some people however, are more subtle then other. The incredibly loud shutter sound that his cell phone camera made kind of ruined this particular man’s attempts at stealth. Finally Lillian and I decided to turn around and just pose for the man, however, when we did so he vehemently denied having been taking our pictures. So we turned around and kept walking and he kept trailing…

Megan had decided that she needed to go to the bathroom, so we decided to meet her at the end near the statue. About 15 minutes after she had left Lillian’s cell phone went off. The Conversation went something like this:
“Hey Megan. Where are you?”
…
“at the front gate… Why?”
…
“YOU GOT IN A FIGHT!!!!”

As it turns out Megan had gotten involved a bathroom brawl and had been escorted to the front gate by the security guards who came to break it up. She had been waiting in line for the bathroom, and had finally gotten to the front when a group of older Chinese women came in and tried to cut the line by elbowing everybody out of the way. The woman behind Megan tried to stop them by pointing out the she and Megan had been waiting in line. Megan piped up that yes, she had in fact been waiting for a long time. Elbows flew… Security guards were called…

We went back to the hostel in the evening to chill a little and then head to bed. The hostel had a resident cat that was completely adorable and I really enjoyed playing with for a while earlier that day. However before we got back something really traumatic must have happened to that cat, because we opened our room door and the cat appears out of no where and sprints into the room and takes up semi permanent residence under my bed. Now that wouldn't have been a big deal except that Megan is EXTREMELY ALLERGIC to cats.

Mission Eject Cat then commenced. I sat in the room and tried to coax it out to start with. Finally I reverted to sitting with my hand out and waiting for the cat to come to me. Fortunately I noticed the cat shift its weight somewhat oddly so I tensed up, which enabled me to throw myself out of the way when the cat came shooting out from under the bed in full battle mode and moved in under the bed across from mine. Unfortunately, at that point there was a Chinese man asleep in that bed... I finally went for help. I'm still not sure how, but Nick eventually managed to get it out of the room without it ever having gone onto Megan's bed so all was well.

The next morning we decided to head out for a traditional Chinese HOT SPRING ADVENTURE!!!! But first we needed breakfast. So while the boys woke up Megan Lillian and I went down to find some street food. Fortunately there were several food stalls right under the hostel. We grabbed a "麻球" (sesame ball) for everyone. These turned out to be filled with honey rather than the usual red bean paste and were delicious! We also bought what we call Chinese crepes. I never have actually figured out the proper name for them. They are a really thin piece of crepe like dough with an egg, some chili pepper, some really awesome brown sweet sauce, some little pickled thingys, some green veggies, and your choice of a crunch thing or a 油条 which I call a Chinese donut all wrapped together. They are Excellent. (I was really upset when I actually learned the Chinese name for Chinese donuts and realized that they translate to "oil stick")

We were without a doubt the most interesting thing to have ordered food in a long time and by the time we were done there was quite a group who had come to watch us chat with the ladies who ran the food carts. Always glad to be of entertainment!

After breakfast we headed out. There are some famous hot springs in the mountains outside Nanjing which we decided we couldn’t miss. We were planning on taking a bus out, but when we got to the bus station this guy came up to us and was like “I have a van 15 kuai per person and I will take you “ and we were like “sketchy van man… perhaps not…”

But then the bus pulled up and it was absolutely full of people. Sooooo… standing for an hour and a half??? Sketchy van??? standing for an hour and a half??? Sketchy… Ohhhh look those Chinese people are taking the sketchy van… WAIT FOR USSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

So we took the van and the driver, after making some fun of our Chinese took us straight to the door of the hot spring complex. The hot springs were AMAZING!!!! Seriously who doesn’t love a spa day? It was practically a hot spring resort with a $20 or so entrance fee you got to spend the day playing in their 42 different hot springs. What are in the 42 different hot springs? you might ask…

Well, to start with : flesh eating fish! Not kidding, I promise.

Apparently it is an ancient Chinese exfoliating technique. You sit in a warm pool and fish come and “吃” (eat) you. I had heard about them before, but I never really expected to do it. But hey, why not right? I also expected the fish to be tiny and tadpole like, but no, they were about three inches or so. All the Chinese were sitting there completely calmly, not twitching at all, so we settled in to wait.

And then all of us at one felt the fish “吃” us. We pretty much flipped out. There was jumping and giggling and flailing of all sorts, much to the amusement of the 50 or so Chinese people chilling in there with us. We eventually adjusted to it and stopped flailing and got be amused in our turn when a group of Chinese girls flipped out too.

There was drink and snack service included in our package, so when we were sitting in one of the hot springs a waitress came around with a tray of drinks. I was kind of expecting something zen and soothing such as unsweetened green tea, but no, she comes by with a tray of orange, green, and clear soda. I of course had to get the toxic waste green bubbling liquid, who wouldn’t? Which turned out to be some pretty awesome green apple soda.

