18 December 2009
I am packed. Packed and ready to go. My room somehow still kind of looks like someone lives here, but, as of 6:30 am tomorrow, no one does. I suppose they’ll move someone in fairly soon.
For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been watching a lot of television shows online here. It helped aid some fun nights of four-hour sleeps and days of droopy eyelids. These shows have also made me something of a connoisseur of endings between all the season and series finales. Trends begin to emerge. The majority of shows opt for one of two outs: the “recap and reflections” or the “complete resolution”. So the question is, do I retell you all about the sum of my adventures, or take my last three and a half hours in China and resolve every conflict I’ve been involved in?
Let’s roll with the recap and put a little spit and curve into it, eh?
The overall sum of my adventures is of some relation to its parts. All told, I’m pretty doggone tired and ready to be in America. However, China has nestled into some tiny corner of my heart. I am coming back. I mean, come on, I still have things to see. I’ll tell you one thing: this country is huge with far too much to see. I’ve been here for three and a half months (or 110 days; or 15 5/7 weeks) and seen my fair piece. I biked through the homeworld of Chewbacca; rode down a frigid river with Solla Sollew overhead; built a snowman cannon operator on the ancient city wall of Xi’An (oh yeah, I went to Xi’An for three days this past week; it was unbelievable); eaten all manner of strange food; seen the terra cotta soldiers; witnessed a mass Taoist worship activity; played Go with the Chinese; made friends with the local restaurant owners; been hassled and praised for my hirsuteness; treated like a punching bag and a sardine on the Metro; harassed by American Chinese thugs on the lam; visited a synagogue in the Jewish district; and gam bei’d with ancient Chinese men. And yet, after all of those strange, normal, dubiously verifiable, and all around experienceable instances I still haven’t even seen the Western part of the country, the far north, the Tibetan region, and others too many and interesting to mention. China is a glorious country. They say that, too, but I think I might mean something else. I’ll fill in more on that once I actually arrive Stateside, since anything I submit in any format here can and probably will be reviewed.
In short, what I’m trying to tell all of you yet-to-visit-China-ers is that I have loved my time here. It’s been difficult, especially mentally. Being in a foreign country that doesn’t even use your own character set is a mite taxing. I’d certainly recommend it, though. To anyone. I mean, my mom came. This is the woman who, when my father put in for a position here with his company, said, “Well, I guess I’ll see you at Christmas.” That’s (mostly) all folks. Glad I could enlighten you and thanks for reading.
Stay Classy, Meiguo.
-Topher Smith, The Once and Future World Traveller
Friday, December 18, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The Centre of the Earth Part 3: In the Land of Wookies
28 November 2009
And so we arrive at the promised destination. Early, in fact. You see, I had been excited to visit a place named for the legen-(wait for it)-dary Shangri-La. Some of you younger folk may not know this name, but, in short, Shangri-La is a mythical utopia located somewhere in East Asia. It is supposed to be a place where no one ever leaves, all are happy as can be, and drinks are always free. Anyway, we had planned to go see this small town near Yangshuo, but we put that trip off until the next day and decided on a biking trip for the guys. This led us to the real gem tucked away in the pocket of the Orient.
So, the seven of us lads exited Yangshuo on rented bicycles and began our voyage into the countryside. Only twenty minutes in, we realized what an awesome decision we’d made. We biked off the road and onto single file trails, seeing cultivated fields of vegetables, vast valleys, and towering hills/mountains (the same as you saw in the pictures of the Li River). Those things are monstrous when you’re standing at the foot of them. Some of the ride was pretty rough. At some points, we had to work our way over rocks bigger than a fist. True story. We took our time, stopping here and there to snap pictures and take it all in. We stopped outside one village and bought bottled water from a family. We stayed and chatted for a while, using our incredibly limited Mandarin and speaking English with one of the daughters (?). Apparently, this village we chose to stop at was over/around 900 years old. After having one of them take our picture (below) and playing with the little ones for a few minutes, we pressed on
. Our choice of trails took us through a few more small villages where children and old folk greeted us excitedly. We biked out of the farms and villages back to the main road and headed over to a spot called Dragon Bridge. It was kind of a letdown. Such is life. After the bridge, four of us (including me) decided it was time to head back to Yangshuo, which was still twelve kilometers from the bridge. The other three wanted to see Seven Star Hill, which was nine kilometers in the wrong direction. We parted, and the four of us who left made it back without incident.
The others, though, weren’t quite so lucky. Stewart, who was with them, cramped up on the ride back and had to start walking. He told the other two to go ahead, and that he’d make it. The other two made it back, met up with us, and then borrowed the renter’s moped to go pick Stewart up. They made it back, intact and relatively unharmed. The total distance was a little over ~33 kilometers for my group, and ~38 for the others (they quit on the way to Seven Star Hill, realizing that their legs might not be up for it). The day was done, our rumps were sore, and we had had one fantastic day.
Wishing everyone a belated Thanksgiving,
Topher
P.S. The area we biked through is actually fairly famous, although pretty anonymously so. It was featured in the George Lucas film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It was the planet Kashyyyk, home of the Wookies (Chewbacca’s race). I found that out after I got back, and it made the day that much better.
