One Blonde in a Sea of Brunettes

Professor Liao

thatgirlkate — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:18:00 GMT

September 30, 2010

Professor Liao’s class always keeps me interested. There is nothing quite like learning about a historic event from a person who has witnessed it. It always impresses me when people overcome really awful situations, and instead of being resentful they are humbled by the experience. I think I’m so impressed by this mostly because I feel like I wouldn’t be able to act with such grace if I had been in the same situation. Professor Liao gives off an air of wisdom, though sometimes it feels hard to ask him questions about his experiences, because it obviously still effects him greatly. You can see in his eyes the emotions he holds over The Cultural Revolution. I know that some people's grandparents experienced The Great Depression, and are still greatly effected by it, but I don’t know how I went though life not really knowing that something far far worse than that of The Great Depression happened only forty years ago. It makes me frustrated that not many people in the United States know about it, it seems like they only focus on China’s politics. I’m glad though that the Confucius Institute is becoming more and more prominent in the United States. Maybe then more people can be educated about China’s past.

Homesickness and Panhandlers

thatgirlkate — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:08:00 GMT

September 29, 2010

Amanda and I spent a good amount of time today again at the bookstore right off campus, but today they were very adamant about us needing to buy a drink if we wanted to work there. The girl literally told us to get out unless we bought something. Thankfully though they knew how to brew a decent cup of coffee so it wasn’t a complete waste of money (one cup of coffee cost 30 kuai! About 5 dollars). It was really loud for some reason in there today though, just when I was really trying to finish everything and make corrections and what not, of course. I think today is the first day that I’ve felt homesick. While I was drinking my coffee and working on my paper it made me miss my mom’s coffee and our good conversations that went with coffee every morning. Another thing I seriously miss is walking down the street to the botanical gardens at USF just to read a book, or have a chat with my friends. I realize that there are botanical gardens here in Xiamen, but somehow it seems different, and unfamiliar. Plus! I am an idiot and did not bring a single book to read to keep me sane. I need some Kurt Vonnegut in my life. I want someone to satirize life in China, I believe that would possibly be the best remedy for my homesickness.

Anyways! Panhandlers here really bother me on a level that I think the Chinese like to ignore. Today was really really hot and for some reason one of the panhandlers brought his baby, with burn scars all over his body out on the streets. The boy looked like he was over heating and honestly didn’t even look like he was breathing. Was this man really his father? Who could bring their child out in such immense heat with such a condition? Is there someone behind all these panhandlers that basically pimps them out to get money from them? Is the situation here similar the one in Slumdog Millionaire? I didn’t really know what else to do but buy the little boy some water. Is giving them money making the problem worse? Or would it actually help them? It seems in the United States that people with disabilities like that have people to take care of them, you don’t see too many of them on the streets unless they are veterans. Why is deformity looked down on so much here? Did these things happen to these people simply because they were homeless? I really wish China had more proactive charity groups to help these people. I would definitely like to volunteer for one. But where can I find the Chinese that are actually concerned for these people? Most of them just walk by without even a glance in their direction.

Thoughts about Gender issues in China

thatgirlkate — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:55:00 GMT

September 25, 2010

Gender issues have always been an interest to me, and so today I figured I should watch a few interactions on the street just to check out a few differences between our interactions and the Chinese. The biggest difference between American women and Chinese women is that they seem to be so obsessed with innocence. Though I can’t be sure if that is exactly what they are concerned about. Maybe they want to just look cutesy or like a little girl. But I am really curious as to why this look is so appealing to men here. Or is it? I can’t honestly tell if they are into the constant whining and giggling, or if they just put up with it. Maybe because in the past women were married much younger, and innocence was a major factor when they got married.
Another thing that really bothers me about the whole situation is the fact that China has progressed significantly in terms of architecture, technology and business culture- but they seem not to realize that the rest of the world has progressed so much further than them in terms of social relationships. I realize that it is really important for them to marry young, but it use to be that way in our culture as well. It seems that in the United States a girl can go years without a boyfriend, and not really stress too much about it, whereas here that is a seemingly good reason to hate oneself. I really hope for their sake that some of the pressure gets taken off of them sometime in the near future- because that kind of ridiculousness would really really bother me if I had to deal with it.
When we ate dinner tonight we had to search every cafeteria to find one that was still open... at seven o’clock! Anyways the third floor cafeteria by the bank was open thankfully and I got the Mayi Shang Jiaozi (my new favorite!) Which is just a dumpling omelet with little sesame seeds on top. The direct translation means ants on dumplings, because the sesame seeds look like ants! This is such a cute name for such a good food! Something really strange though that happened at the cafeteria, and I think it had something to do with how “late” it is, as well as how hard the students at Xiamen work- but there were several students sleeping in there! How strange? Though I have seen people sleeping at coffee shops or book stores- but at a cafeteria with no real cleanlyiness I was shocked to see them with their heads on those gross tables! I have to say I am much more happy with the way that our education system works, it’s just so much more pleasant!

