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!)

The Xi'antastic Four

"Say what you will about the tenants of national socialism, but at least its an ethos."

--Walter Sobcheck, on Nihilism.

My glorious perusal of China continues, with the historical city of Xi'an (shee-ann) being the latest in the roster of locales I have been able to explore.  Travel weary but hungry for more, I am now, once again, safely in my Southwest University dorm, able to write about my experiences.

While four days isn't exactly an all-encompassing look at a city of 8 million people, we did what we could to experience what Xi'an had to offer.  This included visiting the famous Terra Cotta warriors, walking along the (renovated) city walls, and enjoying the local markets.

For being one of the more famous things to see in China, the Terra Cotta soldiers were fairly anti-climactic.  Instead of being awed by the intense amount of work it would take to produce over 8,000 individual terra cotta warriors, I found myself disturbed at the fact that over 700,000 chinese laborers were forced to make such an elaborate tomb for one man.  But I suppose thats just Matt the pragmatist speaking; I'm sure Emperor Qin Shi Huang is quite safe in the afterlife with his army of clay soldiers guarding him.

We visited the city wall of Xi'an on a day when the weather was eerily similar to Seattle, so much so that at times I thought I was staring into an unfamiliar part of Ballard.  Then I realized I was on a 60-foot-high wall covered in Chinese characters and wooden trebuchets.  Nothing like ancient Chinese trebuchets to ruin a pleasant daydream about home.

The market of Xi'an seemed to be straight from an Anthony Bordain show on the Travel Channel.  Vendors lined the streets, preparing traditional Islamic and Chinese dishes for the endless throngs of tourists and Chinese residents alike.  One favorite snack of mine was a traditional Islamic snack of steamed rice pudding on a stick, covered in plum paste, ground peanuts, and sugar.  Delicious.

I have successfully managed to avoid any language barrier difficulties this trip, primarily by having a stronger knowledge of numbers and basic phrases.  I am still completely helpless in communicating anything beyond "I want that" and "How much is it?", but luckily thats about all one needs in a marketplace.  

A note to anyone traveling within China: don't buy illegal billy clubs and attempt to bring them on a flight.  One person in our group who will go unnamed attempted this and ended up in a 30-minute discussion with the police.  Somehow I doubt my two phrases of Chinese would have gotten me out of that fix.

In the next few weeks I will be taking a trip to Inner Mongolia to explore more of the Chinese countryside.  I really don't have the slightest idea of what there actually is in Inner Mongolia, but I'm told it's pretty cool, so, off I go.  Seriously, what else is there to do?  Oh, right.  Class.

I will be taking my Tai Chi final this Friday, which will mainly consist of me awkwardly trying to copy the moves of the people around me.  While I'm sure if you are an elderly Asian person, or are on an osteoporosis commercial, Tai Chi is very invigorating.  Unfortunately, I am neither of those, so I will be glad to be done with this portion of our education.  Luckily, we move onto cooking next week.  Finally, some practical education.

Zai Jian,

McG  

Abercrombif and Titch

Call me Bill Murray, because I'm a disenchanted American living aimlessly in an Asian country.  

Alright, so maybe I'm not middle-aged enough or melancholy enough to deserve my own Lost In Translation allusion, but the point remains.  As the days creep by here in Beibei, I am finding myself adjusting to life abroad more slowly than I would have liked.  The endearingly mistranslated phrases that are so plentiful in Beibei are loosing their comical sheen, and are now just venturing into annoying.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Lets look at a typical day in Beibei, China:  

I wake up at 7:50am to the sound of the Chinese National Anthem outside my window, which blares from loudspeakers to signify the start of the school day for the kindergarten behind our dorm.  NesCafe instant coffee mix clears the mental haze, sipped from a classy mug adorned with kittens; I was going for ironic humor.

Class passes quickly enough, and soon I am on the hunt for lunch.  Choices include Grandma's - a delicious restaurant the size of my old dorm room, run by the nicest old woman in the entire world - or for a change of pace, Dr. Dre's - a small lunch spot known for its wraps (Get it?  Raps...ha).   

The rest of our days usually includes a bus ride in Chongqing to explore the city, or simply a few episodes of Heroes or Entourage to pass the time.  Today, however, we were treated to a special field trip: a visit to Mexian, China's largest door manufacturer.  Be still my heart.

