yin and yang

(This is copied from my account of the trip that I wrote on any scraps of paper I could scrounge up on the train ride home from my 2-day adventure organized by the CET exchange program into the countryside of China, along with: my family; about 15 American students part of CET; their 15 Chinese roommates; Jeremy—the head of CET in Shanghai, the lone organizer of the whole trip, and all around wonder-man, in my opinion; Lijia--a Chinese friend of my dad’s, and one of the guests at the next of my dad’s “conversations”; and her two half-British half-Chinese daughters aged 13 and 11.)

I have never had so many thoughts of death race through my head in a 48-hour period. Then again, I have also never swum in a pool at the bottom of a waterfall half-way up a Chinese mountain, then hiked to the peak of a different, 1400 m mountain, then spent the night at a Taoist monastery perched at the top of said mountain, and had an all-around once-in-a-lifetime experience. So, all in all, it was a yin and yang sort of trip, one fitting of China and therefore one that pleases me greatly—all of it in retrospect, though some of it was not so pleasing at the time.

The adventure began at 6:30 on Tuesday, with a so-called “bullet” train to Wenzhou. I say “so-called” because, quite frankly, the majority of the time it traveled significantly slower than a bullet and much the same speed as any normal train. Rather a disappointment. But misnaming aside, I have decided that I thoroughly enjoy train travel, and it is quite unfortunate that the US so lacks in this area of transportation; indeed, the only trains I have ridden have been in China and in France (the luggage compartment of the French train, I might add… but that’s a story for a different blog).

Riding a train is a much more social event than either a car or an airplane, because you can get out of your seat, mill about in the corridor, and interact with complete strangers. These interactions may include quick chatting, longer discussions…or reading over the stranger’s shoulders and petting his arms, which was how one little Chinese girl interacted with my dad. At one point during the (4 and a half hour) ride, my mom nudged me and I looked up from my book to see my dad sitting in his seat reading, while a Chinese girl of about 11 hovered behind him. She seemed absolutely enthralled with either the book or my dad; after about an hour my dad put away his book and it became clear that it was my dad, not the book, that captivated her attention (it turns out she couldn’t read English, anyway). She continued to stand there, staring at him, occasionally talking to him, and even at one point petting his arms—because his strange arms had hair.

This whole interaction was quite striking to me, because though I had felt the more than occasional unabashed stare on the subway, I had never quite seen a Chinese person viewing a foreigner like some exotic creature. My mom tells me that, back when my parents lived in China before in the ‘80s, this was how everyone treated them, and that when they had walked through the streets of Nanjing, people had crowded around them, vying with each other to touch them, because they were—quite literally and figuratively—a foreign sight.

The rest of the train ride was fairly uneventful—though the distribution of food was fairly entertaining too. Jeremy had informed us earlier that he would provide a dinner on the train of peanut butter and jelly and cheese and crackers, which caused me to wonder how exactly he was going to manage that for 38 people. But sure enough, once the train started rolling, out came three loaves of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jam, and he proceeded to make sandwiches. This in itself was funny enough, but even funnier was watching one of the roommates, a Chinese boy, who slipped into my dad’s seat (next to Jeremy’s) when my dad foolishly got out of his seat for a second. There the boy stayed through the remainder of the food-making and distributing, taking plenty more than his fair share of the food, and leaving my dad standing without a seat.

This being my mom’s first trip back to China in 23 years, she has many interesting observations about what has completely changed and what has stayed virtually unchanged. To the former of those, she commented on how much less polite and respectful to elders Chinese boys seem to be now. Lijia offered her personal explanation for this change when she said at one point, in a disparaging tone and shaking her head: “tsk…only children.” And true, in a society where families are close-knit and extensive—four grandparents, two parents, aunts and uncles all living closely—but where families are limited by law to having one child, that only child is rather doted upon.

But I digress. After the train we took a bus to Wenzhou, and it being 11:30 by this point, I collapsed onto my bed, closed my eyes and eagerly waited to drift off into much-needed sleep...only to have my ear assaulted by the crashing and beeping and general cacophony of construction. Apparently midnight is the perfect time to use a jackhammer to break up concrete. Right outside of our window. We seem to have some kind of curse when it comes to bedroom locations: in Shanghai there is drilling outside of our apartment; when we arrived in Beijing and settled into our hotel room, we found that they were renovating the room next to us; and now this! Luckily for me, I could just sleep on my good ear (deafness for the win!)