Friday Fun Day

thatgirlkate — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:42:00 GMT

September 24, 2010

Today’s conversation partners’ class was really fun. I met a girl, whose name is lost to me know, that hardly spoke any English and we really didn’t have very much in common but it was fun trying to figure out what she was saying. I doubt she had as good of a time trying to figure out what I was saying in Chinese though because I really am lacking in the whole conversational Chinese area. It seemed like they were all so interested in talking to us that they really didn’t want to show any of the presentations that we had planned. (of course mine didn’t work though because of technical difficulties) but it still seemed strange that they were not that interested in American holidays. Though my conversation partner was really really interested in Easter. I think because of the egg decorating and she was especially excited when I told her about the Easter Bunny- but in general she liked really girly things like Twilight and really sappy music, which is pretty common here from what I have witnessed, but I would really like to meet some rebellious girls. I know it is unacceptable for children or even college students to break out of the norm- but I am just so interested to see if there are actually any people that come close to that.
So far the only people I have met that are somewhat rebellious are the hair dressers. From the little I was able to understand of what he was saying, it sounded like he had dropped out of high school and was living on his own now. Literally the only English he knew was “fuck you” and the middle finger. I’m not sure if it is because he works in a hair salon or if he is just trying to stand out but he also had a really a-symmetrical haircut with a lot of purple streaks. To be honest when I came to China I was expecting here to be a lot of people dressed in crazy clothes and trying to stand out above the crowd, but I really have not seen anybody who looks at all outlandish or extreme by any means. I wonder what it is so emphasized in the West that Asian fashion is so extreme? I know that the Haijuko (sp?) girls in Japan have received a lot of attention because of the crazy colors and hair but where did people get the impression that China had girls who dress like that too?
Anyways we went to Nanputo after our conversation partners’ class and it definitely defied my expectations of the place. I kind of just expected it to be older and not very well restored, but after reading the article and seeing it for myself I was seriously impressed with how restored it actually was. The hike to the top was really incredible as well. We were actually able to see through the smog for once and all the islands surrounding Xiamen. I do believe this will be a new Saturday morning hike from now on. We had the weirdest experience though when we got to the top. As we were exploring the unbeaten path a guy showed up dressed up in blue camouflage who said we needed to purchase a ticket to go any further. As we were talking to him a police officer showed up behind us and just watched the guy. It seemed as if the officer was waiting for this guy to mess up somehow so that he could catch him. We finally figured out though that the guy was trying to scam us out of 40 yuan for one ticket that leads to nowhere. I wish I knew what the police officer said to the guy after we left! It is seriously amazing to hear the kinds of things people do to scam tourists out of money.
Later that night we went to a bar called 1801 that was western themed (western like cowboys and western like the United States) Anyways it was really funny because they refused to have anything Chinese in the bar. No Chinese drinks, no Chinese music, no Chinese anything basically. At first the club seemed pretty dead, nobody was dancing, but all they really needed was a little western persuasion. I’m not sure if the Chinese are just really generous people, or if they just really enjoy westerner’s company but it seemed like everyone at that bar wanted to give us drinks, and ganbei! Though, after a while it got to be too much- I wonder if their goal was to see an American get drunk? Or if they just thought we could handle it? Non-the-less I will not be making that mistake again.

