没有了(No More)

The big update: I have returned to the United States.  My life here isn't interesting enough to write about.  I'm watching TV, catching up on magazines, and reacquainting myself with American gyms and their fascinating customs like wiping off machines and wearing clothes.

I'm not sure when I'll start up this blog again.  If anyone has any ideas for things to write about, let me know.  Otherwise, check back in next summer.  I don't have any plans, but hopefully I'll be doing something exciting!

Thanks, everyone, for reading.  Here's a poem about a goose that a child wrote 1,500 years ago:

"Goose, goose, goose,
bends its neck to the sky to sing,
White feathers floats in green water,
Red foot pushes clear waves."

Now you know why I don't quote classical Chinese poetry.

我会想中国 (I Will Miss China)

I’m writing this in the Beijing Airport, reclining on a considerately provided chaise lounge and watching the planes take off.  I only have six hours left in China. Time to count my blessings (and, thanks to my long layover, link them to other posts!)

:

1.       The food (Good job, Medieval Sister, you guessed it right.  I was considering switching the order just to prove you wrong but then decided I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO).  There’s not much I can say other than that everything is delicious, fresh, healty-ish, and cheap.  Expensive meals cost two or three dollars.  My usual dinner, dessert included, cost around $1.50. 

I also enjoyed that I could walk into a restaurant and say “I want carrots, squash, and tofu!”, even if there was no such thing on the menu.    

2.       The scenery.  Guilin is gorgeous.  I’ve discussed the mountains and rivers at length already on this blog, so I’ll contain myself.

3.       My class.  The Chinese method of going to every class with the same group of people may feel sort of elementary school-ish, but it also fosters really close friendships with your classmates.  Friday was my last day at Guangxi Normal University.  To celebrate, the class monitor bought a cake with my name on it, another student brought two bottles of Coca Cola (my name), and we all took pictures with each other as one of the Vietnamese girls wrote farewell notes on her country’s currency.  I’ll miss ‘em!

4.       This blog.  Is this narcissistic?  I don’t know.   But I really enjoyed blogging about China. 

5.       The Chinese people.   Or, really, only some of the Chinese people; maybe just a few of them.  My interactions with the locals tended overwhelming towards the awkward/frustrating, but sometimes I met people who were really open, interesting, opinionated, and able to understand my American accent.  These conversations were extremely rewarding.

6.       The other students.  Last semester I studied with 30 Americans and that was interesting because I learned all about different kinds of college life in the United States.  This semester, though, I was the only one from the USA; my classmates came from Poland, Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Myanmar, and my network of acquaintances included citizens of Mexico, Estonia, Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan, and Chile.  Talking to them about their lives and motivations for studying Chinese was fascinating.  For example, I didn’t even know they had schools in Myanmar.          

7.       The excitement.  I have no idea what’s going to happen on any given day.  I might have a midterm exam, I might go on a day trip, it might rain and I might be fired.  A good symbol of this unpredictability, and the suspense that goes with it, is the elevator in my building.  Over four months, I have seen the following things in the elevator: a bunch of toddlers with no adults, a family with a bunch of balloons, trash, suspicious puddles of liquids, two people on bicycles, and a woman on a rumbling motorcycle.

This excitement is also stressful and tiring.  I’m ready for several weeks of predictability.

8.       The Porno Gym.  I could never forget you.

9.        The prices.  Most things are so cheap in China.  If you lock yourself out of the bathroom in the middle of the night, it’s nice that you can have a locksmith come and open it for you for $4.

10.   The invincibility.  I can do whatever weird things I want here and just offer as an explanation “I’m a foreigner/American.”  If I forget my umbrella and come to school soaking wet, it’s not because I’m absentminded; it’s because that’s what Americans do.  I may have left several Chinese people with skewed views on American culture, but I saved a lot of face.  Which is all that matters.

Whew, I made it to 10!  I really am going to miss China (as opposed to last semester, when I would have happily forgone a second semester abroad to return to ASU or work in a coal mine), and I look forward to coming back soon and often.

