I am like your father

Wow, it sure has been a while hasn't it bloggsters! Rebekah is putting me to shame on the posting of fresh new material so here it goes.

I recently lived with a Chinese family for about 9 days as part of my Chinese program's homestay. It was a lot like living at home actually, no one really understands each other, though I certainly tried a lot harder to understand living with my Chinese family. Both my Chinese parents are teachers at Qingdao University but somehow (and I didn't pry too much) they are able to afford a very nice apartment with a prized view of the ocean. I had a younger brother as well (funnily enough, the week and a half this family puts up a foreign student each year is the closest thing this kid is gonna get to having a brother as long as the one child policy is in effect)--he is 13. Part of the purpose for having a sibling in the program is to serve as a translator in difficult situations but my brother spoke little English. My Chinese family, much like my real family is pretty laid back, as part of the family for the week I could easily ignore formalities and my Chinese mom almost had identical mannerisms to my own mother's. (as a result I only missed home even more)
*as an aside, I have found in my experience here in China that though many students are currently learning English and by the time of graduation have already had a minimum of 8-10 years of English study, many people refuse to try and speak English. Many of them, I believe, are very nervous to make mistakes or potentially become embarrassed in front of foreigners--its a bit frustrating especially since I try my damnedest to use Chinese.

Anyway, here are a few experiences of note with the homestay

• Shoes.... that's it. Some places in the house you wear em and some places you don't
• Food like pigs head meat and chicken feet are not unusual within the Chinese home.
• You will eat fruit before and after meals even if you don't want to.
• Your Chinese mother will find a way to put some sort of sausage on everything.
• My Chinese father insisted that I praise him because "Today, I am like your father"
• My Chinese father also insisted that I drink Qingdao beer at every meal as it is a Qingdao specialty.
• At restaurants, toasting is very important, especially at specific times and in a specific order.
• Your Chinese family will think that you have over paid for everything.
• Chinese brothers love to hold hands, mine wouldn't stop touching mine.--The only thing I'm touchy about is being touched.
• Skipping stones with my Chinese father at the beach was a Kodak moment.
• 80% percent of the time I understood %60 percent of what they said to me.
• It was an overall great experience, but now, I want go home.

...

Henan Province; ZhengZhou and Kaifeng Government Building

To my honorable friends and family,
The moment has finally arrived for a brand spanking new post. I have a lot to report so this one is gonna be a multi-parter . Last week, our class embarked on our week long vacation to the Henan (河南）province.

This is a map of the Henan Province. Henan is to the left of the Shandong（山东）province which is where I am currently. On our "vacation" we visited 3 cities within the province. The first city, which is in red print, is called ZhengZhou(郑州），pronounced JengJoe, and is the capital of the Henan province. ZhengZhou is one of the largest cities in China and is certainly the largest in the Henan province, which is pretty large itself.
ZhengZhou's history as a city exceeds 3500 years making it a city rich with historical significance. As an important trading center for the Imperial court, ZhengZhou has been influenced by the rules of at least 10 dynasties, each with its own customs, architecture, and contributions to the city. Like many old cities, the once great city of ZhengZhou has now fallen victim to economic downfall Whereas many parts of China are developing rapidly; ZhengZhou reached its peak years ago--but to tell you the truth, it feels more like China then Qingdao, which recently has been flocked by foreigners anticipating the Olympics.**by the way, the torch is making its way right along the outside of my school in Qingdao on Monday**

Our tour was led by a young woman who stayed with us the entire trip. The basic formula for a Chinese tour company is a large bus+tour guide=educational fulfillment (which always comes before actual fun, in china)Each day, we would begin our trip around 8 a.m. after a nutritionally lacking breakfast. If in China, I suggest never going to a hotel in henan for a breakfast buffet, its more likely an option then one would think---stay away. After breakfast and on the bus, we would travel at lengths ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours and it was not uncommon for the tour guide to talk and talk and talk for the entire time (most of which was nigh impossible to understand) *in different parts of China, there are different colloquial ways of asking common questions, for instance it is not uncommon for a Chinese person to say hao bu hao （好不好）when asking if something is okay or do you understand, but in Henan the colloquial equivalent is Zhong bu Zhong (sounds like jong boo jong) except they say it like its part of a rap song, imagine Lil John speaking Chinese and that is how irritating it was to hear Zhong bu Zhong all the time.*
The only other thing on the trip that was standardized was the lunch and dinner we ate everyday.

Each day was the same, go to the second floor of this restaurant which looks remarkably like the last restaurant, sit in two tables of 10 each, the meal consists of tea and about 10 dishes of which 4 are soup(a henan specialty), 1 is rice, 1 is bread, and the others are some sort of meats and veggies cooked in the most curious ways (but for the most part remained untouched by most everyone). The variety came in with the specific animal which was desecrated for our benefit, one day we ate donkey and another rabbit, yet another day there was an entire chicken defeathered and but into a boiling soup, head and all. Needless to say I lived on rice and after hours McDonald's.