We kept hot springing until about 2 in the afternoon. Some of my favorites were, besides the fish pool of course, the waterfall hot spring where you could chill under a waterfall, and the small baths each of which had a different flower scent. The wine hot spring, disappointingly, was not filled with wine. We wrapped up by sitting in the sauna and then grabbed a car back into town.

Than night we hopped on another bus and headed out to see the city walls. Nanjing is famous for having some of the oldest in tact city walls in the world. There was great view and a bunch of people up on the top flying kites which was really fun. There was also a wonderful sort of quiet tranquility to the place which I rarely come across even in the parks of bustling Shanghai. The authentic awesomeness of the place was a little broken by the massive inflated car on top of the ramparts though. Well... Who didn't want to know about the newest Kia when visiting ancient city walls?















We headed back towards the Hostel and stopped by the Confucius temple. It turns out that the temple was in the middle of the annual lantern festival. That meant that the whole place was filled with ridiculously complicated and completely awesome lanterns. We aren't talking lanterns that hang from the rafters or anything though. These were practically parade floats.
















We had grabbed a late lunch that day so when dinner came around we weren't really hungry. We went and walked around the night markets for a while, but the city, like most of China shut down at 10 pm. The boys went back to the hostel, but Megan, Lillian, and I went on Dumpling Quest. We had seen people order in Dumplings the night before and had been wanting some ever since. All the street vendors were closing but finally we found a dumpling chain restaurant. We ran in and ordered just in time. A few people came in right after us and got turned away. I think that we got served only because the lady at the counter was incredibly amused by our existence and our need for dumplings at a few minutes to ten. So we got our dumplings, and then were compelled to stop for fruit on a stick on the way back to the hostel. Who doesn't want about a quarter of a watermelon on a stick for 20 cents?

The next morning was our last day so we started by checking out. We then grabbed some 包子 (steamed buns) for breakfast and headed down to the train station to see if we could check our bags for the day. Fortunately we could, so we dropped our stuff and hopped on the bus. We decided to go out to Purple mountain which is the major scenic spot in Nanjing and also the site of Sun Yat Sen's tomb.

I am going to go on a a quick tangent on the names of major Chinese political figures in Chinese and English. THEY ARE COMPLETELY NOT THE SAME AT AAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! It makes it really hard to talk to Chinese people. for example earlier this year I went to the tomb of Chang Kai Shek. It took me about half an hour to communicate where I had gone since in Chinese his name is Jian Jie Shi. Now tell me where we got Chang Kai Shek from. Now Sun Yat Sen is closer. I mean, we got the first word right at least. His name in Chinese is Sun Zhong Shan. If we were going to change the names that mich why didn't we just pick something like John or Fred for the English names?

Anywho... I think my new goal in life is to become important enough to get a tomb like Sun Yat Sen's. It is insanely gorgeous. It is up a huge mountain with a view that goes on forever over a massive nature park and then the city sky line.














We were climbing up to the top, but about half way up we stopped to take pictures with some massive bronze urns. Of course, since we had stopped at a tourist attraction that made us a part of the attraction. Five different Chinese family's immediately mobbed up grabbed Megan Lilian and I and started taking pictures. The then started trading us around. I swear there was bargaining, something along the lines of "I'll give your family Lillian if we can have Megan and Zoe for a group shot" "Done." The crowed cleared after about ten minutes and we made a run for it.

At the top was Sun Yat Sen's actual Mausoleum. I guess when they were building the site the Chinese government held a competition. The layout design for the layout of the grounds was won by a Chinese architect, but the actual mausoleum and the statue of Sun Yat Sen went to an Italian architect and a Czech sculpture, which ended up creating a distinctly western looking Sun Yat Sen.



















After the Memorial we went through some of the other stuff at the park. They had a massive pagoda in memory of Chinese patriots. It was really awesome becasue you could climb up to each of ten levels and look out. I have taken a bunch of classes where teacher make students do something to try to "change there perspective" usually involving standing on desks or the like. Nothing has ever worked as well as climbing the pagoda. The forst few floors you were looking at individual trees and would clearly see that there were two layers of different types of trees. By the time I got to the top floor the trees looked like a rolling blanket that I almost believed I could walk across.

































Next up we went to see a special outdoor music amphitheater. At the amphitheater they cultivated special whit pigeons. There were TONS of them. What I didn't know is that Lillian is terrified of/hates all birds and things that make flapping noises.

There were people who were feeding the pigeons and letting them stand on them. Lillian looked at them start to feed the birds and as a huge flock of hundred of bird lifted off to fly onto the people she kind of yelled out "Why would you feed them? Why? Oh No! SAVE YOURSELVES!!!!" Megan and I almost keeled over cracking up.






























