I hope you all are enjoying a restful Thanksgiving Day/break! I am excited for my Thanksgiving-in-China festivities. Tomorrow (Thanksgiving) I will fly kites with my friend Katherine and spend some time gallivanting around Zhongshan Park, a large park close to where we live. In the evening, we have a Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant, sponsored by CIEE. Yum! Then, Friday I’m going to a “traditional Southern Thanksgiving” feast at the home of my friend Judith’s cousin Dru (who lives in Shanghai). This, too, will be super yummy. Double yum! Saturday I’m heading to Suzhou, a famously picturesque city about an hour outside Shanghai by train, for the day. And then Sunday I have a super exciting activity planned which I will keep secret until after the fact—get excited, it’s going to be amazing. Hint: Boola! Boola!
This week I’ve had midterms, my one and only official evaluation while in China. I think my tests—speaking, listening, and grammar—actually went OK, except for maybe the grammar portion. We’ll see!
Since my last post I’ve gotten a bunch of questions about Obama’s visit. The reason I didn’t mention it at all on the blog is that it was literally a non-event here. People barely knew that it was happening, and if they did, it wasn’t important to them. In fact, my host family took more notice of the fact that Hillary Clinton was in Shanghai than they did that President Obama was here. Part of this lack of reaction is that the Chinese are pretty ambivalent about Obama. My three data points on direct conversations about Obama’s visit were with my host mom, my tutor, and my Chinese friend Jenny. All of them had absolutely nothing substantive to say about Obama, but they all remarked that Obama is very handsome/cool. I think a visit to China is going to be inherently different from a visit to say, Europe, because people can’t congregate in large numbers/ there isn’t a culture of gathering to cheer or protest public figures (obviously). And being involved with or interested in politics in China usually means you are super Communist and a fount of Communist ideology/propaganda (according to my tutor), so most people choose apathy (as being the opposite of “political” ie protesting isn’t really an option). Haha “choose apathy” is a funny phrase. So I’m not sure people would have seen the point in reacting strongly to Obama’s visit, even if they did (or do) feel strongly. So sorry to disappoint, but….nothing to see here. Plus I was in Hangzhou on the actual day Obama was in Shanghai, so I couldn’t have gone to hold a sign and cheer or anything, although that was my original hope. Ah, well.
It being Thanksgiving, the other thing I wanted to write about was what I’m thankful for. This seemed like a particularly appropriate topic this year, since I feel like I have so so incredibly much to be thankful for right now—I’m living the dream, right? So obviously I can’t hope to encompass everything I want to give thanks for here; there is simply too much. **Beware: if you don’t like sappy and overly earnest attempts at sincerity and thanks, skip this entire section. The cynic within me cringes as I re-read it, so I feel obligated to warn my readers.**
As a start, I am thankful for my family. I particularly want to thank my parents, for letting me take a gap year, and for making it possible. I try to remind myself every day that I am not at all entitled to be here; that I have done nothing to earn this amazing experience and education that I’m getting by being here, and that I am incredibly, incredibly indebted to the generosity of my parents. They’re amazing—I can’t believe I have such awesome parents who really do see this experience as important and valuable and are backing me so fully and generously. So thank you, Mom and Dad! I love you! I’m also thankful for my grandmother, Joan Bok. She’s been an incredible inspiration and teacher my entire life (as well as an amazing person to have a conversation with, or watch a movie with, or, say, go to Anthropologie with, hehe), and definitely both inspires and enables my love of travel. Without her, I wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I am so blessed to have such an amazing family, and I hope they enjoy their Thanksgiving up in Vermont. I will be thinking of them!
I am thankful for my education. Even though I’m not writing papers (except for this blog and the weekly journal entries I have to give CIEE) or taking tests (except for today) while in China, I’m still thankful each and every day for the amazing education I’ve received, because I feel like I know how to think the thoughts, how to make the connections and observations, that really make this experience valuable.
