MU Honors Program: Student Blog

Hello everybody!

My name is Jared Sheehan and I am blogging to convince you that the Miami is the best school for you to go to (Luckily for you, it is.)! Currently, I am an Honors Business student with an undeclared major and two minors: Chinese and Geology. I am involved in the China Business Program, Green Oxford, Club Broomball, The Chinese-American Business Organization, the First Miami Student [run] Credit Union, and a member of the Scholar-Leader program here at Miami. I also enjoy working out, running, politics, reading, ice skating, and a good debate. Generally speaking, I am not the most politically correct individual, but for you, my audience and prospective students, I will try my best [sometimes]. Well, that's about the extent of my life at the present. I hope this introduction helped inform you a little bit about why I hold the opinions I do and why I act the way I act. If not, blog it me, baby!

The Story of the Summer - Week 6 and the flight home!

The last blog about China! I guess it means I must finally move onto another topic. Luckily I have some fun blogs about interviewing, traveling to L.A. this semester, vacationing in Costa Rica, and getting ready for Brazil! Fun times. Anyways, China, I loved you!

 

Tianjin Week #6

 

            This was our final week in China so we had to take final examinations. They ended up not being very hard and I got A’s in all my courses (yah!). I was also getting sick from my lack of sleep/continual partying in Sanya so I slept quite a bit on Monday and Tuesday. Thursday was my last day of classes so things got real wild from that point on. Then on Saturday I took the train to Beijing and flew out Sunday morning. Here are some interesting points though:

            I worked out in China as many weeks as I was there. For me this is a really small amount of time, but it was also difficult to get into a gym. What was cool in Tianjin was that we met a guy who loved America. Loved it! And he worked at a gym so he would take us there occasionally to work out. In the last week I was able to hit the gym three times and I think it definitely helped me not get too sick.

            We all knew we were leaving China soon so everything became, “we have to go buy this… it will be our last chance!” This meant we did a lot of things that I had done earlier, but with some finality in it. We did get to go to one last karaoke bar. This was really awesome. All American songs and everyone was having a good time. Eventually those of us who knew how to party made our way to a club, but everyone else went back. Twas a good night!

 

Beijing, Tokyo, Chicago, and Toledo???

 

            Saturday I took the train to Beijing. I went with my two of my friends. Knowing it was my Birthday on Sunday I really wanted to have my first legal (for U.S. standards) drink in my favorite Australian Bar in Beijing – Ned’s. I was given a house beer – Vb – and then had a Jack Daniel’s and Coke. What’s surprising is that I didn’t drink anything besides that. I guess I figured that I really had my twenty-first birthday three months early when I stepped off the plane in China. What I did do was stay up all night with my friend walking around Beijing so I could get my sleep schedule on track for the time change. This was definitely challenging without alcohol but we succeeded.

            I got on a plane Sunday morning and flew to Tokyo. I then had a 23-hour layover in Tokyo so the travel agency got me a hotel room. I walked into the room at 2 PM (Tokyo time), laid down, and slept until 5 AM the next morning. Yes, I realized that this means 14 hours of my 21^st birthday were spent sleeping. It was still a pretty interesting birthday though. I woke up was when an earthquake hit Tokyo and my hotel was literally swaying back and forth. Luckily, nothing broke.

            Monday morning I flew to Chicago. Because I slept fourteen hours the night before I didn’t sleep on the plane at all. This was a problem because I watched “17 Again” twice, and that movie does not deserve being watched once. Also, just to keep timing straight, I flew out of Tokyo at 11 AM Tokyo time (10 PM Sunday night E.S.T.) and arrived in Chicago at 9 AM Chicago time. I then had another small layover and we flew towards Cleveland.

            Well, a flash flood hit Cleveland and we had to divert… to Toledo. It was horrible. After fourteen hours on a plane the only thing I didn’t want to do was circle for an hour, sit at an airport, and wait to get back. But eventually the storm passed and we made it back safe and sound. I then met mom at the airport and went home.

 

In my final comments on China I would have to say two things: first, study abroad and get out of your comfort zone. This is one of the most important things in my entire life. I know a lot of people go to Western Europe here at Miami and, although that is studying abroad, I don’t think it gets you out of your shell. You know you are fully immersed in a life changing experience when you are finding you way in a foreign place, a foreign language, and no one speaks your native language at all. It makes on edge, nervous, and more alert than you have ever been in your life. It’s a rush like getting a tattoo or winning a championship.

            The second comment I would say about China is to watch out. I know it has been said again and again, but China is the country of tomorrow. They are dedicated, focused, ascetic, and intelligent. In an age where information is the most important commodity offered, China is slowly developing one of the largest supplies in the world. At the same time I am also pretty sure that the moment we all realize China has become a tour de force, America will also realize it cannot “speak softly and carry a big stick” because will no longer have that big stick. China will. And that might be the biggest culture shock America has ever seen; I hope it doesn’t start a war.

 

Well that’s all for now, I have finals starting somewhat soon so I may post one more blog before then, but probably not. For now, Zaijian and ate logo!

The Story of the Summer - Weeks 4 & 5

I recently just got back from a pretty interesting trip to Costa Rica and really want to put out some blogs about it, but first I wanted to finish up on China. So here are my final two blogs about the last three weeks in China and the trip back. Enjoy!

 

Tianjin Week #4

 

            My fourth week in Tianjin only had a couple very notable points. First, I finished my final paper for the first program I went on. This paper was a twenty-page discussion of environmental sustainability in China. This subject was challenging to write for two big reasons: first, there were a lot of distractions in China. I really had to force myself to write multiple times. Second, China has the Great Firewall that blocks many sensitive subjects. One such subject is sustainability. So I had to surf through a lot of proximity servers to try and finish this paper. It was a pain. But I did finish the paper and got an A- in the class, so I am okay with it.

            We experienced a rainstorm in China that was ridiculous. It rained for literally four hours straight and trapped us under a newspaper stand. What’s interesting is the Chinese draining systems do not exist. After ten minutes of rain the streets flood and shut down. Taxi services stop running, buses stop driving, and people just stop doing anything. When one adds together a lack of drainage system and fierce storm, you can image the mayhem it caused. We were at a Korean barbeque and literally couldn’t get back for hours. Eventually a very nice lady let us dry off in her apartment and then had her brother pick us up and take us home. It was so nice of her that the entire time we thought she was going to do something creepy like take us to some shady club. Luckily, she was just a really sweet lady, loved America, and everything turned out just fine!

 

Ji County

 

            The place we stayed was what is considered a one-star hotel in China. We slept in rooms of five beds, no showers, holes in the ground for toilets, and live animals running around. Because of this atmosphere everyone was down for some country living and we all went swimming in the river. Probably not the cleanest river, but you only live once!

            We went to a different section of the Great Wall the next morning. Again, it was incredible. This one was interesting because we were able to climb the wall and then hike into the mountains and actually scale a building that stood on top of the mountain. This put at the one of the beginning points of the great, so we got see a great stretch of the wall and where it begins. It was flippin’ amazing!

 

Tianjin Week #5

 

            This was a very abbreviated week because we left for Sanya on Wednesday. The one really notable part about this week was that our Chinese classes overlapped with another program the school offered to Korean kids. By kids I literally mean children. We had a kid in our class who was from Korea, spoke Chinese fluently, and spoke English well. It was infuriating. The kid was so much better than the rest of us at Chinese we had no idea why he was in our class. Luckily I befriended him early on and we were “peng you’s” for the last two weeks.