September 23, 2010

thatgirlkate — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:15:00 GMT

Today we had such an interesting class with Professor Liao. The topic was the rural revolution in China and at first we were all really tired from the festivities of ZhingQiuJie the night before, but once he started relating the experiences of the farmers to what he experienced during the cultural revolution in the city we all became much more aware of the severity of this topic. I am so happy that he is willing to discuss this type of controversial topic with us. We are definitely lucky to have him. Our other professor, Professor Lu, is not quite as open. She seems quite, reserved, basically the quintessential Chinese woman (dresses nicely, hair is perfect and has good manners) but at the same time she is scholarly and relatively open to questions. Though neither addresses Mao Zedong explicitly.

Today I asked Professor Liao about the 45 million people that died in the first four years of the rural revolution due to starvation(I think it is called the great leap or something like that I really can’t remember)- and the way that he responded to it was extremely profound. He said that the people in the city suffered a great deal though the farmers are who bared the brunt of the whole initiative. He talked about how he even suffered from starvation, even though he was given a considerably “good amount” of coupons for food during that time. All in all I have to say I am extremely excited to see how the class progresses and I am also really looking forward to having more in-depth conversations about topics that most people are unwilling to discuss.

ZhongQiu Jie (Mid-Autumn Festival)

thatgirlkate — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:18:00 GMT

September 22, 2010

Today is the Mid Autumn Festival here in Xiamen! Playing a gambling game, drinking tea, eating moon cakes and spending time with one’s family to watch the moon generally celebrate this holiday. (Or so I was told) We were able to go out to Zhongshan Lu again to people watch and it was curious to not find anyone playing the gambling game, nor were many people eating moon cakes. Though when we went a few days before they were all about doing those things. I am quite curious as to why people weren’t doing such things on the actual holiday. I was also under the impression that many of the younger people, mainly college age people, would use this opportunity (no school) to go out and enjoy themselves at a bar or something similar to one like a party. The people that we did see seemed to definitely be celebrating (making toasts, laughing and eating) but it didn’t seem like people were acting any differently than they normally would. Is this holiday more of a resting holiday? One in which people are able to just relax from work or school?
Another thing I noticed is that there were definitely more people on the street selling various things, that clearly did not relate to the holiday, (why was nobody selling moon cakes?) but I imagine that they maybe assume that students and other people maybe have more time to go out if they are able to take time off work and school for the holiday. When I tried to buy a few things these people were also really unwilling to bargain, which is seriously unusual from the other street vendors I have encountered here. I even tried the “walking away” trick but to no avail. I wonder if in Xiamen the bargaining is different from people in Shanghai or Beijing- maybe people in the city are more desperate for money than people here are. It seems that everyday commodities are definitely cheaper here, but I’m not sure if it actually makes that big of a difference.
Earlier in the night when we went to go eat dinner one of our friends said that the restaurant we were going to didn’t have any drinks so we decided to buy a few before we went inside. But obviously we were not thinking clearly because we bought beers, and the restaurant we were going to was a Muslim restaurant! What were we thinking? It was funny though how the man explained to us that we couldn’t bring the beers inside. He pointed to his head covering and just said “Muslim…no beer.” Then he encouraged us to finish our beers quickly so that we could still eat at the restaurant- but we figured that would be pointless because if we did we would loose our appetite and that’s never fun. So we ended up going to another restaurant, but I just found it so funny how nice they were about the whole situation. I’ve found that a lot of religions in the U.S. are not particularly tolerant of people who do not follow their rules- but these guys were so nice about it. I wonder if that has much to do with just the Muslim culture, Chinese culture or a mixture of the two?
All in all though I think the group had a pretty good experience of ZhongQiuJie (the Mid-autumn festival) and it makes me very curious as to how people celebrate the spring festival, considering some of our conversation partners said that it was when most Chinese celebrate the most.

Photos: ZhongQiu Jie (Mid-Autumn Festival)

