Leaving My Mark, Pt. 2

I did a horrible, terrible thing today.  It's unspeakable really; it betrays the deepest bonds of humanity and would offend even the most hardened malfeasant.

But let's keep 

that for later.

Atrocities aside, the past two weeks have been a fitting finale to my stint as a student abroad.  Filled with outdoor exploration, hostels, shifty vans, and even shiftier fried rice salesman, I can now rest easy knowing that my time in China has been well spent.

Our whirlwind adventure began on a trip to the stereotypically-Chinese-sounding town of Xingping, a small, out of the way locale that specializes in nothing in particular, which was, in this case, exactly what we were looking for.  Of course, no plane actually flies to Xingping; that would be far too easy for a decent backpacking adventure.  Instead, we took a flight to nearby city Guilin, where we approached a group of cab drivers and asked for a ride to Xingping.

"Xingping?  Are you sure?" They asked.  

"Yep, one cab to Xingping, please" We answered.

"You know that Xingping is three hours away?  Also...its really small."

"...uh, one second".

At this point, we proceeded to heatedly discuss the pros and cons of choosing to fly into a city three hours away from our destination at 9pm at night.

"We are aware, and would still like a cab".

The cab drivers talked amongst themselves, and eventually one cabbie reluctantly emerged as our guide to the great beyond.  Three painfully-slow hours later, we emerged in the village of Xingping.  The cabbie spent a decent portion of our trip on his phone; my chinese isn't great, but I have the suspicion that the wife of a Guilin cab driver was not terribly pleased that night.

We later decided that getting a cab to Xingping would be like arriving in Seattle at 9pm on a Thursday and asking for a ride to Yakima.  To our dear cab driver: wherever you are, I'm sorry.  We're college students; we know not what we do.

The city itself was barren when we arrived.  Lit only by small, ornamented street lamps, the stalls and buildings dimly glowed in the twilight.  Beyond the street lamps, the world that extended around us was obscured in blackness; we definitely weren't in the city anymore.  Our hostel was warm and inviting, staffed by a miniature but fun-loving girl and an old woman with a burning passion for making pizzas.

The next morning, we made our way to the roof to take a look at the city around us.  Sunshine beamed down through the fog, illuminating hundreds of mountains dotting the landscape around us.  Singular and gigantic, the mountains seemed to explode out of flat ground, arching high into the sky and then immediately falling back into flatness.  "Sweeeeet", we all mused in unison.

The following days were filled with topographical exploration, off-road biking, slightly-shifty rock climbing, and a neon-light-filled spelunking expedition.  I would describe them all in detail here but, alas, I don't really feel like it right now.  Ask me for a recounting of these experiences sometime...I promise it'll be worth it.

And now that I have kept you enraptured, hanging on my every word, I shall tell you the horrible, terrible, despicable thing that I managed to do while abroad.

Brace yourself.

I...

...ate dog.

I understand you might be slightly perturbed at this.  A Chinese guy, in response to my saying that I'd like to try it, told me he hated me.  Apparently it is more of a polarizing issue than I realized.

But I would also like to point out that it was, with a few notable exceptions, some of the most delicious meat I've ever tasted.  Hate me if you must, but really, don't knock it until you try it.

Unfortunately, Robb was unable to determine the breed or name of the particular dog we enjoyed.

Ok, now you can hate me.

Even as I sat, enjoying my canine culinary masterpiece, I began to wonder what sort of impression -- if any -- I was going to leave on the people I have met since my trip began.  Waffle girl, random noodle stand girls, train dudes, random English Corner people; as you might gather, I didn't develop many close relationships while abroad.

Really, though, how close can people get when divided by language barriers?  A shared love of "Prison Break" and KFC can only go so far.  I take solace in the fact that the relationships with my fellow classmates will, with luck, make up for my lack of sociability with the local Chinese students.  And though I may not leave any lasting effect on those I met while abroad, I am confident that my words and actions will influence a whole new group of students who will go to China next year, and they affect people in a wholly different way than I.

At least that is how I will justify it to myself. 

Regardless, I am confident that I did -- and possibly still will -- leave my mark.

-McG

p.s. -- After many hours in transit, I am home!  A final entry is in the works....check back soon.

Leaving My Mark, Pt. 1

I had a realization today.

