Alright, after a few days back in the US, I should make another post summing up my thoughts about China, and I guess the whole abroad experience in general.

Looking back on China, I think I ended up learning a lot more than I initially thought I would. I was so sure that living in a dorm without a homestay family was going to impede my learning ability, but then on my way home I picked up a newspaper in the Beijing airport and was actually able to read and understand several articles even without looking up a bunch of characters on my electronic dictionary、and just now I was watching this show in Chinese on the Asian channel I get on my cable, and I was able to understand a fair portion of what was being said (even when I wasn't looking at the English subtitles). Come to think about it, we did spend a lot more time in class than we did in Japan, and we also had Chinese table, so they definitely programmed in a lot of practice time to compensate for lack of a homestay family. I definitely crammed in a lot of characters, and did pick up on a good deal of other ones just from pure exposure.

I guess that's one thing that both programs really showed me was how important immersion really is to how much you learn. Even if you're not necessarily USING the language 24/7, just by seeing and hearing it all the time gives one no choice but to absorb and learn at least a little bit.

I do feel like, as I said before, I didn't get enough of a chance to interact with actual Chinese people. If Denise hadn't introduced me to her cousin and his girlfriend, I don't think I would have been on a regular contact level with anybody actually living in China beyond my teachers, which was kind of sad, since I did make a few student friends in Japan. Oh well. I mean, placing us in a dorm only filled with other foreigners didn't help, which is why I ended up making two more Japanese friends instead of Chinese friends. None of the other Dartmouth students used the student cafeteria, and I would have felt more comfortable trying to make random cafeteria friends if I wasn't the only foreigner there. The intensity of the study level I suppose did hinder our ability to explore the city on our own, and I guess that's where the scheduled cultural activities were supposed to fill in, but frankly I wish we'd have had more activities that let us interact with Chinese people instead of just watch cheesy kung fu shows tailored to tourists. We did do a bit of an excess of tourist-y activities, however, Fei laoshi, being the "nightlife specialist" did supplement that with some good-old fashioned partying and mingling.

Seeing all the historical sites definitely had their merit, though, I won't take away from any of that. Not everyone can say they've hiked the Great Wall or visited the first Chinese emperor's tomb. It was a privilege.

Spending a lot more time with the fellow Dartmouth students was pretty rewarding, though, that definitely had its advantages, considering that those are the people I'd actually see after the study abroad program was finished. I got to know some of my previous Chinese classmates a LOT better than I would have otherwise, changing my opinion of a few people completely. I got introduced to the fun of ultimate frisbee, and had some really fun weekend hanging out clubbing with people and doing other things.

I already miss the food a lot. Chinese food is so colorful and tasty, I definitely need to find some good-quality Chinese food restaurants here in Miami, as I can never associate TRUE Chinese food with American take-out Chinese food in my mind ever again. And it was all so CHEAP, too! Adjusting to the US dollar from the RMB will not be the most fun of transitions, but oh well. It was so much easier and cheaper to get something that could ostensibly be considered healthy, like a spicy bowl of noodles with all sorts of herbs and veggies thrown in, a plate of spicy tofu, stuff like that. I could get a really awesome bowl of tofu for 10 kuai, which is barely more than one dollar US, and a bowl of white rice for 1 kuai, which, of course, even more ridiculously cheap when translated to dollars. Within walking distance of my house there's...Subway, as far as cheap and fast food, which I guess isn't bad (wait, what am I talking about, I LOVE Subway!).

There were plenty of things I didn't like about Beijing, though, that's for sure. The city in general was pretty filthy. There would be a few blue sky days, but a lot of the time there was just this haze hanging down over everything that was pretty gloomy. Luckily it didn't give me any big respiratory problems, but I don't think it helped recuperation from colds and other sicknesses any. Having a good physical constitution helped guard against the generally low standard of hygiene. Shanghai was a lot nicer in that respect, though, it's a beautiful city I would not mind living in, I think. Beijing is nice for a visit, but not to live in.

The other thing was the presence of the government. It really was felt everywhere, from the television to the bulletin board outside the building where our classes were that said "love the country, love the party." I was really surprised how open some people were to talking about the government and communism, but in general people were paranoid, and that paranoia carried over into their interactions with people in general, my example being when we had to interview people for our group project, and some people had no idea what was going on with these three foreigners carrying a camera and asking questions. People are afraid of the government finding out what they're doing and construing it as treasonous. The cultural indoctrination in TV programs is really apparent, to, although not blatant. Almost every television show I'd see on TV would be a serial drama that was either set in imperial China, or in the 40's during the Japanese occupation. I know right now the Japanese and Chinese are trying to strengthen relations, but it really doesn't help when a Chinese person turns on the TV and can see representation of the Japanese as villains every single day.

I guess I should comment on that some more, the whole Japan/China deal, since I have the perspective from the other side. Basically it seems to be that the Japanese want to forget the whole thing happened and move on, whereas the Chinese won't let go until the Japanese own up to the atrocities committed during the occupation. The Japanese accuse China of exaggerating the numbers killed during the Rape of Nanjing, the Chinese accuse Japan of revering war criminals because of the continued existence of Yasukuni shrine, and it's all really heated. However, I did see Chinese students in Japan interacting freely with the natives with no ill will, and Japanese student in China doing the same, although, understandably, the actual HATRED seems to be more from the Chinese towards the Japanese and not vice-versa, whereas the Japanese seem to be just throwing up their hands in innocence. Marcus told me that when he was conversing with the Chinese girl who worked at the cash register in the convenience store at our dorm, she said she didn't like Japanese people because of "history. There is indoctrination from the government going on on both sides, China with the aforementioned TV and Japan with textbooks that downplay the effects Japanese occupation had on Korea and China.

What do I think about it? Frankly, both countries are ones with really long histories, where at some point they were both great and powerful empires. Naturally, both are going to be really proud of themselves and their history, and thus will both be too proud to come up with a mutually beneficial solution to help their relationship, especially if it's one that includes compromises, concessions, or admitting mistakes. Think about how in Japan the politician who said that the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima "could not be helped" was almost immediately forced to resign. I'd imagine it would be somewhere around that hard for someone to get up on a national podium and be like "Okay...our bad. Sorry." I think both countries just need to get over themselves and try to work towards the future, but that would also mean Japan having to deal with some of China's present issues like the whole, you know, violating people's human rights deal. That kind of explains why China's ties with the U.S. aren't 100% sparkly, either.

Man, I can't believe the past 6 months have already elapsed. It seemed like from this point last year all the anticipation was building towards it, and it's already passed. It's been really rewarding, though, I've learned and experienced so much, more than I really thought I would before even finishing my sophomore year of college. I feel really privileged to have been through it all, and I really want to go back abroad as soon as I can. Studying other cultures is really an endlessly fascinating thing, and these past months have only been the beginning.

Where from here? Well, it's back to Dartmouth in the Spring and continuing my studies there. But if I do go abroad in the next future, I think Taiwan has placed itself in my mind as the next target. Only time will tell where I can and will end up.

I think this is it for this blog, at least until my next adventure. I will keep this here as a record of a real highlight of my life for myself and others.

So I'm finally back in the US and free from having to rely on a proxy for internet use! Whoo!

So I managed to find some stuff to do on my last weekend. Saturday I went shopping with some other students and then got a massage, which was pretty awesome, and then Sunday, I spent some time with Denise's cousin and his girlfriend (getting a home-cooked meal out of the deal), and then went out for one last round of bar-hopping with the remaining guys.

The last day I spent mostly relaxing in the morning since I got my packing done the day before, except for my laptop. Once Carey packed up all her computer stuff I couldn't access the internet before so I decided to pack that up pretty early. I ended up not having a lot of RMB left over to buy very much, so I decided to get a really filling lunch at this place that specializes in Wighur (Xinjiang) food, and had a lot of lamb, noodles, and bread, all spicy somehow, but delicious, a satisfying last meal in China. But then, I turned my room key and laundry key back and got 220 yuan back. Damn, I should have done that BEFORE lunch!

BNU gave us a bus for all 5 of us leaving that day, so we got to the airport easily with no problem. Checking in and getting through the whole departure procedure was really smooth and easy, I even got to click the "really satisfied" button again on the console in front of the guy inspecting my passport and stuff to rate his service. To spend some last minute RMB, I got some strawberry pastry cookies to give to the family upon arrival.

Of course, the part I least like about traveling between the US and Asia is the half-day-long plane ride, but I actually managed to sleep through most of it, which helped a lot. The plane ride was uneventful, but then when I touched down in Newark, I had to deal with the ultimate nightmare: American service people.

People in Newark just seemed like they were TRYING to be as not courteous or helpful as possible. So I got to Newark a little late, and when I was in the customs line, I noticed my connecting flight was boarding in 20 minutes. I tried to ask someone in uniform to see if they could help me, and as soon as I told them when my flight was boarding, the both of them I asked were like "NOPE, TOO LATE!" Not even an "I'm sorry," or any attempt to be more helpful. So I had to get my stuff through customs, get my bags, and then re-transfer my stuff. The person who was helping me change my ticket was helpful enough, she got me on a flight to Ft. Lauderdale, but then she decides to TAKE HER SWEET TIME PUTTING THE TAGS ON MY LUGGAGE WHILE SHE'S TALKING TO SOMEBODY WITH HER. ARRRRGH. Be efficient, people, especially when you just put the person your serving on a flight that departs in 45 minutes. So yeah, that irritated me, and then, I had to go through security, AGAIN. I tried explaining my situation to the person in front of the entrance to the line, she just said "RUN, RUN!"

Instead of just saying "There's nobody in line, so it shouldn't take too long, and the gate is right there, sir" she told me to RUN.

So I did. I ran to my flight, and got on with a little time to spare, but I was not in the best of moods. I don't care if I'm only 19, I'm a fucking customer and you don't tell me to RUN. I mean, I'd expect that in China when they're probably paid by the government and it doesn't matter how well they do their job, but no, people in China are actually polite. Shit, I bet in Japan they'd have delayed the flight, they are THAT polite.

So I passed that flight with no event, but then when I got to Ft. Lauderdale and met my dad, I found out that I only got ONE of my two checked baggages. Terrific. But luckily they found the tag number and I filed a claim, so hopefully it turns up in a few days because that bag had a lot of souvenirs I bought, plus my camera.

Oh well, now I'm home, and just glad to no longer be traveling or in need of completing any academic requirements for anything for a while. I can just relax, and believe me, relaxing is my number one priority right now. That, and getting back in shape. I'll post a little more on my thoughts later, because now I'm just exhausted.

Well, my last week in China is done. I go home Monday.

Chinese class was intentionally easy, I think, this week, being it was the last week and we had to worry about our group presentation for Fei laoshi's class on Tuesday and Thursday. The texts we went over had very few new characters and were pretty easy to understand. On Thursday, though, we had to do a 10-minute presentation of a newspaper or magazine article of our choosing. We just basically had to teach it to the class like our regular texts, introducing and explaining the new vocabulary words we learned and giving a general explanation of the article. This served as the final oral grade, as the test we took on Friday itself had no oral component.

It was actually pretty cool that, although the article was short, and I needed the assistance of an electronic dictionary for a few words, I was able to read and understand a newspaper article in Chinese. Newspaper reading I think is a normal standard of literacy in Chinese and Japanese, so being able to understand any part of a newspaper feels like an achievement for me. I still have a long way to go before I can read a whole newspaper, though. But at least I know my Chinese has improved. I feel overall it has improved a LOT, the jump to third year really helped.

The presentation for Fei Laoshi's class went well. We had to give a 40-minute presentation on different topics, and our group was Beijing consumer culture, focusing on the shopping centers Wangfujing and Xidan. We basically gave a chronological introspective on the development and different roles consumer culture has played in Beijing and China in general and how it has interacted with communism, etc. As most of you know, I can talk. I talk a lot, and many people think I just can't stop talking, so oral presentation is something that I don't have a lot of trouble with, so usually whatever is lacking in the substance of a presentation, I make up for in just trying to be an active and engaging speaker. Fei laoshi was filming the presentations, and he had to remind me several times to not walk out of frame because I move around when I talk. It helps keep people's attention. Anyway, we ended up getting a 93 out of 100, but then again, everybody got an A. Whatever.

I gave Ruyi his last lesson, too. His mother ended up giving me a present which was a BNU keychain (she's a teacher at BNU herself) and something I think is a bookmark. That was nice of her, I didn't expect it at all, and wish I had prepared something for her as well. Anyway, I decided to focus instead of trying to teach him something new, I'd just focus on testing him on everything he learned, which was mostly numbers, colors, and a few nouns. I turned it into a game since he liked getting picked up so much, where if he could correctly tell me how to say things like "5 red books" or "6 orange tigers" in English, I'd pick him up then put him back down.

After the lesson was done, I walked him to the library where he was going to wait for his mom, and decided I'd give him some parting words about how he should continue studying English hard since it's going to be really important in the future for people to know English and all that stuff. It probably went in one ear and out the other, though, since he's 6 and stuff. It's so funny that I've learned that despite my level and his age and being a native speaker, he knows Chinese I don't know and I know Chinese that he doesn't know. I guess it's just a matter of what you learn first. I'm gonna miss that kid, I hope he remembers me.

So last night, we had our Chinese table as usual, but got handed our special certificates of "graduation" from the program. Then, in the evening, we had a farewell/thanking the teachers party at this really nice restaurant in the Sanlituan area that had really nice pizza and equally nice Belgian beer that was all on Dartmouth's tab. I actually got to spend a good deal of time talking with my teachers just in a casual setting, which was nice, a good way to end the whole deal. before going out and hanging out with friends some more.

Now I am just in this limbo state, done with all my activities, but not having to go home yet. I don't want to start packing two whole days early, so I'm trying to see what other people are doing. A lot of people don't leave until Monday, too, so I'll see how everyone else is spending the weekend. I want to try and spend these last days doing stuff and not spending too much time just dwelling on how much I'm going to miss everything.

Oh crap, I have just been getting worse and worse about this blog.

Last week, from Wednesday until Sunday, was another big trip, this time to Luoyang and Xian, both cities that have at one point served as the capital of imperial China, Xian being the capital for 13 dynasties, as well as the first capital, where the emperor Qin Shi Huang first over a united China.