thatgirlkate — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:13:00 GMT

Typhoon Fanapi

thatgirlkate — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:09:00 GMT

September 20, 2010

Well today we had Typhoon Fanapi hit Xiamen DaXue, which was seriously destructive. Apparently 70 people died from it in the province below us. I suppose we are lucky, but seriously I was absolutely SHOCKED to see how many people were completely unfazed by the typhoon. There were several people outside walking around (more like blowing in the wind, trying to keep their feet on the ground) with umbrellas inside out and their eyes shielded from the wind. Seriously I cannot understand what was so important that they had to go out in a storm like that. I wonder if maybe they just felt like their jobs were more important than their safety or possibly they didn’t realize they were in danger. Clearly I am not in any position to try and understand the reason behind their madness, but I am definitely curious.
We also had another incident in the middle of the night, where our window wouldn’t close, may I remind you that we were in the middle of a typhoon, so it wasn’t just a little annoying to have some wind blowing through the window- it sounded like a train was coming. So luckily Des knew how to ask the front desk if someone could come up to help us fix it. Well we got a sweet little girl who clearly had no idea how to fix it, and when she realized it was definitely broken, she said, “Oh, I don’t know how to fix this. Sorry.” But she said it so nonchalantly, like our window breaking all over our room wasn’t a serious possibility. I suppose they really just didn’t have any other staff working but honestly it wasn’t very reassuring. I wonder if she was in the same situation if she would act the same way or not? Was she just oblivious to the fact that we were in a hurricane? Or did she just not care?
Anyways when we finally made it outside there were still a lot of people outside, and there were SO many trees knocked down. I was surprised to see that there were already workers trying to clean it all up. It was funny to see the reaction of the other people who walked in front of us and across the street. Some acted like it was nothing while others were snapping pictures and obviously looked distraught. I was surprised to see that a few windows on our street had been blown out by the storm, because I thought surely if any windows were to break it would be ours. Who knows why ours survived though.
As far as the whole people going out during the hurricane, it seemed like the people who were working at the cafeteria had been there for hours- which obviously seems obscene. How could an employer expect people to come to work in weather conditions like that? Who knows, maybe their employer didn’t even ask them to come, they just assumed they still needed to? Whatever it is, the sentiments surrounding natural disaster are certainly different than they are in the U.S.

Photos: Typhoon Fanapi!

thatgirlkate — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:03:00 GMT

Photos: More of Xiamen!!

thatgirlkate — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 01:53:00 GMT

Shanghai (day 9)

thatgirlkate — Tue, 5 Oct 2010 14:53:00 GMT

Friday September 10
I think we all struggled to wake up this morning. But luckily we only went to the Yuyuan gardens, which I kind of had been to, but only to the shopping part, not the actual gardens. Honestly I want to build a “mountain” scape in my backyard after seeing this. It was an incredible work of art, and though I really don’t know a thing about feng shui this was looking really well put together. Afterwards we ate lunch at a really good Thai restaurant (in a mall of course). This place also had really cool bathrooms. It felt like you were underwater.
Then we got a chance to go do some real shopping at the hugest warehouse type place that was set up to look like a mall. But it was all just a lot of people selling knock off brand things. We spent several hours there just trying to find some good purses but it actually didn’t turn out the way we wanted, because they didn’t sell the ones we wanted. Non-the-less though I was able to find a beautiful silk robe as well as another suitcase. We were seriously pooped after that so we headed back to the hotel and took a nap before going to the AMAZING acrobatics show! Des and I dressed up because we figured we should definitely go out afterwards, but we were the only ones. The show was incredible! (did is say that already? Because it deserved another compliment.)
Afterwards everyone was really tired out and decided not to go out, but Des and I figured we needed to because Shanghai never sleeps! We went to this bar called Windows 2 that was really really fun. They had some pretty good drinks that were relatively cheap and it had a good atmosphere. While we were there we were able to meet a bunch of guys that work at a financial company that help expatriates handle their money. One of them was from England (the boss), one from the Ivory coast, one from Columbia, and the other from the Netherlands. It was really interesting to hear what they had to say about living in Shanghai, and being an intern and whatnot. I really hope I get the opportunity to have a job like theirs someday. They also taught us how to play the dice game that all the Chinese people play as a drinking game. It ended up not being that difficult, though he said that we should never play against a Chinese person because they will always win! I imagine it’s just because of all the practice they’ve had.
When the taxi dropped us off at the Yu garden we were surprised to find that there were absolutely no street vendors out selling food! We were starving! So we decided to get McDonalds delivered to our hotel.

