Taiwan

Hey readers, this is my last post on China Time. I have been back for two weeks now and school is going just fine. Anyway, after leaving Beijing, I went to Taiwan for a week to see friends, eat great food, and enjoy the tropical weather. First I spent three days in Taipei going to all the regular tourist spots, Freedom Square, Shilin Night Market, Shida Night Market, Taipei 101, Forbidden City and more.  After that I went to a small town on the west coast of Taiwan to see an old teacher of mine. In the one day that I was there I ate Beetle Nuts which are served by ladies wearing very little clothing(the nuts taste horrible but people eat them because of their high caffeine content), went and saw the ocean (no beach here), rode a moped for the first time (very fun), and had some of the best hotpot I have ever had. After that I went down to Kenting which is a the southern most tip of Taiwan which had absolutely amazing beaches and great hamburgers, yes, hamburgers; and they were probably the best two hamburgers I've had in the past few months! The night market there were was open every day so the two nights I was there I got to go out and look at what everyone was buying and eating. I left Kenting after two nights on the high speed rail which took me from the southern most part of the island to Taipei which is near the north. We had the day in Taipei which I spent very last-minute gift shopping. Then the next day I woke up at 3:30 am to get to the airport for a 6:30 am flight. Getting on the transfer flight in Detroit was a huge culture shock for me because I wasn't one of the only Westerners on the flight. I wasn't sure whether to speak Chinese or English to my friend if we didn't want others to hear us. We ended up sleeping most of the flight so it went really smoothly.
Getting back into the US I imagined having ridiculous jet lag, as China is 12 hours ahead of my current location. But in the end I didn't have any at all, no naps and no sleeping in classes (thankfully). I guess America time isn't that hard to adjust to. Although I had no jet lag, China has been on my mid ever since I left; I definitely miss the place. I was used to the pace of life, the breakfast food, talking to people on the street who I will never see again, and used to being around all my new friends, but despite the fact that I am not there any more, I will definitely be going back, sooner rather than later and will adjust just fine to China Time.

Civilized Chaoyang!

I have now been in Beijing for over two months and I feel like I have adapted very smoothly into the Beijing lifestyle. I know my way around the subway and I’m starting to learn about more obscure Beijing venues and “cool” places to go. It’s a shame I only have two weeks left. Anyway, today’s post is about propaganda posters and why the US should have them too. As you can see from the Civilized Chaoyang poster (Chaoyang is the district in which I live in), the government is trying to promote a “civilized” and developed society. Everywhere you go there seems to be some sort of propaganda poster promoting a civilized lifestyle or being environmentally friendly. I find these posters to be quite funny, but I also believe they have many good aspects to them. I don't think it's the governments job to tell its citizens what to do, but I think they serve an honest purpose that unites the people around a common cause (I'm not just talking about being "civilized"). Additionally, every day around 1:30 in the afternoon I receive a text message from China Mobile, my phone carrier, with a joke or a reminder to be environmentally friendly. A majority of people don't receive these messages but since I bought a really cheap plan I get "spamed" with these messages. I really don't mind and sometimes the jokes are funny (if I can read them that is).

Should the US adopt something like this? Would it help dispel the partisanship (I believe) currently hindering America's economic and social progress? Or would it be met with strong opposition and fail? Please discuss!

Datong (大同)

Hey new readers, it's good to see some new visitors taking a look at my blog because my parents weren't upping the views counter nearly as quickly as I would have liked. Last weekend I took my midterms and we took a long break to go to Datong as a group. Datong is about a five hour train ride west of Beijing and is quite convenient to get to if you take a night train. We left for Datong at midnight and arrived at five-ish in the morning and immediately took a bus to the first destination which was a giant pagoda constructed without any screws. Stop two was a temple built on the side of the cliff which was really cool. Day two we went to an old cliff face with over 1000 Buddhas carved into the face. The last thing we saw was a boring temple in Datong's downtown.  Sorry for being vague but this was not the highlight of my trip.
As we were leaving the boring temple I decided to get off the bus and explore the city a bit. Right next to the temple was a row of about 20 cranes working on reconstructing the city wall. Within the wall I could see a small neighborhood of single story old style houses that were most likely going to be demolished after the wall was rebuilt. So my friend and I walked through the construction site taking pictures and looking around. No one seemed to care that we were there, let alone we were foreigners freely walking around a construction site. Spray painted across almost every house (even the ones with people still living in them) was the "demolish"character, meaning all the houses in the neighborhood were going to be demolished most likely within the year. It was a real experience getting to see a part of Datong that other students and foreigners don't get to see; and soon enough even native city residents won't be able to see it either. Many people disagree with destroying historical neighborhoods such as this one because of the deep culture rooted in every family and sense of tradition that is not seen in most of modern China. I agree it would be unfortunate if I were to be forced out of my house, but the living conditions in which the residents endure is by modern standards unsanitary and unlivable. Because of this I have to agree that removing the residents from their rundown houses is something that must be done, even if a single family has lived there for hundreds of years. Hopefully the residents are fairly compensated and provided with a new place to live.