Finally we grabbed the bus back to the train station to catch our train home. We had bought bowls of Ramen for dinner on the train. Now I thought that it was physically impossible not to cook ramen correctly. Lillian however, thought otherwise.

Megan, Lillian, and I all had the ramen that you pour the liquid out of and end up with not soupy noodles. So we all added water from the trains hot water dispenser. I guess Lillian went last so the water wasn't as hot or something, because when we all went to pour out the water Lillian said "ummm, guys, my noodles are still hard..." So we decided that she should pour the water out and add new hot water. We could do that because for that kind of ramen we had only added vegetables, not sauce with the water. But when she started pouring the water out she began to "hemorrhage vegetables" They were kind of spraying out with the water into the water machine's filter. At that point we were cracking up so hard we all almost dropped our ramen. She re-added hot water but when the time came and her noodles were finally done she had already poured the water once so the lid was kind of ripped and she hemorrhaged even more vegetables.

We were completely incapacitated with laughter and there was an entire car of Chinese train passengers who just couldn't understand what in the world could be that hilarious about the water dispenser... Which of course only made us laugh harder...

till next time!

There and Back Again: A Bag's Tale

I was aware of theft in Shanghai, mostly in that vague "not going to happen to me" kind of way. I fact I kind of expected one of us to get our pockets picked at some point on the trip. There is simply to much pick pocketing for me to think we would all get away without a problem. What I didn't expect was what happened to me Saturday as I was walking down Nanjing Lu with Lillian.

This week and last week is the Shanghai International Literature Festival. I was supposed to go see James Fallows speak on Saturday afternoon. Lillian and I wanted to go to another presentation on Sunday so we decided to go early to buy tickets. We took the metro to the Nanjing Dong Lu exit and decided to walk the rest of the way to the venue which was on the Bund. We were walking and talking. I honestly cant remember about what when my bag got yanked out of my hand. At first I thought it had caught on one of the way too many people we were walking with and had just been tugged out of my grip, but then I turned around and saw a man sprinting away holding my bag...


I shouted at the top of my lungs. Unfortunately I used English. Shock tends to snap you back into the language you know the best. But I got peoples attention anyway. There was a lot of pointing and honking but he managed to dodge around the corner without anyone stopping him. I made a rather feeble attempt to run after him, but high heeled boots are just not conducive to effective pursuit of robbery suspects.


I have heard tons of stories about how the Chinese love to stand by and watch a disaster occur, but never go out of their way to do anything. This didn't happen to me at all. I was actually shocked by how helpful pretty much everyone within a square block was. Immediately a younger couple came up and asked if I needed to use their phone to call the police. I ended up using Lillian's cell, but the couple stayed to make sure that I knew the right emergency numbers and that I could communicate what I needed to. And when the police arrived a huge group of people stayed to tell what they had seen and see if I needed any help.

So speaking of the police I am incredibly repressed with their response time. Almost immediately after I called there were four police cars, two motorcycles, and, no joke,a troop of the national guard in full uniform running around.

On the down side my attempt at calling 110 (think 911 but only for police, there are different numbers for fire or paramedics) was, frankly, a disaster. I started off by asking for English. HUGE MISTAKE! I thought that if they had an English speaker everything would be communicated far more clearly and quickly then if I tried to use my pretty-fluent-but-still-kind-of-sketchy Chinese. WRONG! What did asking for English get me. It got me two Chinese cops and an English translator on speaker phone. Did I mention that my pretty-fluent-but-still-kind-of-sketchy Chinese was WAY better than the translators English, but she had been requested, so...

Finally I pretty much got the major events across and by then the police were there, so I gave up on the phone and went for the face to face communication. After the police men had seen that the rather large amount of human resources had been correctly allocated they asked if they could take me back to the police station for a full report.

BUREAUCRACY HHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But let's start with how we got to the police station. They offered to give us a ride in the back of the police van. Note to self: NEVERNEVERNEVERNEVER get arrested in China. Did I say Never? There was a bench back there for Lillian and I directly facing the CAGE where the criminals went. Not kidding. There was a cage in the back of the van. We eventually got to the police station.

Life Goals:

1. graduate high school (check)
2. move to another country (check)
3. learn a new language (check)
4. make new friends (check)
5. give a police report in Chinese (check) Four times (check)

We got to the police station (Lillian was still with me) Only to find that a man from the street had come to make sure that we told the police everything that needed to be told. He was the only thing in the whole situation that nearly made me lose it. At first I was grateful, but then I changed my mind. He ended up alternating between telling the police what happened and shaking his finger at me while informing me, in mandarin with an incredibly thick shanghai accent, that this was my fault because I didn't scream loud enough. Apparently if I had screamed loud enough people like him who were standing across the street would have heard and leaped to the rescue, thus detaining the robber. That really didn't make sense to me at the time, because clearly he had to have heard me, since he turned and saw the whole thing... Oh well. I probably shouldn't have confronted him, but the fourth time he told me this I switched from quietly saying I understand to in forming him that I had indeed called out quited loudly seeing as the entire street had stopped what it was doing. That didn't really make an impression on him, so he just went to tell the guy behind us in line that I had been robbed and that it was my fault because I didn't yell... It was what the Chinese call a 没有办法 (mei you ban fa) moment. Meaning essentially there is no help for it.