In the morning we divided into three vans (the 15-seater kind that I’m pretty sure have been banned in the US for their high tendency to roll over). We drove for about two hours through the gorgeous countryside—through rolling hills and beautifully lush and green farmland. We reached Nine Pools (which is the equivalent to a regional/national park in China) and began our ascent up the trail. An ascent that involved many, many, many stairs. Wet, mossy, slick stairs. 45 minutes of stair-climbing later, we reached the 8^th pool, which was well worth the hike. Absolutely stunning: a waterfall, a crystal-clear pool, a huge rock for the brave of heart to jump from—all tucked into the side of the mountain. As the students eagerly jumped in, the sight was perfected as the pool became studded with the neon orange of PFDs (life vests)—worn by all but one or two of the Chinese students, this being their first time swimming. Ever. I can’t imagine being twenty and never having been swimming, not to mention having my first swimming experience being on a mountain in a natural pool?! It was funny to watch their various reactions: there was a cluster of girls who refused to don their life vests or to even wade into the pool; there were a few half-giggling, half-hysterical more adventurous girls; and then there were the boys who clearly felt the pressure to be macho and one who even—to onlookers’ horrors—jumped off the high rock, which, let me tell you, is not a good idea when wearing a PFD. He came frighteningly close to hitting a rock as he splashed into the water.

It soon began to rain and I became increasingly colder in the water (which was gorgeously clear but far from being a hot spring), so my parents and I climbed down to one of the lower pools and took shelter in a little pagoda-temple that overlooked another stunning waterfall, and ate our lunch. It being my family and all, we dined on Carr’s crackers, Emmenthaler and Gouda, salami, pickles, tuna, and an apple—a proper picnic that would’ve been at home in France, and tasted even better in China.

After lunch we hiked the rest of the way down—or rather, inched our way down, since the slippery descent proved even more treacherous than the ascent. Losing your balance is an awful sensation, one that I experienced many times, though thankfully I never completely fell. My dad was not as lucky, and took one fall that may have broken his finger (!) but he marched on heroically. He was only concerned that it may hinder his typing and chopstick use.

Up until this point—besides the fear of slipping—my mind had generally been at ease. But then we piled into the vans (the vans that, let me remind you, are banned in the US) and began the drive to the monastery. The drive up a mountain. On mountainous roads. I will do my best to describe them so that you can get an accurate sense of the cause for my fear. We wended our way up the mountain, and each turn brought a narrower and less well-paved road. I’m talking about a road barely the width of two cars, sided by a sheer cliff face on one side, and a sheer drop on the other. With no guardrail to speak of--or any other distinction, for that matter, between side-of-road and drop-of-death. Add to this the fact that the road was roughly paved, and at some stretches not even that. And the road was built as a series of hairpin turns. And the driver—who, mind you, is a complete stranger and had my life in his hands—didn’t feel the need to drive at a particularly cautious speed either. At every turn, I was convinced that this one would be my last; that we would either tip over the edge or crash headlong into an oncoming car—and I am still convinced that, had we come across a car going in the opposite direction, we truly would have been screwed because there was physically not enough space for two cars to pass each other. Luckily my theory was never put to a test because thankfully no one else seemed to have any desire to use this road. Which in retrospect I would take as a bad sign, but proved lucky for us at the time.

All in all it made for a terrifying drive, and many morbid thoughts and images flashed through my mind. I pictured the van tumbling off the road from the mountain; I tried to calculate what handle I should hold or position I should take for the best chance of survival and ultimately concluded that I’d be dead no matter what; I wondered if news of my death would reach the US, and if everyone I knew would ever learn of my demise...you get the picture.

But as I mentioned at the beginning of this entry: yin and yang. So I must also add that the view was jaw-droppingly gorgeous and breathtakingly beautiful. Fear and awe both took my breath away on the drive.

After what felt like hours and certainly aged me by years, we reached the highest part of the road and got out to complete the rest of the journey by foot. Which meant many, many, many more stairs. Not as slippery this time, though just as tiring, and by the time we reached the peak (again, it took a good 45 minutes of straight climbing) my legs were shaking. But it was certainly worth the climb: an even more stunning view, with clouds poring over the tops of the mountains like a waterfall and the sun’s golden rays shining down through the clouds, and the fantastic, invigorating feeling of being on top of the world. Just a few minutes beyond on the trail was the monastery, where we were greeted by the handful of Taoist monks who reside there. They cooked us a bountiful meal—very simple but very good, taste helped I’m sure by our ravenous hunger. Scallion bread, tofu, mushrooms sautéed cashews, radish and carrot stewed together, bamboo shoots, and little golden potatoes. More than we could come close to eating, which was intentional (it could then become breakfast the next morning). It was very interesting to see what the monastery did and didn’t have: no running water, an outhouse for toilets, wood-fired stoves; and yet a washing machine, electricity, and a television.

