MU Honors Program: Student Blog

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.