made in california, making it in china

35: 中文

2012-02-21T20:55:00.001-08:00

One of the things that most Chinese people say to me is “Your Chinese is very good!” Unfortunately, I know deep in my heart that that is just a lie. To them, a laowai speaking any sort of Chinese is good, simply because they have at one point in their life attempted to penetrate this language fortress that is known as Chinese. Anyway, now that I’ve started my new Chinese class and my teacher is stricter on tones than any teacher I’ve ever had, I thought it’d be a good time to air out my grievances and, to be fair, talk about the things I like about Chinese.

Tones. Tones, tones, tones. Anyone will tell you that tones are pretty much the bane of any westerner studying Chinese. My classmates frequently ask me how I handle tones as a deaf person. I tell them pretty much the same thing I say when confronted with anything Chinese culture: “I don’t know.” Basically, in Mandarin, there are 4 tones, a flat one, a rising one, a dipping one, and then a dropping one. What tone you use in a syllable can change the entire meaning of a sentence. One of the biggest issues is 哪儿 and 那儿. They both have the exact same sound, except the first one, where, has a dipping tone, and the second one, there, has a dropping tone. So you can say “你在哪儿？Where are you?” and “你在那儿！You’re over there!” and they will sound virtually indistinguishable to a non-Chinese person. There are much more complicated mistakes. For example, we recently covered a unit about pandas. The word for panda is xiongmao, with a rising tone and then a flat tone. However, if you switch the two tones, you end up saying ‘furry boob’. Tones are incredibly important, but for some reason they haven’t really been stressed in my classes until I got to China. I would carry on whole conversations with Chinese people, and at the end they would tell me that they were pretty much guessing what I was talking about, just because I didn’t get the tones right. Now that tones are stressed in my class, I find myself being understood within the first few tries, rather than on my fifth or sixth try. I’m getting there, hopefully.

Characters. I actually got the concept of characters pinned down rather quickly. Some people struggled to understand why a whole culture would just use characters to represent EVERY SINGLE word when they could just use an alphabet and place those letters together to form another word. I already understood, because my first language was pretty much the same. In ASL, almost everything has a sign for it. People would ask me why I didn’t just fingerspell anything, and I would look at them as if they were crazy. Fingerspell everything? Are you crazy? Why not just create a name for each object and then just go from there? Of course, knowing ASL doesn’t help me with my memorization at all, but it does help when I don’t have to muck through some strange new concept while trying to learn a whole new set of words.

Culture. I think that every language that I’ve studied has its own culture behind this. I know this is an incredibly obvious thing to say, but it really is intriguing how a language that may be more ‘cultural’ than others can hinder or help your experience with studying that language. For example, when I studied Spanish, there was really no culture involved. You just learn the new words and new grammar, and for the most part, you can get the language down, at least for the first 2 or 3 levels. Once you hit higher levels, you have to start studying more cultural knowledge in order to understand idioms or expressions that are commonly said in that culture. When you study Japanese, however, you are instantly plunged into the culture. You see, the Japanese culture is very, very indirect. You must internalize this thought, so when you write or speak Japanese, you can say “I like” instead of “I like that”. This culture is so pervasive in the language that when you get your first test back, the teacher is already saying things like “You’re being too direct!!! Remove ‘I’ from this sentence and you’ll have a good start” (This is a real criticism I got. I had to remove ‘I’, because to the Japanese listener, it’s obvious that I’m already the one talking). Chinese is a nice middle ground in this spectrum. When I started studying Chinese, it was easy enough to pick up the language without any prior cultural knowledge. When I got to the higher levels, it required some cultural knowledge, but not too much. For the most part, it helped a lot if you knew the culture, but it wouldn’t hinder you too much if you didn’t. A good example is what they call basic stuff: the word for cellphone is directly translated as ‘hand machine’, and the word for patient is translated as ‘(to) bear troubles’. When people reach advanced Chinese, they have to start studying idioms, of which are based on thousands and thousands of years of history. Imagine it as a popular joke amongst teenagers about some Charlemagne. Chinese teenagers will quote something from Confucious and manage to work it into a conversation. How bizarre is this? If I make a historical joke, even my closest friends will give me blank stares. Anyway, when it comes down to it, I consider myself good at picking up other cultures, and Chinese has that nice balance of culture in it that I can follow along and still be interested in it.

Grammar. Again, this is another topic that my ASL experience has helped me with. For the most part, Chinese grammar is very similar to ASL grammar. There is no real conjugation of verbs in both languages. You just have to use clues to pick up whether it took place in the past or will happen. Time words are placed differently than in English, but same for both ASL and Chinese. Even if the grammar patterns are not the same, my experience being bilingual has helped me be able to transcend confusion that comes from studying a new grammar pattern.

Culture Pt. 2. One of the things that annoy me about English speakers in America is that people are expected to follow one specific conversation at any table, no matter the number of people. Oftentimes I’ve followed a conversation only to realize that it’s not relevant to me at all, so I start a new conversation with someone else. Halfway through my second sentence, I realize that people are staring at me, thinking I’m rude as shit for ignoring them, when I just had no vested interest in the original conversation. As far as I know, in Deaf culture, we frequently break away from other conversations to start our own and the whole thing is very fluid, much like the language of ASL itself. Chinese is somewhat similar. Instead of multiple conversations at one table, like ASL, or one conversation by one person at one table, it really is everyone having the same conversation at the same time. I went out with my close friends, Mandy and Ben. Ben is from America, but Mandy is from China. We were discussing what to eat, and Mandy ordered in Chinese for us. The conversation suddenly erupted into Mandy plus three other waitresses, all talking over each other, for a good five minutes. Ben and I couldn’t help but laugh at the whole situation. When Mandy was done talking, and we had finished ordering, I asked her what they were talking about. She simply replied “Oh, just what we were ordering” as if it were no big deal. This is a common occurrence in China, and it does satiate my desire for an environment similar to Deaf culture, which I have been missing for a while.

Chinese truly is a complicated language. I know this is such a cliché to say, but to a person like me, who wants to constantly learn and constantly be stimulated, it’s a perfect language to study and immerse myself in. I can only hope that someday I can reach that level where I can get into a 5 minute conversation with three other people all talking at once, but for now, I have to stick to studying tones.

34: CBD

2012-02-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Laurence and I made a trip to the Central Business District. I was excited to go see all the architecture that Beijing has been heavily promoting since the Olympics. I was excited to feel like I was back in the hustle and bustle of New York, which is what I associated the CBD with in my head. And of course, I was excited to see Rem Koolhaas’ famous CCTV Tower, which led him to denounce the evils of democratic bureaucracy in favor of absolute authoritarianism (more on this later).
When we got off the station at Guomao, we saw a sign for the China World Trade Center. Of course, we followed it. It took us through fancy malls with upscale stores selling perfumes or western style dresses. There were three enormous zones of just store after store after store, and we walked from Zone 1 to Zone 3. When we finally arrived at Zone 3, we found an elevator and decided to ‘sneak’ into the rooftop garden on the 6th floor right next to the World Trade tower. I was, of course, freaking out about being right next to a gorgeous building that was so heavily promoted during the Olympics. However, when I turned around and looked at the environment, I was a little… disappointed. The ubiquitous Beijing sprawl still reigned supreme, and New York’s narrow streets were not as prevalent there as it was in my mind. From the garden, I could not see the other two iconic buildings, the Park Hyatt, and the CCTV Tower. The other buildings were either large socialist modernism designs, or still under construction. We left the World Trade Center to seek out the CCTV Tower. We passed a huge empty lot with migrant apartments on the edge. We walked past a few more lots until the CCTV Tower came into full view. It loomed in the thick smog, and only a few of the lights were on. The intersection was dead, except for cars zooming by. When we got there, I realized that they had just shut down the building entirely, and fenced it up with the blue construction fence that you see all over China. It was… disappointing.
Nonetheless, it was still exciting to see the CCTV Tower building. For those of you who don’t know what it is, you should look up some pictures on Google, because it really is a pretty and unique building. However, two aspects of the building reveal much about Chinese society. First, Rem Koolhaas has praised the Chinese government for making this building possible for him. His argument is that in the future, authoritarian governments are what will pave the way for fantastic new buildings, as they are the ones that can ignore zoning laws and approve whatever could contradict public opinion. Take, for example, Azerbaijan’s new planned building. It is a kilometer tall building built on artificial islands over the Caspian Sea. Could you imagine America, or any other western country taking on a project like this? It would be subject to the bureaucracy that has developed in these countries, and subject to public opinion that would change interests in the building over time. Koolhaas has found in China a place where he can plop down exactly what he had visualized on paper, not subject to changes by zoning laws or public outrage.
This leads me to my second point: the CCTV Tower building is a great example of how the Chinese people have resisted western influence of their globalization. People have mocked the CCTV Tower, calling it by its now famous nickname, 大裤衩, or ‘big boxer shorts’! It’s not that they want globalization nor that they are a 2nd world country, but it’s that they want globalization on their own terms. Zhongguancun, the electronics district that my university is just north of, is incredibly packed all the time, with computers and malls, and some really pretty architecture. The contrast between the busy Zhongguancun and the CBD says a lot about the development of China. They’re still not at the level that America is at. They’ll get there someday, I have no doubt about that, but right now the Beijing government is trying to force development that really is way out of their reach.
Additionally, I think that Beijing should give up on their dream of being an international, Western (I’d rather use the term globalized here, but that’s a whole other debate) city. Coming from Washington DC, and seeing how the city there has merely embraced its position as a government city, I want Beijing to do the same. People have this obsession that money equals power, and yes, that is true, but if you think about the population of China, Beijing is amazingly powerful in that they have control over 1.3 billion people. I would love to see how the city could transform if Beijing embraced this attitude, rather than worrying about if Shanghai and Hong Kong is overshadowing it. I know it could be so much more amazing.

33: 过剩的人

2012-02-05T00:48:00.000-08:00

The thing about living in a megapolis is that with it comes a surplus of everything. In my small town, I can only think of one or two food stores (or rather, places to buy food/groceries). In downtown San Diego, around the Horton Plaza area, I can think of maybe 4 or 5 areas. Here at my university, I can easily think of 7 or 8 alone, not including the areas just outside all the gates on campus. On the walk to Wudaokou, a good 20-minute walk, there are many more places to buy fruit and other foodstuffs. The same is true for restaurants: in the two hutong I lived next to over winter break, there are about as many places to eat as my hometown of Solana Beach. The food street next to my university also has much more, not to mention even more restaurants in the neighboring areas of Wudaokou and Zhongguancun. I am pretty much guaranteed to pass three or four restaurants (again, I use this word lightly. It’s not as much a restaurant as it is a place where you sit down and tell the waiter to get you this and that dish) in any hutong that I walk through in Beijing. I can easily recall 10 hair dressing places on that walk to Wudaokou, where there are only two or three places in my hometown.