After such a packed day, I ate dinner and then headed up to “bed”—a term used loosely, because while it did have a frame and a nice hard wood board to lay on, there was no mattress or padding to speak of. I readily embraced this (it’s part of the experience, after all) but it made for a sore awakening. I barely slept because the college students stayed up late into the night playing some game that sounded like they were dropping loud rocks right outside our window and then cheering, and this combined with discomfort made for a long sleepless night. And at 5:30, the monks began their morning chanting.

We left the monastery around 9:30, hiked down the mountain again and split up for the day. The original plan was to return to Nine Pools if the weather was nice, and go to a pedestrian mall in Wenzhou if not. The weather was nice, but the college students all felt that they had had more physical exertion than they had bargained for, and would rather shop. It was very clear that Jeremy wanted very much to return to Nine Pools, so despite the fact that only one out of the 30 students wanted to go, he dedicated one of the three vans to Nine Pools, and my family, Lijia, and her daughters accompanied him. I was hoping to settle by one of the lower pools early along the trail of the many, many, many steps (which were somehow even more slippery today). It was my mom’s turn to slip and fall, and now has a nice cut near her elbow and a couple of bruises. We ended up only going to the 6^th pool, because it had a rock “slide” which the two younger girls—and Jeremy most of all—were excited by.

When we first set out on the hike, I had made up my mind that I was too tired to deal with being wet and changing in and out of my bathing suit, but once I had reached the pool—hot and sweaty—the water began to tempt me. After five minutes of internal debate, I decided I was going to go in. As I took a step to wade across the shallower part of the pool to reach my backpack and bathing suit, I found that my five minutes of debate had been wasted, and that I really didn’t have a choice in the matter; I lost my footing and splashed into the water fully-clothed. If I hadn’t had fresh, dry clothes waiting in the van I would have been upset, but as it was I found the whole thing hilarious.

I still didn’t go down the rockslide, but watching the others was just as fun. Certainly the image of Lijia, adorned in her garish Chinese swimsuit complete with bright pink flowers and skirt (because she had left her “swimming costume”—as they say in British English—at home and had been forced to buy one on the streets), shrieking in enjoyment as she slid down and then shrieking in horror as the current swept her perilously close to a waterfall, and was luckily pulled back just in time by Jeremy; certainly that image will remain forever emblazoned in my memory. Lijia took it in stride, as was her way, and laughed uproariously at her brief flirtation with death. I still think it’s a miracle we all came out alive—and only minorly injured.

The return to Wenzhou proved more stressful than I had foreseen. I figured that, after the mountain roads, city roads would be relatively safe and I could just sit back and relax. Perhaps I worry too much, but personally when I’m in a van that is a few inches from the side of a truck and moving closer, I get a little freaked out. I will never get used to Chinese driving—so many honking horns, so much unorthodoxy and disregard for lanes; everything you learn in Drivers’ training can just be tossed right out the car window. In heavy traffic, weaving between lanes and practically colliding with pedestrians and bikers—in which case I fear for their lives—or large trucks—in which case I fear for mine.

If Jeremy didn’t seem to emanate calm from his very being (and he truly is the epitome of unflappability) I would have been even more concerned, but seeing Jeremy, perfectly relaxed in the front seat as he watched us nearly collide with a bus, was extremely reassuring and soothing to my frazzled nerves.

I think that if Adam Smith could have witnessed China in the past century, he would take particular delight in the irony that in China, the Communist powerhouse, there is such an apt justification of his capitalistic “invisible hand” theory (that, given two intersecting roads without stop signs, no one will crash because each will act in his/her best interest. Which is exactly how Chinese driving operates, and I have only seen one fender-bender in the three weeks I’ve been here.)

A yin and yang experience all around.

potty-training sans the potty

It started off just like any other subway ride: we stepped into the subway, and I did my usual sweeping glance of the car. On my left, there were two Chinese parents holding their 2- or 3-year-old daughter between them, and the way they were holding her seemed odd to me, warranting a second more direct glance. I noticed that they seemed to be holding her aloft off from the seat, then noticed that her pants had been pushed down a little. After having spent two weeks in China, I know that you can never know what to expect, so I warily took a step back, wondering if she was just going to pee right there and then all over the floor. Certainly someone had done it in our elevator before, so why not now? I glanced at the floor, waiting to see the pee trickling towards me, and noticed that her parents were each holding her with one hand, and with the other were holding a doggy bag. A little doggy bag that she was peeing into. Who needs a diaper anyway when you can just pee into a bag? I found it particularly ironic that this little girl was one of few small children not wearing split pants. Which certainly would've come in handy in this instant.

the World (China) Expo

The World Expo (formerly called the World's Fair) really should have been called the China Expo. It was clearly all for the Chinese. Everything was written in Chinese, which would have been okay if it weren't the only language used. But when we went up to look at the menu for the Polish restaurant, I felt that it should have at the very least been written in Polish. I mean, it's the Polish pavilion for goodness sake. But I guess this would have just been a waste considering over 99% of the people at the Expo were Chinese.

