Lost in Translation

Well it's been a while since I've written. And a whole lot has happened, but I've been super busy. Our break is in a week, and also Dad comes in a week, so that is exciting. Maybe I can convince him to take the MagLev train from the Airport to Pudong, I think it's the fastest train in the world, but don't quote me on that. Anyhow, that's exciting. In unexciting news we have our Chinese midterm on Friday. So that sucks. But it should be okay. Except that I've been barely passing all of my tests. But the most frustrating thing is that I'm looking over the test, and I'm getting like 2 points taken off for not putting a question mark, and one of my characters wasn't good enough, even though it was the right character. And I still got it wrong. And I'm like "Hey, isn't it cool that I actually know what character to put in this blank space" but they are like "hey you didn't write it perfectly so I'm gonna mark it wrong". But it's all good. All I have to do is pass. And I'm pretty sure they won't fail anybody who puts in effort.

In other news, I've decided I'm getting some sweet clothes made. The fabric markets here are ridiculous. It's just like an indoor mall full of different stalls with every single kind of fabric you can imagine. And you go and tell them what you want made, and they measure you and you pick your fabric. And the amazing thing is, you can take a picture of anything, and they can make it. My plan is to find a sweet suit from GQ and get it tailor made for $150. Garrett and I always talk about how ballin' it is to have a suit that's not black, so I'm going to get either a sweet grey or a sharp looking brown, if I can find it. And also a killer dark-brown tweed sport coat. And some handmade shirts. And hopefully, my wonderful family will opt to send money with my father to help fund this endeavor, because really, this is all I want for Christmas (hint hint).

Speaking of Christmas, it has occured to some fellow students and I that we will be missing the Christmas season. It will be sort of strange to get home and celebrate Christmas without all of the buildup. And also I hope they still keep selling Egg-nog for a while after Christmas. So that will be wierd.

Also, I discovered the joy of Element Fresh the other day. For those who haven't heard, Element Fresh is probably the best American restaurant in all of Shanghai. It's wonderful. It has legitimate salad. And legitimate salad dressing. And sandwhiches that are amazing. And hummus. And it's awesome. It's expensive (I spent 100 kuai on a sandwhich, salad, and the most amazing fresh squeezed apple juice ever to grace my taste buds, and 100 kuai is my more-than-ample daily budget). But really, it's about the price of a normal meal in America ($10-$12). I would also like to take this oppurtunity to make a large "suck it" sign (dX style baby!) to all of those who chose to study abroad in Europe, where they use letters. Probably the one downside to Element Fresh is that it's sort of a rich-white-asshole convention. But I've been going to one of those for like 2 and a half years now, so I'm pretty used to it (buh-dum-ching!). But really though. These are some pretentious mother you-know-whats. Like, people at Southwestern are affluent. They're upper-middle class. Children of Doctors and Lawyers and such. But these people. They're like upper class. Like, in that whole new class. And also a lot of them are European, so that doesn't help. But more on this later.

As of late, the night life has been rather exciting as well. And this weekend was interesting because I ended up sort of on both ends of the spectrum of things in the local/foreigner department. On Friday night, a lot of people in our program met up at our apartment where we enjoyed some pijiu (beer) and watched "Santa's Slay", a Christmas themed horror movie which stars Bill Goldberg (of WCW wrestling fame) as a viking-esque Santa Claus who goes on a murderous rampage through a small Minnesota town. It was as good as it sounds. After this, we made our way to Club Banana, which is the seedy local club/disco near our university. We were the only white people there. It was supposed to be sort of a guy's night, because we were going to try our luck with some of the local Chinese ladies. Turns out that Club Banana sort of lives up to its name, as there were very few girls present. I don't think it's a gay bar, but it could become one very easily. Also, it turns out some other people from our program had decided to go to Banana too, so there were plenty of ladies for us to dance with. Among the various ridiculocities that night, two of my friends were brought up on stage in order to help the guy who was singing perform a keg-stand of sorts (but with a pitcher of beer). Something was lost in translation, however, and they both ended up just trying to drink the pitcher of beer, and they were awkwardly escorted off the stage. Also, as I was dancing up on the platform at the front, I ended up falling in the gap between the two stage pieces and am now sporting some pretty serious bruises on my left leg. Luckily there were a lot of people on the stage too, so I don't think anybody saw me. So that was ridiculous. But it was fun. And the dancing was fun.