I am thankful for free time, and for literacy, and for reading material. I spend a good chunk of my time reading, which, while maybe not the best way to engage with China, is still incredibly satisfying (don’t worry, it’s not too excessive). I read newspaper articles (nyt.com and boston.com = my BFFLs), books (10, I think, while I’ve been here), China Daily, blogs…you name it. And it’s like a dream come true. Not since probably 6th grade have I had a Fall so saturated with the written word. And the glut will only continue over the next 10 months! And probably at an accelerated rate once I return from my adventures here!
I am thankful for the 3 kuai espresso machine in the CIEE office. For 50 cents I can get a decent cappuccino or latte. It’s delightful and has saved me a ton of money. In case you didn’t know, we’ve officially entered the sillier section of my Thanks Givings.
I am thankful for blue sky and warming temperatures—it’s been a solid 55-60 degrees for the past couple of days. Thank goodness!
I am thankful for street food. It’s yummy and cheap and filling and varied.
I am thankful for the people I’ve met here, and how friendly they’ve been. Like John, for instance, who is in my Chinese class and whose wife baked Thanksgiving cookies for all the Americans in the class. A lovely random act of Thanksgiving cheer!
I am thankful for the hospitality of my host family. I totally lucked out with them, and I’m glad to know them!
I am thankful for bubble tea! Yum!
I am thankful for the Shanghai metro system. It is beautiful and efficient and fast and wonderful.
I am thankful for the Internet. I have not been too homesick, and my bouts of missing friends/family/home have been greatly alleviated by this nifty (read: world-changing) tool.
I am thankful for wool ski socks and my sheepskin slippers.
I am thankful to be heading to Yale next year. It may sound trite, because it should be obvious, but it’s true. Plus, at home it’s sort of hard to express that sentiment without seeming self-aggrandizing/insensitive to those who were disappointed by the college process. But I think it would be stupid and wrong not to mention it: I am incredibly excited about my future university, and still can’t believe my good fortune.
And, finally, but most importantly, I am thankful for God, and for the blessings and love He constantly rains down on me, even when I don’t deserve it, even when I’m selfish and oblivious. To be honest, I think one of the toughest parts about being in China has been the feeling of being totally removed from a Judeo-Christian society. It can be really lonely to realize that everyone around you either doesn’t believe in God or has a completely and totally different concept of the divine, and, furthermore, lives according to a value system/moral code that isn’t based around the Golden Rule (or, at least, not as explicitly as Western culture, even secular Western culture). Definitely interesting, but also a little bit of a downer, at least for me, after years of being immersed in church and youth group and a society that, while certainly full of infinite definitions of divinity and morality, still has this central Judeo-Christian-based moral code/philosophy. So, a shout out to the One who is Love, to whom all of these Thanksgivings go—You are the best! It is right to give you thanks and praise (It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth...oh man do I miss the liturgy!). Thanks for always being there for me, more than I can ever imagine, more than I can ever express.
And on that note, I, thankfully, am ending this post and going to bed.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Let's Talk About the Weather...and some other stuff too
Sorry about the long gap between updates! I have two excuses: I’ve been pretty busy, and it’s been too cold to update. The latter excuse is no joke...all of a sudden, it’s become super cold here (think low 40s-30s, and raining), and my house doesn’t have heat, so typing is no fun. I keep doing typos because my fingers are so stiff and then I have to go back and fix them…yuck. So I kept waiting for the cold to go away, and then it didn’t, and it got worse, so now I’m just going to go for it, frostbite be damned.