 

 

Sanya

 

            Sanya, oh Sanya! As I mentioned earlier I flew down to Sanya with four other people. Sanya is on the island Hainan and the southern most point of China. It is actually much closer to Vietnam than China, but it is still part of China. Sanya is notable for a couple different reasons. First, it was once a place that exiles went to avoid the Chinese government. So it is very loose in terms of legality. Second, the people there have a huge Russian influence. There were a bunch of Russian clubs, every sign had Russian on it, and there were Russian people everywhere. Thirdly, the natives are beautiful. Truly the most attractive I have ever seen in my life. Finally, There is a huge wealth disparity between the locals and the tourists. This is because Sanya is the Hawaii for Russians. Thus we were able to eat a whole meal for a dollar or two and we stayed in a hotel that was a five-star. Always interesting to see both sides of the coin.

            We flew out of Tianjin Wednesday evening and arrived in Sanya at 11 PM that same night. We then roamed around with our bags until we found an affordable place (it was only $6 a night) and got some chuar on the street. The chuar was obviously island influenced because we got mussels, crabs, oysters, and seaweed. They were AMAZING. I love chuar and especially the chuar in Sanya. The other really interesting food item that Sanya had was HUGE coconuts. They were the size of basketballs and one could be purchased for five kaui (70 cents). They would then chop some edges off and pop a straw in it for you. I couldn’t tell you how many of those I had. In fact, thinking about it makes me want one.

            The second day we woke up and went straight to the ocean. Swam for a while, got some breakfast and checked in at a five-star hotel (we wanted to rent it for just one night). It was a rainy day so we went for a walk and ended up in a little village in the middle of nowhere. This was the best choice of the trip. We sat down with the people there and just hung out. Not a single person spoke English so most of the time we were conversing entirely in Chinese. Since I was the best at Chinese there was a lot of translating to do. Luckily my one friend brought a pocket dictionary with him, so we could translate anything that we didn’t know.

            While we were hanging out in this village we got to meet our buddy Fu Ke. He really wanted an American name so we named him Frank, but we really wanted to name him F@$& because his name sounded almost exactly like it in Chinese (pronounced Foo-kuh). Well, meeting Fu Ke was interesting because he was our age and knew the island fairly well. Later that night we went out with him and he showed us some cool parties and such. It was interesting to spend the entire night out speaking in a different language.

            By far the coolest part of this little village, though, was our dinner. I got the crazy idea in my head that we could eat one of the many chickens running around the village so we asked them if we could. Then someone got the idea that we wanted to kill the chicken before eating it. So we did. All five of us played rock, paper, scissors to see who would get the chance to kill the chicken and my friend, Josh, won. It is an interesting experience to kill your meal, see it getting made, and then dining on it. At the same time it seems incredibly natural because you know the meat is fresh and you were butcher. If nothing else, I feel everyone who is a meat eater should try it at least once. It’s an experience.

            The second day in Sanya we went to one of the more populated beaches. There we met a bunch of interesting people. We met some people from Michigan State, France, Russia (of course), and some Chinese people. I also learned how to boogie board. It was really cool because we had HUGE waves so one could literally ride the wave for thirty seconds straight. This was also the first day the sun was bright, so we got the start of a tan. Double score!

            On the third day we went to a place called Yalong Hai (Yalong Bay). This place is an entire stretch of resorts. We didn’t want to pay for a room in this area so we just ‘misinformed’ the staff and told them we lived there. I am not sure how, but it worked and we got to hang out on the beach for five hours straight. The most amazing part of this day is that it was the nicest, hottest, and the beach we were on had the whitest sand imaginable. It was picturesque. Because one doesn’t really get real good sun from China (because of the smog) we all got really burnt from this one day. In fact I would say that my entire summer tan came from this one day at the beach.

            The final day in Sanya we decided to just walk. So we literally walked ten miles around Sanya seeing everything we could. This was cool because we got to shop some, see some sights, talk to people on the street, and try some cultural foods. It seems unimpressive to write about but it was just fun and relaxing after a whole weekend of wildness.           

            We didn’t sleep much in Sanya. I think in total I got eighteen hours of sleep from Wednesday until Sunday. This included our Saturday night where I slept eight hours. This is because we wanted to experience as much as we could. So we would stay up all night partying and then wake up at nine to hit the beach. On Friday we just didn’t go to sleep at all because the night just kept going until it was day. It was wild.

            I would have to say overall Sanya is one of the most vividly engrained images from China because I was with a great group of guys, we were forced to be self-sufficient, and we just did amazingly fun things. It was basically the cherry on the top of cake. This is why I write “Sanya, oh Sanya.” Incredible experience.

The Story of the Summer - Tianjin Weeks #2 & 3

Tianjin Week #2 & 3:

 

            After the first week things became a bit more routine. For instance we learned which places were cheap or expensive and we started doing a lot of activities outside of class including handball, street food, and biking around the town. This weekend was also one of the few that we all stayed in Tianjin because no one felt like leaving. So it really was a two-week stretch of classes, partying, soccer, studying, and writing for me. The next big event we had was our trip to Xi’an on Thursday, July 16^th. Until then I will describe some fun notes about living in Tianjin:

            Michael Jackson’s death was a big deal in China. One may not initially suspect that, but the truth is that the Chinese people love M.J. Especially in any club in China. I actually had the fortune of being in a bar that hosted a M.J. impersonator (who was incredible) shortly after his death. The funny part about the impersonator was that when I went up to the stage to chat with him, he didn’t speak a word of English – but could sing it beautifully.

            I have discussed chuar (food on a stick) before, but Tianjin really helped me grow to love chuar to its fullest extent. We went at least ten times to chuar places to eat chicken heart, lamb, pork, or fish. The stuff is not particularly sanitary (i.e. meat pulled out of a cooler and put directly on pieces of metal over coals) but it was delicious. One of the tastiest places we went to actually had mangy cats running around the floors. My incredibly inebriated friend decided it was a great idea to pick up the cat before eating his food. Luckily chuar is on a stick!

            We went to a 24-hour spa. The spa can only be described as an experience. We walked into this spa, striped off all our clothes hung out in a pool/hot tub area for an hour. That only is awkward. Especially when you are sitting next to both naked Americans and old, rich Chinese men. One quickly learns the phrase “averting of the eyes” in a situation like this. The other cool thing about this spa is that one (if they so desired) could get Australian massages, Korean, different Chinese ones, and cupping. Cupping is the art of putting a flammable substance in a glass mason jar and than igniting it before placing it on one’s back and leaving huge circular bruises. When I first heard of this practice I thought, “who would ever do such a thing?” Then my friend Eric tried it. His comment was, “Why would anyone want to do this more than once?” My response was, “Once?”

 

Xi’an:

 

            We had to wake up at 3:45 AM to get on a bus to Beijing and then fly from Beijing to Xi’an. This naturally necessitated us to spend another night up. The one saving grace of this was the fact that we got to sleep on the bus to the airport and on the flight to Xi’an. When we arrived in Xi’an we checked out a temple and then rode bikes on top of the city walls. We paid sixty kuai to rent tandems. So I went cruising with my friend Carl, shirtless, around the top of this wall. The best part about the bikes, though, was that they were antiquated. Our bikes back tire went flat in the first mile and we rode on it for another mile until we reached another bike station. Imagine trying to pedal a tandem with a flat tire on a bumpy stone wall – it was excruciatingly painful to be a man. Luckily we got the bike fixed and kept cruisin’.