And this brings us to last night, which was Saturday. Joe, Kyle and I were sitting in our apartment trying to figure out what to do. All of us had done nothing but watch movies and lay around during the day, so were full of energy and ready to get out of the house. We were looking through the guidebook trying to find some cool bars to check out in a new part of town. We had decided on an art-deco themed place that seemed pretty cool, but the drinks were a little pricey. As we were about to leave I recieved a call from my lovely Japanese associate Risa, who told me that she had met up with some of her German friends and they were going to KTV (Karaoke) and then perhaps to a club. The KTV room was going to be free, and it was BYOB. So we were game. We gathered up some brew and headed to the KTV place. The KTV place, it turns out, was probably the swankiest place I've ever been to. It was near Jin'an Temple (which is where the Element Fresh is, which is in the shopping center under the Portman Ritz-Carlton). So anyways, we were a little out of our element. And when we arrive, Risa is there and a lot of her super-rich European friends whom she knows through a girl who went to her private boarding school in Connecticut and who attends Columbia. As I said before, we were a little out of our element. Not to mention the fact that none of us were dressed up (I was wearing my houndstooth sportcoat that I got at the Goodwill, but that was as nice as it got). The epitome of class came when Kyle, Joe, and I were sharing a fifth of Jim Beam we had purchased at the Lawsons whilst singing "Born in the U.S.A" by Bruce "the Boss" Springsteen (which I found out through reading the words was actually a scathing criticism on U.S foreign policy and the post-Vietnam era). I have never felt more like a white-trash American in my whole life. But it was awesome. And we followed the Europeans to a club that was supposed to have free drinks (one of the guys was part of a football club that was throwing a party), but that turned out to be bunk. But we club hopped and had a great time, and they were actually really cool.

And it was just nuts. I never thought I would be singing KTV with super-affluent Europeans in Shanghai, World City, China.

And I think when I graduate I'm going to try to get back here as fast as I can.

I got sick of writing last time

I will begin with two bits of excellent news. Firstly, Kyle got the internet working in our apartment again, so that is good. Secondly, it is no longer balls hot in Shanghai, which is also good. In fact, it's kinda chilly. Like, it's probably gonna be pretty cold before I leave.

I don't really want to talk more about our trip. I kind of got bored of writing about it last time. I'll just finish up and say that we went to Urumqi and it was cool. And we went to the Heavenly Lake, and it was as the name would imply. And also, we hiked to the top of the thing mountain where a pagoda is perched atop. It was nuts. Except a couple of us yelled at this one dude who wouldn't shut his yap. We were like "Hey, we're on top of ******* mountain, can we have some quiet for like two minutes?" And then we threw him over the side. Not really, but that would have been cool. Anywho, the whole trip was pretty dope. "Dope" is the new word, as this one guy has said it all along to describe things, and now we all do. So that's fun. But yeah, I'm sure I'll write more later, and also, you can ask me about it when I get back if you want. Plus I took like 2.3 gigs worth of pictures.

But there were some funny things that happened:

Firstly, in Xi'an at the bar street, there was a live band. I went to use the facilities and on the way out they immediately began playing the theme from "Beverly Hills Cop." This would become the theme for the rest of the trip. If you don't know the theme, look it up on youtube or frostwire or something, because it is a ridiculous song for a live band in Central China to be playing.

Also, the area we visited had a large population of Uygur minorities. The funny thing about "Uygur" is that it's pronouced like "Wigger". So our tour guide would constantly be saying "We are going to place with many wiggers" and "We are going to hear some traditional wigger music." The best was in Urumqi, where she warned us not to stay out too late because "wiggers tend to be more aggressive than Han people." It did not cease being funny for the entire trip.

Also, one of the people at the giant sand dunes looked like Kim Jong Il. And I managed to share the magic of Creedence Clearwater Revival with a Chinese man who was on our train. I don't think he was a very big fan.

All in all, an excellent and exhausting trip. Over 50 hours on a train. 4,000 miles traveled in 9 days. It felt strange to be "coming home" to Shanghai.

Night market in Dongguan.

Back from Urumqi

ni


Well we got back from our week long trip across China. It was awesome. Exhausting, but really really cool. I took about 400 pictures, and I'm in the process of uploading them as we speak. I probably won't be able to put all of them up, but I'll get the good ones. And they'll be here when I return. It was awesome. I shall begin with a run down of the trip.