So, what has been going on in my life since I last wrote on this fine blog of mine? Well, lots. First of all, last week my dad was here! It was so great to see him, however briefly. I took him to the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, which I think was cool for him to see (amazing model of the whole of Shanghai which takes up an entire floor, plus a whole floor on the famous Shanghai Expo, May-October 2010, Better City, Better Life). We also went for a lovely dinner in Xintiandi, this Quincy Market type area filled with super swanky restaurants and shops…not a place I could eat on my own, but since Dad was here…just had to try it. Then, last Wednesday, was the big day: dinner with my host family. Well, first I took Dad to see ECNU in all it’s glory (giant Mao statue, the CIEE building, meet our program director, etc, etc), and then we took my host family out to dinner. My original idea was to take them to a non-Chinese restaurant from a cuisine that would be sort of familiar, like Thai or Vietnamese food, where there would hopefully be an English menu and my dad and I would know what was good. When I floated this idea to my host family, however, they looked at me like I had ten heads. So I told them to pick their favorite restaurant (and insisted, about a gazillion times, that WE were hosting THEM, even though they did not seem to like that idea one bit). We ended up going to this really nice Chinese restaurant close by…my host dad ordered (and did a great job, too, successfully avoiding anything too weird). My host mom was feeling ill so she didn’t come, but afterwards we all went back to the apartment and looked at Judy’s baby pictures and she and my dad got to talk which was nice. How did we come to be looking at Judy’s baby pictures? Well, my host dad was convinced that my dad was the spitting image of his former boss at Nestle, and instructed Judy to go find a picture from his Nestle days in the family photo boxes. Judy, being Judy, instead picked out all of the cute pictures of herself, dumped them on me (we were picking through the pictures together) and told me to bring them out to the living room so she could keep looking for more cute pictures. So my host mom and my dad looked at Judy’s baby pictures while I acted as ferry, and Judy stood in my room singing to herself (in English) “This is me, this is me, this is me, this is me” as she sorted through pictures…oh, Judy. The cutest, most low-maintenance spoiled child I know haha.
And then my dad went back to Boston, and it became COLD. SO COLD. And RAINY. Luckily he had brought me some of my winter gear (essentials, such as a fleece, a pair of sweatpants and my slippers...such a good call), so I’ve survived, but there have been some close calls, I swear. Besides the weather, other news is that I’ve been volunteering more with JUCCCE, which has been fun. Friday afternoon we went to this massive fabric market where they can make you ANYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE out of ANYTHING you can imagine. Am currently drooling over the prospect of getting a cashmere dress coat handmade for like $75…will probably remain fantasy, but it’s a nice fantasy. A warm, fashionable, tailored fantasy…
Sunday evening I had dinner in the ECNU cafeteria and watched “Love Actually” with my one Chinese friend, Jenny (her English name…embarrassingly enough I don’t know her Chinese name…I don’t think she’s ever told me…). This came about because we were chatting on Skype and she mentioned that she was watching “High School Musical” and she asked me what kind of movies I like to watch. I said that I like all types, but listed some of my favorites, including “Love Actually”. She wanted to know if she could find “Love Actually” in Chinese, and I said I didn’t know but I had an English version (I brought DVDs of “Love Actually” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” to watch whenever I feel down…haven’t had to do so yet, so it was nice to have a more cheerful use for the movie). And then she suggested that we watch it together. So that’s what we did! I had forgotten about some of the more raunchy parts of the movie, but we fast-forwarded through those (I felt sooo bad that I forgot about a couple scenes…it’s kind of a jump from “High School Musical” to “Love Actually”…). But all in all she seemed to really enjoy the movie! We had the English subtitles up and I stopped it every so often to explain, but I was super impressed by how much she understood. Her English is really good, and she’s really patient with my Chinese. Jenny is studying to teach Chinese to foreigners, and she’s going to be super good at it, because she’s incredibly nice and patient and chill.