            On our full day in Xi’an we went to see the infamous Terra Cotta Warriors. For me the whole exhibit looked distinctly like some G.I. Joe battles I have set up, which meant I thought it was awesome! As we toured the area we got to see the farmer who found the warriors and a video detailing the scene. What was saddening about the video was the fact that it was in English with Chinese subtitles. Whenever one sees a part of China that caters so strongly to foreigners it can only mean two things: one, it’s a tourist trap and so vastly overpriced. Two, it lacks true Chinese identity because they replace their own language with English. I wonder how the native Chinese people feel when they go to these exhibits and think “They don’t even have the video in Chinese in China.” I know if that happened in America we would be furious.

 

Beijing Again!

 

            We flew in from Xi’an to Beijing at eleven PM. So our options were to take a bus back to Tianjin or stay in Beijing for the night and catch the early train in. Of course the four fun loving gentlemen (The Mustache Brothers, Dave, and myself) all decided to stay the night in Beijing. This evening was a great one. We walked all over Beijing, went into some demolished areas, saw a bunch of embassies, and hung out in some really cool roof top bars. We then caught the six-thirty train in the morning and slept until two that afternoon. The funniest part about the situation was that something happened with the bus so that all the people who rode it back didn’t get in until almost four in the morning. Thus they missed a night of fun and had to sit on a bus for hours. Victory for me!

 

Well it looks like I am starting to run long again so I better end by saying that I only have got a couple blogs left before I have to talk about something besides China! Then again it is almost the end of the semester which means Brazil! After finishing the blogs on China I will discuss what it takes to get ready to go abroad and what I am doing for Brazil! Much fun and expect that in a couple weeks. Until then, zaijian!

The Story of the Summer - Week 1 in Tianjin and Beijing again!

Well, I was supposed to fly out to Los Angeles today for Halloween in West Hollywood and more interviews but the flu has kept me in good old Oxford, Ohio. So it seems I have time to post a double blog this week. Also, since I will be flying out Tuesday for L.A. it seems like a good idea to get two weeks done now. So this blog I will take up where the last blog left off and start with week one and Beijing. To keep things in logical order I will go week-by-week and event-by-event. That should hopefully make sense, but if it doesn’t I am always willing to elaborate. And with that, Tianjin:

Tianjin week #1:

 

My first week in Tianjin was actually a week and a day because I arrived on Thursday the 26^th. It was cool because I got into Tianjin about two days before everyone except my good friend Nate. Nate had been in China a week earlier and spoke Chinese really well. Well, we became fast friends over the Chinese language, cards, and his introduction to a small international bar called Ali Babi’s. And this is how I spent my first three days; I hung out, ate some Chinese food, wrote an essay for the other program I had finished, and slept. It was glorious! People starting arriving on Saturday the June 27^th, but most weren’t really acclimated until Sunday. That’s when the fun started!

We didn’t have class until Wednesday because of a fear for swine flu. In China, they do not mess around with swine flu. I had a friend whose parents actually were quarantined for their entire stay in China because they sat behind someone who had it. This, I believe is because of the outbreak of SARS some years back. Since then the government’s approach has been ferocious – expect the worst.

What’s great is that this enabled us to explore the areas around town that stay open later and offer one beverages of choice. One particularly good establishment was the aforementioned Ali Baba’s. Here we would go before we went to other clubs because you could buy a beer for 8 kuai ($1.10) and an ENTIRE bottle of Ante Vodka for 38 Kuai ($4.80). You could also get a grilled cheese sandwich (literally translated as “American-style bread”) or garlic bread. All of these things afforded college students great entertainment!

Well, when classes did finally start it was always a challenge to wake up in the mornings at 8:30 and especially to sit through four hours of classes everyday. The cool thing about the classes was that one always had breakfast beforehand and you could also buy sweet tea (caffeine) or ice cream (sugar) between classes. These became efficient tools to keep ones interest focused. At the same time the classes were incredibly challenging because they were literally all in Chinese. The teachers would only speak in English if we really couldn’t understand anything. And even then, most of the teachers couldn’t explain themselves appropriately. This, coupled with my experience with the Chinese family, truly made a huge difference with my Chinese speaking ability. So it was both a pain and a great benefit!

The first Wednesday we were in China we went to go check out the city and the Tianjin National Museum. This was really cool. We took a boat tour down the river on one of those beautifully clear days that rarely happens in China and then saw Mao ZeDong’s Communist Uniform. One interesting aspect about the trip was that one display that really stood out in the museum was a jade cabbage. Yes, you read that right. It was a cabbage made of jade. I had to take a photo.

 

Beijing Again:

 

On Friday we drove to Beijing (which took three hours on a bus) to see some of the touristy sites. There are couple interesting points to this Beijing trip. First, this was my first true all nighter of my life. We literally partied until people woke up too get on a bus at seven in the morning. Probably not the best choice for my health, but I survived! We also got to visit the Ming tomb and a different section of the Great Wall. There I was able to get some cool engravings of the Great Wall for like four dollars a piece. I also lost my Chinese cell phone in Beijing because it fell out of my pocket in cab.

Probably the most interesting story of Beijing this time was the day that the Mustache Brothers and I met my friend who lives in Beijing and went back to Wang Fu Jin. Because we had already seen the Forbidden Palace and Summer Palace Josh, Montana, and I took a free day that consisted of errands, getting a hotel, and trying beetle. It was hilarious (and there is actually a video on Facebook about it). We tried scorpion (again), beetle, starfish, octopus, and smoking tea (they dropped dry ice in tea). All these delicacies were scrumptious in their own way. The beetle specifically had the unique sensation of a lower abdomen that squirted something suspiciously like beetle-poop into your mouth when you bit in. Mmmmmm!

Well, we took the fast train back and studying all Sunday night. This completed our first week in Tianjin. Next blog I will condense weeks two and three (because not much happened in weeks two) and then my trip to Xi’an and another fun night in Beijing. Zaaaiiiiijian!

The Story of the Summer - My trip to Tianjin and setup for the last six weeks.

This week I am going to give an a discussion of my harrowing journey to Tianjin (from Beijing) and a little background on the town that I spent my last six weeks in China in. This will set up for a week by week discussion of what I did in Tianjin, where I went while staying there, and some of the interesting things I did.

I was in Beijing until Thursday (June 25^th) and then my friend Dan flew back with his family to Meiguo (America – or literally translated “beautiful country”). My trip to Tianjin could best be described as “cumbersome.” This is based on a couple factors. First, my friends that I stayed with in Beijing were both going back to America and had a bunch of stuff to leave. This meant that I received a bunch of free stuff to make my Tianjin stay better. This also meant that on my trip to Tianjin I had to carry a bag with speakers in it, a suit bag, a very heavy book bag, a very heavy laptop bag, and finally the $14 large suitcase I bought on my first trip in Beijing. The second problem was the $14 suitcase. There was a reason it cost $14. I was picking it up over a curb in Shanghai and the wheel broke off, then the side handles fell off on their own accord, and finally the top handle broke off on my way to Tianjin. This meant that I literally had to drag the case on it bottom plastic and whenever I had to pick it up, I got to use the extendable handle that is only meant for dragging. Yet somehow that same piece of luggage survived all the way back to my house, where it collapsed like the Blues Mobile.