On Friday, we got out of our Chinese Politics class early (sweet...) and we headed to the train station. This week was a holiday week (National Day was on Wednesday), so the train station was unbelievably crowded, allthough not as crowded as pictures I've seen. Our first train ride was a 20 hour soft sleeper to Xi'an. "Soft Sleeper" means that there are four beds in a private room, although everyone shared a room with two Chinese strangers. I thought the accomodations were fine, but there were others in the program who didn't share my sentiments. Really the only thing that was gross was the bathroom, but it's China and I've yet to see a clean public restroom in the whole country. Also, if anybody was bitching already, they were in for a rude awakening when we took the hard sleepers, but there will be more on this later.

Anyhow, we slept and hung out on the train and arrived in Xi'an at about 5:00 pm. After a much appreciated shower in a super nice hotel (with a super nice bathroom) we ventured out and found a really cool bar street where we enjoyed a few drinks at a Wild West themed bar called "Ol' Henry's" and the "Touch Pub" (which looked like a strip bar, sans naked women). It was a really cool area, and oddly vacant for a Saturday night. The next day we headed out to the Terra Cotta Warriors, which was really cool. After that, we went to a really cool Mosque/Shopping district which had excellent street food and a lot of cool knick-knacks. I managed to snag a soviet style winter cap (complete with Red Star) for only 25 kuai, so that was exciting. That night we boarded the train again for Jiayuguan, which was another 21 hours away. This time it was on a hard sleeper, which has a 3 bed bunk bed and no doors to the rooms. Although it wasn't exactly the most comfortable place to sleep, it did the job. Plus it was fun to just lie around all day and read and listen to music and stuff.

That evening we arrived in Jiayuguan, which is an industrial town in the middle of nowhere. We stayed at a reasonably creepy orange hotel, but it was nice to have a shower. We ventured out again that evening, and there was a festival going on. We played a laser gun game, and I managed to impress everyone with my Texas shooting skills. But there was no prize. We walked around and enjoyed a beer at another bar (but the beer was this really shady Tsingtao knock off that tasted like half Keystone/ half water). The next day we went to a really cool fortress place in Jiayuguan, which was where the Western part of the Great Wall begins. It was sweet. After that, we went to a section of the Great Wall and climbed it to the top (which sucked), but once we got there, the view was amazing and we did a little mountain climbing. After this, we had a 5 hour bus ride to Donghuan.


Upon arriving in Donghuan, we had free time to explore it's famous night market, which was really fun. The street food was good, and we ate dinner at this open air restaraunt and had a great time. The next morning we woke up and went to the Sand Dunes, which were awesome. They were over 800 feet tall, and we were able to sled down them. It was wicked. We also rode camels and had a good time. It was awesome. After the dunes, we went to this place that had a bunch of grottoes, which are caves/buddhist worship places. We saw the 3rd largest Buddha in Asia, and it was awesome. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed. This was cool, but after a while everyone was ready for the tour to be over. After this we boarded another train for the 12 hour trip to Turpan.

Upon arriving in Turpan we boarded a bus and went to the Flaming Mountain, which is a famous site featured in a Chinese folk tale about the Monkey King. It was pretty cool. We also toured an the ruins of an Ancient city (and some people almost got attacked by the donkey pulling our cart). After that we went to a Uigur vineyard, and we enjoyed some snacks and toured the home. This was definitely the busiest day. We were supposed to visit 2 more sites, but everyone opted to skip those (they didn't sound that interesting) and travel on to the next city and to our hotel (we hadn't showered in 24 hours, and this was after visiting and playing around in the sand dunes). The next stop was Urumqi, which is the largest city in Xinjian Autonomous Region.

Crap! my comptuer is about to run out of batteries. I'm going to upload more pictures and finish later. PEACE!

shi bong ding

I'm not really sure what the title above means. It's Chinese for something, and it's pronounced like "sure bong ding". Dr. Robertson used to say it, and it's a lot of fun. Anywho, yesterday I had my one on one session, where we discussed some more pragmatic language issues. For instance, I found out that "zhe ge" means this, not "zhe shi" which is a way of asking what something is. So, for these past three weeks I have been at restaurants saying "Wo yao zhe shi" which has been translating to "I want to know what this is." Which would explain why every time I ordered I would face a barrage of indechipherable Chinese. Ah, the more you know.

Yesterday, my roommate showed me the shady mall where you can buy all of the knock off stuff. I got some sweet Ray Ban knockoffs for about less than 10USD. I also, got a 4GB memory card for 15 USD. The only electronics which our cheaper here are memory cards, oddly enough. Also, we were taking to a shady "cabbage truck" store, where you had to knock on the door to be let in. Kacy, send pictures and money with Dad, and I'm pretty sureI can get you a real prada bag for about 60 USD.