Beijing Belly

I present Exhibit A, a typical Beijing male going about his daily life. No matter where you go, the park, a restaurant, the bus, the street, you will run into a Beijinger with his shirt half way up scratching his belly. The reasoning behind this is to keep themselves cool in Beijing's unbearably polluted hot summers. Makes sense. 

The Mysterious Microphone

Beijing's public transportation system is much better than any other US city I have visited. The subway lines are clean, go almost everywhere in the city and the bus lines cover all the spots on the map not occupied by subway stations. However, if you need to get somewhere quick, a taxi is your best option. The taxi drivers drive like it's their last day on earth and they are always fun to talk to (if you can get past their incredibly thick accents). Most importantly however, taxis are cheap. The meter starts at 10 RMB ($1.50ish) and doesn't start going up until the distance you are driven is over 10 RMB. Most taxi rides end up costing 20-40 RMB which doesn't even equal $10. One thing I would like to point out though, is the mysterious mini microphone masterfully tucked away in a corner of the dashboard right across from the front passenger seat. What is it's purpose? Why is it there? Is it the government spying on its citizens? Or just for recording taxi conversations in case a belligerent foreigner decides to pick a fight with the taxi driver? Please give your opinion in the comments section.

Street Food

The past seven weeks have gone by in a blink of an eye and Beijing is starting to feel like a home away from home. In 49 days that I have eaten an assortment of questionable and delicious meat kabobs, biscuits, buns, dumplings, fruit and vegetables. I would personally recommend trying the street food for a few reasons, it's cheap, its tasty, it's uncertain how you will feel in 30 minutes. Nine times out of ten there is no problem and you only had to pay less than 2 USD for a few beef kabobs and a corn. It's especially convenient because the food is already cooked and somewhat fresh, but always tasty. If you have spent more than you wanted during the weekend, this is a good way to save a few kuai (RMB).

Beijing

Welcome back to China Time everyone! It's been about two weeks since I've last updated you on what's been going on over on the other side of the world so there is a lot to say. I started my program two weeks ago (hence the stoppage of posts) and it has been going quite well so far. We have a language pledge that lasts all the way to  the end of the program, so I can't speak English for two whole months (unless I'm talking to my parents or helping lost tourists in Beijing)! My classes start at 8 am and go until noon which I find to be quite a marathon of repeating grammar patterns and vocabulary. The last hour is a one-on-one session where I can talk freely about the text, or anything I chose with my teacher which I really enjoy because it is a great break from the recitation and drilling in the previous three hours. After class I usually eat lunch in the Chinese student cafeteria (there is a international student cafeteria as well) and play cards with a few of my friends. The homework load in my level is surprisingly lite (five hours a day) compared to other levels, but I guess the teachers expect high quality out of us. The school that the my program is hosted in is really small with only 300 actual students. The location is great for getting a ten minute cab ride to some of Beijing's most fun destinations and is only a ten minute walk away from the subway which will take you almost anywhere in the city.
The weekends I think are what keep everyone's heads screwed on right because if we didn't get any time off with such a heavy schedule we would all be going crazy by now. The usual weekend activities include heading out to some of Beijing's more international districts to meet up with other friends studying at other universities and eating out at a few of the western restaurants (which have very authentic food). If my friends and I are not out in the more international areas we will go to Gui Street and eat hot pot, fresh seafood, or some just plain weird stuff. Later in the evening we might go to KTV (karaoke) for a few hours and sing Chinese and English songs. Going to KTV in China is like going to an upscale restaurant because each one is just so incredibly high tech and high class. The English songs selection is about ten years out of date but that just makes singing the Backstreet Boys justifiable...
The food in China is nothing short of amazing. This morning I ate a square, pizza like flat bread and three beef kebabs, all for eight RMB (so about $1.30). The western restaurants in Beijing also come with western prices, but if you're on a budget you can't beat the street food. There are all kinds of really cool night markets, food streets, and small food karts scattered across the city making finding food in Beijing just as easy as actually eating it.
So I've got another six weeks here in Beijing before heading to Taiwan for a week then back to the US. I'll try to keep everyone more up-to-date on my adventures and such so expect more reglar blog posts from here on out!

