Beijing, China: August 10, 2008

The Olympics are in swing and China’s off to a nice golden start. We’ve had the tv running nonstop so we what whatever events they’re broadcasting. There’s only three channels covering the Olympics; personally I think there ought to be more. But we’ve seen gymnastics, volleyball, handball, soccer, basketball (the America vs. China game was poorly played in my opinion by both sides), some swimming (didn’t see the actual M. Phelps win, but I saw reruns), badminton, weightlifting, a little bit of boxing, whitewater kayaking and canoeing, the men’s 4 and women’s quads rowing, synchronized diving, and some others I’m probably forgetting. I really wanted to watch some of the fencing, but they don’t seem to be showing it on TV. America swept all three medals in the women’s individual saber fencing event. Woo! The men’s 8 boat also won their heat, but it’ll be a tight semi-final.

Tao and I went to the Silk Market. It’s a an indoor shopping area. I might have made the illusion weeks ago, but it’s really like Agraba in Aladdin. In addition to the cool little things you could buy, it was crawling with tourists and Olympic athletes. I took pictures with several (a Puerto Rican Judo guy, and a Chad ambassador come to mind).

It’s strange to see so many white people in China. We were used to being the only foreigners for such a while and to come back and see them everywhere is kinda strange. I’m almost jealous too. I’m not special anymore because of them! Darn it. And because they’re all here, Beijing is all expensive (relatively). Time to find another interesting cheap country to tour.

Just kidding. I’d hate to have to learn yet another language so I could make sure I wasn’t eating chicken hearts.

Beijing, China: August 8, 2008

Opening Ceremony was today! Can I just say that the opening ceremony was fantastic and if you missed it you should try to catch it on reruns somewhere? Youtube maybe. I’m a little disappointed that there wasn’t any big flaming dragon, but someone reminded me that there’s still the closing ceremony to look forward to. In case anyone was wondering why there was a giant spoon going across the stage about halfway through, it’s because the first Chinese compass was actually a magnetized spoon that pointed south. I had no idea what that was about until several days later. I thought maybe they were alluding to their love of food!

Did anyone else know that George W. Bush is the first president to attend a foreign Opening Ceremony? I didn’t and it seems strange considering people were throwing fits over the fact that there was a possibility he might not go.

The official motto of the Games is “One World, One Dream”. What I want to know is, where is this one world and what is this one dream? It seems like that’s still a long way off if we have wars breaking out during something that’s supposed to unite countries. I suppose sports can only take us so far.

I’ve decided that part of the reason the world has so many problems is that the Earth is too small. I compare it to our program as it neared the end. It became almost like a soap opera drama; not because we didn’t like each other anymore, but because there were so few of us and we saw each other all the time. People need alone time to stay sane and keep from killing each other (literally and figuratively). Hence, I think the world is too small and that’s where most, if not all, our problems with each other come from.

We were shocked when we got back to Beijing after being gone for several weeks. There’s so little trash on the streets and there’s space on the road to actually see the road. The taxi drivers all have to wear state issued uniforms and they drive like normal people, not Beijing taxi drivers. It was a monumental moment in our taxi when we realized that our driver had….used a turn signal! And there wasn’t even any cars too close to warrant it being necessary.

I don’t like it. It’s creepy. I feel unexcited in a safe-driving Beijing taxi. Where's the adrenaline? Where’s the near death thrills? Hm…maybe I should ride roller coasters instead. They at least have safety precautions and are supposed to elicit that sort of response in a person. Riding in a car…probably not so much.

Qingdao, China: August 6, 2008

Our time in Qingdao is relatively short-only two full days and today’s our last full day. First we got on a bust headed to Laoshan, one of the top mountains in China and the world. If you think of those mystic mountains in China and Asia, you’re probably thinking of the general look of Laoshan.

Unfortunately for us, the fog was rolling in thick off the ocean and prevented us from seeing almost anything. There was a lake and a waterfall we could see as we hiked up that steep mountain side. Thank goodness that there were stairs of some sorts. The stone steps were almost as bad as not having any though-with all the mist it became very slick coming down.

It really was too bad that we were basically hiking in a cloud. When I come back to China I’ll have to try to go back since I did want to see it. The trinkets the vendors were selling were pretty interesting, though every stall sold the same thing. They also sold tea that they grew right up on the mountain. I think there was also a small temple of some sort, but I didn’t go there.