On top of that, since China has no minimum wage (well, it does, but it’s not very enforced), there is also an abundance of workers in any given place. Restaurants usually have very quick service, but a different person serves each dish. It’s not unusual for someone to take your order, someone else to take your money, someone else gives you back your change, someone else serves your food, and then someone else cleans your table. Shops look busy, but only because a tiny little shop will have 7 or 8 employees. Hairdressing shops always have 10 employees, but only two or three customers at a time. It’s absolutely ridiculous to an American like me, after being raised on the joys of capitalism and proper distribution of resources.

As a matter of fact, due to China’s One Child Policy, there is a shortage of labor, and in the upcoming few years, the highest paying jobs available in China will not be white collar jobs for college graduates, but rather, labor jobs, simply due to the low supply of people in China. This has many implications for China. For example, China has been hoping to move away from a reputation as a labor factory for the rest of the world and into a white-collar investment zone, but this disparity in labor demand and supply ensures that they will be a labor source for a while longer. Additionally, families traditionally bring themselves out of poverty by having many children to support them in their old age. Once the family reaches a comfortable level, they start having less and less children. This pattern is quite universal, except for the places where a limited number of people were encouraged, like modern day China, or Soviet Russia. It will be interesting to see how the new urban population of China reacts after the government lifts their One Child Policy to combat the labor deficit.

Seeing this in China has guaranteed one thing for me: I will never complain about a lack of jobs after college. At least I won’t be working in an overcrowded shop with a lack of minimum wage!

32: 昆明，云南 / Kunming, Yunnan

2012-01-29T23:01:00.001-08:00

Before we came on our trip, Laurence and I were invited to dinner by her teacher, Zhang Laoshi (Teacher Zhang), to celebrate winter solstice. Over jiaozi, Zhang Laoshi told us that it was a bad idea to go to South China because we would get sucked into the laziness of it. She told us people didn’t get up until 11 and didn’t eat breakfast until noon. At first, I was skeptical, and I wondered aloud to Laurence if Zhang Laoshi was exaggerating or not.

However, once we arrived in Kunming, we realized she was true. Of course, she was exaggerating. Since we arrived by sleeper bus at 5 in the morning, we decided to sleep a bit before getting out to explore. We overslept a bit and didn’t leave our hostel until 10, but we quickly realized that it was no problem, because the rest of Kunming seemed to be doing the same. Morning rush hour was just starting (compared to a 8AM morning rush in Beijing!), people were crowding the bus stops, waiting to get on their buses, and breakfast places were still open and busy. I quite loved it – after many summers (and a glorious semester of classes at 11) of getting up at 10, here was a city full of my fellow late-starters.

A city full of lazy people was not without its flaws. After eating breakfast, we set out to find the Kunming City Museum, only to find it had been closed for repairs… for 2 years. The neighboring urban planning museum was completed, but just never opened. The day was not killed, though. We headed to the Yunnan Provincial Museum, which was open. That was the last stop of our planned day, and it wasn’t even lunch. So after exploring the museum (did you know that Chinese museums have no qualms about putting ancient dildos on display?), we ate lunch and decided we would let the laze of Yunnan come over us.

We spent the rest of the day wandering. I was hot (65 degrees!), so we stopped for some ice cream. A sweet old lady in front of me in line saw me and said “新年过好！”, or “Happy New Year!” We headed north to Green Lake Park, where a Sunday combined with warm weather drew huge crowds. Since many westerners skip Kunming in favor of the rice paddies and rural villages of Yunnan, we were a rare sight for Kunming citizens. Many pictures were taken of us by them, and of their city by us. On a whim, we decided to explore Yunnan University. It was obvious that this South China laze affected everyone. While Peking University kids were hunkering down for finals, students at Yunnan University were practicing their biking, taking pictures, or just resting on the grass. I was amazed by it. With two more awkward hours to kill for dinner, Laurence and I sat outdoors, enjoying the warm weather and laughing the day away.

The next day, with no commitments and facing higher temperatures than the day before, we headed out to a famous temple in the northern suburbs of Kunming. It was built on a mountain, so we wandered around the mountain, taking in the sun and warm weather. Afterward, we visited the biggest Buddhist temple in Kunming, and caught the last half-hour of a Buddhist service.

That night, we caught a sleeper bus to Anshun. After the cold and high-strung environment of Beijing, I definitely enjoyed the relaxing, warm environment of Kunming. I especially appreciated the laziness. I actually would consider living here, but the truth is, Zhang Laoshi was right when she said we would get sucked in. I know if I lived in Kunming, my 10’o clock mornings would slowly turn into 1’o clock mornings. It was an amazing and adorable city, but I’ll save it for visits.

31: 丽江，云南 / Lijiang, Yunnan

2012-01-29T00:18:00.000-08:00

I’ll admit, when I got to Lijiang, I knew pretty much nothing. All Laurence told me was that it was a stop on the way to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge, and that it was a Naxi ethnicity village. I was too tired from a sleeper bus ride to care about the rest. Once we had checked into our hostel and showered, we set out to explore the city. Laurence told me that Lijiang was famous for being one of the few old cities in China without a city wall (the chieftain of the village was named 木, or wood, and if you box that character, it becomes 困, which means difficulty. So, being superstitious, he opted out of building a wall. This is extremely rare in China), so I warmed up to the idea of visiting the old town.

Lijiang does not have many sights. It is a wandering city, one where the alleyways are organic and don’t scream socialist modernism. A river flowed underneath the city, dammed and canalled for the benefit of the town. It popped up occasionally through the stone paths. We tried our best to take in the town without getting lost, following the flow of the river.

After wandering around for a couple of hours, two things were apparent: the Han Chinese had all but replaced the Naxi people, and they were out to make a profit on it. Stores sold kitschy ‘ethnic’ products as shopkeepers attempted to herd in people by shouting loudly in their face. After we explored the main strip and some back alleys, Laurence and I decided it was time to explore the new city, where all the Naxi had moved into high rises after selling their old homes to the Han. We explored a public square with an enormous Mao Zedong statue (of course), a tacky mall, and then had dinner in a back alley (they don’t call these alleys hutongs in South China. They call them 巷, xiang). After that, we returned to our hostel for an early night.

The irony of Lijiang was that even with an old town that attracted visitors from around the world, the new city was much more alive and interesting. I hated that the old town had lost all of its charms and turned into just another touristy site. I also realized that it was inevitable: the Naxi people realized that they could just rent out their own homes and property to the profit-hungry Han Chinese. They all left for fancy new high-rises in the new city or Kunming. It revealed an important consideration for me: at what point does it stop being historical and cultural? Is it ever okay to tear down this sort of history, even if it has been changed beyond its original image?

Thinking back, despite the fact that this city had evolved to another one of those kitsch villages, I was glad I got to see an original Naxi village. Had this village been razed to make way for more high-rises, Lijiang would have merely been a stop on the way to Tiger Leaping Gorge, and we would have made our way to Kunming without caring a bit about Lijiang.

30: 春节

2012-01-27T00:44:00.000-08:00

To my dear readers, I must apologize (yet again) for not posting anything in a while. After my two-and-a-half week trip, I was on a high that I never felt before, and of course, it was followed by a low of absolute goddamn-it-I’m-not-travelling-anymore apathy. A build up of crazy up and down events ensured that I wouldn’t have the time to contemplate and actually sit down and write something. Ironically, I’m still on this week’s roller coaster (I just moved into a guest house, but this Sunday I officially move into my actual dorm), but I finally had enough hot water in the shower to contemplate my next blog post. That said; please enjoy my newest blog post! And I promise there will be more to come (city posts and regular culture posts!).

Last Christmas, my family hosted a Chinese student for the holidays. He’s studying at UCSD and didn’t want to go home for whatever reason, so we invited him over for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner. I remember thinking how strange it must seem to him, with a tree in the room that’s decorated, and we all feast on food while talking about this fat dude with a beard who breaks into our house and gives us presents. I was excited that I would have the opposite experience: I would be an American in China for Chinese New Year, which was one of the main reasons why I wanted to stay for fall and spring semesters.
Well, when Spring Festival (Chinese New Year in China is written as 春节, which literally translates as Spring Festival. I’m going to use this for the rest of the blog, and I’ll explain it more in depth later) rolled around, it was shaping up to be a depressing one. The busy Beijing that I knew slowly changed into a ghost town, as the town’s 20 million residents dwindled to a humble 10 million. The restaurants in the lively hutongs next to my apartment closed down one by one, as people returned home to Xi’an, Chengdu, and Nanjing. Smog rolled in thick, thicker than it had ever been. It was to the point where I could taste it and the smell wouldn’t leave my nose even after I retreated into my apartment. The Beijing winter was hitting hard, and after balmy, warm Kunming, this San Diego boy was getting sad. I was fighting 3 or 4 different colds that my immune system had managed to stave off until I was able to relax in my own room. I was not looking forward to this holiday.
Laurence texted me on January 22nd, asking me if I wanted to come over for a Spring Festival dinner at KFC (the only thing open!) and then to hang out with her friends and watch some fireworks. Of course, I wanted to leave my apartment, so I went over to her university. I noticed something: the smog was clearing up and it was a beautiful day. I saw a deep blue that I hadn’t seen in a long time, and it was promising. When I got there, she and I walked down to KFC. On the way there, we saw no less than 10 separate groups of people setting off fireworks. We could tell by the flashes on the buildings nearby, or the fireworks themselves. The popping and booming reverberated down the street. It was a surreal experience. I jokingly texted my friend, “How do you say Sarajevo in Chinese?” Being with Laurence cheered me up, and she invited me along with her to go hang out with her new friends from the program. We met up with some friends at her dorm and then started the trek over to her other friend’s apartment. On the walk there, there were yet more fireworks being popped off, from different areas around us. There were people setting off firecrackers, which are the ones you associate with China – the loud constant popping with bright white flashes, people setting off fireworks like the ones you see on July 4th, and little kids running around with sparklers. I was slowly letting the euphoric spirit of the holiday take me over. Once we got to her friend’s apartment, there was beer and jiaozi. Of course, I had a few and by the time everyone was ready to go out onto the main street and set off our own fireworks, I was pretty tipsy but excited for the fireworks. You’d think that after a few hours all the fireworks would stop, but nope. The walk back to campus (where there was a bridge overlooking many hotels that put on firework shows for their guests) was even crazier than the walk to the apartment. More and more fireworks were being set off. By the time we got to the bridge, the entire street was lit up with fireworks. I can’t even put into words what it was like; there were just constant fireworks everywhere. From our vantage location on the bridge, we were a good 500 feet away from most of the fireworks (I’m really bad with guesstimating, but it was not like July 4th, where you’re far away from the locations they set off the fireworks). Despite it being less than 20 degrees, I felt warm. The fireworks symbolize Daoist gods scaring away the bad fortune of the old year and welcoming in the gods of the new year, and in a way it helped scare off my apathy and moodiness about the holiday.
I emailed my parents about Spring Festival and I used the term I’m using right now instead of Chinese New Year. My dad replied to me, saying he thought it was weird that they called it Spring Festival, when it was nowhere near spring nor was it even anything close to it on the lunar calendar. I agreed with him, but then again, I’m in China. There was probably an answer, but I just had to look harder for it and it probably still wouldn’t make sense to me. However, from that night on, I felt much more optimistic and upbeat. The sense of warm and amazement I felt that night kept me glowing for days. I know this sounds like cheesy shit, but really, I now understand why they call it Spring Festival. It’s kind of like saying, ‘well, things can only go up from here.’ And here’s to hoping that it does for me!