I was sitting in a local Korean restaurant waiting for my ka li ji ding (curry chicken) and talking with Brice about how we felt about returning to our normal lives in three weeks, when I was struck by the fact that I might actually miss being here.  

Let me rephrase.  I knew that I would miss the people I met while abroad, and that I would miss the glorious feeling of having nearly no responsibility combined with having nearly unlimited freedom to explore the foreign countryside surrounding me.  These are the hallmarks of a good study abroad, and have made my trip unforgettable.

What took me off guard, though, was the fact that I am actually becoming attached to the idiosyncrasies and oddities that make Chinese cities fundamentally different from any other large city.  Our recent trip to Chengdu provided many examples that helped to solidify these feelings in my mind.

Chengdu, located in the Sichuan Province of southwest China, is home to around 11 million citizens, and dates back almost 4000 years when it was settled by the Jinsha people.  Suffice to say, it has changed considerably since then; Chengdu is now a bustling cosmopolitan city, home to as many Starbucks as most American cities.

Our group seized the opportunity to experience American cuisine as soon as we arrived; lattes flowed like the Yangtze, and the waitresses at Peter's Tex-Mex came to recognize us by sight as we inundated their restaurant endlessly for our four day stay.  Biscuits and gravy, milkshakes, burritos, steak, pancakes; it was a wonderland of Americana.

We stayed in a hostel called "The Mix", whose bland name and exterior belie it's true personality as an eclectic paradise for backpackers and foreigners.  The smell of incense overwhelmed my nostrils as I walked into its cozy courtyard, which extends up four stories to a glass enclosure that lets in the sunlight; the walls were covered in sharpie and pen inscriptions of travelers come and gone.  It is definitely one of my favorite places I've ever stayed.  The environment seemed catered to the mid-twenties traveller looking for meaning on the road; it would have surprised no one if Jack Kerouac had stumbled in after a night of heavy drinking.

While I remain almost completely illiterate in reading or speaking Chinese, I am slowly making progress in basic communication.  Thanks to one month of Chinese lessons, I am able to read and order basic Chinese dishes such as chao huntun (fried wontons), da pan ji (literally "big plate of chicken"), mian bao (bread), and even shao ru ka fei nai cha (small hot coffee-flavored milk tea, my favorite for a cold evening).

Unfortunately, the small victories like successfully reading a menu or ordering food are quickly replaced with the all-too-common dejection of completely failing to communicate in countless other situations.  After ordering a nai cha one day, the waitress turned to my friend Rob and asked, "Is this person you are with part of an overseas group?"

"Yes."  Rob responded.

"When does he start his Chinese lessons?" 

It is in times like this where I have to remind myself that, even with my humble knowledge of Chinese, I know far more than any wai guo ren (foreigner) was allowed to learn only 50 years ago; there was a time when merely teaching a wai guo ren how to speak Mandarin was punishable by death.  Yet here I am, massacring their sacred language as I awkwardly try to scribble little characters into unorganized sentences.  How times change.  

As I sat waiting for my curry chicken tonight, I realized that it is precisely these annoyances and frustrations that I will end up missing the most.  Soon I will be able to communicate to whomever I want, drive to megamalls to get whatever I need, watch movies without indecipherable subtitles, and eat my favorite foods whenever I want.  But gone will be the little victories of being able to read a sign for the first time, or having a local understand my questions.

But it's ok, I decided.  It's an exchange; that is how these things work.  We explore and experience, and although we can't take the city of its people with us when we leave, the knowledge and wisdom of being an outsider in another culture stays with us forever.

Well, that, and a small section of writing above my hostel door:

"Matt McGrath - SPU Study Abroad 08'"

I left my mark.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

I apologize.

Typically I spend a small, but precious, amount of time thinking of a great pun or clever witticism for the title of my blog entries, and I hesitated to use a tired music reference to title this one; people who title their blogs after song lyrics also typically wear conspicuous amounts of American Apparel and think than Ben Gibbard writes songs just for them.  Yet I have now crossed over into that realm.  But rest assured, it is only because I feel that it accurately represents my life at the moment (that, and I do own a pair of American Apparel boxer-briefs.  So sue me).