Monday and Tuesday were spent on an ECNU-organized trip to Hangzhou, a city about 3 hours away from Shanghai by bus. Hangzhou is famous for its West Lake (Xihu), which is considered the most beautiful lake in China. Marco Polo said that Hangzhou was the most beautiful city in the world. I can’t really vouch for the city, but the lake was indeed very beautiful. Monday was cold and raining, and a sort of maddening day. We drove in the rain from stop to stop in Shaoxing, a small city about an hour from Hangzhou, and we kept being dropped in the rain to go look at things without any explanation really except a time when we had to be back on the bus. Hmmm. But we saw this massive Buddha that was carved out of this ginormous rock about 1300 years ago, so that was definitely worth seeing. It was probably my favorite Buddhist site I’ve visited, in terms of being incredibly simple and majestic and basic and awesome…definitely inspired a sense of the holy. The park, called Keyan, was very striking (even in the rain). Think flat landscape, with tiny hills randomly rising out of the flatness, and then in one place a massive rock cliff with a small lake in front of it. Monday night Katherine and I went on an excursion to find this restaurant mentioned in Lonely Planet for it’s clay pot chicken, a Hangzhou specialty. Oh my god. This chicken. It was unbelievable. A full spring chicken, roasted in a clay pot…the best roast chicken I’ve ever had. When we were done, all that was left was the head and a large pile of bones.
Tuesday we spent three hours at West Lake. It was COLD COLD COLD but not raining, luckily. Katherine and I walked briskly until we came to a place where we could rent bikes, and then we biked, and then we found Starbucks (by chance…it was like magic…we had talked about how cool it would be to find Starbucks since hot chocolate would be perfect on a day like Tuesday, and then, BAM, there was Starbucks, on the shore of the lake…). The lake was breathtakingly beautiful, I think even more beautiful than it would have been on a sunny day…mists and clouds shrouded the mountains that rose from one side of the lake, the water and the sky were both a beautiful light grey, the hills were dark blue, the dark green willows bent over the water, water rippled, I shivered, I marveled, it was restful to have the leisure to just glory in this natural place. PLUS it was so cold that there were very few other people there.
Today, Wednesday, back in Shanghai, we had a very enjoyable cooking class…yum. Which was good, since for dinner tonight we had dog meat stew. Yuck times a gazillion. At one point my host dad pulled the head out to show to me/offer to one of his friends who was eating with him…it had teeth. My host mom wasn’t home, and she doesn’t eat dog, and my host dad was eating with two of his friends, so I guess that’s why we had such a gross dinner. Luckily I wasn’t hungry, and there were other things to eat (like egg and tomato soup…so good), but it was still pretty traumatic. Blarrgh.
And on that note, off I go to snuggle down deep under my covers. Peace!
So, what has been going on in my life since I last wrote on this fine blog of mine? Well, lots. First of all, last week my dad was here! It was so great to see him, however briefly. I took him to the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, which I think was cool for him to see (amazing model of the whole of Shanghai which takes up an entire floor, plus a whole floor on the famous Shanghai Expo, May-October 2010, Better City, Better Life). We also went for a lovely dinner in Xintiandi, this Quincy Market type area filled with super swanky restaurants and shops…not a place I could eat on my own, but since Dad was here…just had to try it. Then, last Wednesday, was the big day: dinner with my host family. Well, first I took Dad to see ECNU in all it’s glory (giant Mao statue, the CIEE building, meet our program director, etc, etc), and then we took my host family out to dinner. My original idea was to take them to a non-Chinese restaurant from a cuisine that would be sort of familiar, like Thai or Vietnamese food, where there would hopefully be an English menu and my dad and I would know what was good. When I floated this idea to my host family, however, they looked at me like I had ten heads. So I told them to pick their favorite restaurant (and insisted, about a gazillion times, that WE were hosting THEM, even though they did not seem to like that idea one bit). We ended up going to this really nice Chinese restaurant close by…my host dad ordered (and did a great job, too, successfully avoiding anything too weird). My host mom was feeling ill so she didn’t come, but afterwards we all went back to the apartment and looked at Judy’s baby pictures and she and my dad got to talk which was nice. How did we come to be looking at Judy’s baby pictures? Well, my host dad was convinced that my dad was the spitting image of his former boss at Nestle, and instructed Judy to go find a picture from his Nestle days in the family photo boxes. Judy, being Judy, instead picked out all of the cute pictures of herself, dumped them on me (we were picking through the pictures together) and told me to bring them out to the living room so she could keep looking for more cute pictures. So my host mom and my dad looked at Judy’s baby pictures while I acted as ferry, and Judy stood in my room singing to herself (in English) “This is me, this is me, this is me, this is me” as she sorted through pictures…oh, Judy. The cutest, most low-maintenance spoiled child I know haha.