29: Christmas / 圣诞节

2011-12-24T18:03:00.000-08:00

Since it’s now Christmas in China, I wanted to take a moment and share a few observations.
I once told Laurence that Christmas in China could be best explained as unsettling. Imagine if you got off the plane and found that an entire country of a billion people celebrated a holiday that was important to your culture, but they have no idea what it means or what it’s for. It’s not bad, I’m glad that they’re able to celebrate other cultures’ holidays, but it’s just strange for me. It’s also scary that they’ve managed to commercialize Christmas way more than any American can hope to.
It’s not uncommon to see HUGE Santa decorations everywhere. They’re in restaurants, bars, stores, and malls. Usually they’ll have the full “Merry Christmas!” on it, but it’s not uncommon to see “Merry!” or “Happy/Merry Christmas!” They’re outlined with sparkles and Santa has no less than a thousand glints in his eye.
On Christmas Eve, the Chinese eat apples. This is a real tradition: apples go from 2 kuai to about 10 kuai on Christmas Eve. This is because the Chinese call Christmas Eve ‘平安夜’ (ping’an ye) or ‘Safe and Sound Night’ and apples are called ‘苹果’ (pingguo). Since the first character in both have the same pronunciation, they believe eating apples on Christmas Eve will ensure you a safe and sound year. Laurence and I ran out to buy some apples once we found this out! Also, when we went out for some Christmas Eve hot pot, our server gave us free apple slices!
It’s a common debate in America that people should keep Jesus in Christmas. People say that atheists have secularized Jesus out of Christmas, but I think the Chinese not only did that, they locked the door behind him. Tonight, I’m hanging out with Laurence, Ben, Ben’s girlfriend Mandy, Laurence’s roommate Shakira, and Alex. The fact that this is the one tradition that me and many other people are keeping up in China made me realize that Christmas is about hanging out with those you love. Even though my family is halfway around the world, I’m still thinking of them and missing them very much!

28: 拉萨，西藏 / Lhasa, Tibet

2011-12-24T06:18:00.000-08:00

Tibet was a land of surprises for us. The first surprise came from arriving in Lhasa 30 minutes early. The train ride, despite being 24 hours, was actually a lot of fun. My group of friends got our own berth, so we decorated the entrance and ceiling with blankets and made it into a blanket fort. We left Xining at 3:30 and then arrived in Lhasa at 3 the next day. Once we got off the train, we were surprised by the weather. It was 50 degrees, the warmest place of any we visited. We all took off our jackets and enjoyed the warm dry air.
Our third shock came when we reached our hotel. It was next to the holiest Tibetan Buddhist site, Johkang Monastery. It was also a holiday, coinciding with a lunar eclipse. The street and square were bustling and busy with many different kinds of people. There were families in traditional Tibetan clothes doing the full body bow that Tibetans are famous for. There were teenage girls in clothes more fashionable than any Sanlitun-er texting their friends and chatting in Tibetan. There were Chinese couples strolling around holding hands. Lhasa was much less homogenous than we expected. We still stuck out as foreigners, though, and perhaps more so than anywhere in China. The peaceful, introspective, and rural Tibet that is often depicted in Western media was bullshit as far as we knew.
The fourth shock, and perhaps the most bizarre one for all of us was the military presence there. I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to tell you, as I really don’t want to piss off the Chinese government, but Google is your friend if you don’t understand the following. Basically, there are police stations on every corner. The People’s Liberation Army marches around the square with fire extinguishers strapped to their back. It took us a while to get used to turning the corner and seeing a huge group of men dressed in green camouflage.
And finally, I surprised myself with a change of opinion towards Tibet. This is going to be a controversial opinion, but the more I saw of Tibetan people living and going about their daily life, the more I realized that the Tibetan issue was not that of independence, but that of a political dissident issue. Basically, the Dalai Lama spoke out against the Chinese government, and got banned from China, just like every other political dissident. And as terrible as this sounds, he did not get any special treatment. He was treated just like any other political dissenter. The Tibetans already have a greater degree of self-rule than most other ethnic groups in China. Most ethnic groups are forced to deal with provincial governments, much like Native Americans in the US, whereas the Tibetans have their own Special Administrative Region (just like Hong Kong is).
There’s much more to it, but I already feel like I’ve been toeing the line here! I want to stay in China longer, so I’m going to cut the political discussion short (trust me, I really want to discuss this! If you want, send me a message on Facebook or email me, and we can talk more!).
Despite the tense atmosphere in Lhasa, the city is adorable. The view from Potala Palace was breath taking. The mountains surrounding the city made us feel snug right in the plateau. I really want to return someday.

27: 西宁，青海 / Xining, Qinghai

2011-12-21T06:08:00.000-08:00

Xining is an adorable city. However, it served only as a stopover so that we could get used to the altitude before Lhasa. The elevation in Xining is 7,464 feet, which is two thousand more than the highest city in America, Denver. It is on the edge of, and is the biggest city of the Tibetan Plateau. Once we got to Xining after Luoyang and Xi’an, it really started to hit us that we were going to Tibet.

Even though our guidebook and program director told us that Xining was boring, I wanted to make the most of my time there. Laurence once told me that her family loved to just spend a day walking around the city, and I decided I would spend an afternoon walking around and exploring, and hopefully I could find some fun things to write home about. Fortunately, I had a successful day! I walked through the Xining central finance district, and I saw another laowai (foreigner). However, he wasn’t just any tourist. He looked like he was plucked from Wall Street and plopped in Xining like he hadn’t noticed. It was jarring and hilarious for me. Later, one of my friends speculated that he could have been prospecting for potential investments in Xining, which I thought was weird, but to each their own, I guess. Later, I saw a woman carrying a still-live pheasant down the street, and it was clucking and pecking people. I walked down an alley as an elementary school let out, and kids were singing songs. I recognized one of the songs as the Chinese national anthem, from the “起来！起来！” (“March on! March on!”) the children were belting out. At a street corner, two young kids passed me and stopped to wait. One did a double take, and then shouted “外国人！” (by now, you should just be able to guess what this means!). The next morning, before our train ride to Lhasa, I went to an outdoor market to buy some fruit. There, I saw a butcher selling his meat. A little old lady stopped to haggle for some meat, and after a while, I realized she was haggling for the cow head that he had next to a pile of meat. I wanted to stay and see how such a tiny little lady could bring home something that was half her size, but I got weird stares from them and felt like it was time to leave.

The last morning we spent in Xining, we headed over to Ta’er Monastery. It started to snow. That, plus being the only foreigners amongst a bunch of Tibetan pilgrims (I’ll bite, sometimes it’s nice being the only foreigner in a place!), made for a great experience. The temple is the top Tibetan Buddhist site outside of Tibet, and it is one of those sites with just many different temples and stupas added on in different periods of times. They’re all full of the shiny golden Buddhist statues and painted with the typical earthy-bright colors that Tibetans are so inclined towards. We also got our first experience with the full body bows that Tibetans are famous for. The way it goes is they start with their hands put together, then touch their forehead, and then their heart as they kneel and then stretch out, face-down on the ground. It’s complicated to write it out, but it was equally as different-feeling as seeing Muslims bow in their shops and restaurants in Turkey. The entire experience really was a highlight of the trip, even if Xining wasn’t a special city. The etherealness of the snow, the anticipation and electricity was in the air, and fascination with the double-foreign culture of the Tibetans flowed between us.

Even if Xining was just a short stop on our trip (We didn’t even spend a full 24 hours there!), I think it represented a lot of the anticipation that we were feeling. It was that short teaser clip you see of the next episode of your favorite TV show, and you catch a glimpse of something great happening. Tomorrow, I write about Lhasa, and obviously, I’ll have to be very careful about what I post. I really don’t want the Chinese government to start a file on me just because I mentioned some stupid little thing!

26: 西安，陕西 / Xi'an, Shaanxi

2011-12-18T20:04:00.000-08:00

After spending a few nights in Xi’an, it quickly became my favorite city. It definitely ranks amongst my top 10 international cities. At first, I really had no idea why. I loved the clash between the old world charm of the city with its preserved city wall and its flashy malls, selling everything from watches to diamonds.

As an American, I had this image of Xi’an as a Chinese version of a Midwestern city, as it is located inland. I imagined the people reading about politics in America, and then declaring their support for Rick Perry. This image of Xi’an that I had in my head lulled me into a false sense and then surprised me with another layer I was not expecting. During my visit to Xi’an, my hotel was next to the Muslim District, so my friends and I frequently visited there. This contributed more to the historical and conservative feel that Xi’an had. On my last night there, I had enough of the Muslim District and decided that I’d go west of the Bell Tower and explore that part of the city. What I found shocked me and shook up what I had thought of Xi’an. The first thing I saw was a transvestite performing (I’m really not sure what word to use here. The only thing she really was doing was walking around and shouting out stuff about moms and something about 25 minutes), with an enormous crowd surrounding her. She would shout out something and then the crowd would laugh. The only other person that was as much a spectacle as her was I. I saw many people take a picture of her, then point their camera to me and take a picture. After 20 minutes of struggling to understand and laughing at her kicks and jumps, I moved on. The next thing I saw was a tattoo van, and when I looked inside, someone was getting tattooed. The tattoo artist saw me and shooed me away. When I passed by again after my walk, the van had left. After turning south from the main road, I passed by a brothel. I could tell because it was 4 girls sitting on a couch with stairs behind them. I lost count of the amount of gay couples I saw (and these weren’t just ‘oh are they maybe a couple? They look so cute!’, it was ‘what the hell? These guys are kissing each other in public and I don’t even see that in Beijing!’). Whatever concept I had of Xi’an being like Oklahoma City went out the window.

