Last Day in Beijing in 2006

Well today was my last full day in Beijing for this semester. Tomorrow morning I'll begin 27 hours of travel and I'll eventually end up back in Minnesota.

I learned a lot this semester. A lot about Chinese and a lot about life in general. I wish I could sum it all up nice and easy, but I just can't. For anyone reading this who is thinking about studying abroad, I would definitely say do it. I enjoyed just about every aspect of my experience so far.

I know it's been a while since my last post, but I've been very busy lately. I don't have to much to report though because just about everything I've done since the last update has involved going to the markets and buying stuff. Bargaining can be really fun at times, but it does really wear you out.

This will probably also be my last post on the blog until next semester starts. I've changed my original plan to stay in China from September to June/July. I'm now coming home for winter break and not doing January Term in Beijing. I'll be returning for the Spring Term, but that's not until February 20. I'll be home until then, so I probably won't be posting.

Until then, thanks to those who have been reading. I hope you have enjoyed it so far.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

-Mike

China is kewl

today i got stared at by people aaaand i ate chinese foood. it was awesome!!!!!! lol!!! i luv blogz!!!1

edit: Well I guess I left my computer on and door open. I'm leaving this up though.

Just Beards...

Now that it’s December, it’s time for pictures of beards!

Back in the beginning of November, I posted about how a few of my friends and I decided to participate in No Shave November. Originally, I was participating involuntarily, but then I began to go along with it. For my Halloween costume I had a mohawk, so I decided to keep that to.

As time went on our teachers started asking why we weren’t shaving, so we explained the whole concept to them. I think some of them think this is a real custom in America.

I was taking pictures about every week, so I’m just going to post some.

Here is another Donkey Kong picture.


Here is one from November 6th.


Here I am on November 15th.


Here is one from the 20th.


Here I am after the second creation of the mohawk on the 24th.


After all that time, we took some pictures together on November 31st. Ben went into this with a beard already, so he had the bushiest one after the whole ordeal. He ended up playing around with some different styles before shaving it all the way down to some stubble. Ken had muttonchops before and he also played around before shaving it all off. Alex didn’t have anything before hand and he shaved it all off after making one attempt at some big handlebars. Stewart has yet to shave his off. I have also yet to shave. I think I’m going to keep my beard and the mohawk until I get home so I can gross out my sister. Anyway, here are some more pictures.

Group shot: (left to right): Alex, Ben, Me, Stewart, Ken.


My profile.


The hawk.


Bushy Ben.


One of the grossest pictures ever.


Ken and beard.


Alex and his beard.


Stewart’s roommate being jealous of Ben’s beard. Ironically, Wang Zhan shaved for the first time in his life earlier that day.


And finally here is Ben looking super trashy. He had this for less than a day.



Well that's all we have for this post. I hope you keep reading after this atrocity. Thanks.

Bowling in the Countryside

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving, but I couldn’t really partake in it. There were a few places in Beijing that had a real Thanksgiving dinner, such as the Sheraton hotel, but we didn’t really feel like going somewhere far away. CET was also giving us 100 kuai to go eat anywhere we wanted. We decided to eat Beijing Duck at a place that specializes in it very close to campus. I’ve had Beijing duck three times now and I really don’t like it very much. Anyway we went with 11 people total, 8 CET students and 3 roommates, so we had 890 kuai to spend (each roommate allowed for 30 more). Usually this would allow you to eat forever, but this duck place was expensive because it was next to a hotel, so we ended up going over a little without knowing.

On Saturday the 25th, we had our Language Immersion Weekend Trip. That morning we took a bus about two hours north to the Beijing countryside/a suburb. We got to stay in a nice hotel, but the plan was to go out and see how many people live in China. After arriving at the hotel, they gave us some time to relax and eat lunch. Afterwards, we had to start preparing for the performance we would be putting on that night. Our class already had an idea do some improv like “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” but people started going their own ways. I wanted to go with that so I got two other people who wanted to do the Stand, Sit, Kneel skit from the show. We changed it to Stand, Sit, Lay because we had a basic idea of what we wanted to do anyway. Pure improv in Chinese was going to be too hard, so we planned out a basic idea that we were going to be at a hospital and one of us was going to be injured.

After planning for a little while, we all went to a local high school to speak Chinese with some students. When we got there almost all of them started talking to us in English, which our teachers quickly squashed. We asked them questions about how they liked living in the country (which it really wasn’t at all), what they liked to do (if they even had any free time at all), what they thought about their education, etc. The guy I was talking with told me that my mohawk was cool and that if someone had that in his school, the teacher would personally cut it off. After talking to them for about an hour and a half we were went on our way.