Then it was my turn to give my police report. Despite this being one of the police stations of the largest tourist area in Shanghai there were no English speakers to be found in the station so I was left to my own devices. I guess the good that came out of this is a new found confidence in my Chinese. Before this I thought that my Chinese had improved a lot, and that it might even be getting good. After the three and a half hours I spent explaining myself to four different police officers I know that my Chinese is now, in fact, quite good if not beautiful or fluent.

First one cop asked to write out my statement. The whole thing was a bit comical, because when I handed them my statement, written in English of course, they all kind of gathered around and stared at it before photocopying it 8 or 10 times and then dismissing it as useless.

Next came the second cop. He was a younger cop and clearly wanted to be doing bigger and better things. I almost kicked him before deciding that I did not want to commit a felony in China and pasting a smile on my face. I figured that because I understood and answered 9 out of 10 of the questions in he asked in extremely rapid Chinese using a language that I had studied for 6 months that I was doing pretty well and that I probably deserved some mild respect if not a little praise. He disagreed. He found the fact that I did not immediately recognize the word sidewalk to be a particularly egregious offense. At one point Lillian and I ended up acting out the robbery in the middle of the police station, much to the amusement of the other man waiting. (as a side note, I feel terrible for the man waiting. Whatever he needed done, it wasn't his day.)

He then proceeded to ask me about the contents of my bag. First he asked about the bag and how much it cost. I told him that it was red leather and that I had bought it for a hundred. He asked American dollars or RMB. I told him RMB and he looked at me then shook his had and grumbled "fake" I almost cracked up. My bag had been ripped off my shoulder in the middle of the most famous street in Shanghai and the cop was worried that it wasn't legitimate.

We then went painstakingly through all the contents of my bag. At the time I thought that the thief was pretty much the least lucky thief of all time. I had never left the house with fewer valuables. I was actually on the way to the bank when he ripped off my bag. I had 100 RMB or roughly 15 dollars, my pone, and my keys. It was the keys I was most upset about because I knew that my host family would need to change the locks.

I was incredibly lucky that Lillian was there. We have the same phone and essentially the same thing in our wallets, down to the same bank's ATM card. It was incredibly useful to be able to show the police everything that I was talking about.

That officer finally went off to do whatever he was going to do and was replaced by another cop who typed the police report in Chinese into the computer while asking me periodic questions.

They then realized that computer A was not hooked up to the printer today... Neither was there a USB key to be found.

I was then handed over to officer number 4 who typed my report again. This time into computer B from which it was printed, photocopied ten more times, and presented to me to sign. I signed my statement, and then they handed me all the Chinese documentation. I know you aren't supposed to sign documents that you can't read. I could read most of the police reports and they had given up on my English name and typed them all under my Chinese name which isn't legal anyway. So I printed my name and hoped that if it ever became an issue someone would differentiate between printing and cursive.

3 1/2 hours later we were finally set free. Our first step: Go get some ice cream.

I feel pretty bad. I didn't have a phone anymore so we gave the police Lillian's number in case they needed to contact me. Lillian speaks no Chinese. They wanted to contact me. Frequently.

My host family did change all the locks (we have two front doors) but there was a problem with one of the locks so my host dad locked me in Sunday morning and went to get a new one. The doorbell rang, and who was it but Lillian? So we got to talk through the door as she explained that the police wanted to talk to me and I explained that I couldn't get out of the house...

Things proceeded in that vein. In the middle of class on Monday the girl behind me tapped me on the back. I looked behind me and she pointed at the girl next to her who pointed to the next person who pointed forming a line to the girl next to the window. Lillian was waving through the window pointing at her phone. (the police wanted to know how much money was on my sim card...)

The biggest problem was my host family, which I saw coming the minute I got robbed. I guess nothing like that has happened before... They expect pickpockets but the whole purse snatching in the middle of the day on a busy street is new... Thus: MAJOR PARANOIA!!!!!!! They tried to impose a curfew which they blamed on the economic crisis because poor people are coming to the city and stealing. For a while I was close to coming unglued because every time I saw my host dad I got a new safety lecture: "if you leave the house and one of us is home don't bring your keys... Never bring anything important out of the house... Never walk to MOB (the gym) alone... Do not carry money... there are evil people here from the country due to the economic crisis, they have weapons... You are a girl thus you will die... Don't put your computer on the bed, the house will burn down!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

We are pretty much over it at this point. I promised my host dad that whenever I leave the house I will give him the address of my destination and that if I get in a taxi I will text him the company and the taxi number... A little over the top perhaps, but better than the curfew.

