“There are many clouds. Very pretty.”

Ah, today I saw one of the most beautiful skies I have ever seen.  I’ve heard this city has a higher altitude than most, so it can really seem like the clouds are close enough to the ground that it brushes the tops of the buildings here.  The clouds have such a deep, resounding puffiness (how do I explain this resounding-ness?)…if you were to visualize a satisfying thunderclap, it would take the shape of these clouds.  And today, the lighting – it was like looking at the backdrop of a Dali painting without the sexual imagery.  Like the sky in that painting with the girl in the field of wheat with the farm in the background.  Like the origins of the word ‘Hallelujah.’  And were it not for the rife corruption and graffiti in this city, I would call Brasília – on days like this – a reflection of paradise.  Such a blue! Such a purple! Such a sun! A pity that I could not explain any of my range of thoughts and emotions to the driver as he weaved through traffic, except to say “There are many clouds. Very pretty.”

Sichuan Day 1: Opulence and Drunken Revelry

While I’ve been more than happy playing the part of income-inhibited backpacker, when a family friend offers a free stay in a five-star hotel followed by a tour of the sights of Sichuan, hellz yes I’m going! I flew with some of my family from Xi’an to Chengdu, which is only a 1hr 15m plane ride. The best thing about Chinese airlines is that they give you food – good, hearty Chinese food – whether your flight is 6 hours long or 1 hour long. Food is taken very seriously in China.

Exhibit A: Opulence - my hotel room. I probably should have taken pictures of the hotel's lobby. The room was amazing. Even the sand in the cigarette ashtrays were shaped in the hotel's seal.

On Opulence
The Chinese know how to do ‘luxury.’ They know how to make your jaw drop as soon as you enter the motion-sensored rotating door (fully equipped with fengshui bamboo arrangement). Cavernous vaulted ceilings and loaded chandeliers…lines of uniformed young men and women politely bowing and and welcoming you to their hotel…marble everything and gold plating on things that don’t need it… Yep, this is all part of the huge income gap that stares me in the face every day. The street next to this magnificent hotel is lined with run-down tent stalls selling dusty household items. The second time we drive by that alley, I see some of the uniformed women from the hotel bargaining at these stalls…which makes me think that perhaps the gap doesn’t quite work like I think.

Exhibit B: Yes, that's a window as the shower wall. Hm...I guess privacy and prudishness were not factored into the design.

In the evening, they take us to this hutong-like area of Chengdu called “Kuan1 zhai3 xiang4″, which literally means “wide-narrow alley.”

This is a stylized version of the alley's name, linking the first and second characters into one big character.

We ended up having dinner at this amazingly beautiful restaurant that looked like it could’ve been a scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Apologies for the use of a random American-familiar Chinese film. I think it was so beautiful that they didn’t let me take photos. There was a fish pond that ran by all the tables, and was covered by a the old-Chinese-style tiled awnings that dripped a pitter-patter of rain existing only inside the restaurant.

Exhibit C: Drunken revelry. This bottle of baijou cost 1800 RMB! ($279 - omg, this is how much it cost for me to get hives. Lucky that I didn't miss such an opportunity...) For everyone's sake I did not take pictures of the actual revelry.

On the Art of Drinking in China.
Drinking among esteemed friends is about much more than imbibing liquid that makes you giddy. As an outsider, it seems like a very tedious process, replete with all sorts of courtesies and formalities that make me so grateful that the US is a place where you and friends can just ‘go for a drink.’ Since I can only describe what I was able to experience, I’ll just say what I saw: There were 3 groups of people in the room – important people (hosts/some guests), children/younger relatives of the important people (e.g. me and my cousin), and service people (e.g. chauffeurs of the first group). This is – roughly – what happened during the meal:

1. The main host toasts all the people in the room, thanking them for coming all the way here, etc etc.
2. Each person in Group 1 would reminisces about the last time they all were together and then toasts all of the other people in Group 1.
3. All of the service people in Group 3 (who are all drinking tea b/c they have to drive afterwards) toast their bosses and the other people in Group 1 individually, thanking them for bringing them here and wishing them a good time.
4. Group 3 toasts Group 2, hoping they also have a good time.
5. Individuals from Group 1 toast all of Group 2, meanwhile asking what their future plans are in life, how they’re liking China/Chengdu etc.
6. Eating by this time is reaching its cruising speed, and members of Group 1 toast each other twice for every new dish that’s brought out. There are many dishes.
7. Certain person in Group 1 nudges certain person in Group 2 to thank people in Group 1, so said person from Group 2 awkwardly toasts each Group 1 member in turn while trying not to choke on alcohol that’s as expensive as a roundtrip ticket to Atlanta.
8. The same person in Group 2 is nudged again, and remembers to toast all the people in Group 3 for vague reasons.
9. As the meal and the bottle of baijou reaches its end, all Groups toast each other haphazardly, mumbling haphazard thank-yous and patting each other on the back, punctuated by brief glazed looks at the door.
10. Group 1 sends Group 3 to get the cars ready while they say their final goodbyes to each other while Group 2 is trying to recuperate from the meal that has just occurred.

Freaking out in Chengdu (not in the good way)

Oh my god, I’m gonna die. I looked down, and I was covered.

Fifteen or fewer mosquito bites, though unbearable enough, are commonplace for me, the walking mosquito buffet who never remembers to bring bug spray.  I hate seeing the outline of the raised bump and having to overcome succumb to the inevitable urge to scratch.  And then having scabs that last for weeks after.  Fifteen I can handle.  This was not fifteen.  This was nearing some significant order of magnitude.  ECCHHHhhhh!  I couldn’t even look at myself without feeling nauseous/repulsed.

What the hell is happening?!?!  How could I have QUINTUPLED my bite count in the past 15 minutes without seeing any insects??

Shit, I have smallpox - was my first thought as a cool-headed, logical individual.  My next thought was syphilis, but that was impossible for various reasons.  All the diseases I had ever heard about (and some that hadn’t) raced through my head, and I was sure that this was going to be my ironic last day on earth – dying in such a repulsive way in one of the most luxurious hotel rooms I’ve ever seen.  Omg omg omg.  My world was crashing down around me and I was on the verge of hyperventilating from shock…so I did the only thing I could think of that could possibly make things better – I called my mom.

Mom: “Oh hey!  How are you?  How are your uncle and cousin?”

Me: [bursting into tears] Ohmygod ihavemosquitobiteseverywhere, idon’tseeanybugsbut ithinkimighthavesomethingserious!!!??!??!

Mom: “Wait, what was that? You see mosquitos? I think the reception’s not that great.”

Me: Ahhhhhhhh! I have bumps everywherrrrrrreeeee and they’re not going awwaaaayyyyy!  I didn’t even see the bugsssss.  I don’t know what to do I think I might be dying. I took a photo of my shoulder and am sending it to your inbox.  Loook at itttttttt!  Look at meeeee!

Mom: Okay okay, I’ll check my email. [pause] Ew. [chuckles] Aw, it’s okay, you have hives.  What did you eat?

Me: …

*     *     *

Advice to future mothers of the world: When your offspring is freaking out about a physical condition or you see something that probably shouldn’t be there.  Never say “Ew. Aw, it’s okay.” Those are two very different messages.

*     *     *

So it turns out I think I’m allergic to baijou, that infamous clear alcohol from my home country.  I don’t think this is devastating news since I had no plans to partake of this potent liquid on a regular basis…but I totally did not see that coming.  I’ve never had any issues with alcohol, the worst being the occasional leftover hangover, so hives were relegated to the section of possible explanations labeled “Things that happen to other people.”

After a long, long conversation with my mother, which ended in “You don’t need to wake up your uncle in the middle of the night unless you find that you can’t breathe,” I did feel much better, though the same cannot be said of my confidence in my mother’s grasp of constricted airways.  I did take her advice: took a cold shower and made myself fall asleep.  When I woke up all I found were reddish shadows of yesterday’s pox scare.

Currently I’m taking the Chinese equivalent of – what I hope is – Benedryl.  I had a small glass of red wine today and I feel itchy again, though I’ve seen no signs of the bumps.  What if I’m suddenly allergic to alcohol?  Through some cursory Google-ing, it seems that this happens to people.  Hmmmm….