And then my dad went back to Boston, and it became COLD. SO COLD. And RAINY. Luckily he had brought me some of my winter gear (essentials, such as a fleece, a pair of sweatpants and my slippers...such a good call), so I’ve survived, but there have been some close calls, I swear. Besides the weather, other news is that I’ve been volunteering more with JUCCCE, which has been fun. Friday afternoon we went to this massive fabric market where they can make you ANYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE out of ANYTHING you can imagine. Am currently drooling over the prospect of getting a cashmere dress coat handmade for like $75…will probably remain fantasy, but it’s a nice fantasy. A warm, fashionable, tailored fantasy…
Sunday evening I had dinner in the ECNU cafeteria and watched “Love Actually” with my one Chinese friend, Jenny (her English name…embarrassingly enough I don’t know her Chinese name…I don’t think she’s ever told me…). This came about because we were chatting on Skype and she mentioned that she was watching “High School Musical” and she asked me what kind of movies I like to watch. I said that I like all types, but listed some of my favorites, including “Love Actually”. She wanted to know if she could find “Love Actually” in Chinese, and I said I didn’t know but I had an English version (I brought DVDs of “Love Actually” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” to watch whenever I feel down…haven’t had to do so yet, so it was nice to have a more cheerful use for the movie). And then she suggested that we watch it together. So that’s what we did! I had forgotten about some of the more raunchy parts of the movie, but we fast-forwarded through those (I felt sooo bad that I forgot about a couple scenes…it’s kind of a jump from “High School Musical” to “Love Actually”…). But all in all she seemed to really enjoy the movie! We had the English subtitles up and I stopped it every so often to explain, but I was super impressed by how much she understood. Her English is really good, and she’s really patient with my Chinese. Jenny is studying to teach Chinese to foreigners, and she’s going to be super good at it, because she’s incredibly nice and patient and chill.
Monday and Tuesday were spent on an ECNU-organized trip to Hangzhou, a city about 3 hours away from Shanghai by bus. Hangzhou is famous for its West Lake (Xihu), which is considered the most beautiful lake in China. Marco Polo said that Hangzhou was the most beautiful city in the world. I can’t really vouch for the city, but the lake was indeed very beautiful. Monday was cold and raining, and a sort of maddening day. We drove in the rain from stop to stop in Shaoxing, a small city about an hour from Hangzhou, and we kept being dropped in the rain to go look at things without any explanation really except a time when we had to be back on the bus. Hmmm. But we saw this massive Buddha that was carved out of this ginormous rock about 1300 years ago, so that was definitely worth seeing. It was probably my favorite Buddhist site I’ve visited, in terms of being incredibly simple and majestic and basic and awesome…definitely inspired a sense of the holy. The park, called Keyan, was very striking (even in the rain). Think flat landscape, with tiny hills randomly rising out of the flatness, and then in one place a massive rock cliff with a small lake in front of it. Monday night Katherine and I went on an excursion to find this restaurant mentioned in Lonely Planet for it’s clay pot chicken, a Hangzhou specialty. Oh my god. This chicken. It was unbelievable. A full spring chicken, roasted in a clay pot…the best roast chicken I’ve ever had. When we were done, all that was left was the head and a large pile of bones.
Tuesday we spent three hours at West Lake. It was COLD COLD COLD but not raining, luckily. Katherine and I walked briskly until we came to a place where we could rent bikes, and then we biked, and then we found Starbucks (by chance…it was like magic…we had talked about how cool it would be to find Starbucks since hot chocolate would be perfect on a day like Tuesday, and then, BAM, there was Starbucks, on the shore of the lake…). The lake was breathtakingly beautiful, I think even more beautiful than it would have been on a sunny day…mists and clouds shrouded the mountains that rose from one side of the lake, the water and the sky were both a beautiful light grey, the hills were dark blue, the dark green willows bent over the water, water rippled, I shivered, I marveled, it was restful to have the leisure to just glory in this natural place. PLUS it was so cold that there were very few other people there.