 If I had fully absorbed Chinese culture I would now reference a poem from the Tang Dynasty about flowers or bird or rain, but I haven’t, so I’ll sign off with a quote from A Far Off Place by Laurens Van Der Post (a book that avid readers of this blog with remember I already recommended): 

"The beauty invested in all, even the most trivial of things, when one believes oneself to be looking on them for the last time, overwhelmed him."

真受不了中国 (I Can't Stand China)

Today I came to the depressing realization that all my shoes smell like sewage.  It happened during Comprehensive Chinese class.  ‘Why does this room smell so bad?’ I wondered, sniffing around as my teacher described the difference between the intransitive and transitive forms of ‘to command’. 

‘Oh,’ I then realized, ‘it’s my feet.’

I have two nights left here.  I’ll use this one to pick out the ten things I will miss least about China.

1. The internet.  The censorship is bad enough (linguistic side note: when a website has been blocked by the government, young people say that it has bei hexie,  or ‘made harmonious’), but most of the time it doesn’t even matter because my connection is too slow to reach allowable websites.  Loading pictures on to this blog was a huge pain in my butt.  I hope you are all grateful.

2. The brutal honesty of Chinese people.  If you want to experience Asian openness at its finest, move to China and get a pimple.  Strangers will point at their own face and say ‘pimple!”, acquaintances will point at your face and say “look!”, and your very best friends will just poke the pimple and laugh.  That’s what happened to me, at least.

3. Messiness.  I’m about to indulge in some generalizations, so bear with me.  Chinese people are really messy. Trash is all over the streets, and five of the seven Chinese people I have lived with never washed their dishes.  When I want to take out the trash, I just carry my wastebasket to the stairway in my building and throw my garbage on the top of a pile.

4. Getting yelled at.  People yell at me all the time, usually things like “Foreigner!” or “Halllllo!”.  I don’t think they mean anything bad, but it still gets tiring.  I complained about this to my high school class. 

“I get really annoyed when Chinese people yell ‘Foreigner!’ at me,” I told them.

“Wait,” they asked.  “So when a foreigner walks by, what should we yell at them?”

5. Lack of Schedules.  Nothing is planned ahead here.  And everybody is always late and things never start on time.  My classmates still don’t know when their finals will take place.  More broadly (generalization alert!), this is symptomatic of a general disdain for the rights and opinions of people in ‘inferior’ positions.  One is expected to be completely receptive to the whims of his superiors and willing to change his own schedule without complaint.  I hated, hated, hated this.

6. Language barrier.  Although my Mandarin has improved, misunderstandings persist.  This difficulty was expected and unavoidable.  I still didn’t like it.

7. The babies going to the bathroom on the street.

8. Weather.  Winter is brutal here, and the rainy season has left all my clothes moldy and all my books curvy.  My shoes smell like sewage because I have to walk through puddles all the way to school. 

9. Memorization.  The Chinese method of language acquisition is based entirely on repetition.  Our textbooks are full of example texts.  Before class, we must read the assigned text and annotate it with tone marks, pronunciation and, if necessary, English definitions.  During class, we recite the text together.  After class, we complete homework assignments that often consist of mainly copying the text.  This process is tedious.  It’s bearable when we are discussing subjects like ‘Smoking-Society’s Silent Killer?’ or ‘Lhasa’s Scenery’, but it becomes excruciating when covering ‘Contracts’.   

Several weeks ago, my writing teacher approached my Australian friend and scolded him for not responding closely enough to the essay prompt she had assigned us (side note: for this particular assignment, I copied a text straight out the book and got an A+). 

“Sorry,” he said, “I just wanted to be creative.”

“You’re not here to be creative,” she answered.  “You are here to learn Chinese.”

10. Money Obsession.  Everyone always asks how much everything costs.  Haircuts, plane tickets, lunches, loaves of bread, everything.  This is not an exaggeration.  It’s not targeted especially at foreigners, since Chinese people ask each other the same thing, but it tends to lead to uncomfortable situations.  Regrettably, I told one of my roommates’ girlfriends that I earned 100 RMB (about USD $15) per hour as an English teacher.  At the time, she commented that my voice must be very valuable; since then, she routinely brings up stories about how little Chinese people earn per month (or, sometimes, per year), each time exclaiming “And remember, you earn X times that per hour!”