On the first day we went to the city to the right of ZhengZhou, Kaifeng（开封）pronounced k-eye-feng, There we saw an example of Henan's importance to the imperial court and visited an ancient government building in the midst of the modern city. Here are a few pictures from that place. You can click on one to bring up a bigger picture.

This is part of the compound, its pretty well preserved. Some famous cases took place in the courts of this Imperial courthouse. One such is the case of a land owner who was sentenced to death for killing a peasant's son. Where those people are crowded there was a demonstration of a Chinese wedding.

This is the door way into the main courtyard. In the distance you can see a pretty huge pagoda. From the top of that pagoda is where the first picture was taken. Inside was a large statue of a famous Imperial official as well as several 500 year old court documents.

On the second floor of the pagoda. That's the pretty side.. the other side is more or less greyish communist housing projects.

By the way, I'm going to mention Colour Revolt a few times in these posts because I really want this blog to come up whenever you google blog search Colour Revolt. So if you haven't bought it yet, go buy Plunder, Beg, and Curse... its all the rage in the Chinese bootlegging racket.

Coming soon to a blog near you:

100000 Buddhist statues and the Chinese fountain of youth!!!!

China Revolt

So I just took my weekly monolith of a test, seriously each test brings on a whole new era of pain for me. I was expecting to write another post before now but this week I was totally swamped. This week's lesson was about education so the after class activities for the week were a visit to an elementary school, and high school. The high school visit as I found out this week, was also to include a presentation by us on some aspect of American living. Not surprisingly, the various heads of the Chinese program have continued in their on going tradition of telling us (the students) to leap tall buildings in a single bound at the very last minute and seeing as none of us are aliens, were bit by radioactive spiders, or are the dark knight, the pressure was on.

My presentation on American holidays was somewhat under prepared as we were only given a day's notice but the visit was great. In this class full of maturing Chinese girls, serious topics of discussion were taboo. All they wanted to know about was American party culture. Both shocked and awed by my sheer American rebelliousness (prudish by American standards I suppose)I found that Chinese high school girls and American high school girls are not much different, Americans just act on their whims instead of keeping them bottled up. I think that's why college students here are so excited about their freedom to date that they wear matching clothing (and when I say matching I mean the same clothes in a small for the guy and a smaller for the girl) and hold each other o-so-warmly---its PDA town over here.

wow, my week must have been frustrating if I'm taking it out on the lovers. I guess I'm getting to this point where I can get around most everywhere in the city but no matter how long I have studied Chinese, there are always going to be words that I don't know or don't remember. Everytime I need something its always a struggle to try and explain the situation. There is nothing more satisfying, however, than getting someone to understand you somehow, and in a different language at
that.

The epic of Lao Shan pt2

I think I left off somewhere at the sichuan restaurant on Friday. For those who don't know it, sichuan style food is supposed to be among the hottest in China and I am here to tell you that this is no fib. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the actual restaurant but here is a typical sichuan dish and the exact one that we ordered. That red stuff isn't tomatoes or a sort of broth, those are actual chillies and buried underneath is an entire fish. Actually the waiter allowed us to choose the fish that we wanted to eat... we picked a pretty small sad looking one not knowing whether we could even hand what was coming.

The restaurant was actually quite beautiful and as it turned out our waitress was actually from the sichuan area so I feel like we got an authentic deal... and for the price it was a deal. (each person paid maybe 7 bucks US and that's with 2 pitchers of beer, rice, and dumplings). The greatest part about this place, though, was that peppery smell that had permeated every part of the restaurant. The smell literally knocked your ass into the first available seat; then you swig beer diluted with your own tears as you chopstick chillies into your mouth. Each bite is a little competition, who's the bigger man.
After dinner its off to one of the ex pat bars around town, this one is called Jack's. Where else can you drink Kentucky Bourbon while chatting with a surly middle aged Australian; every woman who peaked 30 years ago walks in and used "to be a dancer" when she was my age.

It was early to bed though, in the morning because Saturday morning was the beginning of the epic of Lao Shan. A rather large and beautiful mountain with a gaping view of the ocean blue.

First off was a visit to temples at Lao Shan. We had a tour guide but she spoke Chinese so fast that eventually I stopped listening to her, but apparently some of the buildings and shrines are more than 500 years old.
This is the doorway to the mountain as it translates. My ticket is good for another 6 years so I will be crossing this threshold again.