So I took my cumbersome load and bought a slow train ticket for 11 kuai – yes you read that right – 11 kuai ($1.70). The fun part about the slow train is that all the Chinese have no idea why a westerner would ride the train because the fast train is only 60 kaui and takes a fifth the time. I did it for the experience. What and experience it was! Lugging all my bags onto the train was a job by itself. Add on the fact that because the slow train has no foreigners riding it, the Chinese government doesn’t put in ANY ESCALATORS ANYWHERE. So I literally carried a 50 lbs bag, a book bag, a laptop bag, a suit bag, and a bag holding speakers up 8 flights of concrete stairs. I looked like the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow, but drenched in sweat because it was 90 degrees outside.

I haphazardly made it to Tianjin only because I met a girl on the train who told me where my stop was and then helped carry some of my bags across more flights of stairs (and got me a cab). The one part of this experience I will take credit for is the fact that we only spoke Chinese to one another. Thus I made it to the university partially by luck and partially from my newly learned Chinese skills. I then drug (literally) my bags into my room and lay down. My only comment was “I need to throw that piece-of-s$%& bag away before I go back.”

 

Tianjin

 

During my stay in Tianjin I was able to travel back to Beijing a couple different times, over to Xi’an, to a small farming village, back to the Great Wall and flew down to the southerly island of Hainan. Finally I flew home August 9^th and 10^th. So, yes… I turned 21 as I came back to the United States. Score!

Let me first describe Tianjin a little bit. Germans once owned Tianjin (or ran it at least), so it is pretty international. This is not to say it is comparable to Beijing, but it is definitely more international than say… 80% of other places in China. What is interesting about Tianjin is that it is incredibly safe, very inexpensive, employs a lot of expatriates, and is known in China as a sleepy city. All of these factors work out beautifully for rambunctious college students. We did whatever we wanted to do in Tianjin. The businesses and vendors actually put out welcome signs for us! All of this is pretty cool because it allows one to live like a Rock Star, while paying the price of a pauper. That can also be a bad thing because you feel like you are living on monopoly money sometimes, so one becomes looser with their money. This is why I came back with an entire suitcase of souvenirs for people – You go shopping crazy!

A lot of expatriates also work in Tianjin because Tianjin has quite a few internationally focused schools as well as language schools. Actually knowing American English is probably the best skill (besides knowledge of Mandarin) one can have in China. This is because every Chinese student must pass an English portion of his or her high school “final” equivalent. So there are a lot of higher education institutes that continue teaching English – specifically American English because it is considered “business English.” So, while I was in Tianjin I was literally propositioned to work as both a bartender and as an English teacher.

Well, now that I explained a little about Tianjin let me explain the group I lived with. There were approximately forty-five students on the trip – fortyish from Florida State University and five from Miami University. I will never forget the Floridians. I love them and we had a blast. Specifically I want to discuss a couple people that I will bring up a lot.

Josh and Montana were brothers (one was a junior the other had just graduated college) that knew how to party. These two boys were affectionately known as the “Mustache Brothers” because of their insane ability to grow full beards and mustaches. In fact, the entire trip Montana kept a handlebar mustache while Josh generally kept a Fu-Man-Chu. The brothers also accompanied me on my trip to Sanya (in Hainan).

Dave and Eric were roommates who also became very good friends of mine. Dave looked like a bit like a typical Miami surfer, except he didn’t surf and was from Minnesota originally. Eric was shorter, dark haired, and quieter. Eric originally came from Philadelphia (Go Cliff Lee and the Phillies!!) and was the craziest person on the trip in his own quiet way. These two also accompanied me to Sanya. Thus we had five for our fateful trip. Everyone else I will probably mention, but I specifically hung out with these individuals a lot.

 

Well, I don’t know how I did it but it seems another blog is already up! Gosh, I try not to make these two long yet I can only discuss a few things if I do it this way. Well, from here on I am going to Discuss Week 1 and Beijing, week two and three and Xi’an, week four and Ji County, week five and Sanya, and my final week and the trip home. This means I have about five blogs left before I complete my summer discussion. This should work out well because that will be about the time of finals then winter break! Well, until next week. Zaijian!

The Story of the Summer: Yangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing (again)

Well Hello again! I am actually writing to you today from Los Angeles (I am out there for job interviews). When I last left off I was in Nantong. So no confusion ensues, between the period of June 10^th and 20^th I was living with a Chinese family, then I stayed a night in Yangzhou, then Shanghai, and finally went to Beijing until the 26^th to stay with a friend of mine. From there I took a train to Tianjin where I have been studying. I will discuss these three stages post Nantong In this blog.

 

Yangzhou:

 

My last day in Nantong my friend Terry and I took a train to Yangzhou. It was about four hours away and cost 50 kuai (8 dollars), but the experience was pretty crazy overall. The train ride was eight people jammed into the bottom set of triple-decker sleeper cars while Terry and I held our bags and chatted. Meanwhile the other Chinese people, you guessed it, stared at me! When we got to Yangzhou we met Terry’s friend and grabbed some food that cost 17 kuai ($2.40) for all three of us. Then we went to a pretty famous garden park, Ge Yuan, and then to a hostel. The hostel was actually pretty awesome because Terry and I shared a double room, with air conditioning, for $6 each. The next morning we took a train back to Nantong and then I took a bus ride to Shanghai. But first, some interesting points:

-       “Yanhua sanyue xia yangzhou” is an ancient saying in China meaning that in March you should come to Yangzhou for the hot prostitutes. Yangzhou was actually an ancient prostitution center and I think one could tell it pretty well from hanging out their for a while – very Chinese, a little trashy, with some highlights of intense beauty. For instance Ge Yuan Park was beautiful, but the area around it was scary, dirty, and disgusting. A little beauty and the beast!

-       Knock off goods are awesome. I bought a couple shirts in Yangzhou that cost me like 20 kuai ($2.50) each and are “Ape” shirts. For those unfamiliar there is a Japanese apparel company known as “Bape” and their clothes go for around $150 per piece. Yah China! But I will say the only knock off item one should NEVER buy is electronic equipment. First, if you buy actual U.S. quality products it costs twice the U.S. price in China and if it’s not a true U.S. product, it doesn’t work. Believe me.

-       Chinese schools graduate later than U.S. schools. This means they have longer class days and a longer schedule (I believe 18 weeks compared to 16 per semester). We were in Yangzhou for the graduation day and it was pretty cool. We talked to some of the students and found out a good place to grab some food before we took the train back. I had some baozi (round dumplings) for breakfast and some hot tea in 90-degree weather. There really is nothing like sweating for breakfast!

-       The train ride back was one of the most interesting conversations I have ever had. My friend and I had a heart-to-heart conversation that was incredible. I will not divulge all the information in the conversation for my friend’s sake (and because the Chinese government might never let me back into the country if I say it). But let me say it had to do with social welfare, taxes, housing prices, and sexual repression. If you ever see me in person, I will further elaborate.

 

Shanghai (reloaded):

 

As soon as I got back to Nantong, my friend took me to KFC (which is way more delicious in China than in the U.S.) and then to the bus station so I could take a bus to Shanghai. The reason I wanted to go back to Shanghai was because it was a friend of mine’s 25^th birthday and I said I would come to party – and her and all her friends were gorgeous Shanghainese girls. But that DID NOT seriously affect my decision to attend. Believe me?

The bus experience is a fun one. Imagine, I am the only white person on the bus and I am carrying a couple suits, 3 suitcases, and a long painting case. I must have looked like the stay-puffed marshmallow man! Once on the bus I was able to watch (read the characters for) a terrible Jackie Chan movie (The Medallion) that cut out halfway through. But probably the most interesting part about riding this bus was that it would stop on the side of road to pick up random wanderers, who would then pay the driver a little and he would drive them for a while. The driver would then drop off the wanderers somewhere before the bus station so as not to get caught transporting non-payers. Oh, the entrepreneurialism of China!