It was poorly designed, more crowded than anywhere I have ever been in my life, and I honestly feel that Disney did it better with Epcot (and interestingly enough, my dad informed me later that in fact Disney played an important role in the 1963 New York World's Fair). Lines to get into popular pavilions (the set-up for the expo is that each country has a "pavilion," a building that they've designed, and inside it are little tidbits about the country) such as Saudi Arabia and Germany were five hours long. Five. And you only get to spend 5-10 minutes in each pavilion. We took the sane approach, deciding that seeing the outsides of the pavilions would do us just fine, and if there was no line we'd go inside. Which of course meant that the pavilions we saw were very, very lame. The Czech Republic, Cambodia (which was not as bad as the lack of line led us to believe, though it did have the distinct smell of urine), Libya, Cuba (which wins the award of being the lamest by far. There was literally nothing inside except a place for you to buy liquor and Cuban cigars). We got VIP passes to the US one, which felt nice since the regular line was three hours--and certainly not worth waiting for! The exhibition was...so American. First a video about how the children are our future and how their imaginations for cleaner energy will save the world (it was sponsored by BP, so what can you expect?), followed by a "4-D" video about a little girl trying to make a garden in the abandoned/trashed alleyway by her apartment, and how the (multi-cultural, of course) community one by one comes to help her, and as they do so they turn from black-and-white to color. I felt all warm and fuzzy after that one was over! (The highlight by far was the "4-D" part, which involved a thunderstorm where actual water rained down on the audience!). Oh America. It made my patriotic heart flutter.

The only legitimately good pavilion we got to see (by a fluke) was the French one. We ate dinner at the French restaurant--a three course meal on the roof of the pavilion that was very nice, though overpriced--and after having dined we were told that we could go right through to the French pavilion (which had also had a three-hour line). The exhibition included windows into their kitchen and cooking displays, large pictures of the Eiffel Tower and other French monuments, and they even flew over artworks: a Manet, a Gauguin, a Van Gogh, and a Roudin sculpture. All of it was tastefully arranged, and it was the only pavilion (that we saw) that I was impressed with.

All in all though, the Expo was--despite the propaganda produced by the Chinese media--a fail, in my opinion.

swindled

Well the most important thing is that my mom and I survived the day, with my very limited Chinese vocabulary (Hi, 1, 2, 3, Don't want, Don't have, Good, Thank you, and I love you) and my mom's only slightly more extensive one. (We were going it alone because my dad was doing a radio show and then a TV show).

After stopping to get me a latte (I'm becoming more addicted by the day), my mom and I set off to Tian'anmen Square which is--if you are not familiar with Tian'anmen, and I'm not sure whether that is something taught in school or just knowledge known to children of Chinese historians?--the largest public square in the world, the headquarters of the Communist party and the site of a famous Chinese student revolution. The one with the famous picture of the student standing in front of tanks. Anyway, Tian'anmen Square is across from the Forbidden City, which was the palace of the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

As we were on our way to the front gate, two cute young Chinese women started chattering with us about how they were students at a Chinese university and they were artists and they had an art exhibition and they were trying to show foreigners and wouldn't we please just stop by it would only take a few minutes and it was right next to the entrance to the Forbidden City and please? So how could we not?! We went into the little art gallery and the paintings were actually quite beautiful. I love Chinese watercolors, and they were very talented students. They walked with us through all the paintings and tried to convince us to buy something because it would go to a scholarship for one of the students. So how could we not?! We bought one of the girls' paintings--for Y300, or $50, a small price to pay for a nice piece of art and the delight on their faces.

(Seriously, how could we not?!)

Then we went to the Forbidden City, which is quite fantastic and massive and extravagant and ornate...and filled with about a million other people. The crowds were overwhelming.