Steel doors, revolving doors, car doors, Hello Kitty doors; they had it all.  The one thing they didn't have, we quickly found, was anything interesting to tell us.  In fact, the most interesting part of the trip was when an oddly patriotic song started over the loudspeakers and all the employees gathered in the hallways for calisthenics.  The event wasn't entirely a waste though, as we got two important parting gifts: a deck of playing cards emblazoned with quasi-mysogonistic proverbs, and a visit to Mexian's bizarre (and arguably misguided) investment, "Foreign Land", an amusement park akin to Disneyland except much, much weirder.

In Mexian's defense, a Thursday morning was probably not the best choice for getting the true amusement park experience.  This inconvenient timing resulted in a park that was nearly desolate, save for a handful of bored employees.  The already awkward circumstances were only exacerbated by loading us, the only caucasians for miles around, onto a large yellow truck blaring Britney Spears music to tour the park.  Essentially, we became the attraction in the park; hey everyone, look at the white people!  Pictures were taken.  Fingers were pointed.  It was weird.

If I can draw any lines between the isolated dots of my China experience, it would be that Chinese businesspeople seem to lack the idea of maintenance.  A massive amount of capital had to be raised to build Foreign Land - it has the world's largest bathroom, for Pete's sake - and it must have taken a considerable amount of business savvy to garner that type of support.  Yet after walking around the park for a few minutes, it looks as though it was build over a decade ago.  Paint is peeling, metal is rusted - it is certainly not anywhere near the happiest place on earth.

I see this type of disrepair everywhere in China, from broken sidewalks to decrepit housing projects, yet they aren't solely victims of age and wear, but simply poor planning and maintenance.  Would an influx of city planners and proficient engineers

fix the problem?  Perhaps, and a change seems to be in sight.  Large glass-and-steel apartment complexes are slowly replacing the discolored cement of older buildings, and a more sophisticated engineering movement seems to be taking place.  But can a pleasing aesthetic make up for poorly thought-out sewer systems, and other basic infrastructure needs that just aren't being met?  

The more I see of Chinese cities, the more thankful I am of the largely cohesive city planning that I unknowingly enjoy in Seattle and Portland.  An under-appreciated field, to be sure.

And no, this is not simply a veiled show of support for Obama's previous profession.  Promise.

Zai Hui,

-McG

The Curious Case of Mr. Hope

The year is early 2000, and a young Matt McGrath is changing clothes in the Fowler Middle School locker room after an arduous gym class.  He pedantically takes stock of the contents of his locker: Vans skate shoes?  Check.  Zip-off pants/shorts?  Check.  Abercrombie shirt?  Check.  Recently-aquired, super-cool ying-yang necklace sure to attract the attention of that one girl in social studies that talked to me for a few seconds about X-Files last week?  

...no check.  Where is it.  No seriously, where is it??

A distraught Matt hopelessly searches the track for his super-cool necklace, to no avail.  It is lost forever to the evils of mandatory physical education.

***

The previous anecdote is, essentially, what ran through my mind last week as our Chinese Culture professor, Mr. Hope, explained the intricacies of the "ying and yang" belief held by much of the Chinese population.  Perhaps not exactly related to class material, but it was a compelling foray into my memories, nonetheless.

The idea of Ying and Yang, as I have found this past week, plays a much larger role in my life than I would have previously imagined (although like most quasi-religious philosophies, this depends largely on personal interpretation).  

Let us examine:

The past week has been a National Holiday in China, meaning that most of the country travels around, relaxes, and in general tries to ignore the fact that their government is going a little looney.  Following suit, our group flew two hours south to Hainan, the so-called "Hawaii of China", for a 3-day excursion of epic proportions.  Our travel guide promised days packed bursting with bus tours, walking tours of the local topography, and guided tours of coffee-factories.  Our group responded, somewhat understandably, with a delicately raised middle finger, instead choosing to spend our time lounging on the beach and frolicking the waves.

And oh, what fun it was.  But, as Mr. Song says, you cannot have Ying without Yang.  In this case, the Yang took the form of sunburns, sickness, and the extreme lack of protein in our diet (which was later remedied by a mutinous expedition to McDonalds; nothing like chicken nuggets and french fries to remind one of home).  