Once in Shanghai I got my first experience with the dreaded “black cab.” These boys are the cabs not sanctified by the government and thus extort as much money from people as possible. I knew I was getting into it, but I was lost and carrying a ton of bags. So a “friendly” lady helped carry my bags to a shady alley with a shady dude waiting there. They then told me I had to pay 80 kuai for the cab (approximately 11 USD) and another 10 kuai for the friendly lady’s services. Ouch! I found out on the ride back to the bus station that the cab fare should have been 23 kuai.

So I went to my hotel dropped off my things and finally made it out to Osteria (the place of party) and met with everyone. The coolest part about the party was that I hung out with a bunch of people, all of whom live in Shanghai. Thus this was not only fun but also great to develop new contacts! Some of the people I met spoke fluent Chinese, others not at all, but I noticed most were from New Zealand or Australia. Thus it was a nice blend of countries and languages – though mostly Chinglish.

Although I would like to not mention it is humorous to know that the night ended up me being boyfriend comforter to one of the Shanghainese girls ‘til about 3:00 AM. But then again her friend took me to the train station the next day, which was awesome! Nonetheless, not exactly the end of the night I had assumed but so is life! And from the occurrence I gained a new friend in Shanghai!

 

Beijing – again!

 

Well I left Sunday morning from Shanghai on the fast train to Beijing. The normal train takes about 24 hours, but the fast train takes 9 hours and only costs about 220 kuai (45 USD). So I grabbed all my bags and hopped on a train to Beijing. When I got there I used my newly purchased cell phone to get in touch with my friend, met up and went back to his apartment. Well, kind of. I actually called his cell phone and his mom picked up – who was in a nameless hotel somewhere in Beijing because someone on their flight had Swine Flu – and then she called Dan, my friend, via skype and then he called me. Luckily it worked out for me, but the sad part is that Dan’s parents were in China for 9 days and 7 of them were spent in quarantine… darn that Chinese government! Needless to say, they now hate China.

So here I was back in Beijing, hanging out in another non air-conditioned sweatbox. The major positive to this abode was that I was with English speakers who could also speak Chinese so I could both learn some Chinese and speak my native language – it’s the best of both worlds!

 

Interesting points:

-       Chao Mian or fried noodles are actually hard to find in China. But there was a great place to find them in Beijing and they only cost 6 kuai. Booyah!

-       If you get the chance to live with someone abroad for a short time make sure their trip is ending while yours’ is still going strong. Dan and his roommate, Dennis, gave me hangers, shampoo, speakers, a towel, and shower flippers all because they didn’t have room on the way back to the U.S. of A.

-       Not really that interesting but I finished all my external reports for my first program. This then only left my 20-page research paper – which I would not start until Tianjin and turn in the day before my extension expired.

-       BEIJING ZOO! This place was awesome. AWESOME. We saw pandas, Rhinos, Penguins, Lions, tigers, and bears – oh my! Really cool place that Dan and I went to for like 20 kuai. Probably the funniest part about it was that this beautifully scenic park allowed people to smoke anywhere and actually sold cigarettes there. Finally, we had a “hot dog” in the zoo that was oddly sweet tasting – the Chinese have an odd perception of American classics.

 

Well, from there I had a hilarious ride to Tianjin to start my final program. But I will let that start the next blog. This is because it is too (quoting my law professor, Dr. Herron) “Delicious!” to end a blog with. From the beautiful weather of West Hollywood, Zaijian.

 

Ni hao!! Keeping with last blog I will round out my discussion of Nantong in this blog by describing some of the amazing activities I experienced and some of the lessons I learned. These aren’t really ordered in any specific way, though I tried to get rid of as many anachronisms as I could. Enjoy!

 

Nantong – Experiences:

 

In the U.S. karaoke is usually only performed on a stage and served with copious amounts of alcohol. In China there is no stage, there is only alcohol sometimes, and it is taken way too seriously for my taste. Because of the ridiculous mugginess of Nantong during the day, a couple friends of Terry and I went to sing karaoke. So I assumed this meant day drinking and an early night. Oh how wrong I was. We instead sat in a little room, drank cold tea, and sang song after song after song. Now I am not a particularly good singer and the Chinese naturally are better singers because they have to use tones just to speak their language (or at least that’s what I am telling myself). So to appropriately show my karaoke experience I will use a simple mathematical equation:

Poor Jared singing + Good Chinese singing * by the importance of Kareoke = the intense degree of humor derided from my singing

I will say I rocked out Bon Jovi though – at least someone famous has as bad a voice as I do.

All of Terry’s friends (and anyone my age in China) have some basic knowledge of English. This was nice because my Chinese (especially when I first got to Nantong) was horrific. This meant we could have pretty good conversations on life and differences between people in China and the U.S in Chinglish. These conversations led me to an interesting breakfast of duck blood soup (which was delicious), the Nantong Museum (I saw like ten different Chinese herbal medicines), and to some interesting bars (I actually went to a Chinese gay bar – which I thought didn’t exist). Throughout this experience I learned some of the trials and tribulations of the Chinese students, what they thought on life in China, and their perceptions of the U.S. and its’ citizens. It was like a beautifully emic view of Chinese culture.

Sleeping in Nantong was an experience as well. There was no such thing as air conditioning anywhere in Nantong. So their solution was to sleep on a bamboo mat because “that keeps you cool.” HA! I say. There was not a single morning that I didn’t wake up sweating and cursing the Chinese people yelling outside my window. At the same time it was pretty cool waking up to the Chinese morning streets buzzing.

It was entirely acceptable for the Chinese to stare at me like I were naked anywhere I went in China and especially in Nantong, but one little glance at a married woman actually got some guys to throw a couple curse words at me. Terry explained this to me as a matter of curiosity and pride. The Chinese are infinitely curious at seeing a “xiao bai” (young white-skinned person), but one look from me at their wife meant that I thought she was attractive and I desired her. This almost got me into trouble a couple times. So much for mutual ogling!

One morning Terry’s parents woke him and me up at 6 AM to drive to the ocean. I thought this meant beaches, bathing suits, and sun…oh how I was wrong. We took a nice long two-hour drive into the middle of nowhere – also known as Zhudong County. From there we got on the back of a “toulaji,” which has no direct English translation but is a cart that is pulled by backhoe tires and a 2-stroke Rota tiller engine. This took us out into the Pacific Ocean…literally. The area was being built to form a new seaport so the ocean was being pushed by a series of dams and we were literally able to walk on to the ocean floor. It was incredible. We picked mouli (snails) of the ocean floor, stood on a buoy with the Chinese flag waiving, and found oysters with my feet in the mud. At least I got some sun!

Another day we went to the Tianling Chansi or Tianling Buddhist Temple. Earlier in my travel logs I complained about temples, but that was because I was yet to experience a REAL temple and perform REAL prayer rituals. It was really interesting. We walked in, talked to Terry’s Shifu (master) and burned incense while walking to different areas of the temple praying. I walked through an area of the locals chatting after their prayers and got the most viperous looks I have ever got in my life. I guess they thought it blasphemous for an outsider to carry out the customs. As my anthropology teacher says, “There are cultural norms in every society!”