After fighting our way through the crowds, we took a taxi to the Temple of Heaven, which is another famous Beijing monument. Oh wait, wait...no we didn't take a taxi. I thought we should have, but when the moped pedicab pulled up next to us and the driver tried to convince us to take a ride, my mom said oh come on it'll be fun! And after having been assured, both verbally and by holding up fingers, that it was three--"san, san!"--yuan, my mom pulled me into the seat. It was slightly terrifying; Beijing streets are scary enough when you're in an enclosed automobile, but when you're on the back of a moped!? It was only about a 5 minute ride, and I admit by the end of it I was getting over my fear and almost starting to enjoy myself, but then. The driver stops the moped, we get out, my mom tries to hand him Y3, and he says no no! 3-HUNDRED. Three hundred yuan for a five minute ride?! (for points of reference: taking a taxi would've cost Y10. Y300= $50. fifty dollars) It was an outrage, and I am still fuming. My mom held her own pretty well, and since she wanted to be done with it she gave him Y60. Provided that he didn't have a concealed gun or anything, there was really no way he could enforce his fee, but he could follow us around and harass us.

And that was only the beginning of our transportation woes.

After seeing the Temple of Heaven (in 25 minutes flat because again, it was amazing architecture, but we were pretty burned out) we tried to find a subway station that, according to our map guidebook should have been nearby, but was nowhere to be found. This is one of the problems with having a five year old guidebook. So then we tried to hail a taxi, but when we finally got one and after my mom explained where we wanted to go, he stopped the cab and kicked us out (our guess is that he had been hoping to take us stupid foreigners to the Temple of Heaven, knowing that it was just around the corner and that he would get the minimum Y10 for a short distance). In my haste to get out of the cab--the cab driver was very hostile--I dropped my camera. And cracked my lens...filter. Thank goodness not my lens. At this point, my mom and I are stranded in the middle of the city, nowhere near a subway station, no taxi drivers willing to take us anywhere, and knowing little Chinese. Luckily after about half an hour, we were able to plead with a taxi to just take us to the nearest subway station, and made it back to our apartment.

All in all, it was a real strain on my mom and my faith in our new motto (the journey is the destination). But food is a wonderful remedy to all kinds of woes, and dinner completely made up for the struggles of the day. That dinner ranks in my top five of all time: Beijing duck with crispy skin and tender meat, which comes along with thinner-than-paper pancakes and scallions/cucumbers and a sweet sauce to make into little rolls seemingly dropped from heaven; tofu with ground pork, the sauce like Chinese nectar and tofu so silky it practically melts in your mouth; pan-fried spinach, which was refreshingly simple; deep-fried pork ribs (deep-frying even beats barbecuing when it comes to preparing ribs! Crispy and delicious) with a salt-and-pepper mixture to roll them in; and chicken wings, also fried, with coriander/cumin and hot chili flakes.

a great wall

It was indeed a great wall.

My dad's friend who lives in Beijing gave us the name of his driver, so we really lucked out: no tour bus or taxis, just our own personal driver to take us to the Wall--or should I say, our own personal "friend," since it's strictly illegal to be a personal driver. You can only be a taxi-driver if you want to be paid for driving. It was about an hour and a half drive through a more rural area that actually, funnily enough, reminded me of Indiana. Then we reached the Great Wall, and almost as stunning as the wall itself was the lack of crowds. There are multiple sections of the wall open for tourists, and we chose the less accessible one, which certainly paid off. We opted out of climbing up to the wall, instead taking the cable car up and then walked as much of the length of it as we could, including a staggering number of steps (if I hadn't been taking pictures, I would've counted). We felt very accomplished when we reached the top. There's not much to say about the wall, except that it's impressive and amazing. I think pictures will do more justice to it than my words:

the journey is the destination

Finding breakfast is something of a challenge in Beijing (or anywhere else in China, really, we just lucked into the bakery nearby our Shanghai apartment) because the Chinese generally don't eat the kind of breakfast that Westerners do. So this morning we went in search of coffee (for me--I've started drinking lattes. Caffeine is essential here) and food (for my parents, because I had gnawed on some old baguette, worried that we may not come across anything vaguely resembling Western breakfast food). First we tried the (massive) Ginza mall, which is very near our hotel, and has many recognizable stores (Levi's, DQ, McDonald's, etc...) and some not-as-recognizable ones, but that was a bust because the security guard told my dad that nothing opened till 10.