And so we arrive at the promised destination. Early, in fact. You see, I had been excited to visit a place named for the legen-(wait for it)-dary Shangri-La. Some of you younger folk may not know this name, but, in short, Shangri-La is a mythical utopia located somewhere in East Asia. It is supposed to be a place where no one ever leaves, all are happy as can be, and drinks are always free. Anyway, we had planned to go see this small town near Yangshuo, but we put that trip off until the next day and decided on a biking trip for the guys. This led us to the real gem tucked away in the pocket of the Orient.
So, the seven of us lads exited Yangshuo on rented bicycles and began our voyage into the countryside. Only twenty minutes in, we realized what an awesome decision we’d made. We biked off the road and onto single file trails, seeing cultivated fields of vegetables, vast valleys, and towering hills/mountains (the same as you saw in the pictures of the Li River). Those things are monstrous when you’re standing at the foot of them. Some of the ride was pretty rough. At some points, we had to work our way over rocks bigger than a fist. True story. We took our time, stopping here and there to snap pictures and take it all in. We stopped outside one village and bought bottled water from a family. We stayed and chatted for a while, using our incredibly limited Mandarin and speaking English with one of the daughters (?). Apparently, this village we chose to stop at was over/around 900 years old. After having one of them take our picture (below) and playing with the little ones for a few minutes, we pressed on
. Our choice of trails took us through a few more small villages where children and old folk greeted us excitedly. We biked out of the farms and villages back to the main road and headed over to a spot called Dragon Bridge. It was kind of a letdown. Such is life. After the bridge, four of us (including me) decided it was time to head back to Yangshuo, which was still twelve kilometers from the bridge. The other three wanted to see Seven Star Hill, which was nine kilometers in the wrong direction. We parted, and the four of us who left made it back without incident.
The others, though, weren’t quite so lucky. Stewart, who was with them, cramped up on the ride back and had to start walking. He told the other two to go ahead, and that he’d make it. The other two made it back, met up with us, and then borrowed the renter’s moped to go pick Stewart up. They made it back, intact and relatively unharmed. The total distance was a little over ~33 kilometers for my group, and ~38 for the others (they quit on the way to Seven Star Hill, realizing that their legs might not be up for it). The day was done, our rumps were sore, and we had had one fantastic day.Wishing everyone a belated Thanksgiving,
Topher
P.S. The area we biked through is actually fairly famous, although pretty anonymously so. It was featured in the George Lucas film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It was the planet Kashyyyk, home of the Wookies (Chewbacca’s race). I found that out after I got back, and it made the day that much better.
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Centre of the Earth, Part 2: Eclipsing Aeneas
5 October 2009
If you will all be so kind as to recall that fellow who followed us around during our day in Guilin, it will save me the trouble of re-introducing him. Okay, go…Got him?...Good. Let’s begin.
Skippy (my name for the Guilin fellow) had overheard us talking about riding a boat down the Li River to Yangshuo (our next destination). Though still employing his façade of a teacher, he mentioned that he happened to have a friend whose boat company was both cheaper and better. Right. After some research, though, we found out he was right about it being cheaper. His friend’s boats were a quarter of the price of the standard tourist boats and were made of bamboo, giving them an extra bit of appeal. We were immediately intrigued. After paying the man up front (yes, a terrible idea), we went on our way to Seven Star Park and put him out of our minds for the next few hours. As the night wore on, we all resigned ourselves to the probability that we had just forked over 160 yuan each that we’d never see again. Regardless, we woke up the next morning for a bus we didn’t expect to come. It was due at seven o’clock, but that came and went. 7:05, 7:10, 7:15 and lo! The van arrives. Collective sigh. We loaded up in the rickety van and were on our bumpy way. We jostled along, moving from paved roads, to gravel, to dirt, and finally to grass that was sort of shorter than that around it. Our suspicions began to build again. We wondered if we might be dropped in a random field with no means for travel, no knowledge of Chinese, and no way of finding anything other than remote villages and Japanese Encephalitis. Finally we saw a boat yard. But we passed it. Uh-oh. We decided to sit tight and have a little faith. Finally, shortly after we had begun plotting our mutiny, the van rattled to a halt and delivered us into the hands of our boat captains. Twelve people (we brought along two Fins from Shanghai University), three boats, one stupendous journey.