On Tuesday one of my host mom's work mates got her backpack ripped off in the middle of a train station in the afternoon. I have to say that my first thought on hearing that was not "oh the poor woman, I know what that feels like." but "Couldn't she have waited?"

However, I did title this blog There and Back Again. So to finish the story.

Wednesday night I open my email. In my inbox is an email from a guy I met once at a party a long time ago. The email read as follows:

Hi Zoe,

Long time no see u , I wander if you can remember who I am, we met each other four months ago on the party arranged by TOP MANDARIN at kouler center Nanjing road, and I have given you my name card then.

The day before yesterday, someone called me that they have found your stolen bag with all your identity cards, I have been tried several times to contact you by your mobilephone number but failed, I think you must be worried about them and anxious to look for them.

If you see this letter, pls call me anytime without hesitation.

Yep. I quite litterally fell off my chair. I then ran to ask my host parents for the phone. They flipped. My host father decided that he was a part of a murderous scheme to get our adress and refused to let me use the house phone. He then called the guy using his cell phone and put his through his very best lawyer complete interrigation at full yell, during which he frequently told the guy that he did not trust him and that he was a lawyer.

If I was the man I would never do anyone a good service ever again. I would be way too afraid. Finally my Host Dad figured out that this poor guy was just trying to help and did not want to kill us all and appologized once or twice then hung up.

It turns out that the theif had ditched my bag in the bathroom of a restaurant just off Nanjing Lu. We wen't to the restaurant to pick up my bag. I had put the guy's card in my wallet all those months ago and forgotten about along with about a dozen other cards along with my host Dad's and CIEEs, but the restaurant saw fit to just call him.

This was officially the wierdest robbery conducted by the wierdest/nicest? robber EVER! My bag was essentially intact. All the cards in my wallet had been taken out and then replaced in my wallet in a different order. The 100 RMB was still in my wallet. My keys were still there (which I was highly appreciative of since the key to my bike lock was attatched and I was trying to figure out how to get someone to take the lock off without thinking I was stealing a bike) as was the ticket to the James Fallows talk that I had never quite made it to.

The only thing missing was my cell phone. However when I looked through all the pockets in my bag it turns out that the thief had taken my sim card out of my phone and put that back in the special sipped pocket. So although I have to get a new phone, I even get to keep my number. I was quite upset about loosing that because that would mean loosing quite a few chinese friends. I don't have their numbers anymore, but they will eventually call me.

So I have everything back but my phone. And frankly:

I AM CONFUSED

Until next time.

So despite my promises to update more frequently here we are again a month after my last update… Well I am yet again going to plead being ridiculously busy. Sorry about that.

As a side note before we Begin I am writing this from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf near my house because I didn’t want to spend the day entirely at home. I can’t help but find it ironic that although Coffee Bean has yet to reach the east coast there are plenty in the eastern hemisphere… Well there you go.

I just finished up with the main Chinese School break which centers around Chinese New Years or Spring Festival （春节）as the Chinese call it. It was very carefully explained to me that Spring Festival does not actually occur during spring but that after spring festival spring can arrive. This was a point that needed clarification as we all spent spring festival in ski jackets… Thus this will be the Spring Festival edition of the blog:

Spring Festival is the big family holiday in China. Think Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and New Years all rolled into one huge holiday for which the entire country is given a week of mandatory vacation. Every one returns to their ancestral home town, which creates a really interesting phenomenon. I knew that a lot of the people in Shanghai had moved to the city for work from other places, but suddenly for a week anyone with a family that hasn’t been in Shanghai for two generations or so just up and leaves. The city was EMPTY. It was actually somewhat creepy. I am used to going out bumping into six or eight people before I go two blocks and almost getting run down at least once. Suddenly I went out and there was no one on the sidewalk and the streets were empty. Shanghai practically became a ghost town.

A side point on the home town thing. The Chinese think your roots are really important. When you speak to Chinese people they will often ask where you are from. Not only of me, but of other Chinese, and they will answer not with where they live, but with where their family is from. Sometimes even people who are born in one place will answer with where there parents were born. They have two different words for hometown, one meaning where you were born, the other with meaning of your ancestral home. Chinese grammar emphasizes this as well. When asked where you are from the answer isn’t the place name, it is directly translated “I am (place name) person” making it part of your identity.

