More Exploration

So tomorrow I finally start language classes.  That's pretty welcome, because not being able to talk to people is starting to get a little old (though I am getting better! Yesterday I told my host dad that I was going for a walk and would be back in time for dinner, and he didn't flinch!).  I'm not sure how much free time I'm going to have once they get going, so I've been trying to get at least a cursory overview of the city before the start.  To that end I've been going on bigger explorations these last two days.

Yesterday I went downtown.   This was good--got to see the true heart of the city, which was impressive and busy.  And it turns out I might have been wrong about the Bird and Flower Market: I had read online that it was torn down a couple of years ago, but it's still in the Lonely Planet under "shopping", and when I went there I fo

und no building but lots of stalls, some of which sold birds and flowers.  Also up for sale were everything from food and watches to army uniforms to Yao Ming jerseys and Che t-shirts (that's a whole post in inself: what's the significance of not just selling Che t-shirts, but doing it in a nominally socialist country, most likely with shirts that came from sweatshops, and possibly have had some history in a legal gray area?) to binoculars (! Not something I ever expected to see from a roadside stall) and X-Box 360's.  And yes, turtles in eight different sizes: 

I also saw two different mosques.  That's one thing I thought was cool about this place: it's pretty diverse, especially for China.  Yunnan Province as a whole is almost 50% ethnic minorities, and you see that to some extent in Kunming too.  There's a lot of people wearing skullcaps, which I think signifies Muslims.  Here's one of the mosques (this is the one that was torn down in 1997.  LP describes the new version as 'a bad Las Vegas casino,' and I kind of see their point :-/):

You can read a little more about Muslims in Kunming here (I've been doing a little work online and have found quite a few other blogs about foreigners in Kunming, along with an online community center of sorts.  This is good for me to know, and I'm looking forward to meeting some people, though I promise not to go too overboard.  This trip is about China!).  Next I went to the real center of town, which is a huge walk-only 'roundabout.'  It was really nice, both because it was large and open and free of cars (they pass through tunnels below; two level roundabouts are a big thing here), but also bc it was crammed with people, as most things are here.  Also very modern--you can see the one tribute to old architecture in this picture, totally overshadowed by glass high-rises on all sides:

Walked around a little more and saw some other cool stuff.  Among the highlights were this bike parking lot:

Pretty serious, huh.  And then this is one of my favorite signs here so far:

I consider myself pretty comfortable with the "Chinese characteristics" of socialism here, but "Park-n-Shop"???  The first thing that comes to mind is Buy-N-Large from WALL-E, the megastore that ruins earth by creating too much consumerism and pollution.  Nice.

Today I went to Grand View Park, which is on the very tip of the big lake that stretches south of town.  I've been getting teaser views of mountains in a lot of directions from town, so I wanted to see if I could finally get a good picture.  The park was pretty neat: sort of a combination amusement park/pretty place to sit/set of pagodas/viewpoint.  It was more of an establishment that I was expecting--you had to pay y10 to get in!--but well worth the trip and the money.  Theme shot to give an idea:

This is one of the bigger buildings, but that's the overall picture: pretty buildings surrounded by trees with lots of canals and water all around.  Eventually I made it out to the lakeshore and found it acceptable:

Pretty sweet.  Those are the Xi Shan, "Western Hills." In real life, they look pretty huge and steep, which would be fun to explore.  Apparently there's lots of random temples and things scattered around them. Supposedly you can bike there; that's definitely going to be something to look into.

Other highlights of the day were my first street food--I got a kabob in the park. It was awesome.  They put the skewer on a grill and then brush it with lots of oil, which flames up some, and then when it's almost done they brush it again with chili peppers.  The guy who was helping me flinched when he saw his partner do this on mine, but I told them I could handle it (actually I nodded and smiled) and did and it was great.  So yummy.  AND it was made even better because the people after me got some too and one of them took a bite and said "chih loh!" and then threw it away (note: my pinyin is definitely wrong because I've never seen most of these words written down.  I'm not going to worry about it too much because they don't use it to write anyway.  Until I learn to type. Hm).  That made me happy 1) because I understood it (it means 'this tastes spicy!' or smtg to that effect), and 2) because I out-badassed a real Yunnanese.  Or ate spicier food then them.

Anyway, that was today's adventure.  Also saw lots of people playing cards and Chinese Chess (which I want to learn before I go home) and had a couple good 'foreigner' moments (the best of which involved a Chinese man leaning over and speaking loudly into my ear, to help me understand.  Good to know we're not unique).  Pretty satisfactory, and I'm getting a good feel for the city.  And tomorrow, classes....

More thoughts on language

Talked to Roz earlier about being somewhere without language. She brought up that this is a good experience to have even if it’s frustrating and lonely because it drives home sympathy for waiters, counter attendants, etc in the US who have really thick accents/otherwise don’t speak English very well. Very good point (note to all readers: DON’T EVER give people crap because they don’t speak good English. You have no idea the effort that they’re putting into it), but I think that the analogue to that is more along the lines of France last summer, where I had enough command of the language to make an attempt, but not enough to succeed without a lot of patience on the part of whoever I was talking to. What I’m getting out of this is a huge new respect for refugees, uneducated, and, yes, illegal immigrants, who mostly come to the US without any language skills whatsoever, only they don’t have a semester of language classes two days away (almost there almost there!), or a freshly filled bank account (thank you Caltech!) and flexible return ticket, ready to speed them home if things get unpleasant, or an established local family that’s completely fluent in everything who’s job it is to feed them and shelter them and get them out of trouble (see the post below about how these people are incredible and constantly saving my butt). Instead they have a lot of work and fear, and little recourse.