Back at the hotel we had an awesome time because they had a big activity center. They had a swimming pool (which you needed a swim cap for), ping pong, pool tables, shuffleboard, KTV (karaoke), and freaking bowling. We played some pool first and then hit the lanes. It was hard to draw ourselves away to go eat dinner, but after eating we had another three hours before the performances started, so we went straight back to bowling. We started bowling 4 on 4 matches using two lanes and my team dominated each time. I think most of us ended up bowling about 6 games, which was the most any of us had ever played at one time. Our hands and arms were pretty sore afterwards.

The performances that night were all pretty funny. Some were very long and had a lot of planning go into them and then there were others like ours, which relied more on physical humor. A great part about the shows were that some kids played completely different roles than their actual lives and some played the exact same. We’ll be getting a DVD of these, so when I’m home I can show them to whoever wants to see them (which will require my translation). After the shows we just hung out for a little while before going to bed.

The next morning we got up to go the countryside. This little village was up in the hills and was centered around the road that went through it. Our groups were each assigned a family to go visit and we went on our way. The house we went to kind of strange. It had four walls with an open courtyard like most, but the rooms were only on three of the walls like a big U. In the middle was a plot of land where they grew crops. The house had about 7 rooms, but most of them only had one thing in it. For example, one room was a very normal looking room with electrical outlets, tiled floors, windows, etc., but the only thing in it was a huge mound of lettuce. Also, only a man, his wife, and their son lived there. While they were making us lunch we had time to ask them questions about their lives. Some of their neighbors also came over and they were interesting to talk to. One thing that I thought was funny was that they had a TV with a satellite dish and the guy said sometimes he would stay up until 4am watching TV. Their lunch was pretty good and they showed their Chinese customs by bringing new dishes throughout the whole meal. After eating we headed back to the bus and ended our trip.

Oh and to stay on topic. Whenever I have conversations with Chinese people, Yao Ming always comes up, you know, because I’m tall and stuff.

Train Tales

In China, trains are a very popular way to travel because China is such a big, solid land mass and they are very cheap. I’ve ridden on trains in the US and in China, but it was only for an hour or two. I can tell you now that I do not like riding on trains overnight and it all calls back to be being too tall (it’s been pretty easy to stick to this theme without even trying).

Friday November 10th, we had a program trip to historical Xi’an. When I was in China last summer, this was another city we came to because this is where the Terracotta Warriors are. Friday night at around 5:30pm our train departed. We had one whole car to ourselves and then some other kids were in the car over. It was fun having all of us jammed into one car, but it was especially hard for me to get around. I think there were 10 sections of the car and each section had six bunks. I got the top bunk of our section and I was fine with that because I heard that it was a little longer. Well that person was wrong because it was the same as every other one and my feet were off the end by about five inches. I didn’t care about that though. What I found the worst to be was the bar that was installed to ensure I didn’t roll off the bed. When I laid flat on my stomach, my right arm was directly up against the bar and my left was against the wall. Anyway at 6:30am we arrived in Xi’an and started our Amazing Race (like the TV show).

Our first objective was to find out how to get to our hotel. This was easy and everyone even got there at the same time. We were all broken up into 19 groups of four and during the day we would go to different places around town and find answers to tell our teachers, so they would give us the next hint. I thought it was interesting way to get us out and about, but many other people really thought it was stupid because they didn’t want to be forced to go to certain places. We were able to go at a leisurely pace if we wanted and my group just went with the flow of the game. We finished 8th overall, so we won nothing.

During the game I got some of my best stares. My group members would watch people after we passed by them to see their reactions because in front of us they would just say something and stare, but after they passed they would start hitting each other in excitement. One little kid walked by and yelled out, “Mom! His shoes are so big!” Another funny one was when a girl started turning her head to the left as we passed by and then her boyfriend tilted her head back forward.

That night we went to the big pagoda where every night they have a big fountain show.




On Sunday, we went to see the Terracotta Warriors, which is kind of hard to talk about and nothing really spectacular happened anyway.





Afterwards, we went to the Hot Springs where the Emperor bathed. My friends and I walked around for a little bit and then decided to get foot massages. While we were getting them, my friend next to me had a nice, gentle girl and I had some middle-aged guy that was killing my feet with his knuckles. When I get massages I laugh a lot of the time from the energy coming out or something, so I was in a lot of pain, but I could only laugh. This got my friends laughing too, which got the masseuses laughing at us.