Shanghai

After Zhengzhou, I went back to Beijing for a few days to regroup with some friends and relax. On the 13th, I left Beijing on a night train to Shanghai with one of my friends. We were both in the waiting room before the train departed, and we were astonished at the amount of people going to be on our train. We figured the train must have a lot of cars because that particular week was a holiday and a lot of people were going home to see their family. We walked over to our car and handed the attendant our tickets. We stepped on the train and couldn't believe what we saw net. The whole isle of the train was filled with people, standing. All the seats were full excluding our two seats, but our train had about 50 people who had bought standing tickets all the way to Shanghai. That train ride was something that even Chinese people have never heard of. When we got back to Beijing My friend's mom said the train company shouldn't really be doing that. But anyways we were on the train, and we at least had seats so I was happy. Luckily we sat on the side with two seats so we could switch off between sleeping on the window side and getting squished by other peoples behinds. In all the train ride was 14 hours and we were so happy to get out of that car. Neither of us moved out of our seats because even going to the bathroom would have meant squeezing through 30 people. We took the subway directly to the hostel which was really nice. We were in a eight person dorm which wasn't bad at all. They also had a laundry machine which only cost five RMB (I didn't have a laundry machine in Beijing so I was really happy when I got Shanghai).

The first day in Shanghai we just rested and watched the World Cup. Later we went out the Bund and took pictures. On day two we went to the Expo which was enormous. We only went to three countries' pavilion (US, Canada, and Tailand), but they were all pretty good. My favorite was the Canadian pavilion because the staff were incredibly professional and friendly. However inside was a bit small and all over the place. The US pavilion was really cool and the videos were distinctly American. Overall the US pavilion was good and I enjoyed the short movies they played. We walked around the rest of the Expo and took pictures next to other pavilions and just enjoyed the view. We left at 7:30 and had spent over six hours walking around the Expo. It was a cool experience, except the whole time I was in there I was wondering, what was the point of all this? Each pavilion barely scraped the surface of each countries culture. A big part of the Expo is that it allows the city to renovate their infrastructure and improve its pubic transportation. If you think about the Expo as a giant culture fest it makes sense. It's just there to give people a brief introduction to each country hoping people will want to learn more.

Day three we went to the Shanghai museum (merely because it was free and had air conditioning). It was fairly interesting but we spent about an hour or two in there briskly looking at the paintings and ceramics. Later we walked through the peoples' park and peoples' square which was relaxing.

Day four was really a waste of a day because we didn't have anything to do until our train left at 10 pm. We talked through Century Park in the suburbs of Shanghai which was the most boring part of the whole trip. After we went to the French Concession which was okay. We found a crepe place but decided not to go because it was even more expensive than if we were in France! Later we went back to the hostel restaurant to watch the World Cup because it was really close to the train station. This train ride was much more comfortable because there were only a few standers. We got back to Beijing at noon the next day and I've been in Beijing ever since. My Chinese program starts tomorrow and I won't be able to talk in English at all! I'm not sure if I'm going to be updating y blog because I don't want to break the Language pledge. We'll see how it goes because I want to keep this blog up. Maybe I'll have time tonight to write about Beijing.

Luoyang and Zhengzhou

We were incredibly happy to leave Huashan, even though it was an amazing place. Or next stop, Luoyang, is a relatively small city (which used to be the capital hundreds of years ago) of a few million people. We only had one day there so we decided to skip the touristy stuff and go straight to the old city and eat at the night market. We stuck around for four or five hours, eating shiskebab and enjoying the atmosphere and walked back to our hostel. The next day we took a train to Zhengzhou, where we only had one day as well. Zhengzhou is a much bigger city than Luoyang and we weren't sure what to do there because there honestly weren't that many tourist attractions, but that was no problem for us. We winded up going to another night market and eating street food which I think is better than many American restaurants. At some point in our stay in Zhengzhou we found a large shopping area for young people and sat down and people watched for a few hours. As it was getting late, the amount of younger people dwindled and we were suddenly approached by this old, old, old man who sat right in-between us and started talking an a indiscernible dialect. What made it even wielder was that he grabbed my friend's arm and started stroking his skin. At that point we got up and walked away, half laughing half wondering what the heck just happened. That might have been the highlight of our time in Zhengzhou, and  it's probably the thing I will remember the longest, funnily enough. These last two cities we visited were interesting, but after a while streets and buildings started blending in with each other. There wasn't much difference between all the cities we visited. All in all the trip was excellent and we were all glad to be heading back to Beijing anticipating more fun times.