Additionally, Xi’an’s close location to the Terracotta Warriors and its preserved city wall (the only city wall in China!) originally cultivated a feel that Xi’an was a city stuck in time. Despite this, it has all the makings of a modern Chinese city. There are huge flashy shopping malls with American brands and white people modeling Chinese brand clothes. There are Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin Robbins, and McDonalds. Black Audis driven by local party officials purred next to rickshaws. People are herded away over bridges and underpasses that clearly show that the city favors cars over pedestrians.

I think one of the things that I like about Xi’an is that it has layers like my sister. The original image that people have of it is peeled away to show a completely different person. My sister, this tall blonde girl whom many tell should be on America’s Next Top Model (this is sort of a lie. I’m the only one who tells her that), may come across as just another perky blonde. To be honest, if she wasn’t my sister and I saw her at a college party, I’d just assume she left her Delta Gamma sweatshirt home and avoid her. However, for those who know her, she’s really not like that at all. She’s crazy and fun and isn’t self-conscious. And even though she’s deaf, she doesn’t let that stop her from making new friends and having fun. Also, I know she would love all the Muslim food I ate, and when I was touring the Terracotta Warriors, I found myself wishing she were with me.

I absolutely love Xi’an and its people. The first night, I went out exploring with a couple of friends. They wanted to go back to the hotel, but I wanted to blaze ahead. After an hour or so, I decided it was time to turn back for dinner. I was walking down an alley named 大学习巷 and all of a sudden, I heard a strange wail. The street was busy with restaurants, street food, and rickshaws, and no one seemed to notice it. It happened again and I suddenly realized: I was in the Muslim Quarter and this was the call to prayer. I thought it was absolutely bizarre that I was this American in a Chinese street listening to this Islamic call to prayer. It was also that moment that I decided that I really did love Xi’an.

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This post is dedicated to my sister, Tory, who I miss very much!

25: Luoyang, Henan / 洛阳，河南

2011-12-18T05:06:00.000-08:00

I'm finally back in Beijing after a long trip. I had an amazing time, and of course, I wrote about my time in the cities we visited. Again, I'm terribly sorry about the delay in posting, but here's my first city post from the trip!

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Maybe it was the weather. Or maybe it was because I got off the overnight train. But my first few hours in Luoyang made me feel like I was in some urban dystopia. When we finally got into our hotel rooms on the 20^th floor, I looked out and gasped. We were surrounded by enormous high rises emerging from the fog. When a friend and I went for a walk, we saw a huge, evil-looking building just down the street from our hotel. There was a big metal flower structure on top of the building. Of course, my imagination kicked into action. I instantly came up a story for Luoyang’s background. The Lotus Corporation had ensnared the people of Luoyang into some sick chain where the citizens were both employees and consumers of the Corporation. The Lotus Corporation had realized that it was simply profitable to invade a city and entrap the people with easy immigration but difficult exit. My friends and I had been recruited into this town to bring down the Lotus Corporation.

But my fantastic imagination aside, we had some real exploring to do. We headed off to the Shaolin Temple, famous for its martial arts monks. However, all the temple buildings were rebuilt after a fire in 2004, and the martial arts performance lacked the kind of authenticity I wanted in the experience. After being shuttled around on bus and seeing more and more empty high rises and flashy shopping malls, this was depressing me. I determined to set out the next day and find the real Luoyang. I knew there had to be some busy alleyway that was full of life and chatter.

The next morning, we got on our bus again and started driving. I took my usual place by the window, and we passed by some city blocks. Suddenly, I saw it. There was an alleyway with lots of signs for restaurants. There were people flooding down the alleyway to go to work. I knew that this was the alley I was looking for.

That night, after exploring some more fantastic sites (were they better because they simply were just better than Shaolin Temple, or better because I was anticipating that alley?), I got a group of friends together and headed off to the alley. Once we got there, people had peeled away from the group for whatever reason, and it left two friends and I. Nik, Alex and I set off down the alley, with the two of them trailing behind me as I trekked forward in search of a good restaurant. We found one advertising Luoyang style food and went in. After ordering the special, eggplant, spicy lamb, tea and beer, we started chatting about our day. Soon, we noticed a group of kids laughing and playing right outside our window, occasionally stopping to study us 外国人 (waiguoren, or foreigners). After a while, we realized they were talking about us and we responded in Chinese. When they realized that we could speak Chinese, they got more excited and asked us more questions. The kids were quite cheeky, though: I asked one of them his name, and he said “Luoyang!” I responded with “If your name is Luoyang, then my name is America!” to the delight of the adults who had started listening in. After we finished and paid, the families of the kids asked us for pictures. We chatted for a while about where we were from, where we were staying in China, and what we were doing. Then we left.

On the walk home, we were reeling from the fantastic night. The food was delicious, the beer cold, and the company great. Tipsy off of a few beers, we spotted the Lotus Corporation building. I explained my fantasies, and the rest of the walk home, we weaved an entire story of how we would bring down the Lotus Corporation, with whatever friend playing whatever role. By the time we got home, we had reached the point of the story where the people of Luoyang were free from their bonds and left the city to find better opportunities.

Within a night, my notions about Luoyang being another city with shitloads of empty high rises and no soul and my fantasies about the Lotus Corporation came to an end. Luoyang had incredible life to it, and I just had to walk a few blocks to find it.

24: Babies

2011-11-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

In America, if I went up to a random baby in a stroller and started playing with it, I’m sure the mother would pull the baby away, with a disapproving look back at me. In China, the opposite happens. Today I approached a baby during a hutong tour. The baby was chubby and adorable, and surprisingly not afraid of me. I overheard the mom proudly telling her parents “look! A foreigner thinks our baby is cute!” In China, it is not uncommon for babies to be favored over anyone else. I’ve seen people ignore elderly people on the subway, only to give up their seat as soon as a toddler comes up. People will give you free food if you have a baby in your arms, telling you that you should feed your baby more, as it’s still growing.

Also, one of the weirder things about children is that before they’re potty-trained, they wear pants with a slit down the middle. If the child has to pee or poo, they’ll just tell the parents and they can pee anywhere. It’s really normal to see a little toddler peeing off a sidewalk in a park. In fact, people will still be cooing at the child, as it pees.

Every baby that you’ll see in China has a shaved head. The reason why they do this is the same reason why prepubescent boys shave their peach fuzz: they believe future hair will grow in thicker. Maybe if Americans started doing that, we could get rid of male pattern baldness in a generation!

And finally, as an American, the weirdest thing to me is that often times, parents are happy to hand over their baby to people, even strangers in the street. I grew up learning from my parents that it was better to be safe than sorry and avoid strangers at all costs, whereas here, Chinese parents run up to foreigners and ask them to hold their baby and take pictures with them.

It’s unfortunate that America has created a sort of culture that prevents this sort of interaction (or should I say, it’s unfortunate that incidents have caused this kind of thinking to be prevalent? It’s quite an understandable fear). I love children, as they allow me to be crazy and immature with an excuse. I love that children are constantly curious about the world and are everyday discovering new things. But, I AM a large and imposing person to some people, and I’ve definitely had some interesting interactions with some over-paranoid parents. For now, I’ll play with babies in hutongs, and I’ll figure it out when I get home.

23:

2011-11-17T23:48:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't been posting lately. Finals are coming up and I haven't had time to explore Beijing recently.

This winter break, though, I'll be traveling with my program to various cities, including Xi'an, Leshan, Chengdu (where I'll get to hold a panda!), and most importantly, Lhasa. After I come back, Laurence and I are heading down to Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Chongqing. For those of you who know me, I am more than excited to visit Chongqing. I'm dying to go. I can't wait to get on that train and just zoom down. For the first two or three months here, my wanderlust was pretty much non-existent. But now it's been bubbling up again, so I'm excited to travel. I'll definitely be posting (well, I'll probably be emailing the posts to someone and have them post it for me, as I'll be writing these from internet bars).

Anyway, I promise that I'll have more to write soon. For now, enjoy my essay that I'm actually pretty proud of. It's about Sanlitun, which is a very upscale place here in Beijing.

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Talk to any foreigner in Beijing about the best place to be seen, and they will most definitely bring up Sanlitun. The Sanlitun area, with the bar street, Village mall, and nearby embassies and diplomat residencies is now one of the most upscale and hip areas of Beijing. It is a popular area for both foreigners and Chinese alike. Foreigners appreciate the western environment and a break from the hectic streets of China, whereas to Beijingers, Sanlitun is a place to shop for fashionable and expensive clothes. The surrounding areas, such as Gongti, are also home to some of the most expensive apartments in Beijing, and are a popular place to live in for young people. Established only 50 years ago, it has reached landmark status in Beijing very quickly. However, despite its popularity amongst natives and tourists, it is merely an example of cultural resistance against the Chinese. Most of the Sanlitun area actively resists against aspects of Chinese culture that many foreigners find distasteful, such as Chinese food, the Chinese style of parking, Chinese architecture, and even the authoritarianism of the Chinese government.

Before Sanlitun’s tendencies against Chinese culture can be discussed, it is important to look at its history. The new People’s Republic of China specifically chose Sanlitun in the late 1950s as the new site for foreign embassies. This is because the government wanted to move the foreigners away from the Legation Quarter to somewhere outside the Inner City. This demonstrates why Sanlitun is targeted towards foreigners. The first bars opened during the 70s, and slowly expanded to what it is today, with Sanlitun Bar Street, as well as more bars on Sanlitun Road (Sanlitun Lu). In the summer of 2008, just before the Olympics began, Sanlitun Village Mall was established on the South and North sides of Sanlitun Bar Street. This analysis will revolve around the block that the north and south wings of the Village Mall, Sanlitun Bar Street, and Sanlitun Road are located on.

When one goes to Sanlitun, they would be hard pressed to find a Chinese restaurant. Many of the food options are limited to Western style food, such as McDonalds, Italian food, Spanish tapas, and Subway. Even in the bar street, there is only one Chinese restaurant, and it is Shanghai-style noodles. The closest Chinese options are on the fifth floor of the Yaxiu Clothing Market, west of the Village Mall, or down an alleyway just east of Sanlitun Road. Also, the street corner market and convenience store that is so prevalent in other Chinese streets are not allowed in the Village Mall. The Village Mall only has an American style supermarket, with a complete lack of traditional Chinese ingredients and food. The only thing available there are foreign imported snacks and food. The inaccessibility of typical Chinese food is a reminder to the Chinese customer that Sanlitun is targeted towards more toward foreigners. To foreigners, it is a welcome escape from Chinese food everyday, as well as a haven for satisfying their own cuisine cravings.