Also, I’m tired of Chinese people always telling me I pay too much for stuff. 

I’ll hold myself to ten complaints.  There are more, like the surfeit of counterfeit goods and the absence of toiletries (OH and how NOISY EVERYTHING IS, I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT THAT), but I’m trying to keep my spirit up. 

The “10 Things I Will Miss Most About China” post is coming soon.  I wanted to save that one for my last day and end on a high note.  

我们上课吧 (Let's Go To Class)

Now that I’m almost done with classes, I think it would be appropriate to explain how my university’s class schedule works.  It resembles a high school more than an American university; classes start at 8:40 each morning and each period is 40 minutes long.  A bell signals the end of each period.  During ‘passing periods’ the entire campus is bombarded with songs, including one especially rousing tune that goes “one, two, three…” up to “eight!” and is accompanied by a detailed calisthenics routine.   A more unsettling song features Chinese lyrics with the English chorus “Chin! Up! CHINA!”

Noon-2:30 is rest time.  Don’t try to schedule any appointments.

Classes resume from 2:30 until 5:50.  Overachievers can sign up for nighttime courses, which run from 7:30 until 10.  Rumor has it that a wake-up song is broadcasted every morning, but I can’t corroborate this claim. 

Note: I don’t have class every day from 8:30 to 5:00.  Rather, my classes are held during the campus-wide time slots (for example, on Wednesday I have writing from 10:30-12:00 and then speaking from 2:30-4:00).  A student’s schedule corresponds to his/her major.  At least I think the majors for Chinese students work the same way.  But I’m not positive.

亲爱的同学们 (Beloved Classmates)

Every day for the past 14 weeks I have attended Chinese lessons with the same group of 15 students.  The Chinese idea of a ‘class’ is different than the American.  It’s a very intimate, tightly knit group; we all get meals together, we transform into a sports team for intramural tournaments, and we exchange telephone numbers and email addresses.    As I prepare to return to the USA, I feel I have become very familiar, maybe even friends, with most (if not all) of the people in my class.

Which is why it came as such as surprise when at 11:30 last night an email titled “Sexy Sex” arrived in my inbox.  It came from an unknown sender, but the first few lines of the email (and therefore the ones I could view without opening it) listed the email addresses of several of my classmates.  A couple of the guys in my class tend to send out mass emails, usually harmless little slide shows about Vietnam, and one Burmese girl occasionally distributes sale and event notifications, so I assumed that this email was probably some sort of funny cartoon or something that one of my classmates had forwarded.  Nope.  Upon opening the email I found that it was twenty pornographic pictures.  No funny cartoons.

Someone has some explaining to do. 

The picture above is of more vice in China: it's an arcade game, and if you win you get a pack of cigarettes.

两封短信 (Two Texts)

Today I got two texts in a row.  One was from the government, warning me of a torrential downpour sometime within the next 48 hours.  The other one was from my phone company (and therefore, the government), informing me that someone had just added 10 RMB to my cell phone account.  The first one pushed my soggy self into an even deeper state of dejection; the second one provided a much needed upper.  Who was giving me this money?, I wondered.  A secret admirer?

Seconds later I got a call from an unknown number.  Unwisely, I answered; the woman on the other end was the person who had deposited the money in my account and who, based on the level of background noise, was probably standing in the middle of the busiest street in town, and after having a good laugh over the fact that I was a foreigner she started talking really fast and giving me instructions that I didn’t understand.  At my request she repeated herself.  Eventually I got the gist of what she was saying.  She wanted me to call the phone company, talk to them, explain that this woman had accidentally put money in my account, ask them to transfer the money to her account, and then call her again to confirm that the transaction had been processed successfully.

“Really?” I asked.  We were talking about $1.50. 