Shanghai (days 7 and 8)

thatgirlkate — Tue, 5 Oct 2010 14:49:00 GMT

Wednesday and Thursday September 8 and 9
Our room in Shanghai is SO NICE! It has the best view of the Yuyuan garden and of most of the city. Not only that but it is the only hotel so far that had beds that didn’t feel like you were sleeping on the kitchen table. We had some free time so we figured a good trip to the Yuyuan garden would be fun just because they have a lot of really great places to shop. My roommate and I found some pearl rings we both really liked and we were able to get the price down from 460 to 45kuai! That is a 97% discount! Basically we are becoming expert hagglers. Later that night we went out to dinner and they served us chicken feet! I didn’t try it, but a few of the others in our group did.. they said it tasted a little like gelatin. Gross? Afterward we went to Xintiangdi street that was built back when The Bund was built as living quarters. Now they have changed it into nice restaurants (none of which are Chinese restaurants.) When we got back to the hotel we decided we definitely needed to go to see the Pudong from across the river. It was such an incredible view! The buildings go on forever and the screens on the buildings were over twenty stories high. The Oriental Pearl is definitely what stands out the most though. I have to say, so far Shanghai is definitely my favorite city. It is full of life and excitement. I could absolutely see myself working here one day.
   The next day we went downstairs to check out the breakfast buffet and it was so delicious! Its funny though that the Chinese don’t really have many differences between all their meals like the U.S. does. Though this hotel did have a few American options (like cereal) I mostly just ate the Chinese food they had. On the way to the Shanghai Museum I realized what crazy highway structures shanghai has! You might see the place you are going on your left side but then you can’t exit you just have to turn around and go in circles and all sorts of crazy stuff. The museum was great though! The inside was beautiful and entirely made of marble. Des and I decided to start on the fourth floor and work our way down. We saw exhibits like the Chinese minorities that had a lot of really interesting wardrobe things for celebrations as well as jewelry and fun (and scary) masks. Then we went to see the currency collection which was mostly coins but some of them dated all they way back to the Qin dynasty! (Mom I know you would have just died when you saw them.) We were also able to see a lot of really incredible Chinese ink paintings. (did I mention that we’ll be taking a calligraphy class? I’m really excited for it!) We saw the jade exhibit, and that was really incredible, I can’t imagine how ancient people were able to carve these pieces so delicately. Then we went to the furniture gallery, that was so so cool! Unfortunately though my camera wasn’t working too well in that lighting so I only got a few good pictures, but that furniture was still seriously impressive. Lastly we saw the bronze exhibit which I definitely think is my favorite. I know that China was the most advanced during the bronze era, but damn! Those were so remarkable! I couldn’t believe how intricate some of the pieces were.
   Anyways I think what I love so much about Shanghai is this new movement that’s going on called “better city, better life” where they are building a lot more parks everywhere as well as just hanging gardens from the highways. It is really turning out to be quite beautiful. They have also cleared up a significant amount of pollution, mostly for the Expo though I’m sure.
   After we grabbed some lunch we were off to see Pudong! The Oriental Pearl tower was a really cool site to see. Supposedly it’s red, but it is definitely pink. When we got to the top we could see all of Shanghai! It was unbelievable! You could even see the World Expo in the distance! Then we went down to another observation deck that had glass floors… I chickened out though because it was seriously frightening. Also though, Des told me that she accidentally kicked up one of the glass plates, what the hell is holding all of that together?? When we came down we just decided to hang out next to the river, the Pudong side of course, to just chat and discuss about how much we all adore Shanghai. After we got a little bored we headed to the mall nearby. We found the grocery store, which was huge and had all sorts of neat stuff, so that we could buy some canned chardonnay. It basically just tasted like a spritzer, but at least it wasn’t baijiu! Des and I decided to head over to the IFC mall, which is the one with all the designer stores, we were looking a mess at that point in the day but basically we didn’t really care. It was fun looking at Cartier, Gucci and Louis Vittion.
   That night we all decided we should experience some Shanghai nightlife, it was so fun! The clubs were outstanding, they were all trying to out do each other in how modern each one looks. The first place we went to was Zappatas because they had free drinks for an hour, then we went to this place called SoHo that was so wild! I wish I could describe the bathroom, it looked like a spaceship! Thankfully we didn’t have to deal with any drunk drivers tonight though. I never want to see that again.