Regardless, the trip did give me my first experience of a tropical typhoon, which I think makes up for the drawbacks by itself. 

My glorious return from Hainan was dampered somewhat by the worrisome state of the U.S. economy.  I feel that the next few months are going to be very, very interesting...perhaps even generation-defining.  I'm not sure how I feel about being associated with a possible dust-bowl depression of our era.  

Oh wait, yes I do.  Dear God, please let the bailout work.

Regardless, its comforting to know that I was able to eat all my meals today for under $1.75USD.  

Perhaps the life of an ex-patriot wouldn't be so bad.  

Happy October,

-McG

P.S. -- Thank you for all your Happy Birthday emails and wall posts, they were much appreciated.  My actual birthday was as tame as they come, but filled with friends and food.  One couldn't ask for more. 

 

Wo Han Shuai

At long last, a return to normality.

I arrived at Southwest University on Sunday, beaten and downtrodden, after getting only 90 minutes of sleep the previous night.  "C'est la vie" we all thought; it's our last night in Beijing, it would be a shame to waste it.  I seem to always forget that I'm an old man in a young man's body.  

My 4 a.m. wakeup call reminded me that I was not quite the savvy, indestructible world traveler I thought I was.  What proceeded was the most unpleasant 12 hours possibly ever lived.  And not even a Starbucks to ease the pain; nor, to my dismay, a coffee vendor of any kind.  Anywhere.  Oh the humanity.

Despite my grumbling, we made it to the University sans problems, and I have gotten settled on my posh 5th floor dorm room fairly quickly.  Brice and I found ourselves in a "deluxe" suite, which is usually reserved for triples, but through some enlightened happenstance we get it to ourselves.  What makes a dorm room "deluxe", you may wonder.  For one, leather couches.  Also, a separate bedroom.  We are quite pleased.   

Our classes at the University are laughably short, but I am learning a decent amount through the thickly-accented English of our Professors.  While I have little hope of learning anything but the most rudimentary Chinese, I am at least able to practice it whenever we go out to markets or shops.  

The typical conversation proceeds thusly:

Shopkeeper: [Fast Chinese telling me the price]

Me: Uhh...I don't speak Chinese.

Shopkeeper: [Makes hand gesture referring to the Chinese character for the price]

Me: [I shrug, because I don't understand the hand gestures, nor the character it refers to]

Shopkeeper: [Looks confused, because nobody shrugs in China]

Me: [In broken Chinese] I America country...I no understand....Sorry

Shopkeeper: [Finds a calculator and types in the price]

Chinese, I'm finding, is a mystery.  Our language teacher writes characters on the board expecting us to recite them...but she often forgets that, for us, Chinese is not phonetic.  At all.  The only way we can pronounce these symbols is though route memorization.  I am planning on just learning pinyin, which is the phonetic spelling of Chinese (which, of course, nobody here can actually read).  

Spanish is suddenly looking much more appealing.

Chongqing is turning out to be a nice city to spend two months in; the area is fairly forgiving to foreigners (probably because they don't get many here), and I have not been hassled to buy a Rolex once.  The vegetation is lush and green, which is a byproduct of the scorching 100+ degree weather with humidity in the 90s.  I've been told on numerous occasions the weather will cool down soon, but I've seen little evidence of it.  

Some local students helped me get set up with a cell phone and some local slang, so I am now prepared to play the part of a hip college student studying abroad.  China, by the way, has the cell phone industry down to a science.  50RMB for a SIM card, 130RMB for a second-hand (or third-hand, or fourth-hand) phone, and you are set.  If you can navigate the somewhat shady network of underground cell phone and SIM card dealers (many students deal them for extra money), you can have a phone with no contracts, no salesmen, nothing.  All for less than $20USD.  The United States should take note.

This weekend we travel to Hainan for the National Holiday.  Hainan, I'm told, is the Chinese eqivilent of Hawaii.  

Fantastic.  

If there is anything that a pale, skinny Irishman traveling abroad dosen't need, it is more hot weather and sandy beaches.

Oh well, maybe they will have a Starbucks.  One can only dream.

Zai Jain (Goodbye),

--McG

Note: The title of this blog is "I'm handsome" in semi-pinyin.  My new Chinese friend Jason taught me it tonight.  I'm planning on saying it as much as I can tomorrow.  What fun.