I bought a cell phone in Nantong. There are two classes of cell phones here: the normal ones and the Shen-zheye ones. The initial are really expensive in China and made for their image. The second class of phones are for everyone else and hilarious to find. For instance I had the opportunity to buy a flip Apple phone and an Adidas phone. I was also able to buy a Nckia (not Nokia) and a phone from 1989 (were cell phones even around then?). I ended up buying a phone and sim card for $20 USD that was an Anycall phone with $60 Yuan on it. What’s interesting though is that in China it is cheaper to text than call people (.10 yuan compared to .12 yuan) and all cell phones in China are localized. This means you have to buy a new SIM card at each new city you go to. This was frustrating, but it was more frustrating when I lost my cell phone in Beijing on my final trip. Boo!

The same day I went to the ocean I went to Terry’s Uncle’s place in another nameless city (Juegeng). Terry and I wanted to go drive with me on a dianpingchou (electric scooter) and we ended up at his grandfather’s house. Now imagine the most stereotypical old time Chinese farmer. That was exactly the scene I saw as Terry’s grandfather walked out of his rice field. It was incredible. He walks out of the rice field in a dress shirt sowed multiple times, drops off his pitchfork, and gives Terry a hug. We then asked him if he wanted to come eat with us at dinner and he cordially accepted. What’s really interesting about this old man is that he doesn’t speak any Mandarin. In fact he only spoke the local dialect – thus I affectively had no possible communications with him. He was also a shifu (master) at a game that has no English name; it is also not played anywhere outside of Juegeng. So of course I bought a pack for 1 kuai (20 cents).            

My final days in Nantong consisted of a trip to Yangzhou and then a train ride back to Shanghai for a birthday party of a friend. This will be the start of my next blood, which will describe my movement to Yangzhou, then to Shanghai, up to Beijing, and finally over to Tianjin.

A final note about Nantong: this is the period where I really started speaking Chinese because it was when I could actually hear Chinese natives speak the language, had to try and listen and respond, and expand my vocabulary rapidly. I would say in this ten-day period I probably learned as much about the Chinese language and culture as I did in my entire two years of Chinese classes. This points to the difficulties of the language and the rapid progress one makes when living in the environment. If I could make one recommendation for anyone desiring to study abroad (and especially if you are adventurous) DO A HOMESTAY. It will change your life.

 

Until Next week, zaijian!

The Story of the Summer - Nantong Dining

 

Hello! Hello! Welcome back for another addition of my China summer experience. This week I am going to partially discuss my time spent in Nantong and then finish it sometime later this week. This is because it is quite extensive! I also have a lot to do this week and then my weekend starts Thursday when I fly to Virginia Beach for my cousins wedding, yah! Without further ado, Nantong:

 

Nantong:

 

The second night I was with Terry’s family (remember the first we were still in Shanghai) we went to dinner and then drove to Nantong. Nantong is a place that has two people of western descent, me and some other creepy looking guy on a bike. It is also really hot and muggy so one must shower twice a day. What is awesome about Nantong is that because it is not a very well known Chinese city there are a lot of very Chinese things to do, and very few western things to do. This was awesome for me. Some notable points are the Museum, local food, the night markets, group dinners, and family life in China. But let me start with food and dining with a Chinese family and then next blog I will move onto other aspects of Nantong:

 

Dining Habits and Customs:

 

What is scaring and yet surprisingly fulfilling about Chinese families is their luncheons and dinners. Imagine sitting at the head of a table with between 5-8 Chinese people rocking out Shanghainese/Mandarin Chinese at 100 miles per minute (excuse me: km/minute) and pointing at you saying “chi le chi le” (Eat more). Needless to say my face is hidden in my bowl pounding the different foods while they ask me how I got so good at using chopsticks. But that’s only half of it. The other side is wonderful. I got to eat some delicious homemade food. I had baby lobster dipped in vinegar sauce, a lot of jellyfish, some pig lung and stomach, about 5 different kinds of mushrooms, and about 20 different kinds of tofu. All these foods are incredibly tasty and fairly healthy. You just need the right sauce and texture.

Food in China was very satisfactory as long as one is open to it. You eat a lot of spicy things because you are only considered a man if you like spicy food. You also get a lot of fish and other assorted seafood because it is considered main dish material. This is both a blessing and a curse because when it arrives at the table the family swarms around it, yet they also force you to eat the first piece because you are the honored guest. This is problematic because the fish are never de-boned. I have actually gotten kind of good at slowly pulling meat away from the bone without bringing too many stragglers with me. Still it slows down the eating process considerably.

The next interesting aspect of eating in China is that they believe the more difficult it is to eat a dish, the better the dish. This is the same sort of argument someone makes when they get a diet coke and a Big Mac – to cut calories. I am not exactly sure why they believe this, but it brings me to an important eating tip: never bite hard into anything. ANYTHING. Just when you think you have a nice piece of meat or fruit or candy and you chomp into it, your mouth cracks down on a large piece of reality… and it hurts real bad!

Another fun dining example is what is considered culturally acceptable. Normally in China your dining habits can model those of a five-year-old (slurping, spitting, picking, etc), but then there are fancy affairs. In these shindigs one is allowed to slurp and spit out bones and things, but not pick things out of your mouth. And when you do spit things out it has to be behind your bowl so it is not offensive. You are also supposed to regularly toast the host and other guests to show your gratitude of their company. When you toast, if you are younger or in some way a lesser person your glass is supposed to be lower than theirs is in the toast. Finally, when you do toast someone (I found this one out the hard way) you are supposed to stand, clink glasses, and drink until they are done and then sit down only after them. If you hadn’t guessed, I accidentally sat down first and made the ENTIRE table erupt in laughter.

Another interesting aspect of Chinese culture is that the elders must pay for a meal and you must accept a meal if you want to stay friends. The first is awesome because I haven’t had to pay for meal and it is rude to even offer and the second is cool because I eat all the time. This is because it is considered customary for youth to respect their elders while the elders are expected to care for the youth – sound familiar? It should! I feel that is an example of a cultural norm we understand in the U.S. except taken to the next level!

Now, I am Irish. Thus I take some pride in my ability to have some tolerance in alcohol consumption. Yet there is a dangerous custom in China that stems from the desire for Chinese hosts to try and satisfy their guests. This means offering delicious (and large amounts) of both food and drink. It is also rude to refuse things unless having a good reason to. So I didn’t realize that when the Chinese decided to toast me (or vice-versa) on every toast is was because they wanted to fulfill my desire to drink. Thus one night I drank a copious amount of high quality “baijiu” and had some terrible headaches the next day.

I had the opportunity to go into the country with Terry’s family and while we were there we went to a traditional coastal family meal. Now the first thing that study abroad programs warn Americans is to NOT EAT RAW SEAFOOD in China. But how could I refuse the family I was living with? So I didn’t. Well as it turns out, the Chinese realize that raw seafood is incredibly dangerous. Does this deter them? Hah! Their solution is to drink the raucous drink of 70% alcohol per volume “baijiu” I aforementioned to kill the bacteria. Whether this works or I may never know, but I do know that it makes for a fun lunch experience!

 

Well, this concludes the fun dining experiences I had in Nantong with a Chinese host family. Next blog will be about some of the incredibly Chinese experiences I had! But first, I have to finish this accounting homework… boo!