This makes Americans very confusing to the Chinese. I have talked with my host family several times about my heritage. I am definitely American, but I have European heritage, German on my mom’s side and French on my dad’s. My host dad informed me that because of this according to the Chinese I am French or maybe German, but not American. However, almost all of the American’s I know have a relatively recent ancestor who moved from another country. American is made up of many different Heritages, but the people largely consider themselves American. The Chinese find this beyond confusing. They believe that a person of Chinese heritage living anywhere in the world is still Chinese. They even have a phrase for it “all under the Yellow Emperor.” They have a particularly hard time understanding Chinese Americans, who look just like they do, but have an American thought process. They refer to them as “Bananas” because they are “yellow on the outside, but white on the inside” I promise that I’m not joking.

Now that tangent aside back to Spring Festival. What I planned on saying about it being a family holiday was that I split my time between my host mother and Father’s relatives. Historically the holidays were spent with the husbands family, but now they most families alternate years spending the first night of the holidays with one family and then the next year with the other.

This year the first night (think New Year’s Eve) was spent with my host father’s family in Suzhou. We drove out in the morning and then went dinner with the family in Suzhou. My name has now evolved from Mei Guo Jie Jie (American older sister) to Mei Jie which as with most things in the Chinese language is a play on words, and one that my extended host family is quite proud of themselves for. In this case I like the pun. Mei can stand for one of two compound words Mei Guo (美国) meaning America or Mei Li (美丽) meaning beautiful (the direct translation for America into Chinese is beautiful country).

Here is a slight tangent on puns in Chinese. You can’t have a language where every word has four or more meanings depending on tone without getting a culture based on puns. Many of the things that are considered lucky or unlucky are based on puns as well. For example the number four is considered unlucky. Some buildings in fact dons have fourth floors this is because in Chinese four is said “si” (四) however the verb to die is also “si” (死). Another example is that a couple is never supposed to share a pear. This is because a pear in Mandarin is “li” and so is the verb to separate…

The first night of Chinese New Year there is a TV program that the entire country witches put on by CCTV. When I got here I didn’t know what CCTV stood for so in my mind I nicknamed it Communist Chinese Television. It turns out it actually stands for Central Chinese Television… same same… although China is now officially no longer Communist… They now practice “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” Don’t ask me what that means. Anywho it was a pretty cool program, although my Chinese wasn’t really good enough to get most of the stand up comedy. I tried though.

A few months ago I read the book River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze By Peter Hessler, a man who came as one of the first peace corp volunteers in the early 90s to teach English in China. I really enjoyed it and strongly suggest reading it if you have some free time. Anyway he talked about a Canadian comedian called Da Shan in China who had learned flawless Mandarin and often appeared on TV. In the book Hessler complains about people telling him how good Da Shan’s Chinese was all the time. I remember reading it and thinking “thank goodness he isn’t around anymore, that would drive me crazy!” Well About halfway through the New Years Program who should appear but Da Shan himself. I consequently spent the next week hearing about how good Da Shan’s Chinese is compared to mine. I almost started cracking up the first time I heard it. After that it wasn’t so funny anymore, and then it was really irritating. After the fifth time I heard it I was quite tempted to yell “if I had been living here for 25 years, I too would have flawless tones, however, seeing as I have now been here for five months, I am not surprised that I am not perfectly fluent yet, are you?”

The next day, on a solid four hours sleep we headed back to Shanghai. I think my host family might think that I am narcoleptic since every time they put me in a car I am almost instantly asleep… But lets face it whenever I am in a car with them I am usually massively sleep deprived and then they put me in a nice warm rocking environment. What am I supposed to do? That night we had dinner at my host Grandparents house which was fun as usual, although I was again stuffed to an almost unimaginable level of fullness, and that is a difficult thing to do now. Due to being continually overfed my stomach capacity has enlarged considerably and it is pretty hard to get me to the point where I can’t eat another bite. The problem is that they keep offering my delicious little snacks and new year’s candies…

The next day I went to Karaoke with my host family which was a complete blast. The Chinese love Karaoke, but I had never gone with my host family before. It was hilarious. My host father is probably the most enthusiastic and at the same time one of the worst singers I have ever heard. He was constantly asking Angel to crank up the background music. My host mother very decorously and yet adorably sang her songs, but the best thing was when my host mom and dad sang duets. It was precious beyond words. I took videos, and I will see if I can post them on the blog, I don’t know if it is possible. I sang Mamma Mia by ABBA somewhere towards the end and my host dad thought it was amazing. He spent the next week spontaneously shouting MAMMA MIA. I spent the next week spontaneously cracking up. That night we had dinner with my host uncle, his wife, and daughter.

For the third day of Chinese New Year I went on a trip to the countryside with my hot mom’s family. We got up at 4:30 in the morning so that we could be on our way by 5:30. We drove by my host grandparents to pick up the gang. It ended up with me and my host family as well as my host aunt and her son in the our car (which made four of us in the back seat of my host family’s tiny Volkswagen) while my host grandparents rode with my other host aunt and uncle and there son. We were lucky because the host cousin that rode in the car with us is incredibly sweet and fun to play with. My other host cousin is a little demon child.