My exquisite wit was lost in translation.  “Thanks!” she said, and hung up.

I never called the phone company. 

On a side note, the wastebasket is missing from my kitchen.  Who loses wastebaskets?

(Once again, my internet is too slow for pictures.)

药店 (Pharmacy)

I woke up this morning with a cold.  Since I’m only in China for another week I took this opportunity to explore the exciting world of Eastern medicine.

Medicine stores are all over the place here.  I can find at least ten within a one-mile radius of my apartment, allowing me to window shop a little bit and search for the perfect therapy for a gunky throat.  I settled on a store with a cooler in the front.  Each shelf was stocked with two-liter soda bottles full of homemade tonics and syrups.  I got a to-go baggy of “cough tea,” which tasted good when I first drank it but then turned extremely bitter.  I feel better now; I also just took a nap, though. 

双皮奶 (Double Skinned Milk)

It’s been a while since my last food post, but don’t worry, I’m still eating.  Almost every day I buy a shuangpinai (pictured above, literally means “double-skinned milk).  It tastes like very cold, jello-textured milk pudding, and the name comes from the thin and slightly bouncy skin that covers the top.  All the tea stands around town sell it.  Every stand adds kidney bean on top and a few good places thrown in some jelly coconut, but when I really want my socks knocked off I go to a little store just across from the university that covers its shuangpinai with mounds of freshly chopped fruit and a delicious sweet milk sauce.  Price: $.30. 

舞会飞机 (Party Plane)

Last night I flew from Shanghai back to Guilin.  I had booked a screaming deal on the brand new Juneyao Air, and as I pushed and scrambled my way on to the airplane I looked forward to a few restful hours in which I could recuperate from the hectic lifestyle of Shanghai. 

The plane, it turned out, was even more bustling than the city it flew out of.  As we accelerated down the runway a cheer rose from the front of the cabin and rippled its way back; applause broke out as soon as the wheels left the ground.  Skipping up and down the aisle, children knocked from armrest to armrest as the plane hit turbulence on its ascent.  Several women in front of me stood up to exchange the shrink-wrapped chicken legs that they had packed beforehand. 

The real party began once we reached the cruising altitude.  Wheeling a cart to the front of the plane, one of the stewards grabbed the in-cabin microphone and began a two-hour infomercial.  The first item for sale was a Disney-themed water bottle (30 RMB); both easy to clean and simple to transport, this bottle would make a perfect gift for any friend.  Next up was a model airplane (choking-proofed, 200 RMB), a watch that included a flash drive and recording device (perfect for your child to prepare for college placements tests, 350 RMB), a powder pink hairdryer, and, best of all, an oversized Minnie Mouse-themed beach blanket.  Waitresses dashed up and down the aisle to deliver the products to interested buyers, collecting all money in green barf bags.

The light show segment of the program started once we began our descent.  As the plane navigated its way through Guilin’s permanent cloud cover the cabin lights flashed on and off at random intervals, roughly corresponding the air pockets that jolted the craft from side to side.  Fortunately we landed safe and sound, the journey leaving me 400 RMB poorer, a little bit wiser, and, thanks to the excruciating lack of food service, significantly hungrier.   

自然历史博物馆 (Natural History Museum)

Yesterday a friend and I visited the Shanghai Natural History Museum.  A four story brontosaurus fossil greeted us, flanked on one side my a stegosaurus, on the other side by a mammoth, and in the front by a pooping baby who was being held up by his mother and watched by a passing janitor.  The best exhibit was the one about human evolution; it started with pictures of deformed half-man half-apes, then casually lumped humanity into three different races (including the vigorous Negroids, whose representative statues banged on drums and danced around a fire), and then finished with a sad little placard from the 1980’s that apologized about the poor quality of the exhibit.  The rest of the museum was equally captivating.  For example, look at this huge crab: 

Shanghai -- 植物园 (Botanical Garden)

Today I treaded carefully away from the established tourist trail and visited the Shanghai Botanical Gardens.  They really aren’t spectacular.  A couple big white flowers were in bloom, and there was a neat bamboo tunnel, but other than that the only real draw was a large greenhouse that cost an additional 30 RMB to enter and therefore was not graced by my presence.  The area seemed geared very much towards young children, who watered the lawns in abundance, old people, who kept a watch on the young children, and lovers, who hid under leafy trees and made out.  Needless to say, I felt out of place.