So then we ventured forth into the streets of Beijing to try to find the elusive April Gourmet Food Store. I think that's what it was called, though I don't know because, after an hour and a half of walking, we found it naught. It was half-amusing, half-sad to watch my dad get all flustered; Beijing is strictly not his city, and so while he had been completely prepared to take care of us in Shanghai, he was completely unprepared in Beijing. We didn't even have a guidebook, and our lone map was questionable (it turns out Beijing blocks are about 10 times larger than Shanghai ones). And even though Beijing was not his city, he hated to lose face when, after an hour and half of wandering, he (the China expert) could not conjure up the store. But by that time my mom and I had reached a state of zen, and the new Bock-Wasserstrom motto (second only to "life's a bitch, and then you die") is now: "The journey is the destination." Anyway, we ended up finding a Costa Coffee (which is a Chinese version of Starbucks--not that there aren't Starbucks in China, there are plenty, though inconveniently placed here in Beijing) so I got my latte and parents got food.

(The drum tower, modified a little)

Today was our first real day of being tourists. We took a taxi to the Drum and Bell Towers and hiked up a huge flight of stairs in the Bell Tower, saw the bell. Hiked down a huge flight of stairs, went across to the drum tower. Hiked up a huge flight of stairs in the Drum Tower, saw the drum. And a drum performance. Which was very cool. Then down the stairs again. (Stairs in China, funnily enough, are shorter than stairs in the US, I assume to accommodate for the generally shorter population. I appreciate this). The architecture was quite impressive. Then we wandered (we've learned that wandering is the best method of transportation, because if you have a destination in mind, chances are you won't find it!) through old alleyways of the "Hutong District" and did some window shopping, and some real shopping--I bought a communist hat, because it was just too good to pass up. I was rather surprised by some of the items displayed in the windows of the shops:

(Capitalism at its finest)

(Obama...Che...Mao...one of these things is not like the others...)

(Oba Mao? Really? Not to mention the Chanel bag...)

After exploring the Hutongs, we moseyed over to Prince Gong's

residence--a prince of old who had a quite extensive and beautiful abode.

Then we took a taxi to a Sichuan restaurant. Sichuan food is (in general) notably spicier than other Chinese food, and though the food at this restaurant wasn't extremely hot, I did accidentally bite into a Sichuan peppercorn at one point and my mouth became numb. Even so, it was another great meal. Fabulous hot oil dumplings and twice-cooked pork (which was similar to bacon, and was served with scallions and little buns to make sandwich-like things).

My camera battery had died so after lunch we went back to the hotel, and immediately all of our ambitious plans for the afternoon were dispelled by the air-conditioning and comfortable chairs of our hotel room.

We have decided that one good Chinese meal a day is enough for us, and after a big lunch none of us were very hungry so instead we went bar hopping. We went in search of "the Hidden Bar" that was written up in our guidebooks (my dad acquired some guidebooks for us after the April Gourmet fail) and which my mom was excited about. Unfortunately, because we had a specific destination and were not just wandering, the bar lived up to its name, and our fruitless search put a strain on my mom's support for our new family motto. We ended up at another bar called "the Den" which is half of hidDEN, so that's almost the same. We drank and watched the old Argentina-Germany game, while the rest of the (foreigners) watched Aussie football. Which I had never seen before, and seems (to me) to be the most ridiculous sport ever created. There were many raucous Aussies in the bar who clearly disagreed, however.

After we had tired of that bar, we walked over to the main street of bars, and found a nice place with a table outside where we could observe the nightlife. We also decided to try their hamburger, which tasted like no hamburger I had ever had and included a fried egg on top. The fries were actually quite good though.

being in Beijing

Flying to Beijing shouldn't have been very exciting but ended up almost being too much so: my dad's plane ticket had the wrong passport number so he had to go try to get that fixed while my mom and I braved check-in/security (on an interesting side-note: at the beginning of security, there is a huge box where you dump your lighters, and when you arrive at your destination and you pass by security, you can pick up a different one. A clever idea, even if it does promote smoking). Luckily everything worked out fine, and my dad arrived just in time to board the bus--the bus that took us to our plane. It was interesting to take a bus out onto the runway, get off along with a mass of Chinese people, and crowd and shove onto the stairs up to a giant aircraft. The flight itself was notable in a few ways--primarily that, on an hour and a half flight, they served a meal. A complete meal too. Chinese airlines clearly haven't gotten with the American airline program of charging passengers for everything possible. Lunch included a chicken and rice bowl, a questionable bamboo shoot/peanut/egg salad, even more questionable 'dried radishes' (?!?!), and some watermelon. Also, to clean up, we each got a "wet turban." I think the words they were looking for were "moist toilette," but what do I know.