I was having some trouble getting photos on here in the order that I wanted so I made a slide show that I hope will work, someone will have to tell me on my facebook whether it works or not.

Anyhow, climbing that damn mountain was tiring but so entirely rewarding. You'll see what I mean.

The Epic of Lao Shan pt1

Qingdao at night is truly beautiful. Its amazing how much different a city can look when it's lit up in neon rather than the usual demi-glow of the few beams which escape Qingdao's thick fog. Suprisingly, tonight is the first night that there has been rain in the city, instead of walking into the wetness of the air it was actually falling from the sky.

Actually, the temperature has been warming up a bit. It is apparently a bit odd for Qingdao to stay as cool as it has, in the low to mid 60s, this far into June. Its hard to believe I have been in China already for 1 week... somehow I feel like I have been here for much longer; perhaps it is because my days are usually packed with activity.

On any given weekday I have about 4 hours of class in the morning. In the first class, the students are asked to recount the events of the previous day after a brief quiz. The second class focus's on the text of our daily lessons, touching on grammar and new vocabulary. The third class is a more focused review of grammar. In the fourth hour, we usually talk freely about various differences we see in American and Chinese topics related to the text.

Sounds boring, but class usually goes by fast and isn't really too painful, at times even fun. I've already worked myself it to a routine. Every morning I get an egg pancake sorta thing from a young lady that has a stand near the university. I usually refer to her as 'the egg pancake lady' or 'my girlfriend'. With nothing but chopsticks in hand she creates a 1.5 yuan delight... there's nothing more attractive than that.
For lunch its either out to eat, most likely dumplings, or another egg pancake and a banana. But usually we have an after class activity. For instance, today's lesson was about shopping in a large mall type place in China, so we went to a 8 story shopping mall after class to basically pretend to want to buy things and bother the sales clerks.

For dinner's I have found a hobby. Being that Qingdao has just in the past 10 to 15 years really developed and only in the past few years, become a tourist destination, there are few if any tourism guides for the city. Which means getting a decent restaurant review or even a list of cultural events around town in English is far and few between. I have found one place though that's in English, thatsqingdao.com. The site has a nice list of restaurants and even rates most of them; unfortunately, other than the restaurants address alone, the site is fairly vague on how to get to the restaurant. There is never mention of major landmarks, or proximity to main roads, or even the appropriate bus stop. As part of my new hobby, I will find a place thought has a good review and do my best to locate it on a map of Qingdao, which is entirely in chinese by the way (there are no english maps). Then I draw a little map into my little pocket journal and then the best part is going out into the city and actually finding the place. I've already managed to find Qingdao's only indian restaurant, and one of Qingdao's best sichuan resturants. By exploring I have unlocked other parts of Qingdao that I would have never known existed, interesting backstreets packed with people and restaurants, bars and shops.

The Dragon Boat Festival

This will be the first of many blog posts dedicated to my stay in Qingdao, China this summer. I had hoped to write letters to many of my friends but somehow I don't trust my self to be consistent with such a task.

Leaving was hard but exciting at the same time I don't think I could have asked for a better farewell in Memphis with my close knit group of friends. I just hope I didn't leave a bitter taste in anyone's mouth before I left, I hate ending things on bad notes. There is a colloquial saying in China that translates into something like "eating vinegar" It refers to a person who is always sour, or makes people sour. Sometimes I feel like I'm eating too much vinegar.

As it turns out, 2 years of studying Chinese hardly prepares you for the country. Beijing Capital International Airport has one of the largest terminals in the entire world; its like being inside a crystal ball, all glass and people. The airport itself is a testament to how bad China wants this years Olympics to go well; built to transport and contain the world's population.

The Chinese speak Chinese fast but to my surprise we are all remarkably self sufficient. When we arrived, we were shown the bus stop and told to go find dinner and by God I found dinner. I found some beer. Then, I found my bed.

The entire city of Qingdao is better than all the best parts of Mississippi. The public transit system is impeccable, clean, and efficient. Buses have their own lane and traffic is minimal even at the worst times. The sidewalks are lined with a small section of indentions so that even the blind can feel their way around the city.

Qingdao has no sun. A grayish mist surrounds the city, its not pollution and the air here feels clean to breath and refreshing to boot. This same gray mist shrouds the top of the buildings as if it refuses to pay homage to the city's German father's who inspired unseen red roofs above. This is why I believe Qingdao has no sun and is no son. Its the best Cosmopolitan I have ever drank, 2 parts Chinese 1 part Western, though the people don't usually speak much English the infrastructure is impressive.

Everyone is fashionable and the many bars and clubs are packed with Chinese 20 somethings while those who have already found love spend their time along the beaches or on the lawns of Qingdao University's beautiful campus gazing longingly away from each other either from shyness or sexual repression.