We went and saw quite a bit of pretty scenery which I will spare you the description of. However, we hadn’t pre booked a hotel so we drove through three different towns and visited seven different hotels before my host dad and uncle found one that was deemed good enough for us. I was supposed to share a room with my host aunt and cousin while angel stayed with her parents, but she decided that our room was going to be the “fun room” and wanted to stay with us so we crammed the two twin beds together and slept four in them. It did end up being a blast. The rooms were slightly oddly set up, mainly in the fact that the shower was a large window to the rest of the room so if you didn’t want to engage in massive over-share you had draw a two shower curtains, one to block the window, and one to contain the water…

There is a clear divided in China between city and country people, but this trip with my host family was one of the more dramatic demonstrations I have seen of it. In Shanghai you see a lot of scorn for the country side (农村). For one the one child policy has been relaxed in the country side. I was talking to the woman who comes a few times a week to do the house work for my host family. She has two children and said that people think that she is stupid for having to children and that her children are by definition stupid. This has created a huge issue for China. The population statistics show that when the current generation of children become adults that the population, especially in the cities, is going to become dangerously unbalanced it is going to have in fact almost halved leaving each Chinese couple responsible for supporting five others (both sets of parents and a child) So the government has relaxed the one child policy. In the city if you are an only child and marry another only child you can have two children, and in the country if you want a son and have a daughter, you can try one more time for a son. However the city people think that having a second child makes you a stupid country person, so although they have the opportunity, very very few people are taking advantage of the new laws.

Back to my observations on the trip about city vs. country tensions on my trip: we went to lunch the first day and everyone started treating everyone else badly almost from the minute we walked through the door. We sat down and the restaurant owner brought us plates. My host family automatically assumed they were dirty and requested that a pitcher of boiling water be brought to the table so that they could wash the dished themselves. They even washed the wooden chopsticks which came in hermetically sealed plastic so, as far as I could tell, could not possibly have been dirty. The owner being understandably insulted brought the local people who came in after us their food first, which then caused my host dad and uncle to get up and go demand where our food was. It was a downward spiral.

That night we were driving through the city where we had finally found our hotel looking for dinner. Since it was Spring Festival most of the restaurants were closed my host family then started to go on about how because this was the country there were no restaurants open. They then went on to say there were probably no stores open either and that these country people probably went the whole week without food due to general stupidity. Now keep in mind this was a decent sized city. Maybe the size of the combined beach cities… However, it had the misfortune to be surrounded by countryside and not a major government center, thus it must be filled with poor, uneducated, and inept residents… I think that this attitude is going to be one of China’s greatest issues as it becomes a more developed nation. My host family has asked me how the US “deals with it’s country people” and I simply did not have an answer.

The fourth day we got up in the morning and grabbed enough breakfast to hold me for the entire day, then we walked out of the breakfast restaurant and walked two blocks where passed a bakery and went in to get some bread to prevent our imminent starvation. We then continued on to a famous set of Chinese wetlands, where we met a friend of my host aunt. He took us to lunch when we arrived, which we ate roughly two hours after breakfast. I thought I would explode. Then we walked around the wetlands which were beautiful. We took a boat from sight to sight and then walked around on foot. The wetlands where also a sight were a recent and very popular Chinese movie Fei Chang Wu Rao was filmed. I had just seen it with Angel and she really enjoyed seeing the different sights from the movie.

On the drive home we stopped at a rest stop for dinner, where my hot family settled in to get a bunch of zong zi (stocky rice) and other goodies. They asked me how many I wanted, and I was just not hungry at all, plus the rest stop smelled like chiou do fu, a type of Chinese preserved fried tofu that almost all westerners and some Chinese think smells absolutely repellant. So I told my host family that I wasn’t hungry and that freaked them out to no end. Although I had already had four meals that day, they were utterly convinced that my starvation was imminent. As a result I ended up eating quite a satisfactory dinner made up of the portion of everybody else’s food that they fed me without taking no for an answer.

I got up the next morning, and since we didn’t have any plans for the morning I told my host family that I was going to the gym. They tried to convince me that I was far too tired to go to the gym, but I went anyway, and spent a blissful four hours there working out without a morsel of food in sight. There was a Pilates class that started while I was there so I took that which ended up being a very good choice for me. There were only three other women there since it was Chinese new year, so at the end of the class they all sat down in a circle and talked with me which ended up being an excellent chance to practice my Chinese and learn about the other people in my class.

That night we went to my host mom’s side of the family at a Hunan style restaurant in the mall near our house. The same place we had gone with my host uncle and also with some friends of the family. Thus making it the third time I had been in a week. It is a good restaurant and makes excellent food, however, three times in a week and any restaurant starts to loose its appeal. Although this will probably get me weird looks from all of you that restaurant makes amazing fish head. Seriously, it is really really good. The time that we went with my host father’s friend made me feel really bad though. My host father’s friend brought his wife and son, and I was like a torture device used on the poor son.