With the end of my trip rapidly approaching, my "carpe diem-ness" have been increasing with the dwindling days.  Let's take a look at the days already seized, and then those that have yet to be seized:

This weekend I traveled into the Shapingba region of Chongqing, where several friends and I walked around the historic city of Ciqikou (Tsee-chee-kwo).  Bordered by the Jialing River, Ciqikou is a preserved city dating back to the Ming Dynasty, where it became a thriving port city during the following Qing Dynasty.  

It is difficult to express the beauty of the area.  Walking under stone archways worn by the rain and wind, we emerged on a bluff overlooking the entire Jialing Valley, where fishing trollers slowly drift down the river into the sunset.  

We sipped some local teas while taking in the view, watching the shore below us where the locals gather to eat, bordered by the red glow of lanterns.  All of the stone stairs and walls were covered in a dark green moss, giving the area an ethereal feel of ancient China.  After our tea, we climbed into the top of an aging Pagoda; the summit of our journey.    

How convenient, then, that our trip to Ciqikou was the one day I forgot to charge my camera's batteries.  It's always something.  However, the next night proved to be just as enjoyable.

Having received care packages filled with tortillas, mexican spices, coffee, and other such spectacular staples of American living, my roommates and I decided to attempt a dinner made by our own hands.  Dangerous?  Yes.  Giving cooking utensils to four college-age bachelors is like expecting a toddler operate a zamboni.  

Yet, incredibly, we managed to create a Mexican feast of epic proportions.  Soft-shelled tacos, rice, Islamic-equivalent tortilla chips, and (amazingly) a decent tasting homemade salsa.  It was definitely one of my more unlikely culinary successes, and an entirely satisfying one at that.

Our most recent exploit was a visit to a traditional Chinese hospital, complete with electric acupuncture and "cupping", a method of extracting "cold" from the body.  Unsurprisingly, this technique is often used to treat colds.  The doctor heats the inside of many glass cups, and then quickly applies them to specific trigger points on the body.  The pressure change from the heat inside the glass suctions the glass to the body, creating a vacuum that "pulls cold from the body".  

If you couldn't tell by my liberal use of quotation marks, I am a little skeptical of traditional Chinese medicine.  (And by a little, I mean a lot.)  Maybe I'm just a westerner at heart, but I think a nice round of Amoxicillin will cure a sickness much better than crop-circle hickeys.  (And don't even get me started on electric acupuncture; yes, lets stick small pieces of metal in our muscles and send electric currents through it to cure arthritis.  Oi.)   

Left on our "things to accomplish before leaving China" list include a trip to local hotspot Chengdu, a train adventure to Inner Mongolia similar to Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited (although hopefully without someone getting maced), and a final hurrah in Beijing.

Despite being incredibly comfortable, our room has adopted the familiar odor of, for lack of a better description, boy.  At the request of some concerned female friends, Brice and I tracked down an incense store and purchased a small incense pot with which to de-boy-ify our room.  

Previous to this trip, I relegated the idea of incense to either Buddhists, or hipster twenty-somethings dabbling in Buddhism in order to distract them from the mind-numbing tedium of working at the G.I. Joe's ski shop.  But, after picking out a suitably Asian-looking pot and incense sticks, I have to admit I was excited to give it a try.

One small problem: our lighter was out of lighter fluid.  Strike after strike, our resilient little Zippo failed to ignite.  Summoning my inner-caveman, I was determined to discover an alternate method of creating fire.  My eyes fell upon a jug of Baijou a friend was showing off.

Baijou, for the unaware, is a 120-proof grain alcohol highly prized by the Chinese people.  The smell is unmistakably noxious, and also happens to taste remarkably similar to lighter fluid.  Hm.  Of course.

Quickly borrowing my friend's jug, I filled the Zippo with Baijou.  I thumbed the flint:

Nothing.

A word of advice if you are in need of lighter fluid: grain alcohol is not a suitable alternative.

Lesson learned.  (Brice is still convinced if we boil the water out of it, it will work.  I am unwilling to try this method.)

All in all, I am excited for my remaining time here in China.  Perhaps more importantly, though, I am excited for the changes that are occurring.  I am living off campus this year.  We will soon have a new President.  I am studying halfway around the world.  

These are exciting times.  And yes, they are a-changin'.

Until next time,

-McG

P.S. -- Happy Belated Halloween.  NOW GO VOTE!

(GObama!)