This trip took us around to a lot of neat historical sites, but it was hampered by the fact that the weather for the whole time we were in both cities was cloudy, rainy, cold, and generally icky, and right on the night we left Beijing my health started to turn for the worse. As irony decided to firmly sink its teeth into my ass after all of my amazement at how I did get any serious illnesses since coming to China despite everyone else getting sick at some point, I was feeling rather fatigued, had a headache, and my back was sore. I had actually been feeling it a teeny tiny bit the day before, but Thursday was when it really got noticeable. The next day when we arrived in Luoyang, my head started hurting incredibly, and I barely felt like moving, although I could with no problem.

We only spent one day in Luoyang and saw the city wall, which is one of the only remaining complete original imperial city walls in China (Beijing has some that are either not entirely intact or rebuilt), the Long Men gorges home to a startling array of Buddhist reliefs and sculpture carved into the side of a mountain, culminating in these humongous statues of the seated Buddha and his disciples. I really have not been for want of large-scale Buddhist iconography in the last 5 months, it's really quite amazing. How many statues of other religious figures are there on the same scale as the Buddhas in Nara, Kamakura, Putuoshan, and Luoyang? I can only think of the Jesus statue in Rio de Janeiro.

We also saw the White Horse temple, a really beautiful Buddhist temple that I kind of wish I wasn't so distracted from my headache to absorb and admire. Basically the whole day I was really trying to enjoy everything while not letting my head implode. Fei laoshi did give me some of this fizzy Bayer asprin that dissolves in water that really did the trick for the short-term, it was awesome. However, pretty much as soon as we got to the hotel that night, I went to bed, skipping dinner. I just felt so tired I could not wait to go to bed.

I was feeling pretty much the same the next day, especially since we had to get up early to leave for Xian on the bus. I couldn't really sleep that much on the bus, but I managed.

We sent two days in Xian and got to see the famous tomb of Qin Shi Huang, with the pits filled with thousands of terra cotta warriors. It really is an impressive site to see, just to see in front of you how many of them there are, it really is a whole army, and you see that every single statue is different (it's kind of funny because there are a few with messed-up proportions you can tell they must have done quickly and haphazardly). It's really a marvel of what man is capable of crafting with the patience and will to do so. It's one of those things that when you see it, it's not so much looking at it that's the attraction, but trying to process that such a thing in all its awesomeness exists.

The first night in Xian we had this "dumpling banquet" at this pretty large restaurant. We got all these assorted steaming bamboo baskets with dumplings of all sort of filling and wrapping, sweet and savory.

Some of the other sites we saw was the "Stele Forest," which was a Confucian temple filled with this upright stone tablets with different calligraphers carving entire books of the Confucian classics like the Analects and the Book of Rites and Book of Songs on them. The other really cool site was the Muslim quarter! In Xian there are a bunch of Muslims, and there's this whole market street around this mosque that's covered with shops and vendors of all sorts. What's interesting is that they were all Chinese, I didn't see any arab-looking Muslims. It was an interesting site to see Chinese women wearing hijab (I don't know if there's a more universal term for that, but it's a female headdress meant only for covering the hair, not the face) all over the place.

I was getting this fried egg-and-scallion pancake type thing from a street vendor (that ended up being quite tasty) and you kind of have to wait for it while it's being made, and often multiple people are ordering one. So when mine was done, the person cooking them was like "Who do I give this to?" and the guy behind the register just said "Him, the waiguoren (foreigner)." Looking back, he didn't mean it maliciously, really, Chinese people don't throw around the term "waiguoren" like it's an insult. It's just what I am. A foreigner. I guess I just can never get over the idea of my looks automatically being the signal of being a foreigner or not, despite living with that for 5 months. It's just amazing growing up in America where everyone looks different, and you're taught that everyone can be American if they want to, and suddenly being in a situation where to be Chinese means to be CHINESE, i.e. of the Han race (or at least pretending to be of the Han race, but that's a whole other can of worms), and there will always be that certain, ever-present visual distinction between "Chinese" and "Non-Chinese."

It's an interesting conflict for lots of people in this group, people like me who don't look Asian so are automatically excluded and labeled as "the other" when he or she might want to assimilate and interact on a deeper level, and people like some of the Chinese-Americans on the trip, who people look at and automatically assume they are connected on a deeper level with China/being Chinese than they might really be or even want to be, just because of their face.

But yeah, back to Muslims in Xian, we got to see this mosque that was done completely in Chinese style, but there were a lot of carvings in Arabic right above the Chinese writing, which I thought was a really interesting juxtaposition.

We returned to Beijing Monday morning and luckily got off from class, which was good because I got to spend the last whole day I could with Denise before she left back to the US on Wednesday. It's kind of funny how I really started to feel all the way recovered from whatever sickness I had when I got to see Denise again.

We had dinner together Tuesday night, and Wednesday I had to continue working on my group project, so I couldn't see her off to the airport, which made me feel kind of bad since I won't be able to see her again until after Christmas. Oh well, I'll manage.

This past weekend we got to go to the 798 art district, which was this big abandoned factory complex that got turned into a bunch of art galleries, that is now the center of Beijing's contemporary art scheme. It was really neat to see, definitely reminded me of places like Lincoln Road and Wynwood in Miami with all the galleries, and had a bit more of a museum-like quality to it since some of the galleries were really large and rather well-organized and presented.

The piece that really caught my attention was this one that was this giant scroll and several books laid out underneath it, and the artist had written on it entirely in Chinese characters...that he made up. There were thousands of characters, but none of them were ones that actually existed, but ones he assembled using the existing radicals and strokes. It was just such a neat examination of the system of thought surrounding Chinese characters and all of the infinite permutations of lines that can covey any possible meaning.

The shitty thing was Fei laoshi decided to have us do this "scavenger hunt" going through all the different galleries looking for things and writing them down, which prevented me from enjoying too many things at just my own pace. I hate feeling rushed when going through galleries or museums. It didn't help that I got paired with some guys who didn't have the most positive attitude about being in an art gallery in the first place. The night ended well when we had dinner at this restaurant near the galleries that had a t-bone steak as the main course. Fantastic. I later went out with some friends to a few bars and that helped me blow off steam from the last week.

Today I'm rather proud because I did spend a good deal, several hours, in fact, working on my group project, looking through our video footage and helping to write our report. Tomorrow we're gonna tie up the multimedia part of our presentation, and then we should be totally set for presenting on Thursday. Man I think this coming Friday will be the Friday I will have looked forward to the most of any Friday. This week is packed. I have to do Fei laoshi's presentation, and then also a presentation on a newspaper article for my language class, on top of my usual character studying and cramming. It's time for the final home stretch! Whoop!

I forgot to mention that I had a full-course Peking Duck dinner on Wednesday. It was our "scheduled cultural activity" for that night, which is nice since those activities usually make us have to eat an EARLY dinner. We went to this place called 便宜房 Bian Yi Fang, which is a duck specialty restaurant. The REALLY famous place for Peking Duck apparently is this place called 全聚德 Quan Ju De, but it's more expensive and not all that terrific. The expensive part is funny considering that the first two characters in the name of the restaurant we DID go to are the same used to write the word "pianyi" which means "cheap," but in this case the characters are supposed to mean "convenient and comfortable."

The focus of the meal was, of course, the duck, but there was a good assortment of other dishes, as would be expected in any Chinese meal worth the money you pay for it, like tofu, bok choy (bai cai in Mandarin, by the way), fish, beef, all as appetizers/accompaniments to the duck. When we finally did get the duck, the chefs brought it out and cut it in front of us, which was a nice spectacle in itself watching the fat ooze out from the skin with every knife cut. The duck, was, as one would expect it, as delicious as one would want it, especially when eaten the proper way, rolled in a lotus leaf pancake (荷叶饼) with thin slices of onion and tianmianjiang (甜面酱) sauce. Every bit as wonderful as the one I remember having in a Manhattan Chinatown restaurant, and assuredly more authentic. I even got to eat the duck's head, as I've kind of made the habit of being the guy who eats the head of anything served with a head to us.

I feel like almost too much of what I like about China revolves around food. I just haven't had much of a chance to interact with Chinese PEOPLE, I think that's the biggest thing missing from my Chinese experience!

This weekend has been pretty good, though. Friday night I went to see a concert at this venue called Yugong Yishan 愚公移山, which, much like a lot of indy music venues in the US, is a converted warehouse, although the inside is done up pretty nice and fancy. I want to go see Kaiser Kuo's band, Chunqiu 春秋, as a form of saying thank you for coming to talk to the class earlier in the term. Carey DID blitz out to all the other students letting them know about the concert, but I ended up being the only one to actually go. I didn't actually get to see that much of the band as it started late, and I was with Denise, who had to be home by midnight, so we got to see the band perform a few songs then split.

Earlier in the day I found this place right across the street from BNU's east gate that's this place where you pay 18 yuan and you can sit in a booth, drink all the tea you want, enjoy their free wireless internet, and it's open 24 hours a day. That is pretty cool, and I ended up just spending some time there with Denise earlier in the day enjoying having a place to sit down and just talk as long as I wanted to that wasn't outside in the cold and wasn't my dorm.

Saturday we started work on this group project for Fei laoshi's class. Our topic is about consumer culture, so we had to go out and interview people and ask them questions about shopping and stuff. We went to Xidan, this pretty big and popular shopping area, and just went around looking for people to talk to. What was surprising was that more people accepted than refused., despite the fact that we were videotaping. What was also surprising was the variegations of answers we got to our questions, which were along the lines of how often do you go shopping, how much money do you spend shopping, do you consider shopping a pastime, something that's fun, etc.

We expected the answers to be divided among gender lines, but really it seemed to be more along age lines and economic class lines. We would find some girls who didn't really enjoy shopping that much, and guys who liked doing it a lot. We also found that a lot of Chinese people still prefer to shop at Chinese-style markets instead of western style malls, if anything because it's cheaper. We managed to film about 20 minutes of footage Saturday, and some other people in my group are going on their own to film more today so we'll have pretty much all the fieldwork done for the project this weekend.

It was pretty fun to get out and interview people, to interact, but it was annoying how so caught off guard they would look when we came up to them, like we WANTED something out of them besides a few minutes of their time. One time we had a guard come up to us and be like "Sorry, you can't record in here," which is understandable and he was nice about it being all like "Excuse me," and stuff, but then another guard came up to us in a different place and was like "What are you guys doing?" We were just like "we're students doing homework, we're not trying to bother anyone." He then looks at the guy we're interviewing and is like "Are you willing to do this?" Jesus Christ, how were we going to COERCE this guy into answering questions on tape? We're three college-ages guys only armed with cameras and a note-pad. I hate the paranoia of foreigners in this country, or the general paranoia of anything. Denise has said it herself about how you can never fully trust people in China because so many people ARE trying to get something out of you, so everybody stops trusting people and it's just a shitty atmosphere.

Today I've been just thinking about how I wish I made some actual Chinese FRIENDS here. Our ability to interact with normal Chinese students casually just seems restricted since BNU is a bigger campus and our dormitory is purely foreigners (Americans, Japanese, Koreans, whatever else), and there just aren't as many open hanging-out spaces where the students are and I can just approach them like the cafeteria at Kanda. I guess I should have bought a meal card early on so I could use the BNU student cafeteria and work from there. The only Chinese people I interact regularly with in China are my teachers and the Chinese people in the Dartmouth group, unless you count restaurant workers. When I think about it, I don't usually SEE groups of people who are foreigners and Chinese, I either see Chinese together with Chinese, or foreigners with other foreigners, which sucks. I wonder if it's that whole paranoia thing infesting itself in the students, or just the fact that the dorm situation makes it how it is. I'd like to just go somewhere, pick up a cup of tea, and start talking to some real laobaixing and just enjoy the conversation. I seem to only spend time with either other FSP'ers or Denise, and it's not that I MIND doing so, I just wish those weren't the only options. The only non-Dartmouth acquaintances I have made consistent contact with here are Japanese, anyway.

I've been thinking I want to go to Taiwan at some point, and now I've been thinking of maybe either doing another study abroad program there, or an internship of some sort, so I could enjoy "Chinese" culture without all the oppression and paranoia. Fei laoshi HAS told me Taiwan is an excellent place to learn Chinese. It would also give me an excuse to resume this blog after leaving China.

I think little Ruyi is getting more comfortable with me because he's more prone to acting hyper during lessons. I guess he figures I'm not such a hard-ass and like having fun with him, so now he often tries to run off and get me to catch him. It makes it a little harder to actually teach him stuff, but when he does focus, he can learn pretty well. I decided to incorporate a little play into teaching so he wouldn't be too bored, so I taught him how to say "pick me up," "put me down," and "let me go." I guess that last phrase is pretty useful if he ever goes to an English speaking country and gets accosted, so good thing I taught it to him. I finally learned that he's 6, which was within my estimated range. He reminds me a lot of myself when I was that age taking piano lessons, just because even though we could probably learn more if we wanted to, we just both didn't want to concentrate that much and were both really hyper.

He's really cute, though, and it's kind of a stress reliever to spend some time with him. It's almost like having a little brother or something. He's a little bit of a smart aleck, too, like when someone came up to me during a lesson and asked me for a light, I said to Ruyi "Don't smoke, it's really bad for your health." He then pointed to the bottle of Diet Coke in my hand and said "I don't like smoking, but drinking cola every day can't be good for your health, either."

I'm really enjoying Changquan class, too, I realize I haven't written too much about it. I think my main problem dealing with it is that I don't have the same kind of flexibility I used to have in middle school when I did karate all the time. Changquan has a lot of really low, long stances that can be hard on the hip adductor and abductor muscles, as well as high, fast kicks, and lots of jumps. I finally finished learning this rather long form this week, that involves multiple jumps and leaping kicks. It's too bad I don't have more time to learn this and perfect it, because it would be really good for my speed and agility. At the very least I already had the foundation of basic martial arts techniques so I didn't have to waste too much time learning those. I also wish the trip in Shanghai hadn't taken away time from me being able to study it, as well. I have, however, managed to improve my ability to do this jumping spin kick that the teacher showed us last week. When I first tried it, I kept slipping or falling, or otherwise not getting it right, I guess because we learned it near the end of class and I was tired, but then, this week, I tried it, and it was a whole lot easier. It's a really neat-looking technique, maybe when I get back to Miami I can try and learn to incorporate it into my pro wrestling repertoire.