The Story of the Summer - Hangzhou and Shanghai

Hello again! In the spirit of keeping things simple this week, I am discussing from where I left off (Tongli) and going until I left Shanghai a couple weeks later. For historical reference, this period encompasses the last two weeks of my first trip (The Far East Program) and begins into my home stay with my friend’s family. Enjoy:

 

Hangzhou:

I actually went to Shanghai for two days before going to Hangzhou, but I will clump Shanghai into one section because it makes more logical sense. Hangzhou is one of the richest areas in China (located in the Jiangsu Province) and it shows. There were Ferrari and Mercedez-Benz places all over. Also the Head of a Foreign State was staying there, but we weren’t allowed to know who it was – suspected to be the President of Thailand. While in Hangzhou we did some stereotypical things and did some pretty exciting culturally stuff. There was a boat ride on the lake (Hangzhou Hu), the Zhang Yimou light show (he was the guy who put on the Olympics), and some consumption of tea! Overall Hangzhou was really cool, but it was also incredibly Americanized because it is a resort city.

 

Interesting Points:

-       The Romance of the Song Dynasty was a singing/dancing extravaganza we went to that I fell asleep during, but the outside festival was awesome! We had peanut butter cookies (this is a loosely used term) and played ancient Chinese games (Crossbow, longbow, throwing knives, etc.). There was also a pool with moving steps winding across them that one could pay to try and run along. If there was a misstep, then – Boom! Into the water. It was fun to watch people get owned. N00bs.

-       The Emporer’s Longjin Green Tea plantations were amazing. We got there, toured the facilities, and then were led into a special room where we learned how to correctly pour and drink green tea and got to drink some of the world’s best! Loaded with tons of different green plants and know how on tea making and drinking, this was really cool. One interesting point about drinking tea is that one is not supposed to boil the water because it kills the healthy aspects of green tea; in fact, the closer to lukewarm the healthier green tea is for you.

-       Street vendors that sell food at 2 AM are both a godsend and a nightmare for the carousing traveler. In Hangzhou I dined on seahorse, lamb, and seaweed all after one AM. The food was great but incredibly spicy. I also got lucky with the food. My one other friend ordered over easy eggs. The next day I woke up and was fine, but he was hanging around the porcelain God. It’s all about luck I suppose.

 

Shanghai:

So as not to get ahead of myself let me give some chronological consistency. I first went to Shanghai for 3 days before Hangzhou (approximately June 2-4) and then went back between the 7^th and the 11^th. On the 11^th everyone else on the trip left for Hawaii, while I was picked up by my friend Terry’s Auntie and driven to an apartment by Tongqin University – which is still in Shanghai. Then the next day at about 8:30 PM we drove from Shanghai to Nantong – about an hour and a half drive. Let me present the marvelous Shanghai:

 

Shanghai is an amazing city. It is similar to NYC except bigger, cheaper, and dirtier. Overall my experience in Shanghai was awesome. The first day there we went to a suit maker shop and looked around for tailor made suits. I wasn’t planning on buying a suit, but I found that I could buy 2 suits and 2 tailor made dress shirts with my name embroidered on the sleeves for 940 Yuan (138 USD). So I got a black and a blue pinstriped suit and matching shirts. And I am using them for interviews here soon. What better way to discuss China than by saying, “Oh yes!  I just got back; see this suit is tailor made from China!”

 

Besides suit buying I was able to see Shanghai from a traveler’s view, a students view, and from a local perspective.

 

First, from a traveler’s perspective I was able to see the downtown (Laijizui) district where the Shanghai monument is, where the Expo is going to be, and where I got to see some interesting business sights. I also went to the Bund. This is the bar district, where I got to go to Club 18 (one of the most expensive bars in Shanghai) and Babyface – another high class chain of bars. I will not tell how much drinks were at these places because my mother will probably strangle me through the Internet after reading it ($11 dollar drinks). Whether it is the business scene or the bar scene, the most noticeable aspect of Shanghai is that it is incredibly western. You really feel that is New York City that without native English – or at least fewer.

 

Second, from a student’s perspective I was able to go check out some local businesses (GE Research center, Nu Skin, and Pacific Star Logistics) as well as study for an exam. The exam ended up being much easier than anyone expected and so the hours of cramming we all did seemed silly afterwards, but we all spent a lot of time getting ready for the darn thing. C’est la vie!

 

Finally, Shanghai from a local perspective is by far the coolest aspect. As aforementioned, after everyone else flew to Hawaii I was picked up by my friend Terry’s aunt and taken to her apartment. I then met Terry’s Mother, cousin (who he calls sister because they are all single children) and their dogs Xiao Bai (Little White) and Bai Jin Jin (Shiny White) who rival my own dog – sorry Vera – in cuteness. They are “Guibings,” which I found out means they are poodles. After we got settled at his Aunt’s we went out to see different parts of the city, ate at a Japanese restaurant, and generally checked out the city.

 

The first noticeable thing about living with Terry’s family is that language barriers are the best way to learn a new language. Terry is the only one who can speak strong English in his family and thus my first day with them was horrifying for me. I actually felt homesick because I couldn’t communicate with them. There is a local dialect term “huichi” that roughly translates into “it sucks.” And it did. But the first night was definitely the worst because I didn’t want to try Chinese because my pronunciation was so bad and their conversation was incredibly fast.

 

After my initial shock I decided that I was either going to swim or die trying. So I started bringing a notebook with me everywhere and writing down every word I could learn from them. In 4 days I filled four pages of this notebook and learned probably a hundred new words. This means that within 4 days I learned approximately 1/6 of everything I learned at Miami in two years of Chinese. Yep, read that again and you will understand why I was scared out of my wits initially.

 

So anyways, the first night we went out to eat with Auntie’s husband, Auntie, Mama, Jiejie, Terry, Meimei, and myself. There I got to have some more duck tongue (we actually pulled the tongue from the jaw on this one), spicy tofu, chicken guts, and jellyfish. Then we came back and out to some bars in the international district. This wasn’t particularly exciting and it took a solid hour to drive there, but it was fun to hang out and chat with Terry’s family. From all the language struggles my head hurt, and I slept like a baby that night.

 

The second day I was able to wake up whenever I wanted (which meant I woke at 7:15 and forced myself back to sleep til 8:15 – yeah, lame I know) and got to dictate what I wanted to do. Since I had no idea what to do in Shanghai, I told them “surprise me!” I was first taken to the old town, where I went to a shady little shop and got to buy some Cubans for dirt-cheap and I got to try some Buba Naicha (Bubble milk tea).

 

From there I rode with Terry’s mother, his cousin, and himself back to Nantong. In the next blog I will take it from there! Until then, Zaijian!

The Story of the Summer - Beijing (Pt.1), Nanjing, Suzhou, etc.

Hello and Ni hao! When I last left off I was in Hong Kong and soon to be flying to Beijing. In this blog I will talk about my first trip to Beijing, the Great Wall, Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou and Tongli. I hope you enjoy my recounting as much as I experienced them!

 

Beijing, China: We flew into Beijing May 21^st. The flight into Beijing was a bit shaky but the city itself was amazing. In fact, I would probably say that Beijing is my favorite city in all of China. This is because it offers politically interesting sites, historical relevance, and a great nightlife if one so chooses. Also, Beijingers speak Beijinghua, which is the closest accent to Mandarin.

Now, I will say that Beijing is not the cleanest city in the world. People freely spit on the streets, one is allowed to throw trash on the street, and every so often you catch a waft of something that is terrible and uniquely Chinese. Believe me, though; Beijing is much cleaner than it was before the 2008 Olympics. This is because citizens got the taste of clean air, well-kept streets, and international prosperity and they wanted to keep it. One specific policy of interest is that every owner of car must use some other form of transportation one day out of every week – this alone cut down on emissions by a huge amount. In fact, our first day in Beijing we were able to see the stars, which dazzled me… until I realized that it was a fluke in China to see the sun or stars.