Shanghai -- 博物馆 (Museum)

Today we visited the Chinese Propaganda Museum.  It’s an astounding collection of Communist posters from 1949 to the 1980’s and handwritten public notices from the Cultural Revolution, and it has an appropriately covert location: the basement of an unmarked apartment building.  To visit, you must first locate the apartment complex.  Then find the guard with the red beret and tell him your destination; he will give you a small card with a map, which you must follow to Apartment Building B.  Once inside, go down the narrow stairway and turn right.  Awesome!

Shanghai -- 世博会 (World Expo)

Today we visited the World Expo.  On display were hundreds of pavilions from nations around the world and thousands of Chinese people shoving and crowding and waiting for hours on end to enter each and every one. 

I started the day on a strong note.  Walking past the Czech Republic Pavilion, I noticed they were allowing in a steady stream of visitors; even though I wasn’t so bully on the real Czech Republic I thought I’d give the fake one a shot, and to my delight I was informed as soon as I entered that I had been randomly selected to participate in an exciting new experiment!   I was led into a glass room empty except for an enormous golden teardrop and a rack full of vials.  A woman attached a set of sensors to my head and explained that a computer would read my brainwaves, analyze the results, and then produce a cologne that would suit my personality perfectly.

“Think happy thoughts!” she commanded, and then left the room.  Within seconds a mob of Chinese people had pressed up on each side of the room, their faces and arms and cameras squashed against the windows to get a glimpse of the strange white boy with a machine on his head.  If anyone is interested, this is how you make Eau de Kevin: take some Olibanum Liquer, add in Black Agar, and then stir in just a pinch of Lemon Oil.

On my way out the woman gave me a small vial of my cologne.  She also said that I was only the 659^th person selected to participate; considering that the Expo gets over 100,000 visitors per day, I feel pretty lucky.

After that I moseyed over to Argentina, which was closed because a famous basketball player was visiting.  His name was Luis Scola.  I had no idea who he was, but I’m a sucker for celebrity so I waited around for about half an hour until he arrived.   I got this sweet paparazzi pic:

That’s about the end of the day’s excitement.  I took a culturally appropriate siesta on top of the Mexico pavilion.  Nothing else really.  

Shanghai -- 到了 (Arrived)

Today I flew out of Guilin to begin a five-day trip to Shanghai.  I’m travelling with a group of twenty students and professors from Virginia Tech on a study tour, which means that I don’t have to worry about any of the transportation problems and that I can audit Chinese history lectures whenever my heart desires.  What bliss!

We arrived at our hostel at about 10:30 last night.  Our room overlooks a small back alley, and as a sort of welcome presentation a man right below our window gave himself a sponge-bath by the glow of a naked yellow light bulb.  Fortunately he didn’t get all the way naked.  Although he didn’t expose himself, he did expose (!) an interesting juxtaposition between the extreme wealth evident in the skyscrapers around him and the still basic living conditions of many of the cities citizens.  Or maybe he just likes spongebaths.  Or maybe he’s exhibitionist (!).

(!) indicates puns/plays on words that I only noticed when I just proofread the paragraph.  My subconscious is witty!

新职业(New Occupation)

After getting fired via text message a month ago, it only seems appropriate that my latest job was offered in the same way.  Yours truly is now the esteemed editor of a new English textbook.  For those keeping track, this is my third job in a month; what a workhorse!

The text concentrates on the administration of artistic performances, specifically detailing the misadventures of a club of university students who call each other by their last names and operate under the slightly unsettling moniker of “The Black Cat.”  I’m only on lesson six, but the tension is already building; the New Years Gala is only nine weeks away, and as Davis points out to his friend Goodman, “time and tide wait for no man!”