I am feeling really burnt out on class right now. I really just do not feel like going to class or studying anymore, it's like my willingness has simply disappeared. I feel bad that we just have not had the chance to go out into the city and explore, because most people apparently are spending so much time studying (or playing Starcraft). Even if I have time to go out, I usually can't find someone to do it with me. The only times we get to see Beijing are on our mandatory scheduled activities it seems, and that sucks. I miss how in Japan everybody would be willing right after class to go explore some portion of the city, or how on weekends we'd have plenty of time to do so ourselves. I feel caged in, and now with this group project due at the end of the term, and the Luoyang/Xian trip coming up, I won't even have that much time to budget potentially going out and exploring with Denise or anybody else. I haven't really made any Chinese friends at all, either. In fact, the only two non-Dartmouth BNU students I've managed to get to know are Japanese. We're just too isolated from the actual Chinese students here. We're not forced to assimilate the same way we were in Japan, and even Fei laoshi has commented that that's a big flaw in the program.

It's also kind of a hindrance to exploration when you have to either go by super-crowded buses or by relatively more expensive taxis, instead of a nice, decently cheap and well-developed rail system like in Tokyo that can take you pretty much anywhere. Traffic jams can render going to some places completely impractical in the time frame that you have.

I think in the end, I think I still like Japan more, just to answer the question I get so much, but I can never be fully sure if my opinion is liking the country Japan more than the country China, or liking the Japan LSA+ than the China FSP.

I am just really, really ready to come back to the US. I need time to just recover and rest and not have so much stuff to worry about. Thank God I'm taking this next term off and not doing the "suicide six" like some do. I'd probably end up explicitly showing why they call it that.

Okay, it's been a little while since I posted anything in here, but since we've gotten back from our midterm trip, it's been pretty chill with nothing spectacular going on. Actually, the major activity going on for most of us has been finishing up this 3000 word essay we had to do for Fei laoshi's class. The funny thing was, we knew we had to do this essay since before the trip, and I just could not think of a topic that would be good enough the whole time we were on the trip, then suddenly, last weekend, when I was talking to Denise about the differences between Beijing and Shanghai, it finally popped into my head that I could do a comparison detailing what were the exact factors keeping Beijing from becoming as cosmopolitan and economically developed a city as Shanghai is. It's weird how stuff like that can just pop up when you're not even thinking about it.

Even though I had the topic, for some reason I just seemed extraordinarily loath to do it. I would usually wait until I got "in the zone," and my mind just felt in the right gear for typing. Usually when this came, I could get a good deal done, but then it would disappear and not come back for a while. To deal with this I'd leave the MS word window open, so the temptation to write and get it done would always be present, and eventually I'd just start typing again. Originally it was due this past Thursday, but so many people e-mailed him asking for an extension that he moved it to today (Monday). It was another excuse to be even more lazy, but since I had plans with Denise on Friday, I decided to use that as a motivator and actually got it done Thursday night anyway. Marcus, however, finished it Sunday, getting to work on it pretty much as soon as we got back from Shanghai, so he had absolutely no sympathy for people asking for an extension.

So yeah, I was glad to get that out of the way, and then spend some time just chilling out with friends. I think what I've been really noticing is that I'm kind of starting to get tired of being abroad. The novelty has kind of completely worn out. Actually, it kind of came back for a split second when I was in Chengdu Xiaochi today and noticed every sitting around me was Chinese, that was kind of unsettling once again, but for the most part it's already become familiar, and the routine of class and predetermined activities plus occasional going out has become a little tiring. I miss not being a foreigner. In China, it is definitely a lot easier to feel singled out than it is in Japan, I don't know why, but I've definitely felt it stronger here. Mostly the people who stare at you in Japan are little kids, but in China, almost everyone will stare at you if you're non-Chinese, or even WORSE, a non-Chinese fraternizing with a Chinese!

I don't know if I blogged about this incident, but Denise and I went to Tiananmen together to just check out the square itself, and I had my arm around her (Denise is Chinese-born, grew up in America, but that last part doesn't show on the surface), and ALMOST EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO PASSED US STARED FOR SEVERAL SECONDS. It was ridiculous. If they didn't stare at us on the initial pass, then after the pass they'd turn their heads and gawk thinking they evaded our ability to see them. And it didn't even matter if they were barely more than a foot or two away from us, they would still turn and stare. I actually didn't feel embarrassed or bad about it when it was happening, though, I felt more rebellious, like I just wanted to shout out, in Chinese of course so they could understand for sure, "Yes, look, I am the foreigner, and I am plundering your womenfolk! Watch on in disgust as I contaminate your people with my filthy capitalist touch!" Actually, I don't know how to say "plunder" or "contaminate" in Chinese so I wouldn't have necessarily been able to do that even if I really wanted to.

But yeah, I realize at this point I'm pretty ready to go back to the US, specifically Miami. I miss my dogs, I miss Cuban food, I miss the warm weather, I miss clean air, I miss understanding what's going on TV, I miss being literate, there are a lot of things I miss. I have definitely appreciated my experiences in China and Japan a lot, there's no doubt of that, but I know for sure now that 2 terms is quite enough, at least for consecutive time spent away from the U.S.

I will say, in China I have started to develop a particular interest in Ultimate Frisbee. One of the people in our group is actually on the Dartmouth Ultimate team, so he often gets guys to go play with him in the track/field area on campus. It is really fun, and pretty simple to play, except sometimes it gets kind of frustrating when I'm the shortest guy and two guys whom are both above 6 feet are tossing the thing well above your reach, but I'm starting to really get the hang of it. I learned there was a whole other way of throwing a Frisbee beyond the typical backhanded throw, and learned to master that pretty well. It's pretty intense physical exercise, too, pretty much like soccer. Today we spent a little time playing and it was pretty fun. The thought of joining the ultimate team spring term has definitely crossed my mind.

I've totally been breaking my moratorium on western food lately. I ate pizza and french fries on Saturday, and it felt quite good. I figure I'm getting enough regular Chinese food it just doesn't hurt to go back to good old-fashioned western junk food occasionally. Maybe I've just reached the mental breaking point where I'm just not as interested in pursuing the foreign experience anymore.

Class continues to be class. 3rd year has really proven to be really where I feel good. It's easy enough where I'm still getting A's on tests, but not so easy I feel like I'm doing nothing. I still feel like my listening skills are lacking, though. The whole lack of home stays and regular Chinese TV has meant my conversational and aural capacity has not accelerated nearly anywhere close to the level it did in Japan, even though, according to the Dartmouth year levels I am in both, I am supposedly better at Chinese. The most consistent speaking practice we have is with our teachers, and they, of course, speak slower than normal for our sakes, so we just have not had that same immersion going on to get us used to how real Chinese people speak. Although I can handle myself at an okay level with everyday conversation, but often I hear people speak and just are like "Okay...what did they say?" Even though I am supposed to be more advanced in Chinese, I still feel like I am more functional and comfortable in Japanese. Even Fei laoshi agrees that the whole lack of a home stay, or even just going as far as giving us Chinese room mates, is a big flaw in the program.

Oh well, all I know is that no matter what, all I have to do is open my mouth and I will get a "汉语说得挺不错！" (Your Chinese is so good!) or "ああ、日本語上手！" (the same, but with Japanese). I think I've heard enough of those phrases to last me a lifetime.

October 24th, 25th, and 26th

So our trip finally comes to a close.

Wednesday was another day we got to just chill out and sleep in since our only activity was just getting on the boat back to Shanghai.

Marcus and I got up kind of early, and I was getting kind of antsy not wanting to just sit in until check-out time at 11:30, so we went outside and walked around and actually saw another temple that we didn't go to yesterday, plus this giant rock that had the character 心 "heart" carved in it, that was pretty neat. When Marcus and I stood there looking at it, this dude comes up to Marcus, holds his hand next to Marcus's and goes "Hey, we're almost the same!" indicating the the guy himself was kind of tan, and, of course, Marcus is black. Marcus was really taken aback and confused by this kind of outward display, and didn't like it at all, but I figured the guy didn't mean anything BAD by it, just that the Chinese have different ideas of what is impolite and what isn't, especially when dealing with foreigners. Marcus has had to deal with a lot of stares from people, even more so than I have, which I could imagine has made his Chinese experience uncomfortable in that aspect. Back at the Orchid Pavillion we were talking about how Chinese still find foreigners to be this weird bizarre spectacle, despite foreigners being in China for several centuries, but it's funny how despite that, they just don't integrate. You might expect non-Chinese people in places like Beijing or Shanghai, but barely any at all in Putuoshan. That's one thing that will always distinguish China and Japan from America in my mind is that to BE Chinese or Japanese, you have to LOOK the part, too, or else you get singled out and stared at.

So we got back to the hotel, and then moved all our stuff to the dock. We were originally gonna get lunch at the hotel, but they need reservations and they were too full to take us. So we got to the port and Fei laoshi went and bought us stuff to eat to keep us satisfied on the boat-ride until we got to Shanghai. He got us meat baozi, boiled eggs, and mantou, which are basically baozi without meat filling, just a pure puffy ball of bread. The thing about mantou though is that they really do fill you up very well, so if you need to satisfy yourself quickly, mantou are the way to go. It's like they expand in your stomach after you eat them.

The boat ride was somewhere between 2 and 3 hours long. It was like the boat ride To Putuoshan in that they had these videos playing the whole way. Some of them were some TV drama, and some of them were these songs with karaoke subtitles that I assume were Buddhist songs of some sort. Some of them were in Cantonese for some reason I don't know besides maybe a lot of Cantonese speakers visiting Putuoshan. The problem was that these videos had their audio playing on a PA speaker instead of accessible via earphones like on an airplane or something, so if you didn't bring something with earphones to drown it out, like everyone else except me did, you had to just deal with it. I managed to sleep most of the way, except sometimes the video of the TV show would have some loud noise like a baby crying or someone screaming, and it would seem almost like they turn the volume UP whenever that happened because it would be especially loud, and that would wake me up.

We got back to Shanghai and had to deal with another hour on the bus. We settled into our hotel, the Manhattan Business hotel, at around 6. We decided since it was our last night in Shanghai, we'd have dinner together, and since we skimped on lunch, we could splurge on dinner. We went back to the Ruijin hotel, where that rich magnate had that whole piece of land to himself, and ate at the restaurant there. It was kind of funny because it was a rather fancy hotel with waitresses dressed in colonial 19th-century dress, and some of us were in sweat pants and t-shirts. The dinner was very good, though, even though we got handed another dish of chou doufu, although it was fried instead of in a soup and tastier. It didn't get eaten very much, though. We had this other tofu dish that was kind of spicy, though and really nice. I've come to really enjoy tofu on this trip, unsurprisingly. I've had it prepared in a lot more varying ways here than in Japan, where it's served with less flavorings and more often just by itself or in soup. Japanese cuisine is just a lot more reserved in its flavorings, just like how a lot of Japanese art is simplistic and reserved compared to Chinese styles.

We all decided we should have one last sample of the night life in Shanghai on our last night there, so we checked out the clubs we missed out on last time. The first one was Zapata's, named after the Mexican revolutionary, which I found kind of funny. It was closer to our hotel the first time we were in Shanghai on Hengshan road. It was alright, but the average age of the people in the place was over 30 for sure, and beer was 40 kuai, so we didn't stay there very long. Sam and I got into another dance-off there, and I once again confronted the limits of my dance repertoire, this time with some other foreigners not in our group watching us.

We decided to bounce and check out this other place geared more towards younger people. It's called Bonbon, and it had an 88-kuai entrance charge, but free drinks, plus a more active dance floor with blaring techno music. Frankly, I find it much easier to dance to techno than hip-hop, which seems to be the preferred club music of most of the rest of the group, but I just love techno as a genre in general. Once again, I kind of danced myself to the point of really tiring my legs out, only I decided to stay out with everyone else later and actually didn't get back to the hotel until 2, but we were again check out late, so it was no matter.

For Thursday, our last day on the trip before returning to Beijing, we had the whole day to ourselves, only we were checking out at 11:30 and not leaving for the train until 6, so we were forced to actually go out and do stuff instead of just hang around in the hotel. I was originally gonna go just walk along the Bund with some other people, but it started raining and we had to go back to the hotel to get our umbrellas. We ran into Fei laoshi who recommended we go to this Shanghai Urban Planning museum. We had nothing better to do, so we figured why not.

The museum is pretty simple, not too huge, but the main attraction is this complete scale model of the entire city of Shanghai, it's really detailed, and really cool to look at. It covers almost the entire floor of the 4th floor of the building. We hung around there for a little bit, and then I actually managed to convince the people I was out with to join me for a little voyage in satisfying my curiousity.

The last time we were in Shanghai, shortly before we left I heard that there was a Cuban restaurant there. I was kind of taken aback. I had always known there were Cubans everywhere, but Shanghai? I guess it's a matter of probability given all the foreigners in Shanghai, though. But I knew once I got back in Shanghai I had to see what it was like.

The restaurant, Called "El Cubano," is on Hongmei road, kind of far from the Bund, actually, farther than I expected it to be, it was about a 30-kuai taxi ride from where we were. The outside isn't too spectacularly decorated, but when we went in, not only did we see marker all over the wall from people writing everywhere, but there was various Cuban-related tchotchkis hung on the wall, the familiar rhythm of Latin music playing throughout the place, and a Cuban flag proudly hung above the bar. We sat down and I saw that the menu went the small-but-a-good-selection route, which is usually good. They had most of the trademark dishes one would expect from Cuban food, like tostones, moros, churrasco, various yellow rice dishes, lots of meats sautted in garlic, olive oil, onions, peppers, garlic, etc. I kind of had a hard time picking what I wanted to try, but I saw that they had sandwiches, and I realized it had been a long time since I tried a good Cuban-style sandwich, so I decided to get a pan con bistec (literally a piece of steak on bread), one of my favorite kind of sandwiches to get. Carey, Alex Kell, and David were with me. Alex got the classic Cuban sandwich with ham and pork, Carey got another sandwich, and David got masas de puerco (pork chunks) in a tomato-ey kind of sauce with rice.