Huashan

Originally it was our plan to climb up and down Huashan in one day and move on to Luoyang, but as our day of departure to Xi'an neared, we decided to stay on top of Huashan for a night just for fun. We set off for Huashan expecting an easy three hour walk up to the north peak where we planned on dropping our stuff and heading up to the west peak. My Lonely Planet book had been pretty accurate for most of the trip and we decided to do take the longer way up, the three hour walk, instead of the cable car. We got off the train in Huashan and were immediately bombarded by a bunch of guys who tried to make us get in their car and go to the base of Huashan. They said the bus was nine RMB per person and was very slow. But after about five minutes of arguing with these guys, who couldn't speak very good Mandarin, we decided to opt for the public bus (not that we were going to take the sketchy guys' cars anyway). As it turns out the bus was only three RMB and took us to a very close stop next to the base of the mountain. The way to the base was through an old temple and up a small hill which was very scenic but unnecessarily large. After going through the main gate we were making good time. However, after five minutes we all decided to stop and eat because we hadn't had lunch yet and it was already noon. After an excessively long lunch break we proceed up the mountain and start encountering some fairy steep inclines. My two friends with me were looking warily at the inclines and decided to take another break after 20 minutes. By this point we had maybe moved 400 meters and had at least 90 percent of the mountain to climb. To cut a long story short, we ended up at the top of the mountain at 4:30 and incredibly tired from the near vertical inclines we had to go up. We all dropped our heavy bags in the room and just sat there thinking we were crazy to be bringing such big backpacks up such a tall mountain. After half an hour's rest, one of my friends and I decided to go up the rest of the way to the west peak. This part of the hike was much better because we didn't have any backpacks to worry about and the sun was going down so we were not being burned anymore. When we got back to the room it was dark and there were hardly any light on in the "hotel" which had no running water and really dirty sheets. The next day we got up at 7 to catch a train at 10. We took the cable car down this time which wasn't cheap (72 RMB which could maybe buy two days' meals). Once we got down the mountain we then needed to take another bus (10 RMB) to another stop where we had to take a 30 RMB taxi to the train station. At the train station we were glad to be done with our Huashan experience and were ready for our next stop, Luoyang.

Xi'an

Xi'an was the first place I visited and was definitely one of the most enjoyable parts of my trip. Like I said in a previous post, I got in at 4 in the morning on a night train and proceeded through the deserted city like something from 28 Days Later. The next day in Revolution Park (with the big stone book) was a bit dull but we strolled through the Muslim quarter afterwards which was very cool. If anyone reading this blog gets a chance to go to China, please check out a Muslim restaurant because I have only found good food in them. You will know if it is a Muslim restaurant if the men are wearing small white hats. On day two we went to The Terracotta Warriors which was really boring (just take a look at my pictures and imagine you went). Although it is a UNESCO World Heritage site, I really wouldn't recommend it. On my third day (my friends' fourth day) and last day we went to the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda (the tall brick structure). It was okay, but since I know virtually nothing about China's ancient history I didn't quite understand why it was significant. Fortunately one of my friends knows an unhealthy amount of Chinese ancient history and acted as a tour guide for us. Apparently it was built for a returning monk who was to translate all the scriptures he collected on some epic journey (probably got the story completely wrong but I think I'm close). Later that day we biked around the city walls which was a lot of fun because we got to see Xi'an from a different perspective. In retrospect it was probably a bad idea to bike the wall right before we went to Huashan, which we barely made it up all the way. Next post will be about us scaling Huashan.

Blog Status

Hello followers! Sorry I haven't been able to update my blog for the past three weeks but from now on I will have constant internet access and the posts should be flowing from now on. I feel like I haven't kept y'all up to date on everything so expect a few long posts with pictures shortly.

So Far So Good, For The Most Part

This is the first time I've been able to get internet access the past week. I just got back from my trip to Xi'an, Huashan, Luoyang, and Zhengzhou. My flight went pretty poorly, to say the least. I got delayed in Detroit one day because Delta's entire 747 fleet decided to malfunction on the same day. I missed my original train to Xi'an but was able to get another train the next day which left Beijing at 1 in the afternoon and arrived in Xi'an at 4 in the morning. My friends picked me up at the train station and we walked back to our hostel which was on the other side of the city. It was eerie walking through Xi'an at 5 in the morning. No one was out and everything looked deserted. We got the the hostel at 5:30 and had to wake up the clerk to open the door. We were originally going to go right out and see the sights, but when we got to the room we all collapsed on our beds and slept for another three hours. More on Xi'an in the next post.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Here is a breakdown of my trip! I fly into Beijing and immediately take a train down to Xi'an for a few days. Afterwards I make a few stops along the way in Huashan and Luoang eventually ending up in Zhengzhou. After spending a few days in Zhengzhou I take a train back to Beijing for a week and go down to Shanghai for four days, ending back up in Beijing for the rest of the summer. After Beijing I'll take a quick trip to Taiwan finishing my summer long journey back in Bloomington!

Welcome to China Time!

I'll be keeping up this blog on my trip to China! I'm not guaranteeing anything with this blog, or that I'll have access to it. I think I should be able to get to Blogger through my school's VPN (virtial private network). Normally Blogger is blocked, so we'll see if i can get through. If not, I'll just be sending a lot of emails!