Photos: Shanghai (MY FAVORITE!)

thatgirlkate — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:07:00 GMT

Xi'an (days 5 and 6)

thatgirlkate — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:13:00 GMT

Monday and Tuesday September 6 and 7

When we arrived in Xi’an the next day it was pouring. When we met up with our tour guide he told us that the bus was a 20-minute walk to the bus… in the rain. That was a rough walk but we all survived it, with just a lot of wet clothes. When we got to the hotel we switched up our plans some and just hung out in the hotel, which was super nice might I add! Lunch was really cool, we went to a restaurant that was over a thousand years old! They served us an insane amount of food, but their specialty is dumplings- so incredible! There was one kind they brought out though that was a spicy beef, but seriously my mouth went numb it was so spicy!

Then we went to the wild goose pagoda and it had a lot of really intricate jade carvings of Siddhartha’s life. Unfortunately though we weren’t allowed to go into the pagoda because it has a leaning problem, and only monks can go inside now. Afterwards we were all really excited to go to the Great Mosque at Huajue lane, because it had some really awesome markets, as well as some really interesting architecture. It was strange; they made Chinese characters look like Arabic writing. And we met a really interesting guy who spoke a good amount of languages but was clearly most fluent in Chinese.

That night we went to a Tang Dynasty Dance show that was really good, honestly a lot better than the Beijing Opera. The instruments were really cool and the dances were really intricate with lots of sleeve swirling. We were also able to eat at the show, which is a new experience for me! It seems like only expensive places in the states allow that at shows.

The next day it was still raining but we went to see the Terra-Cotta Warriors! What an amazing archeological find! This place was huge! And of course it was ridiculously crowded. So crowded that at one point someone kicked me in order to get in front of me to see. Sometimes I wonder why some people feel like they are more entitled than others to see these things. After that I was fed up with trying to see anything. But I was still thoroughly impressed. On the way out I noticed a lot of German Sheppard toys as well as some German Sheppard skins! It really made me feel badly, I can’t handle that kind of stuff. I just love dogs so much, and considering I use to own a German Sheppard, well that just makes it worse.

That night Des and I found a really cute couple that ran a liquor store right next to the hotel. Des already knew the type of baijiu that is best, so we bought it. Its name is Maotai and it was 53% alcohol. Needless to say most of our group was pretty hung over the next day. It was a good way to say goodbye to Xi’an though.

Photos: Xi'an

thatgirlkate — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:00:00 GMT

Beijing day 4

thatgirlkate — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:47:00 GMT

Sunday September 5
   Again we ate at the delicious breakfast buffet and were able to have a long time to rest in the morning. We needed to pack our bags anyways. When we left the hotel at 11am, we headed off to see Tian’an Men square and the Forbidden City. Man I had no idea how huge that place was! Everything in Beijing just seems enormous. The painting of Mao Zedong had to have been at least six feet tall and the building the size of three football fields. My roommate Des and I decided to take a picture with Mao, but not just an ordinary one- one in which we were both kissing him at the same time! Its too bad that the picture didn’t quite turn out right because it was kind of blurry, but it was still awesome non-the-less! When we got inside of the Forbidden City we met a girl who was wearing sunglasses that said it was her birthday with lots of candles. We had no choice but to sing happy birthday in Chinese! She was obviously appalled by us publicly humiliating her, but we enjoyed it. Hopefully she wasn’t too embarrassed.
   The forbidden city itself was unbelievable. I honestly don’t think I can describe the massiveness of this place. It was a sea of gold rooftops above massive rose red buildings with intricate paintings and magnificent sculptures. They had these enormous bowl looking things (bigger than me) that were used as fire hydrants just encase a fire started. I think it was supposed to be filled with rainwater.
   Later that day we ended up going to a street called Xiu Shui, it was fully of really impressive artists and big places to buy all the tools to paint traditional Chinese calligraphy and art. We met a few nice older women and some artists, but unfortunately their paintings were incredibly expensive. Afterward we went to get the infamous Peking duck that everyone talks about. They brought us a huge amount of food before they even brought duck but all of it was so tasty! When they carved the duck they left the crispy skin on it and showed us how to eat it. Basically it was like a taco with yummy sauce veggies and la ja (spicy chili sauce.)
   When we finished we had to head to the train station to make sure we made it on time. Of course when we go there we had plenty of time. This train was really interesting though. It was a sleeper train and we were all booked to have top bunks. Which kind of sucks because there are other random people sleeping below us. Des and I got lucky and got a cute old Chinese couple that didn’t understand any of the Chinese we spoke to them but it still turned out fine. There was enough space for our baggage and we had a private light and everything.