First of all the boy was fourteen, and no fourteen year old boy wants to talk to an eighteen year old girl. It is practically a law of nature. Second he was studying English in school. So I was a double threat: older person of the opposite gender and representing foreign language studies. My host father of course starts right in talking about what a great thing I have been for Angel and how amazing it is for her to have me around to practice her English, and how much better her English has become. Then he looks over at this boy and says “why don’t you take advantage of Zoe and practice your English? What is your English name?” The poor boy gives me the most terrified look I have ever seen. He can’t even get his English name out, forget a coherent sentence. Seeing this my host dad, you would think, would give the boy a break, but oh no no no. He then looks at the boys father and says “why don’t you bring your son over tomorrow morning and he can spend the day speaking English with Zoe!” I thought the kid was actually going to break and run for the hills. I think he probably spent the night begging his parents for mercy, because he did not come the next morning. Although it was somewhat hilarious I felt pretty bad because I had been in the kids place so many times it isn’t even funny (picture a dinner party of forty people: “Zoe, speak Chinese.” speak Chinese, SPEAK WHAT!?!?!?!?!? I’ve only been here for two months! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY!?!?!?! *Every one looks over* “ummmmm, Ni Hao”)

Anyway, That night was the fifth night of Chinese New Year. There are two days of Chinese New Year that are the big fire works days, day one and day five. For the night of day one I was in Suzhou so I didn’t experience the full firework joy of Shanghai, but the night of the fifth I was there. At the time I was reading a book about a Vietnam veteran who was talking about how they would hear machine gun fire all night. I distinctly remember thinking that I could sympathize.

I like the Chinese theory of fireworks a lot better than the American theory. The American theory is that you could hurt yourself with fireworks thus they should be outlawed within the town limits for the protection of you and your neighbors. The Chinese theory is that if you kill yourself with a firework you were too stupid to live anyway, so you can get whatever kinds of fireworks you want, and set them off wherever you want. The result of this is that they Chinese buy full 4th of July level firework shows in a box and set them off in the spaces between the apartment buildings. Now there is not really enough room between the buildings for a full fireworks show, so they kind of just bounce off the buildings and windows of the higher apartments. Not for love nor money could you get me to open my windows during Spring Festival.

The night of the fifth day of Spring Festival was a night to remember. I got home from dinner around 10 and the fireworks were going strong. We went out and lit some of our own, which was SOSOSOSOSOSO MUCH FUN!!!! My host dad found, in my opinion, the one really useful use of a cigarette. No one in my host family smokes, but people give out packs of cigarettes at a lot of Chinese New Year dinners so my host dad had acquired a few packs. Thus we used them to light fireworks. They burn slower than matches, but work just as well to light a fuse. There is a unique adrenaline rush that you get from lighting an exploding thing on fire and then running for your life. It was GREAT!!!

The thing that I don’t understand about fireworks and Spring Festival is where people get the energy. I sat in my window watching the show from midnight until about three in the morning when I went to bed out of sheer exhaustion, but the Chinese were still going strong on the fireworks. Who has the energy to light fireworks after 3 a.m. anyway?

I went out the next morning and the streets of Shanghai were quite literally coated in remnants of red paper, gunpowder residue, and sawdust. Every surface was a few centimeters thik with it. One of the most massive work crews I have ever seen appeared that morning and quite literally hosed down the entire city.

Then we went back to KTV (they call karaoke KTV here, who knows why) which was every bit as fun as the first time, except that angel had tried to teach me a few songs in Chinese which I attempted to sing, and succeeded remarkably poorly. Singing karaoke in Chinese is unlike singing in most other foreign languages. For example singing in French is pretty easy, even if there is a word or ten I don’t know I can still probably sing them largely correctly because I know how to read French and how the different letter combinations are pronounce. In Chinese karaoke you get characters: YAY CHARACTERS!!!!!!!! Because I can totally read the characters scrolling by quickly enough to sing them, NOT!!!! Oh, and in case that wasn’t fun enough since almost nothing in China is imported legally, neither are the videos in karaoke. They are largely stolen from Taiwan since they are Taiwanese artists. Taiwan, yep that means traditional characters: YAY TRADITIONAL!!!!!!!!!!!! Because I can totally read traditional characters especially scrolling by quickly enough to sing them, NOT!!!! Yep, I am super good at doing karaoke in Chinese, Really I am. But it is really fun anyway.

That night I had dinner at my host grandparent’s house before leaving for Vietnam…

Since I am now shaking from caffeine intake due to the second coffee I ordered so I could continue to sit here, I will write Vietnam, either later tonight or some time soon.

新年快乐 Happy New Year (belatedly)

Bye bye

Zoe