I talked with some of the professors on the way down, learned a couple of phrases. I also wanted to know why the vendors were selling ceramic sculptures of something that looked like a head of cabbage. Apparently the word for that particular vegetable sounds close to money and so people think they’re auspicious. I can’t think of a suitable comparison we have in the States, though I’m sure there is one.

After we got back we all showered since we were gross from hiking in a cloud and I took a nap, as did many other people. When we woke up we hung out in the hotel until we decided to go out on a dinner run. Some students were obsessed with the idea of eating crab, though the taxi drivers told us there wasn’t really any to be found in Qingdao. Of course, the restaurant we eventually stopped at conveniently had crabs.

I might not talk all that much in class or when we’re around as a class, but when we’re in a restaurant, that is my moment to shine. Having learned a good deal of what’s on a menu seems to make the other naturally defer to my judgment in ordering dishes. I’ve also found (and this applies to all situations) that if people are indecisive, it’s really easy to just get what you want and settle the issue for everyone.

After dinner we headed around the downtown area and looked at the brightly light shops and such. I wanted to see one of Walmart’s tentacles so we looked around in that store for a bit. The food section was just like a normal U.S. Walmart expect for the really strange looking fruits and vegetables where we would see stuff like watermelons and pineapples. We couldn’t figure out how to pick one of the types up because it was the size of a medium watermelon (and weighed just as much) and was covered in very long spikes. Tao mentioned that those fruits are mildly addictive. It’s also safe to say that the Walmart bathrooms are universally bad worldwide (according to my friends. I wasn’t brave enough to enter).

Tomorrow morning we’ll have to be up at 4:20 to get ready to leave for the airport. We’re taking a flight back to Beijing since trains are very complicated with the Olympics going on. I imagine flights would be too; there’s also the bother of not knowing whether we’ll make it under the weight restrictions with our luggage. China’s more strict about their domestic flights than America. Fingers crossed!

Qingdao, China: August 05, 2008

For our last weekend in Yantai some of us wanted to go dancing (I didn’t want to go this time) and some of us just wanted to chill somewhere. Of course, we didn’t know where to do the latter so we all headed out to go dancing. Some guys suggested we stop by a “Russian” bar to get a few drinks since they’d be cheaper than at BabyFace. Of course, the only reason we called it a Russian bar was because the brochures that one lady was handing out on the street for it had both English and Russian, but strangely, no Chinese.

When we got there the place was absolutely deserted. It was the four of us who decided to check it out, and three staff workers. Mind you, it was only 13:00. (By now, I’m used to using the 24 hour time format so if I say 16:20 next time I meet you, that’s why). But, that was fine because there was a Wii with Wii tennis, an electric guitar and a drum set, and a hilarious attempt at an English drink menu. For instance, Jack Daniels was Flak Danels and pudding was put down as padding. We ended up playing cards while two guys tried to rock out on the musical instruments. Too bad they were really badly kept up. More fun than actually listening to them was watching the looks on their faces as they first looked at the condition of the high hat (a type of drum set symbol).

Sunday was spent sleeping and if not sleeping, then studying for Monday’s final. The final didn’t go so badly in my opinion, but who knows. We haven’t gotten it back. I’ll assume the best and then erase it from my memory.

With the end of the final, came the unofficial end of the program. What would anyone do when they finish a 9 week Chinese intensive learning program? Why sleep of course! For five straight hours. I can’t even justify the amount of time spent sleeping on mental exhaustion because while it might have been taxing, it wasn’t THAT taxing.

Tuesday morning we were headed to Qingdao to spend a few days sightseeing and so once again, people wanted to go dancing. Now, I like dancing, but dancing every weekend gets a little tiresome, even with the previous days coffee bar break. But like a good fellow student I went along. Of course, the fact that we were meeting a couple of Russian’s had absolutely nothing to do with my decision to go. Nope, not at all…

We went to a different bar then we usually went to. It was more of a play pool club. Pretty nice place to just hang out. The Russians were also awesome kids. They were from Sibera and studying either Chinese or Business/International relations with their school for a month in Yantai. Why Yantai I’m not really sure. Through a series of events, myself and another girl ended up going to (yet another) dance club with the two we’d met at the pool place and two of their friends. There was so much language sliding that anything we tried to speak was just being murdered without chance of revival. Besides the fact that between the two of us girls, I knew more Russian (I totally impressed them with my ability to say “Without you I can’t see the sun” and “I don’t want to live without you” in a grammatically correct fashion), and they knew only a serviceable amount of English, both of our Chinese skills could have used a lot of work. But as things often do, everything worked out and we had a fantastic time. By the end of it, I couldn’t speak in any one language continuously. It’s a great experience trying to use the Russian you know to describe a Chinese word so you can explain a situation in English. Not generally very effective, but fun nonetheless.