To tell you the truth, the food in the restaurant is kind of pricey. A lot of the dishes were upwards of 60 kuai, some even over 100, but I could understand some of the ingredients maybe being expensive to get in Shanghai, and frankly, for this occasion, I didn't really care how much money I spent because it was the last day in Shanghai and I was getting Cuban food for the only time I'd be able to for the next 5 weeks. They gave us garlic toast at the beginning before our food came which was great, and when the food finally came, it was really good, and all tasted pretty authentic. My only complaint was that they used baguette-type bread for the sandwiches, but it's probably hard to find a place to properly make Cuban bread anywhere in China, even Shanghai. You need palm leaves, and lard, and different things to make sure the texture is right. But otherwise it was definitely authentic and a refreshing reminder of what I was missing in Miami.

I actually got to talk to one of the owners of the restaurant who was there, this guy named Jesus. Man what a refreshing sight it was to have a roly-poly Cuban being friendly to me and talking to me in Spanish. We talked a little about why I was there, why he was there, and who comes to the restaurant. He said that apparently now Chinese people go to eat there, maybe at maximum 1 or 2 a week, save some tourists from elsewhere in China. The majority of people who go there are other foreigners.

I told him my dad was from Cuba, and he was like "Where in Cuba?" I saw "Havana," and then he smiles at me and is like "Yeah, but where in Havana?" I tell him this one neighborhood called El Vedado, and wouldn't you know it, he's from there, too. I told him my dad's name but he didn't seem to know him, although he remarked that usually everybody from El Vedado knows each other.

I was really happy that everybody who was eating with me seemed to like their food, too. I was kind of nervous that one restaurant might make or break their attitude towards my mother cuisine, but the result was pleasing.

I didn't realize how happy eating Cuban food would make me, but it did. I guess despite me liking Chinese food and not complaining about having it all the time, I did miss Cuban food a lot, and it was almost rejuvenating to taste it again, and to be in some kind of Cuban-like atmosphere. As I was leaving and saying goodbye to Jesus, he made a remark about how it's always nice to have "raza" come around. That kind of struck me as odd because I was being even more closely associated with being Cuban by someone else than other people back in Miami did. It was satisfying. I AM raza to him.

So yeah, that made my mood for the rest of the day pretty awesome. After that we only had a little bit of time to walk a while around Nanjing road, the big shopping district. We walked into this one mall that had a lot of expensive foreign brand shops, then headed back towards the hotel so we could get ourselves some food for on the train and make some other preparations.

Getting on the train was no big event. Unlike our trip up to Shanghai from Beijing, for the trip back we got to go in a soft-sleeper, where, yes, the beds are softer, but there are also separated rooms with only 4 beds instead of six, so there's more room to stretch out and chill, and you can lock the door to the room. It was a very relaxing trip, except at 5 in the morning when somebody two cars away rang the call alarm button for some reason I never ascertained, and that made an alarm in our room go off as well so we couldn't just ignore it. Eventually someone came to help them out and turned it off, and we got to sleep for two more hours.

After another long bus ride, we finally all got back to BNU, and were finally able to set all our shit down and settle back into home base. Luckily, I also had my girlfriend waiting for me back here, so I got to spend the whole first day back in Beijing with her. But now I have to worry about finishing a 12-page paper due on Thursday about a topic dealing with comparing the history of Shanghai and Beijing, so I can't relax TOO much.

October 22nd and 23rd

Yesterday was a complete waste of a day, at least to me. When we got to the Hotel we were scheduled to stay at, we realized it was much closer to the dock to go to Putuoshan than it was to Ningbo, where our activities for the day were supposed to be scheduled, and it was kind of a hassle to go all the way back there, so Fei laoshi just gave us the whole day off to chill to ourselves. It might have been nice if we were in an area like Shanghai or something, but there isn’t much around that hotel, so pretty much all I did was play Frisbee, watch TV, and read Tiger Mask. I was kind of disappointed we weren’t going to see the museums scheduled.

So today we had to get up at 6:30 in order to check out and get to the dock in time to catch the ferry to 普陀山 Putuoshan. I didn’t go to bed too late last night, so it wasn’t a problem, and the boat ride was long enough that I got a little nap. They were playing this looping video about Putuoshan on the boat, and I woke up for this one section that for some reason had subtitles in traditional characters, and I was thinking about how much I missed learning traditional characters. They’re just prettier, and something just feels more complete about them, since they retain all of their original pictographic elements. I don’t know, maybe this is yet another facet of my pretentiousness.

We had a bit of trouble getting everyone off the boat and actually on the island where Putuoshan is, since some of them forgot to bring their BNU ID’s, and the student-price tickets were already bought. They would not accept Dartmouth ID’s, so they actually had to call BNU and get them to fax info proving that those guys were students, which was kind of retarded, but we got it done and everybody got to check into the Hotel with no problem.

Putuoshan kind of reminds me a bit of Miyajima and Nikko in terms of scenery, I guess Miyajima coming from the fact that it’s an island, and Nikko with the temples in the middle of mountain forests and stuff, but really Putuoshan is an incredible sight on its own that can’t be likened to anything in Japan or anywhere else in China. It was cool to finally get to see some actual Buddhist temples in China, which I was surprised we hadn’t seen that much of up to now, especially ACTIVE Buddhist temples with monks just walking to and fro doing their monk thing. However, as far as the structure of Buddhist temples go, their pretty similar to Japanese ones, nor surprisingly, but the ones we saw, three of them where much bigger and elaborate. Apparently the main Buddhist figure worshipped on this island is 观音 Guanyin (Kannon in Japanese, which I mentioned before with some of the statues of her in Kansai), whom apparently was actually, according to Fei Laoshi, a male god in India whom somehow got turned female when he made the way over to China in the Tang dynasty. Aside from her, though, there were a lot of figures of 关羽Guan Yu, the general from the Three Kingdoms period who later got turned into a god of war and somehow also a god or fortune, and obviously the source of my Chinese surname. I’m not sure exactly how he fits into the Chinese Buddhist cannon, but he is all over the place in Putuoshan.

There were some rather large statues going on in some of these temples, some of them definitely had to match the size of the Nara Daibutsu, or at least come very close. It was even cooler to see people actually worshipping at these temples instead of it being purely a sightseeing thing. Apparently Putuoshan is very sacred for Buddhists all over Asia, and we saw this group of Vietnamese people from Australia whom apparently came here to worship, as well. But yeah, there were a lot of people at every temple we went along praying, lighting incense, putting money in the offering boxes, everything.

Walking between temples, we got to see some of the awesome natural scenery of the area, and it’s just breathtaking. We walked along this beach that was just beautiful, except for some of the Styrofoam that had washed up on the shore, but oh well. Some people decided to just not care and go for a short swim in the ocean while we were walking, as well.

We got back to the hotel, had dinner, and Fei laoshi himself put up the suggestion of trying out the KTV (karaoke) boxes available in the hotel, and believe it or not, some people actually wanted to go! When we got there, though, and saw the really paltry selection of English songs, we decided it wasn’t really worth it. That made me really sad. I’ve been on such a karaoke withdrawal every since leaving Japan. Nothing much else to do tonight but chill out and read more Tiger Mask.

The cool thing about getting up early today is that we can sleep in tomorrow, as we’re checking out right before lunch. Bonus.

I was looking through some of my pictures from Japan and then this feeling of really missing Japan came up that wasn’t quite there before, at least not consistently. I do miss my homestay family, and some of the things that just don’t exist in China. Japanese TV is by far a lot more entertaining, if only for the game shows and crazy variety shows. Chinese TV is too tame and boring. It almost feels like I wasn’t in the US at all and Japan and China just flowed into each other sequentially, seamlessly. It feels like I was in Tokyo just a little while ago, not two whole months. I can’t believe I’m already halfway done with China, either. Sometimes I wonder if I blew all the fun of college upfront by having all my studying abroad done in the first year, and now I’m just gonna spend the next three years thinking “Oh man, wasn’t X or Y better in China/Japan?” Oh well, I know I’m coming back here, it’s all a matter of when.

October 21st

Today has been pretty chill, actually, as far as atmosphere and workload both went. We only had two major activities today. In the morning we went to 兰亭 Lan Ting, or Orchid Pavilion, that was the studio of 王羲之 Wang Xi Zhi, perhaps one of the most famous calligraphers in East Asia, seen as a model for Chinese and Japanese calligraphers a like. His biggest work is what’s called the “Orchid Pavillion Preface,” which was a work known for not only being a good piece of writing, but being written with immaculate penmanship. It’s a piece kind of Shakespearean in how it talks about the fleetingness of life, I have yet to try and read the translation.

Outside the pavilion was a big goose pond, which had a bunch of these geese with kind of ugly-looking protuberances on top of their beaks. One of the geese was inexplicably standing on one leg just chilling on the side of the lake, and I have no idea why. You could pay 2 kuai to get a little back of food to give to the ducks, so Xiao and I split one. I was trying to remember this old poem that Wendy Diao, my drill instructor fall term, taught us then, but I got Zhu laoshi to remind me of all the parts I forgot. It’s not by Wang Xi Zhi, but some other poet whose name I forgot, and it goes like this:

鹅鹅鹅，
取向向天歌
白毛幅绿水
红掌波`清波

Actually, I have no idea if those are the right characters at all, I’m just typing in what I hope is the right pinyin from what Zhu laoshi told me.

We went into the pavilion itself and all along the walls were hung different calligraphers’ attempts, throughout the dynasties, to recreated the Orchid Pavilion Preface. I guess it’s kind of like a public speaker practicing the Gettysburg Address or an architect studying the Eiffel tower in that it’s the principle work to model oneself on the understand the essential principles behind one’s art. After that, we strolled around a bit more, but there wasn’t a terrible amount more to see, and one of the students started feeling ill, so we just went back to the Hotel to chill after that.

We decided we wanted to have lunch together since we were gonna have dinner on our own and had it on our own last night, so we went to this noodle restaurant that was actually kind of full, so we had to wait a bit to get enough space for all of us, and it was a little hectic ordering and making sure everybody got what they wanted. What I got was pretty good, nothing super-spectacular, but it really hit the spot and was satisfying. We played “contact” at the table, which is kind of a summer-camp game that if you don’t know the rules, I’ll explain it later. We’ve been using it to pass a lot of the time on bus rides where we’re not sleeping.

After lunch we went to 东湖，the East Lake, which is just that, a lake, and we got to tour around the lake, which had some breathtaking scenery, specifically rock formations, in these tiny, three-person “black crow” boats. The person driving the boat had this neat thing going on where he used one oar with his hands and another with his foot to steer. It was really nice to sit back and just enjoy the scenery pass by. All these nature-related things have been a really welcome change from the big busy city stuff we’ve been getting in Beijing all this time and in Shanghai as well. It gives me the same kind of feeling the Nikko trip gave me in Japan after all the time bottled up in Tokyo.

After the lake tour, we scaled up another mountain thing, although this wasn’t serious at all, just like, 5 minutes up to the peak of this mountain where they had a tea garden and an awesome view of Shaoxing. You could peer off into the distant haze and see all the cranes putting up new buildings. Reminds me of Miami.

After that, that was pretty much it, we got back around 4-ish, and then had the rest of the day to ourselves. Some guys were having their own private Starcraft LAN party, so I went with one of them to stroll the city and see if they had an appropriate power cord for his laptop, with no luck.

After that, I went with some people to go to KFC. Yes, I do feel kind of dirty and disappointed in myself, but I just decided it wasn’t going to kill me and maybe it would be nice to have some fried chicken once again (although the one food I’m REALLY missing is pizza, but nobody wanted to go to Pizza Hut with me). Apropos of nothing, the characters used to write KFC in Chinese, 肯德基 ken de ji, mean “agree virtue base,” those for Pizza Hut, 必胜客 bi sheng ke, mean “must win guest,” and McDonald’s is 麦当劳 mai dang lao, “wheat serves as labor.”

KFC has none of the same combo meals in China that they do in America, like the mashed potato bowl, etc. They do have the classic bucket of chicken parts and stuff, but that was family sized. All the individual combos listed involved sandwiches of some kind, which struck me odd. What I ended up ordering was something close to a filet-o-fish, but it came with a side of corn, and a chicken breast. I was still hungry after that, because the portions were naturally smaller, so I got fries, which I realized I did kind of miss. Alex, one of the guys eating with us, was like “Wow, this food is so salty,” and I responded, “Welcome back to American fast food.” We as Americans do consume ridiculous amounts of sodium in our diet, there’s no doubting that.

After that we went strolling around this underground shopping mall Carey found and got some chocolate, to completely indulge our fat American urges, but I won’t say it wasn’t bad. Sometimes I can’t believe in the last 5 months I’ve only spent 10 days in the US. It just seems natural at this point that I am somewhere in Asia with Dartmouth people, and it no longer feels like I’m “abroad.” I just occasionally have to deal with people in a language besides English, and even then it’s natural enough to me it doesn’t seem like a bother. Then again, strip away all of these creature comforts I’m getting spoiled with being on a Dartmouth program, like four-star hotels and fellow American students along with me, and the story might be different, but that doesn’t stop a lot of the students in this group from griping about stuff anyway.

Speaking of being spoiled on creature comforts, I got a massage tonight since to hotel offers them (although you have to pay additionally). I got this Thai-style massage that lasted 100 minutes and felt absolutely awesome. I felt so relaxed afterwards I almost didn’t want to get on this computer and write but just slip straight into bed. I kind of like getting to bed early and not worrying about going out sometimes.

October 18th, 19th, and 20th

The last couple of days have been really nice because we’ve just been hiking through nature and just enjoying being outside in clean air that isn’t permanently dusty. Two days ago we went to Hangzhou, and the primary activity was this park around a really large lake. We walked along this man-made road that spanned the breadth of the lake created when the poet Su Dongpo (or Su Shi, whatever you wanna call him) was governor of the area. There’s not much to describe verbally, just a nice sense of peace as we got to just walk along the lake and enjoy what we were seeing. We got to hike up this mountain near the lake where we got views of Hangzhou from varying heights, and then check out this cave where there was a Buddhist altar, perhaps one initially erected by monks a long time ago, but I can’t remember.