Food is not the only factor at play. The type and location of shops in the Village Mall, as well as the type of bars in the bar street show a clear bias towards foreigners over Chinese. A walk through the first level of the south wing of the Village Mall will show only American stores, such as Apple, Nike, and Calvin Klein. The only non-American store is a Japanese-owned one, Uniqlo. There are some Chinese boutiques, but they are mostly located in the basement levels, which says a lot about the way Village Mall developers viewed the stores’ status – lower than American stores. In the bar street, most of the bars are targeted towards foreigners, with very little Chinese-named clubs or bars. The only Chinese-named bars to be found are on Sanlitun Road to the east, but mostly have entertainment targeted towards foreigners. Additionally, on signs placed throughout the Sanlitun block, many of the signs have English as the top language, whereas in other areas, such as Dongcheng and Haidian, Chinese is often the top language or the only language shown. This is yet another contrast that is an attempt to bring in foreigners and drive away Chinese.

Finally, the Sanlitun area has elements that actively work against Chinese culture as a whole, rejecting both modern and ancient Chinese values. There are many tattoo shops and adult stores in the bar street that reject the ancient values of respecting one’s body and abstaining from sex. There is an infamous head shop with bongs, pipes, and papers, which obviously manages to circumvent China’s anti-marijuana laws. Concrete blocks are set up around the perimeter of the Village Mall to prevent sidewalk parking that is so prevalent in Beijing. The bar street is also a haven for illegal drugs. In 2008, before the Beijing Olympics began, there was a drug raid that saw arrests of over 100 people for possession of various drugs, and also the execution of 4 bartenders who allowed drug deals to happen in their bars. Even today, there are drug dealers wandering openly around the bar street, and it is not uncommon to see drugs change hands in bars.

With this overwhelming evidence of counter-Chinese culture, it is any wonder why Sanlitun is still popular with Beijing residents. Obviously Sanlitun is popular with foreigners, as it provides a haven for them to feel at home, if only for a while. However, maybe through a global lens, Sanlitun does make sense: it is more global than it is Chinese. Perhaps Sanlitun is merely part of a new consciousness that circumvents culture and attempts to carve a niche in a global identity. After all, the stores are all global stores, and the international food makes a sense of ‘globality’. The architecture is not necessarily Chinese nor can it be pinpointed to any culture. So, while Sanlitun may seem like it is actively rejecting Chinese culture, perhaps it is merely just trying to move towards a global consciousness.

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22: Fall/Floor

2011-11-11T18:28:00.001-08:00

It’s fall in China right now, but what I think is hilarious is that there’s barely any street covered with fallen leaves. Every time I walk to work, I pass by many trees, but there are no leaves to be found on the ground. I’ve noticed that the Chinese have such an obsession over their floors and streets that they keep them perpetually clean. The Sanlitun Village Mall hires people to sweep up leaves as soon as they fall so the sidewalk looks immaculate. The Beijing subway floors are mopped every night (compare this to the DC metro, which I honestly believe hasn’t been cleaned since it opened). I once rode a bus to the very last stop, and they started cleaning the floors halfway through the trip, even though it was daytime.

It’s not just keeping the floors clean. Whenever I put my bag on the floor, I get stares, or a helpful Chinese person will pick up my bag, thinking I dropped it on the floor by accident. My coworkers will move my bag from the floor to a shelf, even though I don’t really care where my bag is. I asked one of them why they should care if it’s just a backpack, and her only explanation was that the floor was dirty, even though it wasn’t THAT dirty. One metro ride, a toddler slid off his mother’s lap and plopped down on the floor. The mom quickly picked up her kid, and reprimanded him. I’m starting to believe that the Asian squat is specifically because they have such a fear of sitting on the floor.

This is one of the weirder quirks of China for me. In America, if I sat down on some stairs for a rest, no one would really care. But in China, my coworkers or Chinese friends will tell me not to do that because the floor is so dirty. The way I see it, the floor is dirty, but it’s not like we never shower or wash our hands. It may be dirty, but things get dirty, so what? The fact that many people here feel like they have to keep their streets clean to the point that they’ll rush over to a fallen leaf as soon as it hits the ground makes me sad, because that’s what fall is about. You’re supposed to walk through these leaves, hearing and feeling the crunching, breathing in the cool crisp air. Call me sappy, but this is one of the things I miss the most about America right now!

21:

2011-10-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

I learned this in my class a few weeks ago, and I never thought to write about it until now.

Do you guys know why East Asian culture is more society- and group-based, while Western culture is more individualistic? It goes all the way back to historical agricultural societies. Since East Asia is much more mountainous, there's much less land, and much more people to work on the land. Additionally, their staple, rice, is much more labor intensive, and requires much more people to help with building irrigation ditches, digging the pits for the rice, and planting and harvesting the rice. Western farming, on the other hand, is much easier, due to Europe's plains, as well as how easy grain is to grow. It doesn't take 20 people to farm one plot of land in Europe, and if one crop fails, it's easy to bounce back and grow another crop in the same plot of land a month later.

So, over a long period of time, East Asia became much more people based, and formed a rigid society in order to promote people to work with each other, while European societies were much more lax, and allowed for a greater degree of individuality. Isn't this fascinating? Even today, we have this culture, and it was determined by people a long time ago.

20: 天津／Tianjin

2011-10-27T02:28:00.001-07:00

Tianjin is not a very well known city to the average American. It is often overshadowed by Beijing to the west. However, Tianjin actually is a sizeable city, with a population of almost 13 million people and its own municipality (Beijing and Shanghai are the only two other cities to have their own municipality). As we boarded the bullet train, I was not really expecting anything special. Since Tianjin is merely 30 minutes by bullet train, I visualized Tianjin as just a smaller Beijing. When we got off, I realized it was anything but. The buildings were all very European, with Grecian columns everywhere. After getting so used to the Chinese wall, it was a bit of a shock to see my culture’s columns everywhere. Also, the streets were cobbled like an ancient European city would be. At first, I thought it was just because we were in a historical foreign district, but as we walked around more, I realized that this was the real Tianjin.

We visited a circle (seriously, how much more European can this city get?), where people go to matchmake their sons and daughters. The entire circle has notices advertising people of different ages and jobs. There are some professional matchmakers who sit there waiting all day, advertising their people for a commission. Laurence and I chatted with some of them, and they turned out to be very sweet. Some joked that they should recommend me to some girls! Afterwards, we walked down some more European-looking streets to get some lunch. I realized that Tianjin still had the hutong culture so prevalent in China, but the buildings were all very Western style. We also walked along the river, where we saw more European style buildings and bridges. And we ended the day at an Italian restaurant, in a glass room on the roof. The top part of the room had Egyptian hieroglyph wallpaper, and we were all absolutely confused. The food was so-so, but we had some really great red wine.

On the ride back, I remarked to Laurence, “Why did I think that Tianjin was just going to be another Chinese city? Of course it surprised me. That’s what China does to you.” And I think this is the best way to describe Tianjin. It was a surprise. It was foolish of me to expect that Tianjin would be just the same, just like Huayin City was absolutely different from my initial image. I love how Tianjin can’t be pinned down to one culture. There was a European style circle, but it was reclaimed by Chinese culture. There were hutongs, but they were European style buildings. If I may get a bit cheesy here, I saw a bit of myself in Tianjin, in that I’m a hybrid of two cultures of Deafness and hearing people.

I really did enjoy Tianjin. It was a shame that it was raining, but I’ll definitely consider going again. What’s more, all my friends studying abroad in Europe had the week off last week, and were going around and visiting all these European cities. Their Facebook statuses were making me seethe with jealousy and wanderlust, but that was all quenched when I visited Tianjin. I really even wouldn’t mind living in Tianjin. I feel like I would fit right in with the clash between two cultures.

19: 工作

2011-10-26T03:03:00.001-07:00

I was originally going to write about something else, but due to popular demand, I decided to write about my job! I’ve been having such a great time, too, so I want to write about my time so far.

Anyway, without divulging too many details, I work at a clothing store that is popular in America, and has 3 stores so far in China. The store is located in Sanlitun, or the current hip area to be for foreigners and fashionable Chinese alike. My duties are on the sales floor, helping hang up clothes, bringing clothes out of the backroom and distributing it around the store, and helping customers. My coworkers are all Chinese, and only one is fluent in English, while some can speak some, and the rest only know “Hello.” What’s funnier is that they’re all required to have Chinese names. Some have regular English names, like Kevin, or Alice, and some have names that are quite… uncommon. For example, there’s Wave, or Little (named so because she’s the smallest one), and Twiggy. Ironically, most of them can’t pronounce my name (the th sound is generally a North American thing), so they just call me by my Chinese name, 明修, Mingxiu. There have been many times where Little shouts for me across the store, and customers are surprised to see a white guy coming!

The customers are generally Chinese, and we do get quite a lot of “fringe” fashion, like punk kids. I found out later that because these punk kids think that America is open, they often flock to Sanlitun, which I find absolutely hilarious because many Americans would be surprised to see some Chinese punks walking around. Many customers are a part of the new generation of Chinese people, who can be somewhat obsessed with fashion. In America, the store I work at is relatively cheap, with good quality clothes, but here in China, I know I can easily find clothes 1/10^th the price of what the clothes go for. So these people are willing to shell out bigger bucks for a fancy label, or foreign clothes. We also get many foreigners, with whom I usually deal. In my opinion, foreigner customers can be worse than Chinese customers (I say this with caution, because I know there are good and bad of each). On my first day, I learned that only foreigners shoplift. In fact, the Beijing store is notorious for having the least amount of shoplifters compared to the American stores (this could be biased, an employee told me this). My friend, who works at the DC store, told me she gets about 5 shoplifters a day, whereas I’ve had only one my entire 3 weeks here.

Working with Chinese people does, of course, bring its cultural clash moments. On my first day, during a slow moment, John asked me if I liked going out to party. I told him “Of course, I’m a student, I love partying!” to everyone’s surprise. They were shocked that American students liked partying and then asked me about where American students got the time and if their parents were embarrassed by it (I know my parents are. Sorry, mom and dad!). Also, they asked me if the stores in America told people they were closing, what the customers were like, and if they sold the same clothes. We also talk a lot about whether or not Chinese fashion is good, and they often ask me if their outfits would look good to an American. I’ve had discussions about how Chinese people don’t usually wear a wedding ring, and how in America it can be an issue for some people. They were surprised that people would get upset over a silly ring. One day, Kevin told me that I was one of the nicest people that he had ever met, and that threw me off, because I’m not necessarily EXTREMELY nice. I usually walk in and say 你好, ni hao, or 你怎么样？How are you? Kevin explained to me that that phrase is not really used in China, so when I used it in the American cultural context, they thought I was being super nice, when I was just using it as a formality. I learned that their equivalent is 你吃完了吗？Have you eaten? There’s plenty more where this came from, and I love every time I have one of these experiences.