Now, I have seen many rivers, some famous, some infamous, and some ambiguous. I have traveled down said rivers in all manner of aquatic craft. I’ve canoed the Harpeth, rafted the Ocoee, kayaked the Hiwassee, cruised the Huangpu, and danced on the Potomac. But this ride on a bamboo boat propelled by a weed whacker was far and away the most beautiful and remarkable. The curious hills that characterize the northern part of Guanxi province spring up gallantly from the surprisingly clear river. The Seussian landscape sports an array of hues centered around green and white. It steals one’s breath right out of the lungs and recasts it as beauty in this vista. The air was cold and fresh; the sky, blue as Justine Moritz’ eyes. This little cruise was the perfect escape after more than a month in smoggy Shanghai. The ride was all too short at just two hours. We hopped off the boat at a concrete ramp and trotted up the hill to wait for the other two boats. We got one in about twenty minutes, but then the other took thirty more on top of that. Once we were all gathered, the driver had become impatient and said he would take boat groups whole or not at all. Our group couldn’t all fit on the bus, so he left the last four to arrive and literally grabbed three Chinese girls and put them on with us. This “bus” was more of an open-sided large golf cart style vehicle. You know, the kind they shuttle groups of Japanese tourists about in at Disneyworld. The road we careened down was a lovely cattle path that was slightly slimmer than our chariot at points and a mite better than the faintly shorter grass I mentioned earlier. Stewart and I passed the time on the trip by trapping suitcases in the stowage cabinet behind us with our heads. We arrived in Xinping and decided that the other four should be along shortly. Being a bit puckish (it was only about 9 am) we sat down in a café to wait with surprisingly delicious crepes and coffee. Now, for those of you wondering why we went to all this trouble instead of taking a forty-five minute bus ride to Yangshuo, the apparently backwater town of Xinping hosts a few little-known attractions. First of all, it is well over 1000 years old, and several of the original buildings still stand. Second, on the back of the twenty RMB bill is printed a placid panorama of those peculiar hills. That exact scene is located at some tucked away spot in Xinping. True story. At last, our companions made it to Xinping and wanted to be onwards and upwards. To Rob, Wayne, and me that meant seeing the sights. To the other nine, that meant hopping the next bus to Yangshuo. It seems we had a misunderstanding. Democracy won out, and we climbed into the bus. Once again, there weren’t enough seats, but the operators made do with 12X6 inch wooden stools. I got to sit on one of those down yet another bumpy road, wedged between an older Chinese couple, two walls, and a younger Chinese woman standing five inches in front of me. I tried to sleep, but instead just worked on my third concussion by having my head smacked against the bus window every four minutes.
The bus stopped outside a tunnel on the highway and dropped our Western dozen on the side of the road with only a point toward the outskirts of what we assumed to be Yangshuo. After another run-in with another would-be tour guide who tried to convince us to change to his hotel (we’d already paid for ours) and a crazy piled high golf cart/taxi ride we arrived at the hotel. It was two in the afternoon. We’d had two day’s worth of bewilderment in less than seven hours. A couple of us ended up passing out before sunset and unknowingly resting up for the real adventure to come…
If you will all be so kind as to recall that fellow who followed us around during our day in Guilin, it will save me the trouble of re-introducing him. Okay, go…Got him?...Good. Let’s begin.
Skippy (my name for the Guilin fellow) had overheard us talking about riding a boat down the Li River to Yangshuo (our next destination). Though still employing his façade of a teacher, he mentioned that he happened to have a friend whose boat company was both cheaper and better. Right. After some research, though, we found out he was right about it being cheaper. His friend’s boats were a quarter of the price of the standard tourist boats and were made of bamboo, giving them an extra bit of appeal. We were immediately intrigued. After paying the man up front (yes, a terrible idea), we went on our way to Seven Star Park and put him out of our minds for the next few hours. As the night wore on, we all resigned ourselves to the probability that we had just forked over 160 yuan each that we’d never see again. Regardless, we woke up the next morning for a bus we didn’t expect to come. It was due at seven o’clock, but that came and went. 7:05, 7:10, 7:15 and lo! The van arrives. Collective sigh. We loaded up in the rickety van and were on our bumpy way. We jostled along, moving from paved roads, to gravel, to dirt, and finally to grass that was sort of shorter than that around it. Our suspicions began to build again. We wondered if we might be dropped in a random field with no means for travel, no knowledge of Chinese, and no way of finding anything other than remote villages and Japanese Encephalitis. Finally we saw a boat yard. But we passed it. Uh-oh. We decided to sit tight and have a little faith. Finally, shortly after we had begun plotting our mutiny, the van rattled to a halt and delivered us into the hands of our boat captains. Twelve people (we brought along two Fins from Shanghai University), three boats, one stupendous journey.
Now, I have seen many rivers, some famous, some infamous, and some ambiguous. I have traveled down said rivers in all manner of aquatic craft. I’ve canoed the Harpeth, rafted the Ocoee, kayaked the Hiwassee, cruised the Huangpu, and danced on the Potomac. But this ride on a bamboo boat propelled by a weed whacker was far and away the most beautiful and remarkable. The curious hills that characterize the northern part of Guanxi province spring up gallantly from the surprisingly clear river. The Seussian landscape sports an array of hues centered around green and white. It steals one’s breath right out of the lungs and recasts it as beauty in this vista. The air was cold and fresh; the sky, blue as Justine Moritz’ eyes. This little cruise was the perfect escape after more than a month in smoggy Shanghai. The ride was all too short at just two hours. We hopped off the boat at a concrete ramp and trotted up the hill to wait for the other two boats. We got one in about twenty minutes, but then the other took thirty more on top of that. Once we were all gathered, the driver had become impatient and said he would take boat groups whole or not at all. Our group couldn’t all fit on the bus, so he left the last four to arrive and literally grabbed three Chinese girls and put them on with us. This “bus” was more of an open-sided large golf cart style vehicle. You know, the kind they shuttle groups of Japanese tourists about in at Disneyworld. The road we careened down was a lovely cattle path that was slightly slimmer than our chariot at points and a mite better than the faintly shorter grass I mentioned earlier. Stewart and I passed the time on the trip by trapping suitcases in the stowage cabinet behind us with our heads. We arrived in Xinping and decided that the other four should be along shortly. Being a bit puckish (it was only about 9 am) we sat down in a café to wait with surprisingly delicious crepes and coffee. Now, for those of you wondering why we went to all this trouble instead of taking a forty-five minute bus ride to Yangshuo, the apparently backwater town of Xinping hosts a few little-known attractions. First of all, it is well over 1000 years old, and several of the original buildings still stand. Second, on the back of the twenty RMB bill is printed a placid panorama of those peculiar hills. That exact scene is located at some tucked away spot in Xinping. True story. At last, our companions made it to Xinping and wanted to be onwards and upwards. To Rob, Wayne, and me that meant seeing the sights. To the other nine, that meant hopping the next bus to Yangshuo. It seems we had a misunderstanding. Democracy won out, and we climbed into the bus. Once again, there weren’t enough seats, but the operators made do with 12X6 inch wooden stools. I got to sit on one of those down yet another bumpy road, wedged between an older Chinese couple, two walls, and a younger Chinese woman standing five inches in front of me. I tried to sleep, but instead just worked on my third concussion by having my head smacked against the bus window every four minutes.