During the evening we tried to check out the night life in the area, and found this one bar called Cana’s, but even though it was a bar, it tried to be kind of like a disco by having a DJ and flashing lights, but it was so dark that I ended up getting too sleepy to stay out.

The next day was Moganshan, which was where we spent the entire day hiking up and down the mountain. What else can I say that people will actually find interesting beyond the fact that it was a mountain hike? Well, we did find this house and a separate villa where Chiang Kai-Shek lived and made deals, as well as some Green Gang bosses like Du Yuesheng. Pretty much anyone who was someone during the revolution came to Moganshan at some point. According to Fei Laoshi, most of the stuff at Moganshan that was man-made dated only as far back as the beginning of the 20th century.

That night, we came back to the Hotel, and apparently, despite the fact that Fei Laoshi and Zhu laoshi had discussed with them that we were going to eat dinner at the restaurant there earlier, they had either already shut down or were going to shut down the kitchen, so they started it back up just for us, and the stuff we ate was pretty good. Apparently around the Moganshan area the big thing is cooking with bamboo, which I can’t say is all that spectacular, but it was an interesting thing to try at least. After dinner, I just felt terribly tired, so I ended up in bed by about 10, the earliest I think I’ve gone to sleep in China since getting over jetlag. I guess the combination of bus-riding and hiking got to me.

This morning we were a little late getting out of our hotel because they were late with getting our laundry back to us that we had checked in yesterday. They don’t usually have a laundry service, but arranged to have our clothes taken to a nearby place to get it washed, and Fei laoshi hand-wrote and copied makeshift forms for us to write down what kind of items of clothing we had so they could keep track of it. They STILL, however, managed to completely mix up our laundry, so after waiting to actually get it we had to sort through it, and a lot of it was still wet and smelled weird. Not the best start to the day.

We made our way to Shaoxing, and apparently Fei laoshi had gotten kind of sick in Moganshan, so he kind of left it up to Zhu laoshi and Carey to lead the activities for today. We arrived at the hotel almost exactly at noon. Lunch was up to us to get on our own, and I almost felt tempted to join some other people to actually eat at KFC just because I was really hungry, even though the thought made me feel kind of dirty. Luckily I found a group who wanted to wander around and find local stuff, so I joined them, and after a bit of wandering, found this place called “Happy Kitchen” that was a fast-food-type place, but at least it was CHINESE fast food. You could really tell the difference between Chinese and American tastes in the ratio of meat-to-starches in a fast food combo meal. The stuff I got was small on meat, but had a LOT of rice, making it clear that the rice was the main attraction (the Chinese usually refer to the starch, like rice or noodles or whatever, as the 主食 zhushi, or “important food”), so that was a neat cultural experience in itself.

Our activity for the afternoon was visiting the old house of Lu Xun, a Chinese author during the early 20th century who really helped pioneer Chinese novel-writing. Some of his trademark pieces were “Diary of a Madman,” “Diary of Miss Sophie (or was it Sophia?)” and some other shorter stories. The surrounding area has been made a pretty big tourist attraction, although it’s a tourist attraction for CHINESE people, so we were pretty much the only white people there.

Oh yeah, that reminds me, when we were in the elevator of the hotel after checking in, it was me, some other guys, and this one dude who’s over 6 feet and used to be a football player, and as soon as he got in, the old Chinese guys behind us started talking about how he was as tall as Yao Ming, which was almost exactly what happened when we were in an elevator together in Shanghai and there were some old Chinese women behind us. It’s always something like “Wow, he’s just like Yao Ming!” “Isn’t Yao Ming taller?” etc, etc.

So the Lu Xun house is kind of like the Hemingway house in Key West or the Thomas Edison house, it’s just somebody’s house, but there are some things kind of museum-ized in it to give you an insight into the conditions he had growing up and what kind of things influenced his outlook on life and how he developed as an author. Since we didn’t have Fei Laoshi to guide us, I had to just ask Zhu laoshi questions and try to read some of the explanations in Chinese myself (there was not very much written in English). I actually found a tour group of Japanese people inside the Lu Xun Memorial Hall and listened in on THEIR tour guide, and managed to actually understand a good deal about how he went to Japan to continue studying and his disillusionment with the Chinese people and stuff.

One thing that was kind of inescapable in the area was the smell of 臭豆腐 chou doufu，literally “smelly tofu,” which is kind of a specialty around these parts which we ate a little before in Hangzhou, and is also apparently eaten regularly in Taiwan. It’s tofu that’s fermented, and it tastes much better than it smells, although apparently the Taiwanese version is even better than what we had in Hangzhou, according to some of the Taiwanese people in our group.

Our last stop on this trip was the Xian Xiang inn, which was apparently this place that Lu Xun himself visited quite frequently and ended up writing one of his short stories about, famous for it’s rice wine. We went in there basically for a chance to try out the wine. We went into this central courtyard area, and Zhu laoshi bought three smallish bowls, one for each table of us, and some spoons for us all to try. It was kind of interesting because what she brought us was dark, not what I expect when I think of “rice wine.” It looked like soy sauce, and when I tasted it, it kind of tasted like soy sauce mixed with sake. Not the best flavor, but apparently I was the only one who didn’t find it completely putrid. For the sake of not wasting it since nobody wanted to try beyond the second spoonful, I ended up drinking two bowls of it straight. I think within minutes I started feeling a buzz, but nothing too serious.

We went back to the hotel, I uploaded photos while Marcus napped, then we had dinner. There are several KTV (karaoke) parlors around this place, but for some reason, I am the ONLY person interested in doing any karaoke, drunk or sober, and it makes me really sad.

October 16th and 17th

Sorry I didn’t make an entry for yesterday, I was just mad tired by the time I got back to my room after everything and didn’t feel like it.

These past two days have been venturing outside of Shanghai, and coming back in the evening, so there’s been long bus rides back and forth punctuating the activities. Yesterday we went to Suzhou, about two hours away, and visited the 留园 liu yuan, or lingering garden. It was this really beautiful place that kind of reminded me of some of the gardens in Kinkakuji and some other temples in Southern Japan. There’s not really much to describe other than there being lots of plants and flowers, but they were all arranged in such splendid manners it was really nice to just stroll through and take in the scenery. There was a lot of different rock formations spread throughout the garden, including a few of these really tall natural pillars of rock place in the middle of some flower gardens. There was actually a Bonsai garden inside this area, too, and I learned that the Chinese word for Bonsai is pen jing 盆景, literally “potted scenery,” as opposed to just using the Chinese pronunciations of the Japanese kanji for it, 盆栽, and I don’t really know what the “sai” is supposed to mean. I ended up taking a lot of crazy artsy pictures because I keep looking at some area and going “hey, this looks like a good picture.” Back when it was first made, it must have been the perfect place for poets and painters to come and just absorb the surroundings for inspiration.

We went to lunch at this place where the specialty was steamed dumplings, which definitely made me happy. I think I could gorge myself on dumplings and xiao long bao with no complaint. I think I’ve developed this reputation among the group for being a pretty ravenous eater who will also eat pretty much anything, which is a badge I proudly wear.

After lunch we headed to Tiger Hill, which kind of reminded me of Nikko a little bit with some of the waterfall-type places, but also had lots of bamboo growing around. As we went in we happened to catch this show they were putting on with a dragon dance, kung fu, and, of course, acrobats. We can’t seem to escape acrobats. I was glad to see the dragon dance, though, I’m surprised we haven’t had one other occasion yet where we’ve seen a dragon or lion dance.

The big focus of that area was 云岩寺 yu yan si, this tower that Professor Field called the “Leaning Tower of China,” which it essentially is, although on a smaller scale. It’s this tower that’s at a tilt because one side of it sunk into the soil. We got to go in and look around the bottom floor, but couldn’t go upstairs.

After that we walked through this area with some bamboo groves, small water falls, a tea garden, it was the kind stuff I wish I could just spend all day just walking through and relaxing in. We found this outdoor pavilion that was putting on Cantonese Opera, so now I can say I’ve been exposed to more than one kind of Chinese Opera while I’m here.

We came back near the entrance and decided to all take rides in these small boats that travel along the canal surrounding the area. It was charming, it was the kind of boat there the guy stands in the back and and propels the boat by moving the oar left and right, so the boat rocks left and right steadily, it was kind of like being rocked to sleep, although it made Stefani kind of seasick.

We left after that, and after getting back to Shanghai, we actually couldn’t find a restaurant to fit all of us, so we went into this mall that had a really awesome food court in the first floor and Fei Laoshi gave us some money to buy whatever we wanted. I found this place that had a rather appetizing bowl of lamb noodles, so I partook. After getting back to the hotel, I really didn’t do much. I didn’t feel like going out or doing much else.

Today the activity was going to 朱家角Zhujiajiao, this small town-cum-tourist attraction, that seemed mostly to have vendors selling trinkets, food, and turtles and/or crabs. However, they DID have a KFC, showing the true sign of civilization. This wasn’t anything big, except we finally got to see some Buddhist temples, which we really haven’t seen very much of which I found strange considering how much of the Japan LSA was going to see temples and shrines. As we were wandering through, this guy says “Hello!” to me in English, and waves me in, and gives me some sticks of incense and lets me light them, then tells me to kneel before this statue of Buddha, and rings a bell and tells me to bow, so I do, then he fishes this envelope out of a box full of them, and ushers me over to this desk where the guy opens what’s in the envelope, a fortune, and starts explaining it to me in Chinese, stopping every few seconds to ask “Do you understand?” I think I actually did understand a good deal of it, picking up important words like my luck being high and me being very honest, mostly very good stuff it seemed, except I think he said “be careful about your parents.” That seemed to be the only thing not good. Then he pulled out this book with paper on it and asked me to write my name and where I was from, plus a donation. I originally was just gonna put a few kuai in the box, but the other names on the paper showed 300 or 400, and the guy looked at my handful of kuai and was like “Nope.” I figured why argue, it’s donating to a temple, so I put in 100 kuai. I mean, I got my fortune, and this gold-plated thingy with a picture of the Buddha on it which looked nice, so it’s not too much of a bad thing. It was just funny how quickly that happened and how quickly I was out 100 kuai. Oh well, I didn’t buy anything else there, anyway.

We passed by this other temple where people were making these paper houses that Zhu laoshi explained were for the souls of the dead to live in, since apparently Chinese people believe that souls all go to this world under the ground, so placing these houses on the ground gives them places to go. There were also nuns marching around this statue of the Buddha chanting the name of Amithaba, the great Buddha. It’s the first time I actually saw Buddhists doing anything at a Buddhist temple while I was there.

We managed to find a restaurant big enough for us right in the middle of where we were, which was convenient, and we had more xiao long bao. Since it’s Marcus’s birthday, we also ordered noodles for him, because of that Chinese custom as well.

After lunch we headed back to Shanghai, since it’s our last evening here before we move on, we have the afternoon/evening to ourselves. Carey, some other students and myself went to the park to toss a Frisbee around, and I finally got a hang of that forward-hand throwing technique all the ultimate Frisbee players do. While we were playing this little kid decided to just interject himself and start throwing with us, it was pretty cute, and he got the hang of throwing it pretty well for obviously his first time. It’s kind of funny how wherever we are, if we’re throwing a Frisbee, we always attract a crowd because NOBODY in China plays Frisbee! It’s like some kind of awesome spectacle when they see these waiguoren throwing around this flying disk.

I was just thinking how I miss the Green and tossing on it. I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve been at Dartmouth, and how much longer it’s gonna be before I’m back. That’s the thing about college, you actually WANT to be at school. I just realize that now since I’m taking classes beyond the second-year level on this FSP, they’re counting towards my major and giving me more room in my schedule to fit in more stuff. I think I might take a classical Chinese class Spring term when I get back since I wasn’t able to fit one in with my previous schedule.

We’re waiting a while for Joe Houston, one of Marcus’s friends who went on the summer FSP and is doing an internship in Shanghai, to get here so we can all go out to dinner for some Thai food for his birthday. Right now I’m watching this sitcom in Shanghainese but with subtitles so I’m understanding a surprising amount. I’m surprised by how literate I am already. It’s also kind of funny to listen to the Shanghainese and read along with the subtitles to try and pinpoint the sound differences between the two. I’m really going to enjoy linguistics when I can learn to even better trace patterns like that in changes between parent languages and dialects.

October 15, 2007

The breakfast buffet at this hotel is amazing. They had a lot of the breakfast foods I had been missing from western cuisine, like sausage, French toast, bacon, etc. They also had a selection of eastern foods as well, like noodles and xiao long bao. I think the part I enjoyed the most was the donuts, though. I have such a sweet tooth it’s ridiculous, but it definitely brought my mood up for the day.

Today’s primary activity was visiting the Shanghai Art Museum (yesterday’s was the Shanghai HISTORICAL Museum), which is, according to Fei laoshi, the best art museum in China, and I’d be hard pressed to disagree just because of the awesome job this museum does, despite not having seen any others. The building is multi-floored, kind of like a “shopping mall of art” as Fei laoshi puts it, and arts of similar nature are all group together. The displays are all really nicely designed as well, and very high-tech. The special attraction was this display of works on loan from El Museo Del Prado in Madrid, which was mostly Renaissance and Baroque art, but where we started and spent most of the time was on the first floor looking at ancient Zhou dynasty bronzes and sculptures.

What struck me a lot about the bronzes and pottery from the early periods like the Shang and Xia was the use of animal totem imagery and spiral patterns really struck a strong resemblance to North and South American native art. Some of the bronzes look like they could have fit in with Inca or Mayan art without too much of a stretch. Fei laoshi suggested this was because the Chinese and the Native Americans were actually related and thus carried some of the same tribal customs early on, but I definitely have to read up on that.

Everyone kind of scattered quickly throughout the museum, but I spent a lot of time looking at the bronzes, Ming and Qing ceramics, and some Buddhist sculpture from the Tang that was all on the first floor, we only had a couple of hours in there and I didn’t have enough time to browse the calligraphy and other stuff at my own leisure, or even to get up to the fourth floor. I took a quick look through the Prado paintings, just for the sake of seeing it, and it was nice, kind of surprising to see some rather famous European works of art in China of all places.