Today, Wednesday, back in Shanghai, we had a very enjoyable cooking class…yum. Which was good, since for dinner tonight we had dog meat stew. Yuck times a gazillion. At one point my host dad pulled the head out to show to me/offer to one of his friends who was eating with him…it had teeth. My host mom wasn’t home, and she doesn’t eat dog, and my host dad was eating with two of his friends, so I guess that’s why we had such a gross dinner. Luckily I wasn’t hungry, and there were other things to eat (like egg and tomato soup…so good), but it was still pretty traumatic. Blarrgh.
And on that note, off I go to snuggle down deep under my covers. Peace!
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Fujian/Xiamen Trip, and Other Doings
Hello! This is the first time while I’ve been in China that I’ve felt that I have too many things to do and not enough time to do them in, so I’m going to keep this update really short. I have a dictation on Monday, a paper/project due next week about our trip to Xiamen that I haven’t started yet, about 100 pages of reading to do for our “Core Class” on Wednesday, and this entry to write—a lot to do by the standards of the past 7 weeks. And tomorrow almost the whole day will be spent volunteering at a charity carnival benefiting kids with heart disease, followed by dinner with my friend Katherine and her grandparents who are visiting Shanghai…then Monday – Thursday, MY DAD WILL BE HERE! I am very excited to see him, of course, especially since it’s a surprise (for him, too, as he only found out he was coming to China on Wednesday/Thursday, and he’s leaving 7 AM Saturday morning Boston time). Meaning this will be a fun but crazy week! Then a week from this Monday/Tuesday I’ll go Hangzhou with all the other international students at ECNU (we number in the hundreds, so this should be interesting….). And then when we get back we have like a week before our midterm…and then Thanksgiving…and then November is basically over and I have like 2 weeks left, during which I want to go to Nanjing at some point….Basically, with 5 weeks left, December 13 looms large.
So, by update, I meant “you get to listen to me stress about how much fun stuff I have to do.” Sorry.
The original purpose of this post was to write about what I did/saw in Xiamen, not make a to-do list/schedule. So back to last weekend and our trip to Xiamen…
Xiamen was warm, sunny, small, clean, and beautiful. We spent our first day on the island of Gulangyu, where the foreign embassies/rich people’s villas were located when Xiamen was known as Amoy, and was an important treaty port. Gulangyu was definitely the cutest place I’ve been to in China yet; it felt a lot like Bermuda with Chinese characteristics. The streets are narrow, and no cars or motorbikes or even bicycles are allowed on the island. It was quiet. The buildings were a medley of different Western styles, surrounded by palm trees and gardens. There were tons of tourists, but it didn’t even matter because there was a beach and freshly squeezed orange juice stands and warm sunshine (I got a bit of color…perfection) and delicious food and I bought a very colorful summery skirt…clearly, contemplating Gulangyu has robbed me of any ability to write or think coherently. Suffice to say, it was a very pleasant night/day.