That night we had another fun 12-hour train ride, but this time I got the bottom bunk, which was relatively better. Luckily after we got to Beijing at 6am, we didn’t have to go to class.

Last Friday, we went to go see Beijing Acrobats and they blew our minds. Our group got there pretty early and we got front row seats. There were unicycles, bowl balancing, hoop jumping, pole-jumping, tight rope walking, etc. After the show ended we went outside and all the kids that were in the show were already in there bus to leave. We have no idea how they got all their stuff, got changed, and managed to beat us out the door and it will forever be a mystery.

Not Much to Report

I already posted a picture of my Halloween costume, but didn’t really talk about Halloween. Well there isn’t really too much to report because that night I was the only one with a real costume. Towards the end of the night some girls just put on some clothes that they bought in Indonesia or something over break. I definitely won the costume contest that we didn’t actually have though. While waiting to see if anyone would get their act together and get in costume I walked around trying to give away some of the bananas I bought. Eventually I just ended up teaching a bunch of people how to play Bang!, which is an awesome card game (thanks Nate).



Part of my costume was a Mohawk and I still have it because everyone tells me it actually looks cool. I still need to fix it though because it was made really quickly on Halloween. Also, that day my friends stole my electric razor, so I wouldn’t be able to shave this month because according to them it is No Shave November. I tried to give it back, but they begged me not to because we are always with each other and it would look cool to have a tall dude with a Mohawk and a (crappy) beard. Well I decided to agree because I don’t think the number of stares I get could possibly increase. I have to get a copy of contract I have to sign, so I can put it up here.

I’m glad to say I didn’t do anything this week except rest and play more Bang! now that everyone loves it. I’m finally caught up with everything now, so I’ll talk to everyone later.

Shanghai and Suzhou Part 2

Oh crap! I forgot to tell the chicken story. It can be found now as an addendum to the Yangshuo and Guilin Part 2 post.

Well the next day we were in Shanghai was Friday, October 27th. We took the morning easy and had to take care of some things until lunch. After that we went back to Pudong so we could go up the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The Pearl has three different viewing platforms (the pearls) with the top one being 350m high. First we went to the second one, which has more information on what you are looking at. For example, it has a panoramic picture of all the buildings on the Bund and it names what each one is. There is also an outside viewing platform at this height. Afterwards, we went all the way to the top-viewing platform. This was the first time I had been able to get a good view of the city during the day, but it still went on and on forever. The lowest pearl is at 90m and is also outside. From the lowest pearl, you can take a glass elevator down to the entrance, so we decided to do that and apparently so did everyone else. They crammed at least twice as many people in this round elevator as they should have. I couldn’t move an inch and I felt bad for the little kid that was standing right next to me because I was definitely crushing him. Here are some pictures:


Here is a good picture of the Jin Mao Tower along with the Shanghai World Financial Center being built behind it (which will be taller than it).


Here is a nice smoggy view of Puxi.


The traffic is really bad in Shanghai also. Maybe it’s because they are hiring people who want to turn 6 lanes into 2, with the 2 being the only way to get your car to Puxi from the center of Pudong.


I just have a feeling that this driving range directly next to Jin Mao will soon have a gigantic building on top of it.


“Most expensive building in China and they can’t even get the trash cans right!” – My dad

After the Pearl, we went to the Yuyuan Gardens, which has a large bazaar area as well as the gardens themselves. Well when we got there we were disappointed to find out that they were just about to close. We then spent a little time walking around the bazaar before heading to dinner.

For dinner we decided to go to a Brazilian steakhouse that we always saw packed when we got off the subway. This place only had a buffet, but the waiters kept walking around slicing tons of meat off of giant skewers right on to your plate. They were bringing it so fast that I had to turn them away. To make this place even better they had the World Series on, which was the first American sporting event I had watched in China. There were tons of people waiting for our table when we were done eating so we left to go watch the end of the game at a sports bar. After the game we went back to the hotel for the night.

That Saturday we decided to make a trip to Suzhou to see the gardens there. Suzhou is called the Venice of China, but this was my second time there and I haven’t really noticed tons of canals. It took us a while to get there because the first train we wanted to get on only had standing room available, so we bought a ticket for the next one. After arriving in Suzhou, a man followed us from the train and just gave us a quick pointer on where to go to get out of the station. Before we knew it he was our personal driver. He told us he was a driver and that he had a taxi, but some other dude drove us in a regular taxi with the meter off while our guy sat in the front. The first place we went was the tallest pagoda in Suzhou. There were Buddhist monks performing rituals in the temple while we were there and lots of gigantic incense sticks.