Our trip from the airport to the hotel was also exciting, because we had a very, very angry cab driver. It was in fact quite hilarious (I can say that now that I'm safely out of his cab...at the time I was slightly more concerned, though I reminded myself that crashing the car wouldn't really prove his point very well and I hoped he would recognize that). He grumbled to himself, complained loudly, took a little card and struck it against the steering wheel in agitation, and straddled two lanes for most of the time--though the last part is hardly unusual. The driving in China is somewhat uncouth: if you want to change lanes, you just force your way in, forming makeshift new lanes between lanes if the person (when the person) doesn't let you in.

We ended up not leaving our hotel until our dinner excursion, spending our time roughly like this:

But if anything can break through the jet lag-exhaustion-haze and provide motivation for me, it's the promise of a good meal. Finding the restaurant was rather complicated, involving the subway, asking directions multiple times, being misled multiple times, consulting our map multiple times, walking for a while trying to navigate the streets of Beijing, and then wandering through a park--again being misdirected multiple times--until we finally stumbled upon the restaurant, which ended up being well worth the journey, and I would even say it is my favorite thus far!

It's funny to be in Beijing because my dad dislikes it so. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with Beijing, just that Shanghai is his city, and if you have any knowledge of the two competing cities, you know that you can only have allegiance for one or the other. Everyone in Shanghai looks with scorn at Beijing, and everyone in Beijing looks with scorn at Shanghai. My mom and I find it vastly amusing to talk up Beijing whenever we have a chance, and tell my dad how much better Beijing is.Truly, I don't feel I've gotten enough impression of either to make a definite decision, not to mention the fact that I would feel that I was betraying my father if I said Beijing was better. Beijing is hotter (it was 104 degrees today) but not as humid. And it's clear! I saw the sun for the first time since my arrival in China, and it is quite a relief (California has spoiled me, what can I say?). Everything is so bright and there is no oppressive sky and I practically hear "I can see clearly now the rain has gone" echoing in my ear.

teenie weenie

"Teenie Weenie" is incontestably my favorite Chinese store thus far. It's an apparently very popular girls' clothing store--someone must have figured out at some point, much to my disappointment, that it was not a proper label for boys' clothing, but even so it makes me chuckle. Another interesting find at the massive mall that we explored before heading to Fudan University (where my parents lived for the year that they were in Shanghai, and where my dad studied and my mom taught English) was Walmart, which my mom and I could certainly not pass up exploring. It was funny to see how much the same it was to an American Walmart--just with Chinese products.

At Fudan, we met up with Yilin and one of my mom's old English students. Her teaching had apparently had little lasting effect on him; he didn't speak much English, and the two of us communicated better in French, in fact. We had a light lunch--only 11 dishes. Everything from dofu (tofu) with crab meat, to imitation tofu (i had never heard of such a thing; most times tofu is the imitator, not the one being imitated. It had me fooled, that's for sure), to boiled chicken (it doesn't sound very appetizing, and had a yellowish appearance that was none too appetizing either, but it turned out to be quite good), to duck, to shrimp (whole shrimp, heads included), to stir-fried beet greens, to fish (a whole fish, head included. The fish signifies that the end of the meal is approaching), to spring rolls (which, along with dumplings, signify the meal has almost ended, watermelon being the official signal of completion). After having consumed all of this food, I collapsed with a stomach ache and spent the rest of the day in this state.

perfectly disastrous

Today started off perfectly well, and ended perfectly disastrously.

The woman whose apartment we're renting left us a list of nearby restaurants and such, which has turned out to be a wonderful help. We went to a bakery she recommended that's about a fifteen minute walk from our apartment, and it was strange and comforting to walk through the door into what was clearly a little expat haven. It was a legitimate bakery better than any I've found in Irvine, with almond croissants, baguettes, pain au chocolat, etc and everyone who came in was expatriawesome. A New Zealander with her baby and a New Yorker (who bought her kids bagels, of course) and two French grandparents with their 5-year-old grandson who was decked out in loafers; well, you get the picture.

My dad had his first event that afternoon. He was initially offered a position teaching at the CET summer exchange program for college students but all except for four of the students signed up for the economic track rather than the history track (surprised?) so instead he is hosting a series of four "conversations" about Shanghai, one each Sunday, with different notable guests each week.

The Bund, deemed the "Champs-Elysees of the East," is the walkway along the river that separates Pudong (whose distinctive skyscrapers and "Pearl Tower" have become symbolic of Shanghai and the subject of countless postcards) from the rest of Shanghai. The event was held in a building on the Bund, called the Glamor Bar (an apt name for the chic, Australian-owned bar on the sixth floor with an amazing view of the city and filled with a kaleidoscope of colored glasses hanging from the bar and colored furniture strewn about the floor).