Anyways, I leave for our trip to Xi'an and Urumqi tommorrow. I am stoked! So I probably won't be updating for a little over a week. But not to worry, I'll take plenty of pictures.

I love everyone!

I need grace (STRESS)

I need grace. From everybody. At least everybody back home. Here's the deal: as you can imagine, China is stressful. Stressful enough just because it's China. Where I can't read. And I don't really speak the language. And 20 million people live here. And it smells bad most of the time. And it's humid. And it's wonderful. It's F-word wonderful. And, perhaps most importantly, I don't really have internet access. I'm supposed to have it in my room, but it barely works. In fact, it doesn't work. So basically, whenever I get some spare time, I have to make my way either to the lobby, or the coffee shop next door and get on the internet. Which is still slow. At which point, I have limited time. Limited time with which to connect to what's important. And to try and let everybody know what is happening. And find out about politics. And the cowboys. And my friends. And my family. And it all must take place in a public place. So please, understand. In China, there's not a lot of dick-around time on the internet. Not for me anyways. It's a precious resource where I must make sure everything is okay. And that's okay for me. Part of me feels that things should be this way. But it's hard to get used to. So please understand.

And I need grace. Because I am barely staying afloat here. I need you to know that no matter who you are, I miss you. I promise, I miss you. And I wish you were here. Seeing this place. And feeling it. And I need you to understand that it's hard being here. And I can't keep everybody happy. And I won't. My priorities will be in being here, in China. And experiencing this adventure. Not on making sure everybody at home is happy. I love you Mom. You need to get on Skype. Everytime you are on the internet, get on Skype and see if I am on. Maybe I will be. And I haven't bought an international phone card yet, and I will call you when I get one. I promise I love you and I miss you and I am thinking about you. And for all of my friends at SU and elsewhere, I'm thinking about you too. You should all be here.

Anyways, I apologize if this seemed curt or whatever. I'm a little stressed right now. I apologize.

But please know, that I miss you and I love you. And understand that I'm going to be gone for a little while. But that I love you and am thinking about you, no matter who you are. (I promise, I started missing some random-ass people, it's kinda wierd).

Shout out to Grant Watters

Howdy Ho folks! Well, first things first, I got a new camera. So get ready for some super awesome pictures. I was considering getting a nice camera, like a Canon D60 or something of that nature, but I decided I would save the money and just get a little bit higher end regular camera. So far it's the best Christmas present I've ever gotten. Also, we found out our itinerary for our trip next week (after a ceremony in which we apparently pledged not to speak English in our apartments). We will be following the Silk Road, starting with a 20 hour train ride to Xi'an. The ride won't be too bad, because it's an over-nighter and we got a soft sleeper (which is like first class). I'm mostly going to sleep and take a lot of Tylenol PM and sleep some more. We are also going to Urumqi, which is in the far northwest corner of China. It's the largest city in that province (which is the something something autonomous region) and it only has 2 million people (which for China is like a small town). We will get to see the great wall on it's western most edge, and also I think go sledding down a giant sand dune. I'm also excited because according to weather.com the highs have been in the upper 60's, and it's in the desert, so no more humidity. Shanghai feels like Vietnam. I get back sweat pretty much the second I walk out the door. And also the sweat that I can sometimes feel trickling down from my "pecs" to my belly. So I'm definitely excited for the change in climate. And also, it apparently is supposed to get cool here sometime soon. It needs to. Mom, you would hate it right now.

Other than that, things are going well. I'm excited to travel, and also to say that after the trip I will have been across China. I'm trying hard to remember what has happened since I last wrote. Class is reasonably lame. In my Chinese politics class, I can't seem to figure out how to stay awake (it's a 3 hour class on Friday afternoon, cut me some slack). The material is very interesting though, and as you can imagine, the inner workings of the People's government can be very complex and oddly intertwined. My favorite class, by far, is the Issues in Contemporary Society class. Our teacher is very lively, and has a style of exploring Chinese society in a very Southwestern-esque style (by which I mean a liberal-academic-feminist lens, which is a fun way to look at China). It's fascinating. And Chinese class is intense, but good.

Anyhow, I suppose that's all for now. I hope things are well at home. I miss everybody. I'm excited for Dad to come visit for our break. I'm already preparing a list of things for him to bring in the extra bag (among which are Shiner Bock, queso making supplies, and if we can find a way to do it, DVD recordings of some cowboy's games).

Also, Sarah Palin is crazy.

That is all.

Also, are things going to be okay with America's financial situation?