The bus stopped outside a tunnel on the highway and dropped our Western dozen on the side of the road with only a point toward the outskirts of what we assumed to be Yangshuo. After another run-in with another would-be tour guide who tried to convince us to change to his hotel (we’d already paid for ours) and a crazy piled high golf cart/taxi ride we arrived at the hotel. It was two in the afternoon. We’d had two day’s worth of bewilderment in less than seven hours. A couple of us ended up passing out before sunset and unknowingly resting up for the real adventure to come…
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The Centre of the Earth, Part 1: Noah’s Envy
30 October 2009
I’ll sum up the first bit of Guilin quickly. If I did not, someone might accuse me of being verbose, and we just couldn’t have that, could we?
We filled our first (and only) full day in Guilin. We began bright and early with Elephant Trunk Hill. En route, however, we picked up a new friend. Now, when I say “friend” some random fellow on the street who happened to speak English and wanted to be our tour guide. He was not up front about this fact, though, and instead tried to pass himself off as a teacher. We will never know if this is true or not, but from the evidence, he was less than honest about his profession. We met him because one member of our group is a tad too sociable with random Chinese people. This has, from time to time, got us into unfavourable situations. So, this Chinese fellow, who now laid off the rest of his day to show us the best sights in Guilin, led us to the entrance of Elephant Trunk Hill. We snapped a few pictures of the astounding geological feature and explored the rest of the park. There was a quaint, understated Buddhist temple, and a portion where you could actually explore the “trunk” area. John, Stewart and I got asked to be in several pictures, and I believe I was mistaken for Hugh Jackman a few times. I can’t be sure, but I think I heard something like “Wolverine” once or twice amongst the titters, giggles, whispers and stares.
We left Elephant Trunk Hill and were directed along a circuitous route past some astonishing old pagodas toward a so-called Irish pub. My rump. Lunch was fit for a prison in France circa 1789. After that traumatic experience, we trotted over to Seven Star Hill. We parted ways with our impromptu guide. Here was the find of the day. A large Buddhist temple stood beneath a jaw-dropping cliff face. We toured the temple grounds and then proceeded to crawl into the cliff face and survey Guilin from some very dusty old caves that had a slight stinging insect problem. No casualties, though. By this point, the group had split into two factions. I was in the latter half. We took the scenic route while trying to find our lost companions. They mentioned something they had dubbed “Monkey Mountain”. They hadn’t seen any primates, but there were signs (written things on posts; nothing mystical here) indicating that they existed. We made our way to this Monkey Mountain and found no friends, and no monkeys. When we were about to call it quits, we saw a man and his son holding a bag of fruit and tossing bits into the brush. We thought it a tried and failed method of attracting animals. As it turns out, we were wrong in our assumptions. He wasn’t luring one of these little imps to the food. It had come of its own volition and was giddily catching and snacking on the food tossed by the father. Seeing our immediate fascination at a live monkey outside a cage or net, the man kindly offered us stock in his store of monkey comestibles. This soon became a game of “Get the Monkey Close”.
That then evolved into “Get the Monkey to Snatch it From My Hand”. In that game, we were the grasshoppers. This went on until we ran out of fruit. Then, the monkey we thought to be the alpha male (turns out there was a bigger one; that’s not my story, though) became aggressive and challenged Ned (a college athlete of burly, Irish build) over some sweet rolls sitting between them. We left, and quickly. We started seeing signs for pandas (pronounced, at least to us, “pander”) and went on an earnest search for them. Nothing could deter us. Nothing, that is, except peacocks. There they were, perched on stilts and daring us to hold them. Being a connoisseur of all things fantsy-pants, I had to. I convinced my friends, and we each paid 
our 5 yuan (less than a dollar). It was awesome. I felt like a king. Frivolities past, we continued our search for the giant pander. At first we only found the incredibly adorable red raccoon/red panda/xiao xiong mao. After meeting a witty elder British man who gave us a name for the treatment we’d received from the Chinese (Caged Panda), we circled back into the park and saw a real, live, bona fide Da Xiong Mao aka the Giant Panda aka the Giant Pander aka Po aka Great Big Cuddly Thing Nomming on Some Bamboo. Checked that goal off the list. 