On Saturday, we hopped in a van and, along with our incredibly Zen, nice driver and our sweet guide Ann, made our way out into the countryside of Fujian Province. Our destination was Yongding, a village known for its tulou (“earthen buildings”). The tulou come in three varieties, either round, square, or “five phoenix” which is like square but different (hard to explain). They were built by the Hakka people, ethnically Han (according to the Chinese government), but with their own culture and history. The Hakka have been migrating around China since about 200 AD, purportedly from the north-central region (around Xi’an, in the area known as the cradle of Chinese civilization) to the southeast…they’re sometimes referred to as “the Jews of China” because of their extended migrations and encounters with persecution. Their history is disputed; some call them the descendants of the Han Dynasty, the “true Han.” From what I can gather, all people know for sure is that in around the 13th-14th century the Hakka arrived in the Fujian Province region and began to build their massive tulou dwellings. The tulou are fortified, massive dwellings, designed to house hundreds of members of one family group/clan. They have thick outer walls (up to 2 m thick at the base) that are reinforced to protect against tunneling under or attempts to burn them. Inside each tulou are a series of smaller inner rings, built as more housing was needed. At the center is the ancestral temple. The tulou are striking because they’re a lot like castles, as their purpose is to protect the occupants from attack from bandits or violent enemies of any type. However, the tulou are for families, and show none of the class differentiations of a castle. There is no keep. There are just hundreds of rooms arranged in 4-story tall rings, allotted to clan members according to their needs/status (young couples got one room, old people lived lower down so they wouldn’t have to climb so many stairs, etc.). I definitely had fun exploring them and taking pictures, even if there were a TON of tourists (the tulou were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008).
Even more than seeing the tulou, however, my favorite part of Saturday and Sunday was getting to see some of rural China. Fujian is 82% mountains, according to our guide, and the drive to Yongding was absolutely stunning—terraced fields, winding mountain roads, small villages. It was also very refreshing and relaxing just to get away for a bit from the hustle and bustle (and bad air) of urban China. One of my favorite moments was buying pomelos (if you’ve never tried one, try one soon, because they’re amazing) from a guy sitting along the side of the road that ran through the middle of the pomelo tree orchard (field?) where the fruit had grown. It just felt so natural. And the pomelo was delicious (once I finally cut it open).
After a fun evening of karaoke with our teacher Huang Laoshi on Sunday, on Monday we had a chill day in Xiamen. Ben, Katherine, Erika and I went on a very leisurely scavenger hunt (no one else wanted to do it, so we weren’t competing against anyone) in the morning, after which Huang Laoshi treated us to dim sum (yum!) for lunch. After lunch, Erika, Katherine and I rented bicycles and biked along with beach for a little while before we had to go back to our hostel and go to the airport. All in all, it was the perfect “vacation from vacation” as I dubbed the trip…not at all intellectually taxing—in fact, not taxing in any way—but just very relaxing and pleasant.
The rest of this week was very routine. Two highlights: Thursday, my tutor and I went on a walk instead of having normal tutoring, and during our walk my tutor started talking about how awful the current system is in China, and how stifled she feels by the Communist Party. Basically, she said, getting ahead in China requires everyone to fake enthusiasm for the Party, even though everyone knows that Marxist ideology doesn’t apply to modern China anymore. It was an incredibly, incredibly interesting and intense conversation. She wasn’t talking about these things from a theoretical standpoint; she was speaking through her own emotions, from her own experience.
Friday night I went out for Italian food with some CIEE friends, as well as this group of Italian girls my friend Erika knows (Erika is Italian but living in the US). It was SO fun! The Italians were incredibly friendly and fun, and the food was amazing (homemade pasta…mmmmm).
That’s all folks. Back to studying for my dictation…
So, by update, I meant “you get to listen to me stress about how much fun stuff I have to do.” Sorry.
The original purpose of this post was to write about what I did/saw in Xiamen, not make a to-do list/schedule. So back to last weekend and our trip to Xiamen…
Xiamen was warm, sunny, small, clean, and beautiful. We spent our first day on the island of Gulangyu, where the foreign embassies/rich people’s villas were located when Xiamen was known as Amoy, and was an important treaty port. Gulangyu was definitely the cutest place I’ve been to in China yet; it felt a lot like Bermuda with Chinese characteristics. The streets are narrow, and no cars or motorbikes or even bicycles are allowed on the island. It was quiet. The buildings were a medley of different Western styles, surrounded by palm trees and gardens. There were tons of tourists, but it didn’t even matter because there was a beach and freshly squeezed orange juice stands and warm sunshine (I got a bit of color…perfection) and delicious food and I bought a very colorful summery skirt…clearly, contemplating Gulangyu has robbed me of any ability to write or think coherently. Suffice to say, it was a very pleasant night/day.