Currently reading: Stories: All new tales edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

reading some of the stories at night makes me scared to go out to use the bathroom

I love Neil Gaiman, though I’ve only started reading his works this past year or two.  This book caught my eye at the 王府井 foreign bookstore because of its cover (I know) and Gaiman’s name.  True to his style, the stories in this book are also a little twisted, generally dark, but definite page-turners.  I really enjoyed the introduction to the book, saying that the four words that every writer should aim for are “What happens next?”  If you’re looking for a good book of short stories or a summer read or something to give you chills on a hot summer day…(okay, I sound like Reading Rainbow for adults)

It’s good.

my first AChe and my first biking experience

*UPDATE for all those curious: I take back the ‘facing the hole’ comment in my earlier post.  I talked to my aunt, who burst my bubble of self-congratulation and informed me that in fact, you just face outwards.  Who knows what the right way is?  If you encounter one, just take a second to think about what’s happening and try it out yourself.

Anyways.

*     *     *

I slept with the air conditioning on the entire night last night, which apparently you’re not supposed to do.  While my Chinese has gotten better, it still hasn’t reached the point where I can see what all the buttons on the AC remote say without bothering to use a dictionary.  I played around with some buttons and set it at a balmy 27°C (80.6°F) thinking that it was already cooler than that so the AC would automatically shut off soon.  I guess I was pretty tired, so I fell asleep pretty quickly, and ended up having a dream that someone had stabbed me in the left shoulder.  When I woke up, I felt this sharp pain on my left side, so that I couldn’t look over my left shoulder without wincing.  Poot.  When I told my aunt, I got the expected reprimand for leaving the AC on all night. Must find the scientific principle that explains this soreness from wind.  Erg.

*     *     *

In other news… I took my first bike-ride as a faux-Beijinger this weekend!  I went with my aunt, the pro, around noon.  Not a ridiculous number of cars out, so I felt I had an 80+% chance of coming back alive.

As soon as I got on that bike, suddenly the world became FILLED with cars coming out of nowhere, scooters going the wrong way (more on this later), strollers, pedestrians, and worst of all…CHILDREN!  Baaaaah.

Oh man…I’d write here what was going through my mind as different bikes/scooters/people/Audis dinged/honked/HEY’d/beeped by me, but I fear it is unfit for a casual blog such as this.  I don’t know why more people aren’t killed on the streets.  Chinese people must have amazing reflexes.  Everyone is prepared for the old granny who’s standing in between two major lanes.  And the car that decides to U-turn on the wrong side of the intersection.  And that truck that’s barreling down the bike lane.

I guess I have a little more ways to go before I’m comfortable tackling this commute to my language study campus.

Change of clothes

Today my aunt asked whether people in the US also change outfits everyday like they do in Canada.

“I guess? I mean, after a week or so, I think it’s generally okay to repeat outfits, but we usually don’t wear the same thing on consecutive days.”  It’s odd to be the unofficial US rep about these things.  ”Why?  Do people wear the same thing in China?”

“Well, when they’re working it’s okay to wear the same thing two days in a row sometimes.  When I was young, we only had one outfit a year…so there was no problem with re-wearing things.” That was a good point.  I guess that makes it less strange to do so nowadays.

I have very little idea what American people used to do back in the day in terms of wearing clothes.  The first things that come to mind when I think of the US ‘back in the day,’ are Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and Gone with the Wind, neither of which emphasized clothing.  Ay de mí.

It seemed like back in the day, Americans also wore maybe the same thing day in and out.

Destination: China

Ah, the good old days of travel blogging are back. I think this affinity is due mainly to the fact that so much time is spent in solitude, so this gives my mind something to chew on. I had some problems getting access to the actual WordPress site, but all is well now as I have finally figured out what kind of VPN to set up! Brief summary of what has happened thus far:

Leaving the States I only mention this bit because it became such an unexpected mess. The morning of our 7am departure (meaning we had to take the earliest 5am train, poot) – as soon as we had already arrived at Newark – both J and my cellphone begin to ring nonstop. We’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but please see a Delta agent to reschedule your flight at the earliest convenience. Oh my gosh. All I could think of was how many phone calls I had had to make already to make sure that I wasn’t going to be stranded at the airport and would have a family friend come pick me up. I know, not thoughts of the fearless female traveler, but thoughts I had nonetheless. Looking at the scowls around us, it seemed as if many of our fellow passengers were feeling similar emotions. By some amazing stroke of luck, we got the nicest agent who ended up rebooking us on a flight that left later that day, with no extra layovers (woot, our previous flight had one in Detroit), that got to Narita/Beijing/Seoul at the same time. God bless that woman.