We left Seven Star Hill to grab some dinner and prepare for another early day. We had no idea what adventures lay in store for us only 12 hours in the future.
-Topher, who looks like a Nazarite
P.S. Secret location coming soon. Please remain in your seats for the remainder of the buildup.
I’ll sum up the first bit of Guilin quickly. If I did not, someone might accuse me of being verbose, and we just couldn’t have that, could we?
We filled our first (and only) full day in Guilin. We began bright and early with Elephant Trunk Hill. En route, however, we picked up a new friend. Now, when I say “friend” some random fellow on the street who happened to speak English and wanted to be our tour guide. He was not up front about this fact, though, and instead tried to pass himself off as a teacher. We will never know if this is true or not, but from the evidence, he was less than honest about his profession. We met him because one member of our group is a tad too sociable with random Chinese people. This has, from time to time, got us into unfavourable situations. So, this Chinese fellow, who now laid off the rest of his day to show us the best sights in Guilin, led us to the entrance of Elephant Trunk Hill. We snapped a few pictures of the astounding geological feature and explored the rest of the park. There was a quaint, understated Buddhist temple, and a portion where you could actually explore the “trunk” area. John, Stewart and I got asked to be in several pictures, and I believe I was mistaken for Hugh Jackman a few times. I can’t be sure, but I think I heard something like “Wolverine” once or twice amongst the titters, giggles, whispers and stares.
We left Elephant Trunk Hill and were directed along a circuitous route past some astonishing old pagodas toward a so-called Irish pub. My rump. Lunch was fit for a prison in France circa 1789. After that traumatic experience, we trotted over to Seven Star Hill. We parted ways with our impromptu guide. Here was the find of the day. A large Buddhist temple stood beneath a jaw-dropping cliff face. We toured the temple grounds and then proceeded to crawl into the cliff face and survey Guilin from some very dusty old caves that had a slight stinging insect problem. No casualties, though. By this point, the group had split into two factions. I was in the latter half. We took the scenic route while trying to find our lost companions. They mentioned something they had dubbed “Monkey Mountain”. They hadn’t seen any primates, but there were signs (written things on posts; nothing mystical here) indicating that they existed. We made our way to this Monkey Mountain and found no friends, and no monkeys. When we were about to call it quits, we saw a man and his son holding a bag of fruit and tossing bits into the brush. We thought it a tried and failed method of attracting animals. As it turns out, we were wrong in our assumptions. He wasn’t luring one of these little imps to the food. It had come of its own volition and was giddily catching and snacking on the food tossed by the father. Seeing our immediate fascination at a live monkey outside a cage or net, the man kindly offered us stock in his store of monkey comestibles. This soon became a game of “Get the Monkey Close”.
That then evolved into “Get the Monkey to Snatch it From My Hand”. In that game, we were the grasshoppers. This went on until we ran out of fruit. Then, the monkey we thought to be the alpha male (turns out there was a bigger one; that’s not my story, though) became aggressive and challenged Ned (a college athlete of burly, Irish build) over some sweet rolls sitting between them. We left, and quickly. We started seeing signs for pandas (pronounced, at least to us, “pander”) and went on an earnest search for them. Nothing could deter us. Nothing, that is, except peacocks. There they were, perched on stilts and daring us to hold them. Being a connoisseur of all things fantsy-pants, I had to. I convinced my friends, and we each paid 
our 5 yuan (less than a dollar). It was awesome. I felt like a king. Frivolities past, we continued our search for the giant pander. At first we only found the incredibly adorable red raccoon/red panda/xiao xiong mao. After meeting a witty elder British man who gave us a name for the treatment we’d received from the Chinese (Caged Panda), we circled back into the park and saw a real, live, bona fide Da Xiong Mao aka the Giant Panda aka the Giant Pander aka Po aka Great Big Cuddly Thing Nomming on Some Bamboo. Checked that goal off the list. We left Seven Star Hill to grab some dinner and prepare for another early day. We had no idea what adventures lay in store for us only 12 hours in the future.
-Topher, who looks like a Nazarite
P.S. Secret location coming soon. Please remain in your seats for the remainder of the buildup.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
15 October 2009
At least, the center of beauty. I can honestly say, at the risk of losing speaking privileges with my mother, that this place was the most beautiful spot I have ever seen. I mean it’s just incredibly, fantastically, drive-you-out-of-your-gourd stupendous. Shew. But that’s a few hundred words away. Let’s begin where 54.921% of things do: the start.
-quick note: for this entry, I will be using not-quite celebrity names instead of actual ones for reasons that will soon become apparent.-
Coolio, Milly, Vanilly and I were packed and airport-bound. However, we would soon split into two factions for separate (albeit simultaneous) flights. This curious circumstance came about because of a former fiasco that leads to a future train wreck. The Baha Men decided to buy plane tickets before everyone was gathered to make a decision. However, they had not fully researched a way home from this city 1553 kilometers away from Shanghai (affectionately called “home”). They thought we could simply waltz down to the Shanghai Railway Station and buy return tickets. This is impossible. One can only buy departing tickets from the city one is departing. They also cannot be bought online, which the Baha Men would have discovered with five minutes of research. Oh well. They insisted that everything would be okay and “just knew” there’d be tickets when we got to Guilin. Yet another instance in which their lack of research failed them. Tickets go on sale ten to twenty days before the train leaves. After two days, the only tickets available are standing room only. We would be arriving in Guilin five days before leaving during the absolute busiest travel time in China. Next batter, please.