The bus ride to Qingdao was uneventful, though a almost a bit of a shock to be in a big city again. Yantai is a large city of about 6 million people, but it has a small town feel, especially where we were staying. Qingdao is much more urbanized and shiny. They also had Olympic stuff everywhere since it’s the host city for sailing and wind surfing.

After being waited on hand and foot at lunch, we took a small siesta and then headed to the major attraction of Qingdao- the Tsingdao beer factory! After learning how beer is made, it almost makes me want to not drink it. The idea of drinking yeast is a little weird, but I’ve eaten weirder things while here so I was totally over that feeling in about five minutes. Some people I know would have loved to spend days in that place *coughPapaandUncleJeffcough* but I was suitably impressed myself. The history of the factory is very interesting since through most of its history it was owned by either Germans (the instigators of its creation) and the Japanese. There was a bunch of historic machinery, labels, etc. of the various stages the factory and the beer has gone through. One label read “Tsingdao Beer-Absolutely Pure” and under it was a swastika. I’ve got a good picture of that one. You can guess who owned the factory at that point of time.

I also tasted the best beer I will ever consume in my life. Less than a day old, Tsingdao unfiltered beer was a joy to behold. Never again will I get to hold such a young specimen of perfection. For something like 40 kuai we could get our picture taken and put on a label for our very own bottle of beer. A keepsake if you will. I declined, but would definitely recommend it if you ever want to show something off on your mantle or liquor cabinet.

After seeing the factory and the various levels of production that goes into bottling beer, I can completely see how factor workers routinely lose fingers, arms and their sanity. The bottles and cans fly past at sometimes literally blinding speed and the staff are meant to make sure that everything’s A-ok. We watched one man sit on a stool and stare at bottles going past. He probably does that 6 days a week for 10 to 12 hours. I can’t imagine a more perfect version of hell. A green tinted hell of mental atrophy.

The last thing for the day was a leisurely boat ride up and down the coast to show off the city in all its modern glinting glory. It wasn’t like the speed boat at Penglaige; this was a larger boat. The kind you would go on to go whale watching (which I’ve done and can be great fun). I was expecting to be a little queasy since I’m not known to have the sturdiest sea legs, but I was fine. This makes me want to test the theory that maybe I’ve gotten over it. Common sense tells me that I’ll end up regretting the time I spend trying to test that theory, but since when do 20 year olds listen to common sense? Now, if only I could commandeer a large enough boat and someone who knew how to drive it…

Yantai, China: July 31, 2008

It’s high time someone looked into claims that they make or believe the ones others make.

I’m referring, of course, to this bedbug thing. First of all, I’m of the inclination that there were never any bed bugs at all. The reasons why it was assumed we had cases of them:

• The others say they could feel them jumping on them
• The problem persisted until the sheets were changed/areas around the bed were sprayed with Raid
• The others tried to tell me that bed bugs are invisible to the naked eye and therefore couldn’t find the individuals

My reasons for disbelieving their convictions:

• Bed bugs can’t jump, fly, hop, or do anything other than crawl, bite, and make more bedbugs. I think you would feel something crawling on you and be able to tell it apart from something hopping on you.
• Bed bugs are notorious to get rid of. According to the Pest Control Site of Canada, sprays are not enough, and there’s a whole procedure they have to go through. With our hotel only spraying and changing the sheets resulting in no more problems, it seems unlikely it could be any sort of infestation.
• The guy who tried to tell me bed bugs are invisible is wrong. At hatching they’re about the size of a poppy seed and adults are 1/4inch unfed and significantly larger after a blood meal.
• It is also true that they don’t like light and it’s hard to find the actual bugs, but their evidence can be found if you know where to look. I have looked, and so far, all I’ve found are splatted mosquitoes on the walls.

