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!