I really do love my job. I had a shitty first week, where one day I was late more than 30 minutes due to a time management error on my part and Beijing traffic, but I bounced back. At first, the prospect of standing on my feet for 7 hours straight sounded terrible, but it’s actually had its health benefits (it’s the latest fad in America, check it out!), such as reduced back pain. Also, I get to practice my Chinese in a non-educational setting, which has forced me to just be confident. I’ve noticed my brain shifting to accommodate complements, which is one of the hardest things about the Chinese language. I’ve also made some of the best friends I will have here in China. I can’t wait to see what the rest of my time at this store will look like!

18: Dating

2011-10-23T19:58:00.001-07:00

Back in America, I often find myself rolling my eyes at goo-goo-ga-ga couples. The couples that always have their arms around each other, or always kiss every 5 minutes, or say ‘honey’ every other sentence just annoy me. So when I came to China, and I saw couples all over each other, I knew it would be a source of contention for me. Couples are always holding hands, hugging each other, and looking distantly into each other’s eyes (luckily for me, kissing is considered too much of a PDA, so they just avoid anything more than hugging). Guys will hold their girlfriend’s bag for them. There are even stores that sell couples clothes, where there are matching sweaters in women’s and men’s corresponding sizes. At Tiananmen Square, you can count at least 5 couples wearing the exact same clothes. At first, I was confused because I thought that PDA and traditional gender roles in China prevented this type of behavior. It wasn’t until yesterday that my friend told me something that made everything click for me. Basically, Chinese kids aren’t allowed to date in high school. If the school finds out that someone is dating, they will be caught and have serious consequences. So, after high school, they just immediately pair up, and catch up on all the loving they didn’t get the chance to do in high school. The way I see it, dating for the Chinese is like drinking for Americans: we were banned from it so long that once we’re allowed to, we just go crazy with it.

17: 天水，甘肃／Tianshui, Gansu

2011-10-22T17:23:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Tianshui at 1 in the morning after passing through Xi’an. With the melancholy of Huayin City still fresh in my mind, I braced myself for another city full of those permanently empty high rises. Once we cleared out of the train station, and found a decent hotel, we all went to sleep. The next morning, I woke up, and looked out of the window. There was so much activity! Our hotel happened to be on a busy shopping street. There was a mosque across the way from us, which was jarring at first, because you don’t really associate mosques with China. However, after eating some Muslim beef skewers for breakfast (Martha, I know you hate when I call it Muslim. However, Chinese Muslim people have their own name, 回民 and are seen as their own ethnicity, despite being Han. The direct translation is Chinese Muslim, and so their food and customs are called that), I fell in love. Ben and I wandered around, buying a bunch of snacks, like dried kiwis, corn, and some milk tea. Many, many people stared at us! Some people selling clothes came up to us and asked us for pictures. When they realized we could speak some Chinese, they started asking us about America and our cities. I told them that my hometown had only one million people and that it was the 8^th biggest city in the US, and they didn’t believe me at first. We told them that corn in America was sweet, and they were all kind of grossed out by that.

For a ‘small’ rural town, there were a lot of high class stores that sold 100-200 kuai clothes (for comparison, you can get clothes at a bargain market for 20 kuai. 100+ kuai clothes are seen as Western-style, and are gaining popularity in China). The area where I got my beef skewers was next to a bargain market, which seemed much more popular than the rest of the high class shops. Also, there were many other shops gearing up for Grave-Sweeping Day. There was a bridge nearby, which crossed a ditch, and it reminded me so much of Tijuana, when you cross by foot. This ditch had farms at the sides, though. I asked someone, and they said it was farmed by poor people, and that was usually the only thing they had to eat for the rest of the year.

That night, we ate at a Muslim restaurant, which only concreted my love of Muslim food. Some people from our group were slightly icked out by eating lamb, but after my assurances that Muslims were the number one people I trusted the most with a lamb, they tried some dumplings. At the end of the meal, everyone was agreeing that this was probably one of the best meals of the trip. It turned out that the family had 4 daughters. Because they were Chinese Muslims, they were exempt from the One Child Policy (which is slowly turning into the Two Child Policy now).

Tianshui was a nice break from the stressful environment of Beijing. Even though the town had 3 million people, it still felt small and quiet to me. A random person asked one of my friends if she could hang out with an American they had just hired for their school. She told us this story, and I found myself slightly jealous of the American. If I had the chance to teach English at Tianshui, or a town like it, I would gladly take the opportunity to. I’d love to go back.

16: 华阴市，陕西/Huayin City, Shaanxi

2011-10-21T02:15:00.000-07:00

When we first chugged into Huayin City by train, we realized we had pulled up in the bad part. The taxicabs tried to rip us off and out of the three taxis our group had gotten, only one was legit. The other two charged 15 or 20 kuai per person, when the entire trip had only been 20 kuai total. However, once we got away from the bad part of the city, I realized that Huayin City was another one of ‘those’ cities, rather than a quaint rural village. The main street was lined with empty high rises (you can tell by the lack of lights), and many vacant shops. The only indication that it was a rural village was the large spanses of corn left out to dry. We later realized that this was because the corn was meant for animal feed, rather than for human consumption. There was a decent amount of taxis and rickshaws and human activity for a rural village, but placed in Huayin City, which seemed so forced, it was just sparse.

We went out the first night to look for a restaurant. Many locals tried to help, but we just couldn’t find a restaurant that was open. The more we walked around, the more depressed I got. There was this large empty city, with barely any life in it. All the shops were empty, and only a few restaurants open. We finally found a decent one, but afterwards we all just went home and went to sleep because there was nothing else to do in the town.

People usually avoid Huayin City. The way tour groups get to Huashan is by sleeping over night in Xi’an, and riding the buses an hour to Huashan. That we stayed in the town was a rarity for the denizens.

I probably wouldn’t come back to this city (although I probably have to, my family wants to climb Huashan!). I still can’t decide if this city just has lost its rural charm, or it has gained a new sort of personality because it’s just so unique.

15: National Week Trip

2011-10-20T23:15:00.000-07:00

I, again, want to apologize to my readers. Between getting back in Beijing from a crazy trip, starting a new job, and midterm papers and tests, I haven’t been able to find the time to squeeze a blog post in. I promise I’ll write one today (this one you’re reading), and one tomorrow!

Anyway, the trip was fantastic. We took the hard seat train there and back, which was an experience! Many people asked their seat neighbor why us white people weren’t just taking an airplane. After a 14 hour overnight trip, we found ourselves in Huayin City (that’s just a name. whether it actually was a city is another story). Huayin City is another one of those cities cursed by China’s construction subsidies. The city is still very rural, with corn being laid out on the roads to dry, but it has the feel of a modern city with highrises everywhere. This, combined with the air pollution, made for an eerie empty city, not unlike something out of the Twilight Zone. Since we were all exhausted, we just ate some dinner and went to bed.

The next morning, we headed off to see Huashan (华山, or Mountain Hua). Huashan is famous for being one of the most dangerous mountains in China, with extremely unsafe conditions, and it did not disappoint us! After a gondola ride to the top, we realized that most of the barriers preventing people from falling off the mountain were just chains that came up to our knees (remember, the Chinese people are tiny. To them, those chains went up to their waists!). Canlong Ridge, which is the only way up to the other peaks, is a one way path up, on a ridge. Usually, trails will avoid ridges because of how prone people are to falling off, but of course they don’t give a shit about that here. It was harrowing, but fun! The rest of the time was spent hiking around the 3 peaks, before we had to catch the gondola back down and get our train to Xi’an.

Once we got to Xi’an, we caught another train to a town called Tianshui (天水, or literally, Heavenly Water). Tianshui is an adorable town in Gansu province, which I’ll definitely write more about later. Anyway, many people I chatted with in Tianshui claimed that it was a tiny town, and really had nothing to see. I had yet to research Tianshui’s population, so I was imagining the population to be about 50 thousand people. After I got home and looked it up, I realized that the population was 3 million people, three times the population of San Diego, the 8th biggest city in America. This blew my mind! A city with 3 million people is HUGE to me, but these people were claiming that it was such a small town.

Anyway, we spent the first day just wandering around Tianshui, and taking in the sights and chatting with people. There are many Chinese Muslim people (回民), so there were quite a few mosques and many lamb dumpling restaurants. That night, we all went out to a local bar, and had some fun drinking. This group of Chinese people called me over and we chatted all night. They said I looked like Harry Potter!

The next day, a couple of friends and I headed over to Maijishan (麦积山), which is famous for having these Buddhas and bodhisattvas carved into the mountain. It wasn’t as harrowing as Huashan, but it was much more idyllic. There were villages among the forest, and it was easy to imagine the air pollution as those pretty clouds that you see up in the mountains.
We returned and then headed back to Beijing, where the very next day, I started my first day of work! I’ll write more about this tomorrow.

14: Chengde, Hebei/承德，河北

2011-10-05T01:23:00.000-07:00

So, after my recent trip to Chengde, I decided to add a new feature to my blog: City Posts. For every city that I visit, I want to record my thoughts, experiences, and knowledge about that city. Every city is quite different and reveals much about Chinese culture, so I feel that it’s important to show my readers a little glimpse into the cities that I visit.

Anyway, the trip up to Chengde was interesting. We rode a bus all the way to the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall, which is the closest section to Beijing, as well as the most well restored section. I’m going to save this experience for another post, because there’s just so much that comes with visiting the Great Wall for someone like me. Then we headed out to Chengde.

What was mindboggling for me was how long it took to get out of the Beijing district. It took us 2 hours from Beida to finally get into Hebei. And then it was another hour or so to get to Chengde. Most of it was just mountainous hills and cornfields, and tiny little villages. It’s hilarious to see how many cornfields are stuffed into little crevices or tiny fields. A family friend of mine wanted to grow corn in their garden, but after some research, found out that corn can’t grow unless there are 5 or more rows so the corn can cross-pollinate. Apparently, the Chinese just don’t give a shit. Half of the cornfields I saw were only 3 or 4 rows wide, and it wasn’t uncommon to see just one row growing up against a hill.

Now, after reading that Chengde’s population was a measly 450,000 (remember, I’m in China. A population of 1 million is a small town), and seeing all this corn, I was expecting Chengde to be a tiny rural town. I was wrong. After turning out of a valley and coming down, I got a fantastic view of a bunch of high rises being built. It shocked me a bit, and as we drove, there were plenty more high rises. It was completely contrary to what I thought Chengde was. It reminded me of Konya, in central Turkey, where we came across many high rises with different colors and gigantic silver plated mosques after driving through the desert for a few hours.