*I have come to these conclusions from many official pest control websites*

Therefore, I do not believe any of us have had bed bugs at any point, or if we did, such a minor case it’s not worth mentioning (which seems unlikely given their nature). This is not to rule out something since we were bitten by something at least once and Jeronimo might still be. I just don’t think they were bed bugs.

Moving on to other observations, Mulan is just as an amazingly awesome excellent bundle of movie package in Chinese as in English. It’s great to be able to just understand some of the speech without subtitles (cause it’s translated weird anyway). Some parts in the Chinese version are a lot funnier than the English version just because of the way the language works. It’s fantabulous. One instance would include the moment when Mulan tells her mom, “I’m here!” [to get ready for the matchmaker interview]. In the English version, it’s just another line; in Chinese, the way those three words are delivered is hilarious.

Yantai, China: July 29, 2008

Remember how I said that the strange daily rain in Beijing was man-made?

http://en.beijing2008.cn/ceremonies/headlines/n214485376.shtml

Welcome to the world; we are our own gods and leave ourselves bereft of anyone to pray to.

Yantai, China: July 28, 2008

I think we must have eaten something bad last night. Today found me throwing up in the wee hours of the morning, a different student with a bad stomach ache, and another needing to frequent the bathroom all day. I thought I was sick the first week when I was here. Nope, that was just a little bit of discomfort and inconvenience. Today was a sleep-in-until-2pm-don’t-leave-bed-until-dinner day. On the bright side, I spent my time in bed productively and watched Wally-E, a super cute movie. Who knew robot love could be so awesome?

Yantai, China: July 27, 2008

Wee! Yet another fun weekend come and almost gone. I’ll start with Friday since Friday is a very good place to start.

After our test I followed my typical Friday pattern. Walk back to the dorm, go on the computer for an hour or two, tell myself I’ll sleep for an hour and end up sleeping for 4, wake up and walk dazedly into someone’s room where I listen to what plans have been concocted for that evening. Adam always seems to catch me right as I’m stumbling out of the room and usually remarks on how awake I am right after I nearly crash into a wall.

We went out to a KTV place with all our professors and later dragged them to our usual club hang out. KTV is a karaoke chain that lines the streets in every Chinese city we’ve been to (all two of them). It’s almost like a hotel, with private rooms you rent out and you can order food and drinks, etc. There’s a TV screen where the words scroll across along with random pictures to the songs your singing. Most of them involved some scantly clad woman leaning against a railing looking forlorn. Or dogs. There was quite a few of people petting dogs. Which is strange when you’re singing Country Road or songs by the Beatles. Some of the songs were hard for us to sing since they would scroll the words in Chinese characters…most of us could go “ni!” once in a while with those kinds of songs.

It was a lot of fun, probably because one or two people were really into it and our professors were so cute. Two of them did a duet to a song (that we now have the first 2 lines imbedded in our minds and break out into whenever we hear the words in normal conversation-“No problem! Really no problem!”) and were actually quite good. I’d gained a reputation for singing several weeks ago since I find it fun to take sentences and fit them to any tune. It generally comes out garbled and mostly in gibberish, but that does not detract from my amusement.

They didn’t want to go to the club and we all but dragged them with us. None of them are really the party animal type. Some of them had never been dancing before! Not that I’ve been really either; maybe 8 or 9 times, at least half of which have been during this summer.

We also got there really early, maybe 10 o’clock, so there was no body dancing yet. Waiting for other people to start would have taken too long and our teachers’ little interest that there was would have been utterly killed, so we owned the dance floor for the first half hour. Myself, Jeronimo, and Adam got the party started and again dragged our teachers on to the dance floor. They would try to escape every once in a while but we’d catch them before they got too far. Of course, a few were painfully awkward at first but eventually found their stride and after an hour they were the ones dragging us back to the floor when we took a break. It was probably the best Friday night of the entire summer.

The next day we all got on a bus (which still is quite scary and even in sleep I feel slightly nervous when the bus jerks or sways violently) and headed to a place called Penglaige. I don’t believe it has an English translation but if you were to look up the place where the Eight Immortals flew/jumped(?) into the sea, you could probably find it online.