When we first landed in Beijing we went to our hotel and I, with our tour guide, went to buy a suit top because I lost mine in the Taiwan airport (boo!). Since it was ten at night when we arrived I had to haphazardly buy an overpriced suit and live with it. Luckily that was the only bad part about Beijing – everything else was incredible. During the next week were able to go to P&G Asia, Cummins Co., the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Heibei Lake, Tiananmen Square, the Silk Market, and the Great Wall. Let me discuss these separately.

 

Points of Interest:

1. The Great Wall of China is so good I need to make up a word for it… strumtrulescent (cite: Will Ferrell). Pictures, words, nothing can accurately describe the beauty of it. We went to a secluded section (Simontai), walked along it, and then – be jealous - zip lined down from it. If I were to recommend any experience in China, this would probably be it. Just an FYI: go on a clear day; it will make the experience ten times better.
2. The Forbidden City is really cool to see once. The architecture is really interesting and the different parts are cool, but overall it is really a one-time experience. The same is true with Tiananmen Square.
3. The Summer Palace: The summer palace is a huge lake that the Emperors used to stay in during the summer months. Its architecture was very similar to the Forbidden City’s – which is traditional Tang Dynasty (I think?) architecture. The most notable part about the Summer Palace is that we almost got kicked out because… well, we are all secretly eight-year olds and 6-person paddleboats necessitate pirate fights. So we boarded our vessels, immediately got bored of paddling, and decided to have a water fight. It ended up with one boat almost tipping, a kid fell/jumped in, and the rescue boats had to rush out to pick him up. We thought we were in trouble with the police, but it ends up we were just in trouble with our professor – he was furious! Overall a hilarious experience that we, luckily, have chronicled on video.
4. Friends in Beijing: I have multiple friends who live here, because of this I had some great times out with Australians (better known as Aussies), Danish Olympiads, and all sorts of interesting people. Three Miami students were living in Beijing and all three offered me separate experiences that are unforgettable and not really legally blogable. The one experience I can discuss is going to an Internet bar with my friend who is a Beijinger. We went to this bar at midnight and stayed until one, which cost $.80 for two people. The interesting part is that these bars attract an amalgamation of young people who will literally stay up all night playing video games. I don’t get it, but my Chinese friend thought it was cool. 
5. I ran across my first language barrier in Beijing. This was particularly disturbing because the individual I was trying to communicate with was a Chinese girl that I met in the VIP section (a long story) of Mix’s Club. The mixture of loud music and differing languages made it so our communication was literally impossible. This is definitely the first time on the trip I truly realized the importance of continually speaking and learning Chinese. Sadly I wouldn’t really understand how to do this until after the end of the first trip.
6. Interesting food experiences: I am just going to list them because there are too many. In order of weirdness: chicken tendon, deer tendon, Zhenbing (waffle pancake), chicken heart, chicken liver, seahorse, scorpion, silkworm cocoon, and finally lamb testicle. Most of it wasn’t too bad actually except for deer tendon (it tasted like warm mucous) and scorpion (too crunchy).

 

Nanjing: is a very historic place. It was once the realm of many different Chinese empires (Nanjing literally means “Southern Capital”) and, more recently, the home to Chang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang headquarters. If you are not familiar with Chinese modern history, just realize that today China does not revel in Chang Kai Shek’s shadow but instead in Mao ZeDong’s. This is because Chang Kai Shek was a Nationalist who ran an incredibly corrupt government and was defeated by the Communists in 1949. This is relevant because it means that Nanjing has had a bad rap for almost sixty years. This would definitely be my first “real” view of China. This view showed a China that is not glamorized like Hong Kong or politically powerful like Beijing. The city was dusty, dirty, packed, and a little desperate. Now this is not to say that Nanjing was boring, on the contrary it was a blast! But that’s because it had a really international bar center (called 1912 – the year Sun Yatsen threw out the Qing Dynasty and made the Republic of China) that loves American people.

 

Interesting Points:

-       First and foremost, 1912 rocked my socked off. We were given cheap and free drinks at a couple different bars and were allowed to dance behind the DJ’s.

-       When buying knock off goods in China one goes to a place (like the Silk Market in Beijing) and argues until they get the price they want price. In America this is very uncommon except in one place: a flea market. Our first view of Nanjing was a Chinese flea market, which is disturbing. It was so bad that I literally couldn’t will myself to buy anything just because they were cheaper and of less quality than I thought possible.

-       Interesting food of Nanjing: Cho Doufu (Stinky Tofu). I didn’t try this dish until later, but it literally smells like baby poop… and tastes a little like it smells. This is only a southern Chinese dish and cooked in Shrimp oil (hence the smell).

-       Something to shy away from: Western-style Buffets in China. They take what they believe is western food and turn it into JapKorChirican. Our teacher thought this was a good idea because we had a bunch of picky eaters on the trip. Oddly enough this is when people started getting traveler’s diarrhea… coincidence? I think not.

-       Chang Kai Shek’s/Sun Yat Sen’s offices and Sun Yat Sen’s tomb. These were pretty cool things to see, but not when it’s 90F and you’re “under the weather.” This is also about the time in my trip when I decided it was time to stop tomb and temple hopping. Repetition gets boring. Repetition gets boring. Repetition gets boring.

-       Finally, I had my first translated lecture. The speaker would say something in Chinese then the translator would read a written speech to us. We all kind of thought they could have cut out the professor and just let the guy read the paper, especially since they had to read it line by line. It was on green GDP in China (a subject I enjoy) and it still almost put me to sleep.

 

Wuxi/Suzhou/Tongli:

Just to make it clear these are not all the same place but instead three areas around one another that we saw in succession. Let me first of all say, Wuxi was boring. It is called the “Hollywood of China” because it is the home of CCTV, but it was touristy and not real interesting. Luckily we were only in Wuxi for half a day then we stayed the night in Suzhou. I was pretty under the weather that night so I hit the hay early. The next day we traveled around Suzhou and then the third day we went to Tongli (a small fishing village) and finally into Shanghai.

 

Interesting points:

-       In Suzhou I was starting to get sick so I decided not to go out. I hear there were some pretty banging bars, but I wasn’t up for the challenge. What I did do was get an excellent haircut for 2.5 USD, where they washed my head twice, trimmed it was scissors, and gelled it. Score. I also got a two-hour massage. The first hour was all feet and the second hour was the rest of the body. To halt any questions, no there was no happy ending. But there were little Asian women who could put a hurting to a man’s body. I guess some of the girls on our trip were actually bruised by these masseuses. I loved it.

-       Interesting foods in Suzhou: I had whole smelts, pigskin and ear, and spicy cabbage. The smelts were delicious and you could eat the bones; the pig parts were not bad; the spicy cabbage was to die for. Overall I couldn’t complain – though one other kid puked from trying chicken feet. The group I traveled with at first was really lame about trying new foods.

-       Tongli is a small fishing village. It was pouring rain when we got there. We were then forced to go on a boat ride that I pouted about a lot. Darn it if it didn’t turn out cool! I also got buy some really cheap souvenirs and had my first “local tea.” This will become more important in my next blog concerning Hangzhou and Shanghai.

 

Well, it seems I have filled another couple pages and been able to reminisce on some amazing experiences! I will try to post the next portion sometime in the next week or so. Things are starting to get crazy busy so I will see how it goes. Until then, Zaijian!