Kids, let this be a lesson to you. Research papers do teach you life skills. Always check your facts, use primary sources instead of hearsay, and good judgment is phenomenally better than a bad idea. Thank you, Magistra Tracey.
Anyways, we now had a minute crisis. Do we let the Baha Men run off to a distant part of a foreign country and get their comeuppance? Tell them to forget the 480 RMB they’d each just spent and work on cheap plans centered around Shanghai? Or, do we do work collaboratively and share the imminent lashing from the Universe? We chose Option 3 (we are such a team :D). To depainify an agonizing and hair-yanking story, we figured it out. We all found cheap return tickets for Friday, 9 October. We did not all manage to jump on the same flight there, because the Baha Men bought tickets on a flight that had six empty seats for ten full people. Coolio, Milly, Vanilly, and I would leave at 15:00 on two different planes; the Baha Men and Creed would take the same 19:00 flight. The Baha Men made one final mistake. That slip-up is only a minnow burp sized ripple at this point in the story.
Back to the airport. Coolio and I parted ways with Milly & Vanilly. Now, remember way back in September when I wrote that post about traveling here? Recall that I said if I make it through security sans hassle, the rest of the day closely resembles an abridged Odyssey? Well, security was full of hitches, but apparently the rule does not apply inversely. An over-zealous lady at the checkpoint decided that the peanut butter in my backpack was water. She was quite insistent on that fact. Her colleague simply chuckled to himself and told her to put it back. Determined to keep this poor little meiguoren in Pudong International, the lady pulled out another item. Okay, granted, I do vaguely resemble the long lost brother of Cat Stevens right now, but the item she chose shows how much she was stretching. She pulled out a stick of deodorant and would not believe me when I told her it wasn’t water. Her colleague sat there smiling incredulously at her and periodically telling her to give it back. With a sneer she relinquished her trophy and gestured me on my way. I repacked my bag, connected with Coolio, and we hiked to our gate and plopped down. We had a good amount of time, and were feeling light-hearted after I recounted my mock trial in security. Suddenly, an announcement came from the check-in desk in Chinese. There was no English translation, which seemed weird because all the previous announcements had been bilingual. I recognized our flight number so we asked the man at the desk what was going on. Our flight was delayed. Joy. He uncertainly said he didn’t know how long. We found out from someone else it was going to be at least an hour. Jubilee. Nothing to do, then, but wait. We finally boarded around 16:20. The flight was fine, except the Chinese mother and daughter next to me pointed, stared, whispered, and giggled loudly for an hour. We landed, connected with Milly & Vanilly, and got on a bus to Guilin. Onboard, met three American students who are also studying in Shanghai. We were excited until they started talking. It was as if we were watching an episode of The Hills without the pretty girls. They defecated on the English language with every sentence. Worst of all, they gorged their conversation with the word “like”. Those of you who know me well will be proud to know I didn’t backhand, browbeat, or even berate them. Milly and I just cringed in the seats in front of them and laughed at their opinions of themselves. As I said, it was exactly like an episode of The Hills sans eye candy. My apologies for the miniature rant.
The Baha Men and Creed were delayed. Their plane wouldn’t be landing until nearly 23:00. Those ripples I mentioned earlier were now bordering on tsunami level. You see, they had set the check-in time for 21:40, even though their plane was supposed to land at 21:10. Also, one of the Baha Men had booked the rooms in his/her name and we couldn’t check-in for the rest of us. Additionally, they would only hold the room until midnight, and, with this latest hiccup, the Baha Men and Creed would not be arriving until fifteen minutes after midnight. There was no other choice but to beg the concierge (or whatever you call the lady who does check-in) to wait until a few minutes after midnight. In our first stroke of luck in days, she graciously consented. They finally arrived at five minutes past. We checked-in and moved our odd assortment of almost celebrities upstairs to our posh, fully complimentary fancy shmancy suites, where we didn’t have to sleep six men to a room with three small beds. If only. We did get into the rooms, though. We laid down, passed out, and prepared for a whole new giant day.
-to be continued-
Won’t be any more posts for a week after this. Sorry! Good news, though: the family will be visiting me in SHANGHAI!! Be excited for me, people. Enjoy yourselves.
At least, the center of beauty. I can honestly say, at the risk of losing speaking privileges with my mother, that this place was the most beautiful spot I have ever seen. I mean it’s just incredibly, fantastically, drive-you-out-of-your-gourd stupendous. Shew. But that’s a few hundred words away. Let’s begin where 54.921% of things do: the start.