This first event was with an American and a British writer talking about "Americans in Shanghai"--since it was the fourth of July, after all. There was a great turn-out, and afterwards my dad was thrilled to learn that his bookseller couldn't get the books through Customs, and the slight disappointment at the loss of a book-selling opportunity was far overshadowed by the delightful prospect of his books being banned in China.

As I said before, everything began perfectly well. And then at dinner, everything fell apart. First, jet lag struck with a vengeance and my mom and I became increasingly exhausted. Then, we sit down to dinner and the men at the table next to us are chain smoking, blowing smoke practically right into our faces (and right onto the "No Smoking" sign, which is plastered in most public places but blatantly disregarded). Which was practically unbearable for me, and completely unbearable for my mom's lungs, which had already been strained by the wetness and smog. I was exhausted and felt sick to my stomach, my mom was exhausted and coughing up a storm, and we finally could handle it no longer and left the restaurant and got into a taxi only to find that it had the most awful stench of any taxi ever. We finally reached the apartment, practically jumping out of the taxi and inhaling deeply, only to step into the elevator and find that someone had peed on the floor so it smelled horrific. Then we get into our apartment and my mom goes into the bathroom to wash her feet in the shower and someone (me) hadn't flipped it back to faucet rather than showerhead so when she turned it on she soaked her pajamas (and it's impossible, by the way, to dry anything when there is 100% humidity in the air).

A hilariously awful night.


And really, at the end of the day...

...Happy Smile Panda says you have a nice schedule, so everything is okay.

sweat, delicious food, and exhaustion

Sweat, delicious food, and exhaustion: that rather effectively sums up my first full day in Shanghai.

In the morning we took the subway to Yuyuan, which is an area of Shanghai filled with shops and exorbitant numbers of people--and a Chinese garden tucked into one corner. Because there was an entrance fee for the gardens, they were blessedly quiet, uncrowded, and peaceful, and all in all made for a striking juxtaposition to the outside hustle and bustle. The gardens were gorgeous--with beautiful planting and architecture--though the weather was anything but.

The weather is hot here (99 degrees hot) and can best be described by the word "soupy." After an hour outside, we were completely drenched in sweat. This unfortunately meant that we found it hard to linger in the gardens for too long, and had to pass up the opportunity to (for only a small fee!) have our "Photo Taken With Wearing [ancient Chinese] Costume"--for the thought of ancient Chinese costume finery congealed to our skin by the ever-present sheen of sweat outweighed the thought of what would certainly have been a priceless picture.

After having an exceptional lunch of traditional Shanghainese food which I could happily go to great lengths to describe (but will resist doing), we headed back to our apartment and decided to take a brief xiuxi (pronounced sho-shi, and which is the equivalent of a siesta/afternoon nap). This proved to be quite a mistake. Four hours later, and my mom could barely wake me up. It's what I would call a jet lag attack. Being forcefully woken up, I was sure that it was the middle of the night, which it was--according to California time, which is 15 hours behind China time. I groggily stumbled my way to dinner through what was in fact a very nice walk into a happening part of the city--well, in a city of 15 million, most every place is happening--with splendid neon, enhanced by exhaustion, no doubt. We enjoyed another wonderful meal, accompanied by my mom's friend Yilin (they became friends back when my parents lived here in the 80s). Yilin is retired and now makes money on the Chinese stock market, and is apparently quite skilled at this endeavor. She shared tips with us which mainly comprised of--due to her limited English--"buy low, sell high."

A few random observations based on my first full day:

1) Walking across streets in Shanghai is quite exciting; you never know if you might get hit by a car. Not only do Chinese drivers not yield to the pedestrian, they also honestly don't care a whit if they run you over, and at times seem to actively seek you out as a target. Also, red lights are apparently only a suggestion--one that most drivers tend to ignore.

2) Ordering at a restaurant in China is quite unlike one elsewhere. It's a long, complicated process that involves extensive conversation, consultation, and negotiation with the server about each dish. The Chinese server becomes your table's personal attendant, and when you get a menu they stay there for as long as necessary until you have decided on dishes and ordered. This is a result of the fact that Chinese servers are paid by the hour and are not tipped, so they have no reason to rush to wait on as many tables as possible.

My three weeks in China in the 21st Century: If anyone wants to know...

I began documenting my trip to China through e-mails to a few of my friends, one of whom insisted that I start a blog. And since everyone seems to be blogging these days, I thought hey, I might as well give it a try too. So here goes.

(Note: the title of this is an homage to my dad's newest book, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know. Since he and the book were responsible for my incredible trip, it seemed a fitting title for the blog