Afterwards, we bussed it over to the “Yu Garden” which we found out wasn’t really a garden, but a humongous shopping plaza all done out in Chinese-looking architecture. The place apparently dates back to the Ming, but the facades have been redone several times, most recently in the 80’s. There were vendors all over the place, it was huge, and mind-blowing, a lot more elaborate than a place like Panjiayuar. People every few feet would approach you asking if you wanted to buy a watch or DVDs. “YOUWANNAWATCH?” is basically the Shanghai equivalent of “AISSUHWATURRBEEYAR.” There were a ridiculous amount of people walking around, Chinese and foreigners alike, it was like some kind of medieval market place in that respect, just with the hustle and bustle and sound of the vendors trying to get you to buy their crap.

We had lunch in this place right in the middle of it all, where we finally had some baozi, which I was hungering for since quite a while ago. I was also introduced to this lovely kind of flaky meat pastry that’s a local Shanghai thing.

We toured the shopping area for an hour after lunch, and we didn’t look around at all the places we wanted to because we spent a while at this little stand where we could get poems made out of our names. The guy would take the characters of your name, and use each character to start each line of a 4-line poem. I gave him my name and he used the character 名 to fill in the fourth line, and made this poem up that apparently deals with Guan Gong bringing luck and being righteous and stuff. It looks pretty and has my Chinese name on it, and it’s framed, so it’s a nice souvenir. When talking with this guy who was writing the poem, I decided, for the hell of it, to use the southern Chinese accent when talking to him, replacing “zhi,” “chi,” and “shi,” with “zi,” “ci,” and “si.” He didn’t comment about it, but I was just doing it for myself, I guess, to have fun. I ended up doing the same thing again with the taxi driver home later in the evening and the other guys in the car thought I was just being weird.

On the way out, I saw this stand selling Gameboy games that included fake versions of Pokemon, like a “Naranja Version,” (“Naranja” is Spanish for orange), and “Arco Iris (rainbow)” version, and a “Chaos Black” version. Usually those games are just crude hacks of other games with Pokemon sprites oddly pasted in, so I wonder which ones those were.

After all that we came back to the hotel, and by that point the food and the walking around did make me feel sufficiently ready for a nap, which Marcus and I did verily partake in. We got back up to get out for the next activity, which was dinner and acrobats, and my mood wasn’t too fantastic, as it not usually is after just getting up. This seemed to be the common thing as people were generally complaining about not being hungry enough for dinner yet and having to see acrobats AGAIN *sigh,* kind of sinking my mood down. But we went to this rather fancy place right across from the theater where the acrobats were, and were fed more delicious Shanghainese food which lifted my mood immediately. Southern Chinese food, in general, just seems to be even more colorful than Beijing food is. There’s a more diverse array of vegetables and other ingredients served, and a wider spectrum of flavors. Salty, sweet, spicy, sour, bitter, it’s all there. Shanghainese food definitely does not bore the palate, I will say that. Then again, everybody realizes I like whatever food it is I’m eating, so nobody trusts my opinion anymore.

The acrobats, though, were definitely more intense than what we saw in Beijing. In Beijing they pulled out crazy stunts, but some of the ones they did here were just beyond BEYOND insane. I can’t even begin to describe them. I just love acrobat shows. I could watch them pretty often and not get bored. I always watch and just want to be able to do that. I think one of the things I like about doing pro wrestling is the acrobatic aspect of it, especially when you’re a smaller wrestler. It’s fun to fly, and do crazy flips.

After that we went back to the Hotel, then some classmates, and I hung outside by the park just chilling and drinking beer and talking, it was pretty relaxing. After a bit we got joined by some other people and went bar hopping a bit, where we chilled and watched snooker on TV, which is apparently this crazy British variation on billiards. I wasn’t out too long. We went to another bar and sat down, then I decided to head back to the hotel on my own, and on the way back I was approached by a prostitute! Whoo, first time I can ever say that has happened to me. Jeez. Never would I have imagined a night in my life involving bar-hopping and getting approached by a prostitute a couple of years ago. Interesting.

Now it’s time for me to go to bed and rest up, since tomorrow we’re heading to Suzhou!

October 14, 2007

So, today contains yet another story of me failing at life in some way that you will find funny.

Got up today around 9, just in time to get breakfast at the complementary (at least complementary as in being on Dartmouth’s tab) buffet thingy that lasted until 10. Then, somehow, Marcus and I ended up back in the room sleeping until 1:40-ish. I didn’t realize I was that tired given how I didn’t go to sleep that late last night, and got good sleep on the train the night before. Oh well. When I woke up I had kind of a headache, and I have no idea why. It kind of ruined my mood for most of the day and made me kind of antisocial and quiet until I got some more food, sun, and Diet Coke in me.

Our big activity for today was taking a walking tour of the nearby area of Shanghai where we could see a few 里弄堂/石庫門 lilongtang/shikumen housing compounds, which are just basically long alleyways with a bunch of different houses lumped together, people living very close with each other. We found a couple that were abandoned and either being torn down or possibly remodeled somehow for the sake of historical significance, but we also found plenty with people still living in them. It was quite an interesting sight. It was very…hmmm…rustic, maybe? Seeing children play in the little roadways together and all the laundry hung out on clotheslines in the street, old men playing xiangqi right near the entrance…it was a sight that really screamed out “THIS IS CHINA” to me. Old people were hanging out on their porches just seeing what was going on with all the waiguoren looking around their place, the kids were coming up to us, it was really quite a sight.

Fei laoshi was interested by the children and talked to them a little bit, and then told us he asked them why they were all speaking in Mandarin instead of Shanghainese, and apparently one of the children responded that “this is a civilized place, so we all speak Mandarin,” and Fei laoshi remarked that that kid was probably a future Party member.

We got to just enjoy walking down the streets of Shanghai, which is pretty nice in itself. It’s nice to not always notice this heavy cloud of haze hanging over you, and see the sun, and see lots of green-space. We went into this local bookshop that was apparently supposed to be kind of a famous spot in Shanghai, and then went to the Ruijin Hotel, which used to be owned by this pretty wealthy European magnate who had this whole ridiculously huge space of land to himself.

We passed through this large park that was right in front of a currently pretty active night club, definitely European style that had a lot of roses and carnations, and people doing all sorts of different dances out in the park, most of them being some style of ballroom dancing.

Fei laoshi multiple times had to deal with guards refusing to let us in. First was when he tried to get us in to some place, I forgot even what it was supposed to be, but when he went in he tried to talk to the guard, and tried pulling the whole “agree with the guard, but keep walking in anyway,” trick, which was funny to watch, and the guard started to physically hold him as he was talking to him. So that failed. The other time was when we walked in front of this Hotel right in front of the house where Mao Zedong’s wife lived when she was planning out some big developments for the party. The guard came out and started waving us off but then he explained that he was just lecturing some students and they actually backed off.

The tour ended with a glimpse of Sun Yat-Sen’s house. It’s a tourist attraction that actually has certain business hours, and we came right as we were ending, so we just got to look at the outside while Fei Laoshi told us a little bit about what he did there. All I remember was me asking him how you get “Yat Sen” in Cantonese out of “Zhongshan,” which is what he’s always called in Mandarin, but apparently his birth name was “Yixian,” which explains his Cantonese name, and that “Zhongshan” is his honorific posthumous name.

After that, we were free to wander around the city on our own, plus 100 kuai for us to spend on dinner. Sam, Stefani, and I decided to wander around the area and we actually found this Cantonese restaurant in a nearby department store building. I had been dying for Cantonese food since I knew we were going to Shanghai, and was glad to find some, although it wasn’t dim-sum type Cantonese food, more fancy stuff, but what we ordered was pretty good, and within the budget we were given.

We wandered a bit more until we came across this building with a demo video for a shooting range. We looked and asked where it was, and it was on the seventh floor of the building right in front of us. Sam says to me “Man, you want to feel like you have a pair of balls, fire a gun a few times.” So we go in, and at first we accidentally run into a pretty stacked video arcade a floor above which made me miss the Japanese game centers, but then we found it.

Here comes the story of how the foreigners get hosed out of money.

Outside they had these little cards that showed some special offer that, from what we were able to read, was 20 kuai for a “da,” which was a character meaning to hit or strike. We weren’t sure what one “da” was, but we figured that wouldn’t be too hideous a price. So we go in, and the guy at the front desk is like “Okay, here you pick what gun you want, and then you go in, talk with the guys inside, and then you pay afterwards.” We were like “Okay,” I chose a basic hand pistol, and Sam chose a rifle of some sort. We go in there, they set up the target, give us ear-covers, load up the gun, show us how to hold it, and we could just go at it. Sam had experience with rifles before, but this was my first experience ever firing a gun. It was okay, nothing special. My gun kept jamming up for some reason and the guy actually had to give me a new one so I wouldn’t have to keep re-cocking it over and over. I guess maybe since I got a smaller one, the feel of the recoil wasn’t all too exhilarating, but it was fun. I, obviously was kind of a shitty shot, and couldn’t really tell where my bullets were hitting, but somehow managed to hit the target. Any time I ran a clip out, the guy would just put in a new clip, so I didn’t want this to run up too much, and Stefani wasn’t shooting, so I didn’t want to make her wait, so after 3 or 4 clips I stopped and said “I’m done.” Sam finished not too long after.

So we go to the front desk, and he adds up our thing, and tells us it’s 1600. One thousand six-hundred Yuan. Pretty quickly we figure out that it was 20 Yuan a bullet. We ask what it would be if they separated Sam and my things, and mine came up to only about 200-something, and his came up to the remaining amount. I guess rifle bullets are just that much more expensive. I had enough money on hand to pay for my stuff, but Sam didn’t, so I decided to be a bro and be like “Okay, I’ll get this with my credit card.” I ask “can I use my credit card?” and the guy’s like “Yeah, Visa’s okay!” So I give him my Visa credit card, he swipes it, then after a bit of waiting, it comes up as not working. I figure, okay, maybe that’s the one not meant to work in China, so I give him the American express one. He swipes it, it doesn’t work. I start to get worried here. I give him my Citibank card, that doesn’t work. So Sam starts trying HIS credit cards. None of them work. Stefani tries HERS, it doesn’t work. The guy starts telling us how maybe our American credit cards maybe don’t work in China, but I knew that was BS since they worked fine in Beijing.

I was really worried what the hell we were gonna do, and so we asked where the nearest ATM was. He said right outside the building, so he accompanies me to the ATM, I guess for fear of me just bailing and not paying, and watches me as I perform the transaction. I first put in my American express card, which is what I used to make a successful withdrawal in Beijing before I left, but for some reason that didn’t work, whether I tried to make a withdrawal out of my credit or checking account. I am nearly shitting my pants here, so I decided to try my Visa, put in my PIN, put in the amount of 1600 kuai, and nervously watch the screen go blank for a few seconds as the machine whirrs and grinds, then finally the money pops out, and I am relieved. I gave the dude his money and walked back up to the 7th floor to fetch the other guys, so we could leave.

They decided after that…adventure…that they would go back to the hotel, and if they felt like going out later, they would. I kinda wanted to go out wandering with Sam some more, but we ended up just watching Superman Returns on HBO in his room. That ended at about 11, and since we have to actually get up in the morning to do stuff, I decided to just go straight to bed.

Well, at least I have the cool-looking shot-up target to show for my first shooting range experience. How many people in the world get to say they’ve been to a shooting range in Shanghai, let alone been to a shooting range in Shanghai and almost not paid?

Hey everyone, I'm back in Beijing. Like I anticipated, I didn't have a terrible amount of internet access while in places other than Shanghai. I mean, some places had internet, but it wasn't wireless, and for some reason my computer just won't work properly with ethernet (I'll try and fix that eventually), but don't fret, I did keep a journal while I was on this trip, so my first job will be to catch you all up. Let's begin!

Sat. October 13, 2007

When we first got out of the station, I couldn’t help but notice how bad that area of the city smelled, even worse than Beijing. It was like ass-plus-ass kind of smell, but luckily when we got farther away from the station that went away quickly.

Shanghai for some reason reminds me of Roppongi in Tokyo, and not just because of the concentration of sketchy foreigners. The juxtaposition of green-space with tall highways just immediately brought to mind that time Kate, Joe, Jae, some others I can’t remember clearly, and I, were wandering around Roppongi trying to find a restaurant (or something else, I forgot what) and we saw this place with a bunch of trees in the middle of all the roads. Shanghai gives me a vibe a lot closer to Tokyo in general, just with the assortment of variegated architecture and tall buildings and the greater density of it all instead of Beijing where most buildings look the same and the taller ones are spread farther apart. The lack of a hovering gray haze is nice, too. There were some really neat-looking buildings seen on the bus ride to the hotel, lots of spires and towers of interesting shapes.

Fei laoshi called attention to the fact that there were a lot of art-deco style buildings in the area, and that made me feel kind of proud since that’s kind of a trademark style in Miami, or at least there’s enough of it near the beach that it seems that way. I really need to go back home an explore Miami like I’m doing now in Asia, there’s so much about it I haven’t really seen. Then again, I need a car to fully do that.

Our hotel is awesoooome. Four stars, apparently, and the room Marcus and I got is huuuuge. Lots of open space between the bed and the desk/TV it’s kind of ridiculous. The TV here gets MTV and HBO, as well as the Japanese station NHK. I haven’t fully explored the TV here. The beds are SOFT, my GOD. I guess I really learn to appreciate western luxuries while I’m here.

I already put in my blog the stuff about “Keven’s” (that’s how they spell it), that Western restaurant we went to. Not bad, just expensive. I ended up eating two people’s leftover fries and half of another’s hamburger since she didn’t want it. I guess I was that hungry from not eating a proper breakfast and dinner the night before.

When we went to the Bund, we got to see this view of all the big buildings along the other side of the Huangpu river, and they were all of such varying shapes and colors it looked like a panel out of a comic book, it was ridiculous. Then we got to take a pedestrian tunnel UNDERNEATH the river, and we got to get on this ride that, I guess, is part of the tunnel but looks like a ride at Epcot, and takes you through this tunnel with a trippy light show. So weird, but fun.