-quick note: for this entry, I will be using not-quite celebrity names instead of actual ones for reasons that will soon become apparent.-
Coolio, Milly, Vanilly and I were packed and airport-bound. However, we would soon split into two factions for separate (albeit simultaneous) flights. This curious circumstance came about because of a former fiasco that leads to a future train wreck. The Baha Men decided to buy plane tickets before everyone was gathered to make a decision. However, they had not fully researched a way home from this city 1553 kilometers away from Shanghai (affectionately called “home”). They thought we could simply waltz down to the Shanghai Railway Station and buy return tickets. This is impossible. One can only buy departing tickets from the city one is departing. They also cannot be bought online, which the Baha Men would have discovered with five minutes of research. Oh well. They insisted that everything would be okay and “just knew” there’d be tickets when we got to Guilin. Yet another instance in which their lack of research failed them. Tickets go on sale ten to twenty days before the train leaves. After two days, the only tickets available are standing room only. We would be arriving in Guilin five days before leaving during the absolute busiest travel time in China. Next batter, please.
Kids, let this be a lesson to you. Research papers do teach you life skills. Always check your facts, use primary sources instead of hearsay, and good judgment is phenomenally better than a bad idea. Thank you, Magistra Tracey.
Anyways, we now had a minute crisis. Do we let the Baha Men run off to a distant part of a foreign country and get their comeuppance? Tell them to forget the 480 RMB they’d each just spent and work on cheap plans centered around Shanghai? Or, do we do work collaboratively and share the imminent lashing from the Universe? We chose Option 3 (we are such a team :D). To depainify an agonizing and hair-yanking story, we figured it out. We all found cheap return tickets for Friday, 9 October. We did not all manage to jump on the same flight there, because the Baha Men bought tickets on a flight that had six empty seats for ten full people. Coolio, Milly, Vanilly, and I would leave at 15:00 on two different planes; the Baha Men and Creed would take the same 19:00 flight. The Baha Men made one final mistake. That slip-up is only a minnow burp sized ripple at this point in the story.
Back to the airport. Coolio and I parted ways with Milly & Vanilly. Now, remember way back in September when I wrote that post about traveling here? Recall that I said if I make it through security sans hassle, the rest of the day closely resembles an abridged Odyssey? Well, security was full of hitches, but apparently the rule does not apply inversely. An over-zealous lady at the checkpoint decided that the peanut butter in my backpack was water. She was quite insistent on that fact. Her colleague simply chuckled to himself and told her to put it back. Determined to keep this poor little meiguoren in Pudong International, the lady pulled out another item. Okay, granted, I do vaguely resemble the long lost brother of Cat Stevens right now, but the item she chose shows how much she was stretching. She pulled out a stick of deodorant and would not believe me when I told her it wasn’t water. Her colleague sat there smiling incredulously at her and periodically telling her to give it back. With a sneer she relinquished her trophy and gestured me on my way. I repacked my bag, connected with Coolio, and we hiked to our gate and plopped down. We had a good amount of time, and were feeling light-hearted after I recounted my mock trial in security. Suddenly, an announcement came from the check-in desk in Chinese. There was no English translation, which seemed weird because all the previous announcements had been bilingual. I recognized our flight number so we asked the man at the desk what was going on. Our flight was delayed. Joy. He uncertainly said he didn’t know how long. We found out from someone else it was going to be at least an hour. Jubilee. Nothing to do, then, but wait. We finally boarded around 16:20. The flight was fine, except the Chinese mother and daughter next to me pointed, stared, whispered, and giggled loudly for an hour. We landed, connected with Milly & Vanilly, and got on a bus to Guilin. Onboard, met three American students who are also studying in Shanghai. We were excited until they started talking. It was as if we were watching an episode of The Hills without the pretty girls. They defecated on the English language with every sentence. Worst of all, they gorged their conversation with the word “like”. Those of you who know me well will be proud to know I didn’t backhand, browbeat, or even berate them. Milly and I just cringed in the seats in front of them and laughed at their opinions of themselves. As I said, it was exactly like an episode of The Hills sans eye candy. My apologies for the miniature rant.
The Baha Men and Creed were delayed. Their plane wouldn’t be landing until nearly 23:00. Those ripples I mentioned earlier were now bordering on tsunami level. You see, they had set the check-in time for 21:40, even though their plane was supposed to land at 21:10. Also, one of the Baha Men had booked the rooms in his/her name and we couldn’t check-in for the rest of us. Additionally, they would only hold the room until midnight, and, with this latest hiccup, the Baha Men and Creed would not be arriving until fifteen minutes after midnight. There was no other choice but to beg the concierge (or whatever you call the lady who does check-in) to wait until a few minutes after midnight. In our first stroke of luck in days, she graciously consented. They finally arrived at five minutes past. We checked-in and moved our odd assortment of almost celebrities upstairs to our posh, fully complimentary fancy shmancy suites, where we didn’t have to sleep six men to a room with three small beds. If only. We did get into the rooms, though. We laid down, passed out, and prepared for a whole new giant day.
-to be continued-
Won’t be any more posts for a week after this. Sorry! Good news, though: the family will be visiting me in SHANGHAI!! Be excited for me, people. Enjoy yourselves.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
General Update
30 September 2009
No big stories this time; it was a pretty lazy week on our part. We started our second round of classes last week, though.