When we were done there we went out to find our guy sitting in a van. He was so excited to have a van to take us around in, but he still wasn’t driving it. He wanted to take us somewhere, but we told him we wanted to go to The Humble Administrator’s Garden. I don’t know too much about it and gardens aren’t really my thing, so I’ve included the Wikipedia link along with some of our pictures.







After that we had to get back to the station for the last one back to Shanghai. When we got back to Shanghai we went to the same “Good Morning!” restaurant and they were most definitely saying it. We walked around on our hotel’s street for a while before heading back and going to sleep.

On Sunday, we flew back to Beijing, but not before having the worst cab driver yet. This guy was laying on his horn even when we were at a dead stop in traffic caused by an accident. We just couldn’t understand what was going on in his head. He would never let anyone in front of him, but when he would switch lanes, he would hesitate forever and then choose a terrible time to do it. I do think the sheer amount of cars causes the traffic problems in Beijing and Shanghai, but it wouldn’t be nearly as bad if everyone just calmed down a little bit. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, our Beijing cab driver drove slowly in the right lane and didn’t pass anyone at all.

Back in Beijing, my dad and I got unpacked and him repacked for his flight home on Monday. The next afternoon he was on his way, leaving me behind for the next part of my journey in China. Thanks again for coming dad even though it looks like I will be coming home for at least winter break now anyway. I hope the rest of my experience in China will be as great as the first quarter of it. Looks like I only have one smaller post to make to catch up to the present day!

Here's one last pic for you dad:

Shanghai Part 1

Well we knew when we were in Shanghai, the biggest city in China, when we took this picture of the taxi line at the airport on Wednesday, October 25th. After getting to our hotel we didn’t have much time before we went to dinner. We went to a nicer Chinese restaurant after walking around for a while. It was pretty nice, but it was funny when we walked in because all the waiters and other staff kept saying “Good Morning!” to us even though it wasn’t. We had to walk a little bit to get to our table so we heard a large number of them. On the way out of the place, they kept saying it, which got us laughing. I decided to teach them what they should say using Chinese, but it turns out the joke was on me. They were actually saying “huan ying guan ni” which is a polite way to welcome someone. I still think they were actually saying “good morning” as a joke because all the other restaurants we went to were clearly not saying “good morning.”

The only other thing we did on Wednesday was go to the 88th floor observatory area of the Jin Mao Tower, which is at the center of the rapidly growing Pudong economic district. Last summer when I was in Shanghai we went up there too, so I knew it was a cool place to go. The 88th floor gives a really good view at all the buildings going up in Pudong and Puxi (the east bank and west bank of the river).

Here’s a good picture of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower from Jin Mao.


Here’s the view down to the lobby of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, which is the highest hotel in the world. It starts on the 53rd floor of the building.


Here are the two buildings used towards the end of Mission Impossible 3.


This picture of the tower from the ground is a little blurry, but I think it makes it look cooler.

On Thursday we went to the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center, which is a really interesting look at the past and future of Shanghai. The center documents the history of the city and all of the different European concessions that ushered in its future development. The centerpiece of the center is a huge model that shows what the city is going to look like in 2015. The other areas of the center explained the plans to expand the airport, build a deep-see port off the coast, create suburbs, solve the traffic problems, etc. The whole building is really like a big piece of propaganda, but I think all of what they propose is feasible, unlike promises that are made in North Korea (see Ryuguong Hotel).

The Center was right near Nanjing Road, one of the biggest shopping districts in the world, so we decided to walk around for a while. We immediately started getting hounded by vendors trying to take us to their secret stashes of purses, wallets, watches, and DVDs. They were really easy to pick out, so we found that a good method to keep them away from you is to point directly at them before they start talking. My dad did want to find a purse for my sister, so we decided to walk down a back alley. Two people saw us and brought us into their store, which had a hidden door to a room with purses. They were too expensive, so we went to another store deeper in the alley. This next store had two other white people bargaining for purses. We ended up finding out that they were also from Minneapolis and were here buying up lots of purses and then shipping them back to the US to sell.

We followed Nanjing Road all the way east to the river, which brought us to the historic Bund. I don’t think there is like the Bund anywhere else in the world. The buildings are all from the concessions granted to western countries during the early 20th century. Almost all were banks and most still are today, but the owners are Chinese. When you turn around you get THE image of Shanghai, the always-changing skyline of the Pudong economic district. After taking some pictures we called it a night and went back to the hotel.