It’s a very picturesque place, with sea cliffs and turquoise blue ocean complete the city right on the coast. There’s also the hundreds of peddlers since it is a tourist destination. We weren’t there too long but we did hike up to a pavilion where you could overlook the entire coast side and tie red ribbons to the railings for luck and wishes. Lazy people had the option of taking a gondola up (which I really would have loved to do instead but our headmaster was all gung-ho about the climbing).

There were a bunch of motor boats zipping up and down the shore, which at first I thought was probably a huge pollution factor. But then we got to ride on one and I stopped caring completely. They were taking people up to the famous part of the cliff where it was said the Immortals flew/jumped into the sea and a dragon could be seen snaking around the wall. I didn’t see either, but the cliffs were pretty cool.

I believe after that I took another nap. I’ve been taking naps all the time now, it’s a bad habit to get into since once I get back to school I’ll have no more time to take naps. Then we had dinner and hung out in someone’s room until about midnight playing chess, chatting, and listening to music. At midnight we decided that a trip to the beach was in order.

Perhaps I should mention one area in which Chinese and American dorms differ…Chinese dorms lock at night. As in, past 10:30-11ish you cannot leave or get back into the dorm. We were lucky since there were ladies that lived there who could let us in if we rang some dinger. Regular Chinese students just can’t be out past 10:30. This might explain why the nightlife in China seems to be a little lacking-all the people who are young enough to actually enjoy life are stuck inside. Not that I’m saying people over college age can’t enjoy life…they just don’t go to dance clubs or bars.

You can also imagine that since we went out somewhere every weekend and wouldn’t come back until 1 or 2 in the morning, we were not very popular with these ladies. Nonetheless, we woke up one of the ladies to let us out and went to the beach to play cards. I left after an hour but some others stayed and I found out the next day went swimming in the water. It seems that the water had glowing algae of some sort. As cool as we think that is, we’re a little cautious in assuming that that algae is supposed to naturally glow, given state of environmental standards here…

Yantai, China: July 21, 2008

Last weekend was pretty neat. On Saturday we went out to breakfast together at a local restaurant, not one of my favorites sadly, and then went on an hour bus ride. We arrived a scenic little garden looking complex, which turned out to be Castel Chateau, Yantai’s vineyard. We took a tour of the factory, my favorite part being the cellar. Not only was it super comfortable/borderline cold down there, but the barrels of wine were fascinating. Like something out of a classic novella (I would use the word “novel” there, but I think novella sounds cooler. Hopefully it also means the same thing as novel).

We also got free samples of their red and white wine. I like the white wine a lot better, but it certainly didn’t taste like any white wine I’ve ever had. Almost like red wine in a white wine’s body/appearance. We as a whole are not impressed with Chinese wines. Of course, this could partially be due to the fact that most of us have been to some of the most prominent wine countries (France, Spain, Italy) and those are hard to top… so we’re snobs. If I were going to Germany, I’d probably have that same right with beer. Oh well, at least that can’t be ruined for me too soon.

Tones are very important. I knew this, I know this, but for people who don’t, you should. For instance, while I was trying to explain that I’d seen an Internet bar across the street, I managed to call one of my professor a bastard (only the word for it in Chinese is a lot more serious than in English). Lucky for me, they all find this highly entertaining.

Our class assignment today was to go out to the market and buy a present for two of our other professors. My partner and I ended up buying a huge black bag since her old one was a little broken. We made them open it while we were still there since the Chinese don’t tend to open their presents right away in front of their guests. We covered that thoroughly in class and discussed the differences between our cultures.

My other two class mates gave our only guy professor a stuffed bunny. It’s an inside joke since we all called him “Old Rabbit”. I have no idea why, but we do. They wanted to get him a boy rabbit since he’s a guy, which they did. Later we were informed that in China, giving a guy a rabbit implies that you think he’s gay ( I didn’t catch if the gender was important or just the species). Oi! I was rather glad we ended up with a person we could have get something simple, like a purse/bag.

I also find two things of interest today. The first being the best ice cream ever-vanilla oatmeal. They eat strange ice cream here but this is really good. The other ones we’ve tried so far have only been so so.

There was also a lime green spider hanging in its web today. I really wanted to take a picture of it, since I’ve never seen a neon lime green spider (but only on its abdomen) like it before, but it got washed away in the downpour that happened later that afternoon. :/