Chengde is split in two by a river, and the west side is the city center and where the majority of people live. The east side is where most of the empty high rises are. A note about these high rises: the Chinese government heavily subsidizes construction companies, so it’s actually profitable to build, no matter what the conditions are. Some cities, like Chengde, have been hit by these types of developments, and now have the image of a large city, with a tiny population. My friend, Brian, commented that the night that we went out to hit the town, there were many buildings and many lights, but very few people.

Despite this, Chengde is a very cute city. The people are amazingly friendly, but much more shy than in Beijing. It’s a tourist town though. People mostly come just to see the Mountain Resort, where rulers of the Qing Dynasty retreated to avoid the stifling heat. I quite like Chengde, and I think I’d like to go back, even if I think it’s not a very good place to live.

13:

2011-10-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was October 1st, marking the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Coincidentally, I took up my friend's offer to visit the Capital Museum, and there, we saw the original microphone that Mao used! My friend's Chinese friend offered to take us to Tiananmen Square, but I really could not handle those types of crowds after the museum.

Anyway, everyone gets the week off at Beida. So of course, we took the chance to go travel. Here's what's going on: tomorrow, the program is taking us all to Chengde (承德), which is a small town in Hebei (河北), just north of Beijing to see the Summer Palace there. Then we return to Beijing. Then a group of friends and me (Branka, Fran, Mary, Katie, Lars, Kaj, Nik, Victoria, Caitlin, and Ben) are all heading out to Xian (西安), the capital of the Shaanxi (陕西) province, and seeing the Terracotta warriors there. After that, we're going to Tianshui (天水), a tiny town in Gansu (甘肃) province, to see this mountain that ancient peoples lived in (I swear, this is going to be my 5th or 6th underground/in mountain town). After that, we're coming back to Beijing on Monday. I'm not planning on bringing my laptop, so I'll be taking a week long hiatus. But I promise I will return with stories and fun cultural tidbits!

12: Suburbs/Metro

2011-09-30T02:02:00.001-07:00

I recently learned an interesting thing about Beijing that I wanted to share with my readers. Apparently, people in Beijing think that living in the city is much safer than living in the suburbs, and that moving from the suburbs to the city is seen as an increase in status. This was intriguing for me, especially coming from a culture where living in the city is seen as dangerous and scary, and moving to the suburbs is seen as a way to move up the social ladder.

Suburbs started in America as a reactionary response to more and more black people moving into the cities. White people started moving out of the city in droves, in a phenomenon known as White Flight. The American Dream was modified into a cute little house with a white picket fence and a car and a good housewife. However, in Beijing, cost of living in the city is so expensive, that if migrants from rural China want to live there, they are forced out into the suburbs. For the most part, the city has neglected the suburbs (especially in the years since the Olympics, where they shifted their focus inwards for tourism), and the area has now gained a stigma.

Also, if you study the public transportation systems of America, you’ll notice that the intention of the metro systems are to bring people from their living areas in the suburbs to the center of the city and back out. This is especially true in the Chicago Metra, the DC Metro, and the Boston T. In Beijing, the metro is actually designed to shuttle people around the city, as opposed to in and out of the city. The busiest part of the metro is in the middle parts of the line, where the city is. Perhaps this isn’t that interesting to you, but it blows my mind!

11:

2011-09-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

I was on my way back from somewhere, riding Line 10 of the metro. Laurence and I were texting each other, cracking jokes. I was standing next to these 3 seated women, who were talking about Obama (I could understand 奥巴马). Laurence texted me a particularly funny joke that made me laugh pretty loudly. At the same time, the women made a joke about Obama, and they started laughing. Almost immediately, they got quiet and started talking about whether or not I could understand Chinese. They actually looked pretty freaked out. Even if I could understand their joke, I wasn’t even paying attention to them until their little freak out. They finally concluded that it was just a coincidence, and about 10 minutes later, I was now sitting next to one of the women. I was still texting Laurence, and she made me laugh again. This time, the women cracked another joke, and burst out in laughter at the same time as me. Then they got really quiet and said “He does understand Chinese!” It was hilarious! I had to control my laughter.

10: Lax Safety

2011-09-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was taxiing home from Minzu University, and I stopped at an intersection where 4 pedestrian bridges were being built. There, I saw the most unsafe conditions I’ve seen by far in China. There were men welding stuff, with the white flame visible to pedestrians and onlookers. The sparks were flying down onto the street, with cars and pedestrians trying to avoid it.

This wasn’t the only time I saw incredibly lax safety standards (and it’s only been a month!). At my university, there are some buildings in construction. One building always had workers on it, day and night. I knew unions would shriek in horror if they ever saw that situation. Also, where the building was, and where the materials were actually were in different places, with a pedestrian walkway between the two areas. So the crane would pick up a load of bricks or whatever, and hoist it over the pedestrians into the construction zone.

There are buildings that extend stairs over the sidewalks. Often, they aren’t coordinated, so when you walk down the street, you have to go around or up and down. Cars are allowed to park anywhere they want on the sidewalk. I saw more than one apartment building next to a coal smokestack. There’s even one right by Beida. Also, the escalators are steep, and super fast. I haven’t seen an elderly person use an escalator, and I don’t know if it’s because of tradition or if it’s because they’re scared of them!

I am reminded of a book I once read, which was one of those weird books I read in high school. In the book, the mother was upset at how her family ate her food so fast without taking the time to appreciate the flavor. So, in an act of defiance, she started adding shards of glass or staples or whatever, forcing her son and husband to eat the food slowly (Ironically, I found a staple in my rice once). After a while, they learned to enjoy the food. This is how I’ve perceived China so far. With all these lax safety standards, I am forced to keep my eyes open, and forced to be alert. This has actually made my experience much more memorable.

Also, another dimension to this discussion is how China handles its safety issues when they become deadly or threatening to the economy. Remember the melanin milk scare? The head of the milk company, as well as the head of the Health Ministry in China (responsible for inspection of Chinese goods) were both executed. And the lead paint in toys? The CEO of that company was executed. It’s harsh, but if you compare it to America, where the government did quite literally nothing after the BP oil spill, it’s much better than ignoring the problem. They just waited until public attention shifted elsewhere. There’s still oil in the Gulf, and there have been no changes in policy regarding safety on those platforms.

(Lisette, this post is dedicated to you!)

9: Smell

2011-09-15T01:54:00.001-07:00

You know how people say India has its own smell? I've decided on a smell for China, if not Beijing. It's this mix between gasoline, plastic, and pine. I've smelled it in malls, at my university, in the metro, and in restaurants. It doesn't smell as bad as it sounds, though, especially if you like the smell of gasoline or pine.

8: Art

2011-09-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

So one day last week I got an email from my program director. She was asking for male students who were interested in a modeling job, for 4 hours, which paid about 400 yuan, or 62 dollars. I had assumed it was a fashion modeling job, which I was totally down for. I mean, I may as well have fun while I'm in China. Anyway, I notified the director that I was interested, and she arranged a meeting with the artist. I met them last Thursday, and they explained to me that the thing was an art project in which 100 guys would be standing around in their underwear, black shoes, and police hats. Despite this, I was still down for it.

After the meeting, I emailed my family to check if they were okay with it. They all actually seemed WAY more enthusiastic than I expected them to be. I was expecting them to be much more hesitant about it, especially after a talk my dad and I had about what character I would be in the Rocky Horror Picture Show cast. I told him that I would obviously be Brad because I’m a total nerd, I had the glasses for it, and I was perfectly comfortable being in my underwear around other people. He told me that that was something a parent did not want to hear. So imagine my surprise when he was much more excited about this than I was.

So, with my family’s approval, on Monday, I met up with the 3 other guys, Isaac, Brian, and Ben. We met up with the Arts and Culture professor of the program, and he drove us over to 798 Art Zone, which is a famous modern art district in Beijing where the gallery is. We got there earlier and got to survey the space. It is GORGEOUS! It looked like the MOMA in New York City, on a smaller scale. I got to meet the gallery owner, and told him in perfect Chinese that his gallery looked like the MOMA. We hung out for a while before all the other models arrived.

When the thing finally started, they herded groups up to private areas to change. I noticed they were segregating Chinese models from the foreign models, and later I asked someone why they were doing that. He told me that it was because the Chinese tend to peek at foreigners (you know, I really don’t have to explain this further, right?), and they wanted to protect the foreigners’ privacies.

After we had changed, we looked for our spots in the grid as they set up the camera and video cameras. I was second row, while Brian, who looks like a Jesus with piercings and skull tattoos, was right in front and center. For 4 hours after that, we had to hold a pose while they took pictures of us from different angles. Also, at one point, we had to hold a pose for 10 minutes while they filmed us. It was one of those moments where your glamorous fantasies crash into harsh realities.

It was still fun though, because I talked to the people around me during our breaks. I found out that of the foreigners, we came from America, Germany, Dominica, Sri Lanka, Italy, as well as a few other countries. Also, some of the Chinese people had never seen black people that close up, and wanted to feel their hair. One Chinese guy next to me pointed to a black guy and said “Kobe Bryant”, and so I pointed to him and said “Yao Ming”. Near the end, they wanted a picture of all the guys huddled together, and these Chinese guys kept on picking at Brian’s leg hair. There was a photographer who was mildly obsessed with Brian and me, and the entire 4 hours, kept on taking pictures of us from different angles.

When we finished, we all changed back to our clothes and drove back home. It was a fun experience, and I can’t wait for the final result to be out so I can see it and show everyone! I’m also planning to put “participated in a professional Chinese art project” on my resume. Do you think that will land me a nice job?

7: Hospital

2011-09-12T23:36:00.000-07:00

First off, I want to apologize for a delay in posting. I’ve been extremely busy with trying to get myself situated here in Beijing, seeing the sights, and doing all my work. That said, I now have a story today, and I will post another one tomorrow about my experience with participating in a massive art project!

This story was actually my first horrible cultural experience here. The experience itself wasn’t bad, but the cultural differences struck me badly. Anyway, I hurt my ankle pretty badly last Wednesday, and in such a stupid way too. I was joking around with my friends and was trying to balance on a ledge. Then I fell off, and twisted my ankle. It got pretty bad, and I didn’t have time to go to the hospital until Friday. Come Friday morning, and off I hobbled to the Peking University hospital down the street (when I say down the street, I mean a 30-minute walk down the street. That’s how things go in Beijing). When I got there, the first thing I had to do was get a registration card, and then go up to the front desk to put money on it.

So I put down my Chinese name, and walked over to the front desk. Now, before I continue, I have to explain one thing. The Chinese cannot, or absolutely refuse to line up anywhere. If God himself came down to China, and told the Chinese people to line up and he would lead them into heaven, they would just crowd around him, holding up 100 yuan bills, clamoring to be let in. So into the hordes I went. Luckily, I managed to shove past some people and get up front to pay. This was pretty upsetting for me, especially because I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if I were sick, or elderly. And it really was that rough, people were shoving each other and elbowing each other.