Beijing – For the first few days, I stayed in Beijing with my mom’s old classmate/best friend (I still call her ‘aunt’ in Chinese) while J stayed with his parents in Seoul for a few days. How lucky for me that my first meal was Peking Duck!

(Sincere apologies to the vegetarians) For those of you who don’t know, the carving of the duck is part of the process of eating Peking roast duck, so usually the chef will come straight to your table to slice it up and serve the tastiest bits (the skin portion) arranged nicely on a platter with the rest of the duck on a separate dish. This particular instance we were actually taking the duck to-go to eat with my aunt’s family. Traditionally, you just wrap pieces of the duck, cucumber slices, and some green onion in a really thin flour (?) wrap, smothered with sweet noodle paste (my mouth is already watering). My aunt’s family has a tradition of putting all sorts of things in

side, as shown here:

(This is becoming a food blog post very quickly) In these few days, I broke my own rule of not eating street food after being tempted by the smell of a Chinese taco-like object.

(only 5 RMB! That’s less than a buck!) Anyways, things I soon discovered/re-remembered about China:

• Buses show no mercy – my aunt’s car was scraped twice in the duration of my stay with her by a pushy bus. And of course, it being rush hour, no one bothered to let her get to the side of the road to argue it out with the bus driver…who probably wouldn’t have stopped anyways.
• Squatting toilets are still the norm…and I soon learned that there is in fact a “correct” direction to face when using said toilet. My aunt told me a funny story about how these American people ended up not being able to use a bathroom for days while touring China because they just weren’t able to support themselves when getting into and out of a squatting position. A fair point – Chinese people must all have a minimum level of quadricep strength.
• China isn’t as smoggy as I thought. We actually saw blue skies and clouds once or twice! It all depends on how windy the day is

• With that said, my aunt did find the blue skies a noteworthy enough event to warrant an impromptu photo session. Heh.
• Flagrant disregard of intellectual property can sometimes lead to adorable outcomes:

• (these are cracker boxes)

Next post – update on Seoul, and then more Beijing!

First post of 2011!

And it’s going to be a cute animal video.  Every year, the fact that I have a lovely winter break followed by the evil that is exam period…it always takes me by surprise and leaves me feeling quite indignant.  I would much rather start earlier in the year (like everyone else) and get the pain over with.  Winter break should be about having a month to happily forget everything from the previous semesters and recycle all 40 pounds of accumulated printouts in the last-ditch effort to make learning more sustainable.  Recently, I’ve gotten into the literature on the ever-looming question of What is happiness? And more importantly, what makes me happy? I’ve been having a beef (beefs?) with how little I thought about this question when I was younger, and now seems like as good a time as any to really consider this.

For now, I’ll leave you all with an adorable video that teaches us all a valuable lesson: Size matters. Carnivores and herbivores can be friends if the herbivore is big enough.

 

(Hm, I can’t seem to see the video, so here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PJAjRsqJjLw)

for a bit of fuzzy journalism

fuzzy in the good way. not fuzzy as in conservatives muddling up the facts…

“The Vagabond Cat that Came to Stay”

I don’t mean to be judgy…

I just saw an old couple come in, wearing really loose t-shirts advertising a local yoga class and bermuda shorts.  The guy had a pierced ear and was holding two filled B & N shopping bags. The woman had a matching Coach wallet and glasses case. Pardon the judging, but isn’t that odd? Hee. Maybe she really likes Coach.  Or maybe they’re actually high-society people who don’t mind wearing the odd baggy t-shirt around town.

[edit from older/wiser simona] interesting that with these observations my own biases are very obvious.