I wish I had remembered the exact name of that museum, but it was pretty fun. There were lots of visually stimulating stuff, and not that much text to bother with, either. Fei Laoshi called it a “house of nostalgia,” though, and said it offered a bit of a biased positive view of old Shanghai and omitted the majority of the poverty and corruption, but oh well, Yasukuni taught me that museums are not the 100% truth.

We went back to our rooms to rest a bit for dinner. Dinner was really good, though, we went to this Hainanese restaurant and had some delicious stuff, some was spicy, some was not, and there was a good deal of vegetarian-friendly stuff, though.

Dinner kind of segued into us going out, since people had started drinking at the restaurant (cheap beer seems to be a constant for Shanghai or Beijing restaurants). I had two glasses of beer, and that ended my alcohol consumption for the entire night.

We went to an Irish pub whose name I didn’t catch that had a live guitar player. It was chock full of old foreigners, and the drinks were kind of pricy, so I just bought a Diet Coke to look like I was buying stuff and not get hassled and just hung out with everybody else for a short while before we all decided to head to this club called “Windows,” which is much more geared to younger people.

Yeah, so we went there and got to the dance floor, and it was still kind of early, so nobody was dancing yet, except one of my classmates and I started busting a move here and there. Eventually, more people started dancing, but because I got an early start, and was going at kind of an intense pace, I kind of tired myself out. The classmate and I actually got into kind of a dance-off, only the thing is he has a lot of actual MOVES, like some really cool pop-and-lock stuff, and I only have just one set motion. It was fun, though.

I was sitting down, resting a little bit, when Fei laoshi pointed me over to where another classmate was sitting, with three other girls talking, and told me to interact a bit since “my Chinese is good.” So I went over there and engaged them in some conversation, and found out they were all from Shanghai and in their 20’s already, and come to the club every weekend just to drink and chat. One of them was studying Japanese, so somehow the conversation turned tri-lingual, English, Chinese, and Japanese, with two of my classmates, both drunk by this point, watching on and laughing whenever I switched to Japanese.

One of the classmates, somehow, in the course of the night, broke two chairs, although they were kind of flimsy to being with, I guess. Fei laoshi came over and was like “You know if you break another one, they’re gonna kick you out.” The classmate also saw someone pull out a cigarette and actually reached over to some random table for their lighter and kind of pissed one girl off, but nothing bad happened out of it and I apologized for him. I just found that funny.

When the second classmate came over and introduced himself, he introduced himself as “Toby,” which was NOT his real name, so when they asked my name, I decided to assume another identity and say my name was Cesar and that I was born in Spain, for the hell of it. It was kind of fun to live under another identity for those couple of minutes. One of them asked for my MSN screen-name, and I gave it to them. I guess if they do end up contacting me, I’ll break it to them I’m not really Cesar after all. They’d have an easier time believing my name was Cesar than Angel, anyway.

Whooo, I am now in Shanghai, the city that in English is a synonym for deceiving or tricking someone.

We left last night from Beijing, and I will say the Beijing train station is quite impressive, but kind of scary since everyone's kind of pushing and yelling to make sure they get to their train on time. We got separated into some different cars, so we weren't all able to hang out during the trip. We had a "hard sleeper" car, which is one of the less expensive options for sleeper trains, where each car has several rows top, middle, and bottom bunks. I got a middle bunk, and actually wasn't that interested in hanging out, and settled into my bunk kind of quickly. I slipped out some reading material and relaxed on my bed, then fell asleep not too long afterwards. I slept pretty hard and deep on the train, except for a few instances with people talking kind of loudly in what must have been Korean or some other dialect of Chinese a couple rows over, but like in a lot of situations, I had little problem falling asleep, unlike Stefani, whom apparently didn't sleep at all, poor thing.

We arrived in Shanghai at about 9-something in the morning, and checked into our hotel, the Hengshan Bingguan, with little event.

We got a chance to rest a little bit, and I went with some other students to this western cuisine restaurant right across the street which wasn't too bad, but it cost 48 kuai for the lunch special. I've been told things in Shanghai typically are more expensive in Beijing anyway, so I shouldn't be too surprised. It's still less than 7 bucks US.

Our activity for the afternoon was checking out the Bund, this collection of buildings along the Huangpu river that have a distinctly Western flavor in their design and structures. We punctuated that with a visit to this museum in the base of one of the larger buildings that's kind of a trademark of the Shanghai skyline. I kind of wish I remembered the names. The museum was pretty reminiscent of the Edo-Tokyo Hakubutsukan in the abundance of life-sized replicas of old-style houses and shops, and the small light-up models and stuff. Sorry if I'm skimping on the details, but I'm updating from a friend's computer right now as I'm having continued difficulty connecting my laptop to ethernet connections. Oh well.

After dinner tonight, Professor Field is going to take some of us out to explore some of Shanghai's night life, which is his academic specialty, so that should be pretty fun, being able to check out some clubs and stuff. I think I'm going to try and keep some written entries in the future in case I can't update the computer blog often enough.

Okay, I just finished my last test for another two weeks, as tonight we're leaving for a tour of Shanghair and other places in the Southeast of China, so I figure I'll take this little break before I have to go back to class to answer some questions asked in comments on my past entries:

-The name of the kid I'm tutoring is Tian Ruyi. I accidentally wrote it as Ru Tianyi in one of the last entries because there's another guy in our group whose Chinese name is Du Tianyi, even though everyone calls him Tommy. I just got a little confused, okay? Maybe I'll just refer to him as "Roy" from hereon in.

-Chinese chess, or "xiangqi" as it's called, is kind of similar to western Chess, in that there are different pieces assigned different roles (like the "knight," "rook," etc. in western Chess, there's the "horse," "cart," "elephant," etc.) and each can move in certain patterns across the board, but naturally there are different nuances in the game and how it's played. I actually saw a cheap set sold in this little store near my dorm that I might get for the hell of it instead of looking for a fancy one at Panjiayuan or something.

For more detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi

And no, I have not found anyone playing Chinese checkers as Americans know it. I have no idea if that game is actually Chinese at all, anyway. I guess maybe I haven't gone out looking for it since I saw old guys in the street playing xiangqi and went to the weiqi parlor specifically for weiqi, but even at Panjiayuan I didn't see anybody selling a gameboard for "Chinese checkers" or anything similar.

-The "less disciplined lifestyle" question...I think the only thing about how I'm living right now being "less disciplined" than it was in Japan is the fact that I don't have to worry about coming home later than a certain time or keeping the air conditioner on. Like I mentioned a lot, my homestay family was really chill and I didn't have to worry about too much beyond courtesy, and Masako had no qualms about doing my laundry and changing my sheets, so here I need to be MORE disciplined in a sense to do my own laundry regularly. And like I've also mentioned, I spend a LOT more time studying here than I did in Japan, and I have to if I want to survive, and everyone else realizes that, too, so I've been able to deal pretty effectively with any possible distractions of always being around classmates. On the flip side, I've also been able to go out with classmates more leisurely because of not having to worry about the time or coming home and making noise. Even though I lived a "more disciplined" life in Japan, I still think I had a pretty good balance of work to play, and if anything here it's shifted even more in the "work" direction. But, I am managing, and at least to compensate, we get two weeks in Southern China instead of just one week touring Kansai, so it should be even better.

This is the last week before Shanghai and thus the last week of Chinese 31 and the first half of the term. I'm not so sure though whether this week is supposed to be part of 31 or 32, though, because last week we finished the first textbook and this week started using the new "higher level" volume of the same textbook, and Shang-laoshi (the teacher for third-year whose name I have not up until now mentioned previously) already had our grades for the first "term" written down and told them to anyone who asked. I was wondering how my grade would get computed since I spent two weeks in second year, and Shang-laoshi just told me she averaged the grades in from those two weeks in just like if I had been in third-year. Oh well. My grade is a 95, if anyone cares, even though I had an unfair advantage. Marcus likes comparing people whom he sees as having an unfair advantage to Danny Almonte, the guy who got in trouble for playing little league when he was already 14 years old. He likes using this a lot for the native speakers in the group, especially the one who was born in Taiwan but is in second-year because she's not as literate and only knows traditional characters, as opposed to the simplified characters used on the mainland as instituted by the government in the 50's. The second-year textbook at least has the text written in both sets, whereas the third-year only has simplified. It's kind of annoying to me as well because a lot of the character forms used in Japanese are the same as traditional Chinese, although there are some that are like the simplified ones, and then there are some that are the Japanese-only simplified version, then there are others that will differ in maybe ONE stroke, and those are the MOST ANNOYING. For example, the character meaning "black."

Chinese way: 黑
Japanese way: 黒

AAAAAH! Those two dots became one continuous stroke. This was especially bothersome when I took Japanese and Chinese at the same time Spring term, and had to remember which way to write it was appropriate to what languages when taking a test in each class.

Another student from the third-year class dropped down to second-year. We had one drop down when I jumped up, but this one was one-way. Now that leaves me and three others who weren't born in China and/or native speakers of Mandarin (the Danny Almontes, so to speak), and one of the other three is Korean, which is full of Chinese cognates. I kind of find it a nice testament to my perseverance. Third-year is definitely going to get harder now that we've moved up to the next text book, which has a LOT more new vocabulary per chapter, plus all of the characters we don't know that are thrown in but not in the new vocabulary list. Then again, we've slowed it down to 3 chapters a week out of the book instead of 4, so it balances out.

Beijing taxi drivers are really fun to talk to, especially once they know you speak Chinese and can speak it decent enough to hold a conversation. Usually a conversation starts when I get in a taxi with "Whoah, your Chinese is really good, especially for a foreigner. Where are you from?" and then it progresses from there. Usually I tell them I'm from America, and then there's some discussion of America and China. Like this week one taxi ride we had this whole discussion where I told the guy people in America think China is going to be just as powerful as America eventually, and we talked about all the development in Beijing and how it's because the labor is cheap because the population is so huge, then somehow I mentioned going to Japan and we talked about how polite Japanese people are. He asked me if everyone in America speaks English and I explained how there are many immigrants so that even though English is the official language, there are a lot of different languages spoken in the US, using Miami as an example with how many people speak Spanish. It was a rather lively conversation, and taxi drivers are always a real good challenge for practicing one's listening skills because their accent is a LOT thicker than usual Beijing people for some reason, don't ask me why, so you have to pay more attention to understand what they're saying.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but on the way to the Wan Xiao Li concert a couple of weeks ago, we happened to be in a cab where the driver started singing a bunch of Beijing opera songs he memorized from going so often when he was young. He was pretty good at singing them, but it was just surreal how he was singing them for the whole trip, without very much provocation, either. I mean, usually the idea of the driver loudly singing native songs while driving you around is the romanticized (or horrified) fantasy of people before they visit a country, but it seems freakish when it's actually happening. I couldn't help but smile and just prod him along. It was the most entertaining cab ride of my life, I felt so happy afterwards just from interacting with that taxi driver.

The Beijing/northern accent is kind of interesting in itself, even that spoken by non-taxi-driver people. The big trademark of the Beijing accent is adding an "r" sound at the end of certain nouns and adjectives or if a word ends in "n", replacing it with an "r." For example, the standard way to say "over there" would be "nei bian," but a Beijing person would say "nei biar." A park is a "gong yuan" technically, but a "gong yuar" to a Beijing person. When I was taking first-year at Dartmouth, we had a drill instructor winter term who was actually from Beijing. He said some sentence that ended in the word for restaurant, which he pronounced as "can guar." The person who had to repeat it (who himself was a native Cantonese speaker from New York and was not a big fan of the "r" sound) repeated it as "can guan," and although that was technically correct, he admonished "in Beijing there will be no can guan, only can guar."

The funny this was, at Dartmouth, since a lot of the Chinese people I hung out with were either born in the South or had Southern-born parents, they would think the Northern accent we were taught in class sounded funny, so I kind of forced myself into the habit of eliminating some "r" sounds when speaking, like the question word "where," I would say "nali," like a southerner would say instead of "nar," like a Beijing person. However, HERE, EVERYBODY throws r's everywhere so I've gotten myself back into the habit of saying "nar." Sometimes some of the teachers throw out r's I didn't know you could. The word for a character or letter in Chinese is "zi," but the assistant teacher for second-year, the first day of class I believe, threw out the word "ZAR" and totally blew my mind.

Beijing people often slur words together, too, which I've kind of picked up with some words, specifically, the phrase meaning "how much money is this?" Technically, it's supposed to be "duo shao qian?" but if you simply say "duoarr qian?" you will be perfectly understood. Same goes for "I don't know," which should be "bu zhi dao," but is perfectly understood when said as "brrdao."

My girlfriend was born in Harbin, which is in what used to be Manchuria, and apparently THEY throw in a lot of r's, too, for example, I asked her what her favorite dish was, and she said it was this stir-fried julienned potato dish called "tu dou SIR." Not quite sure how to type that, it was only after some internet searching did I find out it's supposed to be written as "tu dou si."

Speaking of my girlfriend, she's actually now in Beijing. Her dad was going to come here for a business trip and since she's taking this term off from classes, she decided to come along. I got to have dinner with her and her father yesterday, actually, at a nearby restaurant, and it was the first time I had ever really had a personal encounter with a girlfriend's parent (at least while I was still dating her), so I was kind of nervous. It actually went pretty well, though. I was nervous about being carefully scrutinized by the conservative Asian father, but I think my being able to engage a lot of the conversation in Chinese helped break the ice. At the very least he doesn't dislike me, so we can work from there. She's gonna be here until late November so even though I'll be in Shanghai for the next two weeks (and still updating the blog, don't worry), we'll have some time to spend together after I come back.

I've been seeing Fumio, one of the Japanese guys I met a while back, a lot around campus randomly. I got his cell phone number, so I'll probably end up having lunch with him at some point, which will be fun to practice and keep my Japanese fresh. He's like the reverse Wang Jun. I just hope I can schedule him in among class, homework, Chang Quan, and the girlfriend. Much busier than Japan was, MUCH busier. Then again, it's a lot easier for me to take naps here, so it all has it's trade-offs.

Agh, it's almost been a whole week since my last entry?!? It's only getting worse and worse.

