MU Honors Program: Student Blog

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!