Beijing day 3 (scary scary night)

thatgirlkate — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 01:42:00 GMT

Saturday September 4
This morning we ate breakfast at the delicious buffet in our hotel then headed off to the summer palace and had a great time just walking around and taking in the beauty of the park. They had build a huge boat made entirely of marble that obviously didn’t float but was impressive non-the-less. The lake around there was really nice too, lots of pink lotuses and lily pads. Most of us were pretty sore from the Great Wall but we struggled through it just because this place was so great! Some of the people trekked up the palace on the top of a really huge hill there and they said it was incredible, but honestly I didn’t feel like I could make it up there so several of us found a quite place to have a popsicle and people watch. Its so cute how all the older people do their taichi in these parks all over Beijing. Then we went to the zoo in the middle of downtown Beijing to see the pandas (strange place to see them I know.) The zoo was pretty unimpressive and completely packed with tourists. The pandas were definitely cute though.
   Afterwards we went to get lunch at the coolest restaurant. It was decorated in a very modern fashion and had a really big Buddha. The best part though was that they were holding a wedding at the same time! This wedding was really impressive. They had big cardboard cutouts all over the place of the couple and huge news cameras all over the place with big dishes of incredible food and a really large tv projector of their wedding pictures (since they take them before the wedding.) The food we had there was really good too, we tried some duck in sweet sauce that was pretty surprising.
   Later we headed to the temple of heaven, which I had no idea how HUGE it is! Its almost as large as a small city! There were a lot of really incredible bridges, doorways and architecture. I’m so glad we were able to go to this site because it really moved me. Though I overheard my professor say that not very many of the emperors used it very often, even in times of famine. What a shame. We also saw a man painting with water on the marble walkways. His calligraphy was so beautiful!
   That night we decided to head out to Houhai again since it was so fun the night before. We went to the same bar as before for the cheap drinks, then ended up walking to another bar that played flamenco music for similar priced drinks. This bar was really funny because it had a lot of posters of white girls acting badly. One was a picture of Brittany Spears getting out of a car with her goods showing, another was of Avril Lavene flipping off the camera with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.
   When we left the bar and were dropped off by the taxi, Des and I decided to get a bite to eat before going to bed. On our way back from the connivance store we heard a crash behind us, and when we looked it was someone who had flipped over his moped and was lying face down on the ground. It was shocking and neither of us knew what to do. It was three in the morning and we were the only ones on the street. We both ran over to him and tried to see if he was alright or if he could sit up. Des ran back to the store to get some help, while I waited with him and cleaned the blood of his head with his shirt. I really tried to not touch his blood but I’m not sure if I did or not. About six cars passed by and didn’t stop to help even though I tried to wave them down. When one finally did stop it was a couple of guys blaring techno music. They were really helpful though, even if they didn’t speak any English. After a lot of the guys asking the drunk mopedist who they could call for him they finally decided, after our recommendation, to call the police. I couldn’t believe how long it took for them to even consider that, but at the same time they guy was bleeding everywhere and clearly needed an ambulance. I wish I knew more about why they were so concerned with calling the police but I have no idea. When the police arrived about fifteen minutes later they asked the guys a bunch of questions and we figured it would be alright to leave then. That was such a traumatizing experience that Des and I had to just stay up in order to not have any horrible nightmares. Luckily though Tom and Jerry was on tv and that lightened our spirits.