Okay, so I finally remembered the name of the little kid I'm tutoring after his lesson this week. His mom's surname is Ru, like I knew before, and his full name is Tian Ruyi. He's actually a pretty good learner and isn't annoying and hyperactive like an American kid his age might be. It's kind of astonishing how on-task he stays, although of course he'll get distracted and fidget, but hey, I'm 19-years-old and I do that myself.

This week he just started learning some names of animals, and his mom gave me these flash cards he uses in school that has the name of different objects and stuff, including the animals, for me to use. I decided to create an exercise that would help him practice number and animal names, and the fact that in English there's such a thing as the plural form that means you have to add an "S" sound at the end of some words when you have more than one. He seemed to get the hang of that basic principle, except when we got to words like "face" and "case" where you have to add an "es" sound. Then I we got to "foot" which I had to explain to him completely flew in the face of all those rules and became "feet." If I were him, I would definitely think that was rather retarded, but he didn't make any such remark. He at least got the basic idea of "s" at the end of words down. The rest we can work on later.

What's kinda funny is when he forgets a word that I ask him, he'll sometimes randomly through in another English word he remembers, hoping that it might be correct. The specific example of this is when I was reviewing the numbers one through ten with him, having him recite them as I point to them, he would give such sequences as "One...two...three...foot!" or "Four...five...duck!" If I remember how I thought at that age, he probably does it partly just to get me to smile and laugh, which I oblige. For some reason the numbers 8, 9, and 10 are hardest to remember for him, even though he remembers 7 so well because of that TV show he watched (or video game, I forgot what).

I was writing down the number symbols and the spelled-out words for 1 through 10 for him, and he caught the fact that I cross my 7's (to not confuse them with my 1's, a habit I think I picked up in 10th-grade math class), and he asked me "what does this line mean?" I had to then tell him how people draw number symbols in all sorts of different ways, like the numbers 1 and 4. I wrote 4 for him the way with the top two strokes not connected, and the one like it appears typed, and he pointed to that one and asked me some question that all I caught was "Isn't this..." and some words I didn't understand. I guess the advantage of Chinese is that at least all the characters usually have one set, canonical way of writing them, and it must be confusing to the learner of English of all these permutations of letters and numbers permissible when writing by hand.

His mom wanted me to give him an English name, so at the end of this week's lesson, I decided to think of one. I decided to kind of use the same method Professor Blader used for giving us Chinese surnames, finding one that kind of sounds like our actual one (My roommate's last name is Gadson, so he got "Gan," another one's last name is Borland, so he got "Bai," Kell into "Kang," Andrews into "An," etc. etc.), and decided if he's named Ruyi, why not go with Roy. It's kind of an uncommon name, and less of a cliche American young kid name like "Billy" or "Timmy" or something. He and his mom both liked the sound of it, so it might stick. That would be pretty cool if he keeps using that into adulthood, all because of me.

It was kind of funny that earlier in the lesson we were going over introducing ourselves, saying "I am..." but I hadn't given him his English name yet, so he would say "I am Tian Ruyi." I told him in English-speaking countries, you say your family name LAST, so you would say "I am Ruyi Tian." He looked at me and laughed and said in Chinese "I'm not Ruyi Tian, I'm Tian Ruyi." If I felt like being more verbose (NOOOO) I would go into all the psychosocial implications of that sentence but I'll just leave it at how I guess that reflects how social constructions affect our identity and how we view ourselves. This kid KNOWS he's Ru Tianyi, because that's what his mom calls him and that's how everyone names himself, so he thinks it's silly to name oneself in any other way.

Then I got pizzaid my 80 kuai...and blew it all that night. Stefanie and Marcus wanted to try a Thai restaurant, and we picked this one called "To Serve The People" in Sanlitun, near the bar district. It was apparently voted "Best Thai Restaurant in Beijing" by some magazine, and frankly...eh. It was mad expensive by Beijing standards, a lot of dishes costing upwards of sixty kuai, including this dish I got that was some prawns and noodle-type dish. It wasn't bad, just not that amazing tasting, considering I could get a bowl of Sichuan noodles that had much more in it for a fraction of the price at Chengdu Xiaochi. That, plus the taxi ride, really made me think it wasn't worth it. I mean, it wasn't a BAD food experience, it just did not live up to the hype or price. I guess I'm also not quite fed up with Chinese food yet, like some other people seem to be. I still feel like I haven't gotten a full sampler of what authentic Chinese food is like despite having easy access to it. To be fair, we do get a good sampling every Friday at Chinese language table, but I still want more.

I am kind of surprised by the amount of students who already seem kind of burnt out on China or otherwise unwilling to assimilate. Maybe the amount of work is frying them out to hard, or something, I don't know. Some are going to McDonald's quite often to eat and it kind of disappoints me. I dunno, I'm a unique case, I just do whatever it takes to enjoy myself in any situation and try to assimilate as best as possible, and it just boggles my mind when I don't see other people reacting similarly. Such is my plight.

Fei laoshi finally heard some of the complaints of students about the pace being intense and not having a lot of time to do stuff on our own, so he decided this week to cancel our Wednesday and Saturday activities and give us time to ourselves, so this week has been pretty chill, and passed by amazingly fast. On Tuesday I got a weight workout in, which made me happy and less guilty, and the rest of the time has been spent either chilling out or studying.

It's pretty amazing how different the atmosphere of this FSP is from the LSA. In Japan, when we got done with class, it would take just as much effort to go home as it would be to travel somewhere else in the city to explore, so people were much more likely to do that. Here, our dorm is a five-minute walk from class, so people (me included) usually like to nap after class gets out. Also, it's hilarious how little time I spent studying in Japan compared to how much I study here. Then again, jumping a year doesn't help, but when you have to learn new characters for every lesson instead of just learning words, it does heap on a lot of study time. Also, being in the dorm instead of a host family has really brought back the feeling of being in "college" and being more in control of what I myself am doing. I can worry less about being out late or keeping the air conditioning on, I don't have to worry about stepping on anybody's toes besides my roommate, and he's pretty chill anyway. However, not being constantly in a situation where I have to speak the native language does take away from the whole "Whoah, I'm in CHINA" feeling. When you're just chilling in your dorm room doing whatever you want, it's more like "Eh, yeah, I'm in my dorm room, and I happen to be in China."

THen again, we DO have guaranteed exploring opportunities every weekend, which takes away from the stress of having to figure out shit on our own, plus the two-week trip to Shanghai will be really really awesome.

I am really surprised at myself how well I've already adapted to using and speaking Chinese. It's only been four weeks and I almost feel like I'm as comfortable with Chinese as I was with Japanese by the end of the LSA. Every time we have Chinese language table, I'm usually the one doing most of the talking, and I make mistakes, but I can fix myself, and can go pretty fluently. I guess the grammar thing (i.e. there being a lot less of it) is a big factor into it. I dunno. We'll see how this carries out as there's a lot of FSP left to take care of. All I can say so far is that I'm not having any difficulty so far. Then again, I have all the advantages of it being Fall (so less heat to fatigue me), knowledge of Japanese (for familiarity with characters), experience studying abroad already, so I can't say I have the same perspective as some of the other participants on the trip.

Sorry guys for being so lazy about this blog now. I will tell you one thing, this FSP is more loaded with activities than the Japan LSA was by FAR. It's kind of wearing thin on some of the students already, to deal with activities on top of studying and adjusting to the environment psychologically and physiologically.

I seem to be enduring things pretty well, though, for a while I thought my body was invincible just because I wasn't getting sick despite everyone else seeming to be. But then this weekend I kind of developed a stuffy nose, cough, and sore throat, so I guess it was a matter of time. But it's minor, nothing debilitating, so as long as I keep a positive attitude I'll recover quickly. I'm REALLY surprised I haven't gotten diarrhea, especially since I've been eating what everyone else has been for the most part, and with far less hesitation. I guess it is a combination of attitude and overall constitution. Mind over matter, baby!

So Friday I took my first test at the third-year level, and I can say with confidence I did well. Obviously I didn't ace it like I would the second-year tests, but I didn't get overwhelmed and was able to handle stuff pretty well. Now that I know how the tests are in form and application I can do even better next time. But yeah, after the first week at third year I'm not regretting the jump at all.

Wednesday I began my first paid job outside of pro wrestling, tutoring this little six-year-old kid whose name I've already forgotten. I'm so horrible with names. Well, I know his mom's surname is Ru, and she herself never actually introduced herself by name anyway, I had to ask Zhu laoshi for it. She herself only referred to herself as "Zhu laoshi's comrade." Anyway, this kid only started learning English, so I got to see his textbook and basically spend an hour going over basic stuff like "Good morning," "sit down," and "my ears can hear." Apparently the English "h" sound is kind of hard for Chinese people since the Chinese "h" is more guttural. I said the word "hear" and he repeated it back to me like "shear." He couldn't quite grasp it. I ended up using a lot of the Chinese vocabulary I learned from drill class first year, like "say it again," and "repeat after me" and "almost!" Brett saw me in the lobby of Xinsong giving this kind his lesson and thought it was a pretty funny sight. I saw his textbook hadn't taught him the English words for the numbers one through ten, so I decided to add that as a supplementary thing, counting on my fingers as I said them all aloud. What was funny was that he already knew the word for "seven." I asked him why and he said he saw some TV show that had "7" in the title and asked what it had meant before.

So yeah, I got 80 kuai out of the deal, which is a pretty handy amount of spending cash in China.

Friday evening Fei laoshi took us to see a folk music concert at this pretty fancy club called the Star Live. He had been talking about this folk musician Wan Xiao Li, who apparently is pretty famous, and he played some of his songs for us in class. He managed to get the tickets for this concert on Dartmouth's tab, so we all got to go. Wan kind of has the Bob Dylan thing going where he doesn't sing that melodically and kind of half-talks/half-sings his songs, but he's a very skilled guitar player and his overall performance is quite engaging. The problem was he kind of started off the first half of the concert with a lot of slower, kind of soporific stuff so a lot of people kind of got tired (not to mention that a lot of people were already unpleased with the fact that they had their Friday night taken up by a scheduled activity) and asked Fei laoshi to let them leave early. I was actually the only student who stayed the whole time, just because I really didn't have anything better to do and enjoyed the music and the atmosphere of the concert. The funny thing was that he really saved a lot of the stuff we heard in class and were familiar with for later on in the concert after everyone else had left. Oh well. I hope people don't misinterpret my staying the whole time as some attempt to curry favor with Fei laoshi, although he definitely was pleased about it.

Saturday, the next day, we got to see those world-famous sites of Beijing: Tiananmen square and the forbidden city. Tiananmen was decked out in a bunch of Olympic-related decor, naturally, and Chairman Mao's portrait looked as smiling and bloated as it does on TV. Feo laoshi told us how the building of Chairman Mao's memorial hall broke the feng shui in the original design of imperial Beijing, interrupting the straight North-South line between the Forbidden City and...something else that I forgot. Also, apparently the memorial hall was partly inspired by the Lincoln Memorial, as Mao saw himself the Lincoln-like liberator of the Chinese people.

We actually had this hired specialized tour guide takes us throughout the forbidden city and show us through all of the different halls and buildings, telling us what they were all used for and how the accommodated the varying extravagances of all the emperors. What really caught my eye was the fact that after passing a certain point in the compound, the signs labeling the halls and gates were all written in both Chinese and Manchurian, since the last imperial dynasty, the Qing, were Manchus. The rest of it was mostly a visual spectacle better described in photos I have yet to upload. What was really awesome was climbing up Jing Shan 景山, better known as "Coal Hill" in English, where you could look upon the whole forbidden city and as far as the Drum Tower. I was kind of struck by the irony that the hill itself was a giant mound piled on top of the burial place of the last Mongol emperor to keep the Mongol's "qi," or energy, from returning, but it was also the place where the last Han Chinese emperor hung himself due to the uprising that brought on the Manchu dynasty.

Today, however, was, what I think, a far more intense cultural experience. Carey and some other students were going to this market called 潘家园 Pan Jia Yuan, and I decided if I stayed in I wasn't going to spend that much time studying anyway, so I went along. This was an AMAZINGLY HUGE outdoor market, seriously something right out of imperial China but with contemporary wares, off the third ring road (if I remember correctly). We just wandered around with one rule in mind: Everything is worth less than they tell you, and it must be haggled down. Since I had a cell phone, I actually ended up kind of wandering off on my own, and just started looking around. It was pretty funny how much stuff they had, from jewelry and pottery to switch-blade knives and comic books. Every stand wanted to get your attention, and if you were white they would exercise their English vocabulary to the fullest extent, which usually spans the phrases "SIR!" "HALLO!" "You like?" and maybe "SIR, YOU LOOK!" I think the only thing missing was "AISSUHWATERBEER!"

My first attempt at haggling was kind of unsuccessful, because I lowballed a little TOO low. I saw this really nice Chinese chess set, and this guy said it cost 900 kuai. I told him "I'll give you 50" and he replied "You're joking!" and then HE walked away. Oh well.

I did find that working the "poor student" angle, and showing that you have a good command of Chinese makes it easier to haggled. This woman wanted 100 kuai for a Chinese edition of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and I started flipping through it and reading passages out loud, which impressed her. But then I heard the price and started walking away, and she was like "How much can you give?" I told her "To tell you the truth, I don't have more than 30 kuai to give (a bald-faced lie)," and she was like "Okay, you're a student, I'll give it to you for that." Score.

I ended up in total getting myself that, these kind of old-looking picture-books that looked pretty cool to me, and I ended up getting for 80 kuai (which may sound expensive, but again, I'd probably get the same thing for no less than 10 USD anyway in America), and some things I actually bought with American money because some stands before asked me if the price I was offering was USD or RMB, and I figured if I could get stuff and not use up my RMB so quickly, whatever. However, the 20's I had with me were the latest ones with crazy colors colors and shiny bits on it, so I was glad my Chinese was good enough to explain why it was like that and where to look to see it's real. And yes, dad, I have enough left to use in airports on the way back, don't worry.

So yeah, I got myself and some others a few souvenirs already, and got a good chance at practicing my Chinese. Another funny incident: I was passing by this one guy who kept trying to get me to look at his stuff by whistling, so I just looked him in the eyes and said in Chinese "I'm NOT a dog!" and he just shut up. Waiguoren 1, Grungy market seller 0.