On Saturday, we hopped in a van and, along with our incredibly Zen, nice driver and our sweet guide Ann, made our way out into the countryside of Fujian Province. Our destination was Yongding, a village known for its tulou (“earthen buildings”). The tulou come in three varieties, either round, square, or “five phoenix” which is like square but different (hard to explain). They were built by the Hakka people, ethnically Han (according to the Chinese government), but with their own culture and history. The Hakka have been migrating around China since about 200 AD, purportedly from the north-central region (around Xi’an, in the area known as the cradle of Chinese civilization) to the southeast…they’re sometimes referred to as “the Jews of China” because of their extended migrations and encounters with persecution. Their history is disputed; some call them the descendants of the Han Dynasty, the “true Han.” From what I can gather, all people know for sure is that in around the 13th-14th century the Hakka arrived in the Fujian Province region and began to build their massive tulou dwellings. The tulou are fortified, massive dwellings, designed to house hundreds of members of one family group/clan. They have thick outer walls (up to 2 m thick at the base) that are reinforced to protect against tunneling under or attempts to burn them. Inside each tulou are a series of smaller inner rings, built as more housing was needed. At the center is the ancestral temple. The tulou are striking because they’re a lot like castles, as their purpose is to protect the occupants from attack from bandits or violent enemies of any type. However, the tulou are for families, and show none of the class differentiations of a castle. There is no keep. There are just hundreds of rooms arranged in 4-story tall rings, allotted to clan members according to their needs/status (young couples got one room, old people lived lower down so they wouldn’t have to climb so many stairs, etc.). I definitely had fun exploring them and taking pictures, even if there were a TON of tourists (the tulou were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008).
Even more than seeing the tulou, however, my favorite part of Saturday and Sunday was getting to see some of rural China. Fujian is 82% mountains, according to our guide, and the drive to Yongding was absolutely stunning—terraced fields, winding mountain roads, small villages. It was also very refreshing and relaxing just to get away for a bit from the hustle and bustle (and bad air) of urban China. One of my favorite moments was buying pomelos (if you’ve never tried one, try one soon, because they’re amazing) from a guy sitting along the side of the road that ran through the middle of the pomelo tree orchard (field?) where the fruit had grown. It just felt so natural. And the pomelo was delicious (once I finally cut it open).
After a fun evening of karaoke with our teacher Huang Laoshi on Sunday, on Monday we had a chill day in Xiamen. Ben, Katherine, Erika and I went on a very leisurely scavenger hunt (no one else wanted to do it, so we weren’t competing against anyone) in the morning, after which Huang Laoshi treated us to dim sum (yum!) for lunch. After lunch, Erika, Katherine and I rented bicycles and biked along with beach for a little while before we had to go back to our hostel and go to the airport. All in all, it was the perfect “vacation from vacation” as I dubbed the trip…not at all intellectually taxing—in fact, not taxing in any way—but just very relaxing and pleasant.
The rest of this week was very routine. Two highlights: Thursday, my tutor and I went on a walk instead of having normal tutoring, and during our walk my tutor started talking about how awful the current system is in China, and how stifled she feels by the Communist Party. Basically, she said, getting ahead in China requires everyone to fake enthusiasm for the Party, even though everyone knows that Marxist ideology doesn’t apply to modern China anymore. It was an incredibly, incredibly interesting and intense conversation. She wasn’t talking about these things from a theoretical standpoint; she was speaking through her own emotions, from her own experience.
Friday night I went out for Italian food with some CIEE friends, as well as this group of Italian girls my friend Erika knows (Erika is Italian but living in the US). It was SO fun! The Italians were incredibly friendly and fun, and the food was amazing (homemade pasta…mmmmm).
That’s all folks. Back to studying for my dictation…
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