Let’s begin like I did, with Chinese History and Culture. We started the day off on the wrong foot: at the wrong building. Directions for anything thus far have been scant at best, leaving us poor Meiguorenmen to fumble around as virtual mutes. We eventually made it to class about ten minutes late. Imagine our shock when the first thing we hear is the teacher posing a vote to the class! We took our seats, still slack-jawed. As it turns out, the vote was merely about class time. After the two sides were explained, the whole class unanimously voted for an earlier end to class with shorter breaks. We share the timeslot with roughly forty other students from Finland and Germany. There are two Russians, but they’re shlupping around with the Fins. Jiang Laoshi realigned our jaws by starting the class as we had originally imagined it: with oodles of facts surprisingly aligned with the views of The Party. For example, in China, there are 23 districts, including…Taiwan. Interesting. There are also eight parties besides the ruling one (which has held power for 60 years tomorrow). Upon further questioning by a skeptical German student, the teacher gave a circuital admission that they cannot vote and have relatively no power. She did reassure all of us, however, that their voices are heard. Big sigh of relief from the whole room. The whole three and a half hours went on in this fashion. Imagine our exhaustion by the end of it. I believe I had two detailed, lengthy doodles involving Atlas Shrugged/Ayn Rand in the works, and one finished. This week was hardly any different, and didn’t even include a vote. Sad.
Thursday afternoon brought our Chinese Economics course. For those of you I didn’t enlighten, this is the course I have been dreading. I find economics to be a pedestrian, pedantic, and all-around podiatric study. Feet aside, the class turned out to be a blast. Granted, it was four hours long, but I was a big fan of the professor. He challenged China’s positions, plans, and ideas on many different issues and ended the class with a 30 minute critique of the Government’s focus on the GDP and its seeming apathy with respect to internal corruption. He even went so far as to say the Government needs more accountability to the people (that means actual elections). This guy had guts, saying what he did. Occasionally he would talk in circles, but the general tone and content was laudable. This class will be the easiest by far, as he doesn’t take attendance, there are nine total classes, and our final exam is an 800 word paper expanding one aspect of one lecture. Not a raw deal by any means. We also share this class with the previously acknowledged Europeans.
We ten Americans are officially on break for the next eight days. We leave Saturday evening for Guilin and Yangshuo in the Quanxi province (southwest China). It’s supposed to be among the absolutely most beautiful places on Earth, including one very secret spot that I will write about when we get back. It has the name of a fable. I’ve only told one person outside China what its name is so don’t go asking around. You’ll just have to wait until the next post. That one should be up on Monday or Tuesday, 12-13 October.
My best to you all,
Si ma jian (my Chinese name)
No big stories this time; it was a pretty lazy week on our part. We started our second round of classes last week, though.
Let’s begin like I did, with Chinese History and Culture. We started the day off on the wrong foot: at the wrong building. Directions for anything thus far have been scant at best, leaving us poor Meiguorenmen to fumble around as virtual mutes. We eventually made it to class about ten minutes late. Imagine our shock when the first thing we hear is the teacher posing a vote to the class! We took our seats, still slack-jawed. As it turns out, the vote was merely about class time. After the two sides were explained, the whole class unanimously voted for an earlier end to class with shorter breaks. We share the timeslot with roughly forty other students from Finland and Germany. There are two Russians, but they’re shlupping around with the Fins. Jiang Laoshi realigned our jaws by starting the class as we had originally imagined it: with oodles of facts surprisingly aligned with the views of The Party. For example, in China, there are 23 districts, including…Taiwan. Interesting. There are also eight parties besides the ruling one (which has held power for 60 years tomorrow). Upon further questioning by a skeptical German student, the teacher gave a circuital admission that they cannot vote and have relatively no power. She did reassure all of us, however, that their voices are heard. Big sigh of relief from the whole room. The whole three and a half hours went on in this fashion. Imagine our exhaustion by the end of it. I believe I had two detailed, lengthy doodles involving Atlas Shrugged/Ayn Rand in the works, and one finished. This week was hardly any different, and didn’t even include a vote. Sad.
Thursday afternoon brought our Chinese Economics course. For those of you I didn’t enlighten, this is the course I have been dreading. I find economics to be a pedestrian, pedantic, and all-around podiatric study. Feet aside, the class turned out to be a blast. Granted, it was four hours long, but I was a big fan of the professor. He challenged China’s positions, plans, and ideas on many different issues and ended the class with a 30 minute critique of the Government’s focus on the GDP and its seeming apathy with respect to internal corruption. He even went so far as to say the Government needs more accountability to the people (that means actual elections). This guy had guts, saying what he did. Occasionally he would talk in circles, but the general tone and content was laudable. This class will be the easiest by far, as he doesn’t take attendance, there are nine total classes, and our final exam is an 800 word paper expanding one aspect of one lecture. Not a raw deal by any means. We also share this class with the previously acknowledged Europeans.
We ten Americans are officially on break for the next eight days. We leave Saturday evening for Guilin and Yangshuo in the Quanxi province (southwest China). It’s supposed to be among the absolutely most beautiful places on Earth, including one very secret spot that I will write about when we get back. It has the name of a fable. I’ve only told one person outside China what its name is so don’t go asking around. You’ll just have to wait until the next post. That one should be up on Monday or Tuesday, 12-13 October.
My best to you all,
Si ma jian (my Chinese name)
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