Beijing day 2

thatgirlkate — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 01:37:00 GMT

Friday September 3
Today was somewhat cold and rainy. BUT on the bright side we were able to trek the infamous Great Wall, well not exactly. This was just a small section of the Great Wall that is closest to Beijing, it was used in the past as a fort for generals and army officials with an enormous wall surrounding it. So it is considered a portion of the wall, but is not actually connected to the main wall. Non-the-less it was incredible! The stairs were torturous and there were places where the steps had sunk in from all the pressure of people walking on it. I wish I had counted the steps I climbed, but I was too focused on the beauty of the place! The mountains surrounding the valley were enormous and looked similar to the misty Chinese paintings. Of course my good camera’s battery died that day so I was only able to take about 2 pictures with it, fortunately I did have my other small camera with me though that I was able to get a few good pictures out of. My friend Laura and I raced to the top to catch up with the boys and it was so glorious when we finally made it to the top! Professor Chittick only stuck around for a few minutes before he was off to finish the entire wall in less than an hour! (I couldn’t believe he made it! Most of us only made it to the highest peak!)
After a really really good start to the day we went to lunch on the second floor of a cloisonné factory. The factory itself was kind of not even worth mentioning, but the vases and trinkets that they made were beautiful! Though they charged WAY more than any other place that sells cloisonné. Plus the food was good that day too, and they even gave us a bottle of baijiu so we could ganbei! Professor Chittick seemed somewhat reluctant at first but we finally convinced him.
Afterwards we headed to the Ming tombs, which we later found out were destroyed (completely except the architecture surrounding it during the cultural revolution.) The scenery was quite beautiful, but since everything was just a reconstruction of the tombs it seemed more touristy than an actual site worth seeing. The history of course was interesting though. I think we had a few more destinations on our list to accomplish that day but everyone was seriously exhausted from the day. So we took showers and headed out to our hot pot dinner!! All it was, was a huge pot (like thing) in the middle of the table full of boiling water with lots of little plates of veggies, meats, mushrooms, spices, sauces and everything else Chinese you can think of. It was a sort of difficult process though, you needed to pick up what you wanted to cook, hold it in with your chopsticks until it was done then dip it in your sauce and thennn eat it. It didn’t help either that there were 11 of us trying to do it all at once, but eventually we got the hang of it.
That night we were feeling adventurous, as always, and decided to check out the bar scene in houhai. It was so much fun! When we got there everyone was dancing in a really large courtyard (all synchronized) while others played Chinese hacky sack. As we started walking along the river next to all the bars we started to notice how ridiculous the prices of drinks were! Some places even had drinks for 65 kuai!! That’s almost ten dollars! I imagine a lot of tourists just go there, or big wig business people. But we decided to keep walking and see what we find. There were some street vendors and our friend Sean found such an awesome shirt! It was a picture of Barack Obama dressed as Mao Zedong and the shirt said “Obamao.” I really wonder if people here think that Obama will become communist and start starving people and whatnot. Obviously I hope that doesn’t happen, but I am curious to know what they think. We finally stumbled upon a really cool little bar that played funky live flamenco music with cheap drinks! We thoroughly enjoyed that, and on our way home Meg was kissed by one of the bar promoters which definitely caused a scene, and we all used an incredibly atrocious public bathroom. Yuck.

BEIJING day 1

thatgirlkate — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 01:29:00 GMT

Thursday September 2

    This morning we woke up early to make our flight but it was pouring outside. When we got to the airport our flight was delayed 2 hours, because of a typhoon warning. But since we are in China, they ignored the typhoon and took us to Beijing anyways! The flight was pretty scary with lots and lots of turbulence. Of course they gave us lots of disgusting plane food too. When we got to Beijing the first thing I noticed was the horrible horrible smog that covered the city. I’ve been told that they significantly cleared up the smog for the Olympics, but believe me it’s back. The bus ride to the hotel was pretty long, about an hour I believe. On the way there we stopped at the Olympic park and took a few pictures, those buildings were seriously impressive! But not particularly exciting, I think we were all really tired out from the plane- and drinking some the night before…
    When we got back to the hotel we had just enough time to change quickly and run down to the Beijing Opera. It was definitely an experience to remember… Full of tourists, translated into English, expensive drinks, short (the Operas normally last over 20 hours, this was less than one), not to mention the costumes didn’t even include the awesome masks that are usually associated with the Beijing operas. What a waste of a good dress.
    It was an interesting experience though. I’ve noticed that China has really been stepping up as far as tourism goes. (though obviously I don’t know that much about it since it is my first time here) But this theater was on the first floor of our hotel, and the entire staff of the hotel had been trained to speak English… not exactly the best way to learn Chinese for our group- but of course it helps other tourists out significantly.

Photos: BEIJING!!

thatgirlkate — Thu, 9 Sep 2010 10:03:00 GMT

we only spent 3 days in Beijing but it was incredible!