Once I put some money on my card, I had to find the doctor’s office, which wasn’t that hard. When I got to his office, I realized that a trip to the hospital in China is VASTLY different from the US. Basically, there are two desks for two separate doctors, and everyone (about 6 or 7 of us) basically just crowds around the desks, waiting for the patient talking with the doctor to leave so they can sit down and have their time with the doctor. There’s absolutely no privacy. Once I sat down, the doctor gave me a form to go get my ankle x-rayed. I went down to the basement to see the x-ray technician there. He led me into the room, where I laid down on the big bed next to the machine. Usually, they put a lead vest on you to prevent you from the radiation. Here, I didn’t see any of that, and the technician just took some x-rays. Then he gave me the print outs and I had to bring it back to the doctor. Fortunately, he deemed my ankle not broken, but just sprained and bruised, and prescribed me some Chinese medicine.

To pick up my medicine, I just went to the pharmacy in the lobby, grabbed a number from the machine and waited for it to be called (it was all in Chinese, so that was a bit scary). I got my medicines and I went to class.

I was extremely overwhelmed by the lack of privacy. I wasn’t expecting it from a hospital. Despite that, the visit took about 40 minutes, which is pretty quick by American standards, and REALLY fast by European standards. Also, the entire thing (doctor visit, x-ray, and medicines) was about 200 yuan, or 40 dollars. I know that insurance covers hospital visits in America, and that people usually pay only 10 or 20 dollars, but for an entire visit package, 40 bucks is cheap. However, the lax standards they have really threw me off. I can’t help but wonder what a western doctor in Beijing would be like.

6: Carrefour

2011-09-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Laurence and I were wandering around an underground mall, looking for a department store where she could buy some things she needed, when all of a sudden, I realized how empty the mall was. After touring Tiananmen Square, riding on the busy metro, and walking down some of the most crowded city blocks I have been on, the quietness was a bit of a shock. The only thing we could hear was our own walking and the quiet whispers of the shopkeepers.

Ironically enough, as quiet as the mall was, the set up of the shops was completely different. It’s almost as if the stores took on the characteristics of urban Chinese people, crowding themselves amongst the walls. There was a store that just set up its stuff in the middle of the path. You had to walk into another store to go around it. There were 6 bra stores that somehow thought that merging into one mega store was a good idea, but it meant that there were six different shopkeepers, each taking care of their own area. There was a small-scale department store selling clothes of a brand that had a shop right next to the store. There was a store within another store. It’s as if the city was saying, “You can’t escape me.”

Laurence asked me if I was overwhelmed by how busy the city was. In a way, I am, but I think that fighting it will only make you more tired. Letting yourself get overwhelmed by the jumble will just stress you out more. Just let yourself go with the flow, and through that, Beijing will let you in.

5: First Day In Beijing

2011-09-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

I’m absolutely jetlagged. I’m writing this at 4:30 in the morning even though I’m slightly hungover and I should be sleeping. But I really just can’t believe I’m actually here in Beijing. I see Chinese characters everywhere, but it still feels like a dream. I’ve seen only 10 white people tonight (and trust me, I’ve seen LOTS and LOTS of people tonight), and I still feel like I’m in America.

My flight was interesting. I flew Air China with a 700 dollar ticket, so I wasn’t really expecting to be treated like Bill Gates. But it was still quite interesting. The pilot came by my seat to help a stewardess with an overhead bin, and I don’t think he realized at all that his crotch was up against my shoulder. My dad joked about how I’ll have a lack of personal space in Asia, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon (we hadn’t even taken off!). Usually, the stewardesses try to schedule the meal times and sleep times to match that of the destination country. But this flight was different. They tried serving dinner and then putting everyone to sleep until the last few hours. During the middle of the flight, there was an electrical shortage or something, and everyone’s personal light kept on flashing on and off for a few minutes until someone turned it off. Then we were stuck without those reading lights for the rest of the flight. There was actually more leg room on this flight than the one to Japan, which surprised me. All in all, the flight itself was okay.

When we landed, and I absolutely hate saying this because everyone says this, but the first thing you really do notice is the smog. It’s worse than LA. There’s a haze that spreads from the horizon up to the sky. It’s slightly ominous. The last time I saw an atmosphere like that was when fires were ripping through San Diego.

Beijing Capital Airport is BEAUTIFUL. But when I got off the plane, it was completely empty. The customs line is extremely quick. You just queue up, show your passport and your visa, and off you go. However, from the gate to when you exit the baggage claim, it’s empty. When you finally exit the airport, it’s busy busy busy busy busy busy. I found my connection, and she put me in a taxi off to Peking University.

The first few miles of the drive were actually just like America. Then I saw two cars go into the same lane at the same time, and instead of one leaving the lane respectfully, they both sped up, almost hitting the car in front of them just to win the spot. It’s not uncommon to see cars tailgating one or two feet behind the next one.

I was tempted to ask the driver to drive past Tiananmen Square, but it was way out of the way to Peking University, so I resigned myself to the direct drive. It was an experience in itself. There are huge neon signs on every building. I could read some of the characters. We passed the Beijing Ikea, and I pointed to the building and said to my taxi driver, “Ikea!” Unfortunately, he didn’t know what Ikea was, and looked at me weird. We kept driving. Suddenly, I see a building I recognized – Bird’s Nest! It was an amazing sight to behold, especially after missing out on Tiananmen Square.

When I got to my destination, I bumped into a friend I knew, and her friend. We went out to dinner, pork dumplings and lamb kebabs, and then we went out drinking. We went to this area where a bunch of bars surround this man-made lake. The bar we went to played live Spanish music from a Chinese band. We did a couple of shots, and were joined by her friend’s roommates and friends. Then we all sat outside drinking beers. It was a great night.

4: What I'll Miss

2011-08-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

Now that I have less than a week before I leave, I find myself wondering what things about America I will miss. Here are some:

Sweet things. Asians do not have a sweet tooth. To them, watermelon is a perfectly good dessert. As a lover of sugary and sweet things, this is one of the rare cons on my list about Asia.

The English language. I'll miss English the same way I miss ASL if I haven't used it in a long time. Even if I'm going to be with other English speakers in my program, it goes further than that. There are many things that are in English that we take for granted. Doors that have "push" and "pull" signs are now unintelligible to me. Advertisements for a new restaurant special or sales at stores will now go over my head. I will probably spend more energy and time trying to figure out what something says, only to find out it's something I would normally ignore anyway.

America's diversity. In the past, when I've come back from a trip to a homogeneous country, I've found myself completely shocked at the diversity of America. To be fair, China is a pretty diverse country, with more than 50 different ethnicities, but I feel like it'll be nothing like America.

Mexican Food. I've had no less than 50 burritos this summer and while dumplings are pretty much the same concept, they won't live up to burritos.

3: Population

2011-07-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

It's mind blowing to me that I'm going to be living in a city that has 20 times the people that my home city has. And it's even more mind blowing that while the US has nine cities with a population of a million or more, China has 95 of them.

And then it's even more mind blowing that I'm probably going to be the tallest person there.

2: So getting a Chinese visa is harder than one would think...

2011-07-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, my sister, me, and a few of our friends all went across the border to visit Tijuana. On the way back, all we had to do was stand in line for an hour, and US Border Patrol just let us through after inspecting our passports. When we went to Turkey, we jumped off the plane, walked up to a booth, handed 20 bucks to a woman who then stamped our passports with a visa that allowed us in for a month. When I visited Japan, I filled out a form on the plane that claimed I was merely a tourist, and got a sticker in my passport good for 3 months.

So of course, when I got an email from my program director about getting a Chinese visa, I was a bit surprised. First, I had to wait for a form from the program that explained that I was a student who would be studying abroad in Beijing. Once I received that form, I had to fill out another form, this one four pages long, with information about where I'd be staying, my family members and their jobs, if I had any friends in China, and much more. Then, I had to drive up all the way to LA just to turn all these documents into the visa office.

In a way, I shouldn't have been surprised by this at all. After all, China is a homogeneous, authoritarian nation. Of course their visa process would be strict and intimidating. It was just surreal to be filling out my parents occupations on a four page application for one visa, after experiencing such easy visa processes. It's good experience, though. At study abroad orientation, they told us that we will guaranteed be stopped by Chinese police. So I guess this is just a small step up to that.

A side note: Tory and I were looking for the visa office, and a helpful Chinese woman pointed us in the right way. I thanked her in Chinese, "谢谢", and she looked surprised that a white dude knew Chinese. But she replied with "不客气！" which means 'no problem', and I understood her! It made my day.

1: Why I Like China

2011-06-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

When people ask me why I'm so fascinated by China, I give them my usual stock answer: I grew up in San Diego, which is only 50 years old. We speak English here. All the houses are the same, and developments are still popping up. Everyone is white here. What's the exact opposite of that? China.

I only give people that explanation because it's easier than the true reason. The true reason is that ever since I was young, I've had such a need to explore my surroundings, and taste the culture that pervades every detail of our lives. My parents took my sister and me on road trips around the US, and once I had my fill of observing the differences between people in the Rockies, New Mexico, and upstate New York, my obsession turned to countries. I was so intrigued that people in Europe could be so much different from their neighbors, much less people from the US. One of the places that fascinated me the most was Asia. People were just so different and I craved to explore how they lived.

I remember the first country I was obsessed with was Japan. The most exotic language they offered at my high school was Japanese, and from that point on, I was memorizing details of the country, from its population of 127 million, to how the Diet was organized much like England's Parliament. I got the opportunity to visit it spring of sophomore year. I'll spare everyone the details, but when I got home, I instantly knew that travel was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I later found the perfect word for it: wanderlust. I had come back home with an enormous burning desire to go back to Japan, or even explore some new country. Still to this day, I beg my dad to take me back to Tijuana, even if it's just for a day, to get my fix of a foreign country.

My wanderlust for China began in the summer of 2008. The Summer Olympics were to be held in Beijing, and there was a small controversy over the Chinese government wanting to move the Opening Ceremony from its original date to the more culturally auspicious date of August 8th (8 is considered a lucky number, and that date was triple 8s). This caught my eye, and as I studied more about Chinese culture and history, I found myself wanting to study Chinese in my first year at George Washington University. My obsession was instantly locked in once I saw how pervasive the Chinese were in American culture. They make everything that America buys, from toys to t-shirts, and own 23% of 4310 billion dollar debt. I knew I just had to visit China at least once, and ended up applying for study abroad there. I got in, and now I'm going to be studying in Beijing, and of course, blogging about this experience there.