Say what you will about breaking the law, taking our jobs, Polluting the National Stock etc. (actually, please don’t say anything about the latter two), but you have to really admire their courage and drive.

Some thoughts so far

So in the attempt to create more, smaller posts I decided to separate my narrative posts from my observation ones. They're still both pretty long, though. Here's some thoughts on life in general so far:

--Living somewhere without language. This has been less of an issue than you would imagine. I think the key thing is to have somebody who’s literate and fluent and is on your side. It doesn’t matter if you can’t understand them either, just that they’re there to rescue you if you screw up and point you around if you need guidance. Otherwise, most day-to-day activities can be accomplished without words at all. In most cases—stores, banks, restaurants—both parties know the ritual well enough that you don’t need to explain anything. That’s sort of cool, actually. The one big problem with being mute is feeling isolated, which I’m not enjoying very much at all. But I think that kind of comes with the territory, and writing this blog helps with it. Why I’m eager for lessons to start.

--Along the lines of being lonely, I’ve had a lot of awkward encounters with other waiguo ren (‘outside country people’). There are quite a few who hang around the school building, and a fair number were at the temple today. I’m never quite sure how to act: on the one hand, I came to Kunming in part because I wanted to avoid the huge numbers of Westerners who go to places like Beijing and Shanghai (admittedly, I didn’t take this as far as I could have, since Kunming is still sort of a destination or at least a transfer point for lots of nearby destinations. That’s why I’m in this beautiful place instead of some polluted, stifling city in the interior), but on the other, some company would be nice right now! Though if the only thing we have in common is that we both stand out like sore thumbs, is that enough? For the moment I’ve sort of settled on a nod, somewhat more pronounced than what I give to Chinese people but not exactly a loving embrace. I still haven’t had a real exchange with any of them, which I think needs to end soon. But I suspect they’re having the same thoughts I am, because they’re not exactly jumping out at me either, and several of the ones I’ve seen speak pretty good Chinese (I assume, sigh).

--People here speak English. Not great English—they’d be discriminated against at home—but understandable, coherent English. I think almost every single person under about 30 is totally capable of carrying a conversation with me, with some effort but still. I was at the temple this afternoon, probably the single most non-Western place I’ve ever been, and a girl comes up and starts talking: “ Do you know why we have all the fish and turtles in the pond? It’s to symbolize long life.” NOT great for the self-esteem. And actually I’m realizing that I’m pretty lucky that my host parents don’t speak it; if I were staying with a college student I doubt I’d have learned anything up till now.

--As of this evening, I've been in China for exactly one week. That seems like the biggest understatement ever. It feels like I've been in Kunming alone for at least 2-3 weeks, with maybe 10 days more in Shanghai. Wish I could learn to adjust my perceptions like this at Swat!

Exploring Kunming

So I’m learning that I might have been a little overcautious (me???) in arriving relatively early in the registration period: I definitely didn’t miss anything, and I’ve had lots of time to get established, but I’ve also had what will be 5 days with nothing really to do, and still little to no command of language. So there has been a lot of basically stalling. I’ve read a bunch of Mark Twain, quite a bit of Lonely Planet, done a surprising amount of internet surfing, learned to use Skype like a pro (can I just say that I’m totally blown away by it? My first call was from Shanghai, China to a cell phone at the time located in Pinedale, Wyoming, and it cost me two cents a minute. Absolutely unbelievable until today), played a little tennis, watched a lot of TV—kung fu movies are the normal favorite—and had many exciting and fun but draining conversations with my host family. Not bad, but I’m ready for school to start.

However, the other thing that I’ve started doing in my copious free time (is this the first time that’s been used non-sarcastically?) is exploring Kunming. Brief background: Kunming is a city of somewhere between 1 and 6 million; the capital and hub of Yunnan Province, in southwestern China. It’s at an altitude of around 6000 ft but is quite far south (I’d guess about even with Hawai’i, but I’m not sure), which means that has a really mild climate. According to Lonely Planet it wasn’t really a big city until around WWII, when it was a stronghold of Chinese Nationalist troops against the Japanese. This is where the Burma Road ended, if that rings any bells. Lately there’s been a huge wave of building (in China?!? sorry), coupled with the destruction of some old architectural treasures, most notably the old Mosque and the Bird and Flower Market. Sounds like a pretty big bummer actually.

But there’s still lots of cool stuff left! I’ve gone on a few walks around town, and seen good stuff. Yesterday I went to Green Lake Park, which consists of a big lake covered in lily pads (the green) with lots of islands and bridges connecting them. Really pretty, and full of tons of people. Kids running around, elders strolling, musicians practicing (I’m pretty sure it was practice), people of all ages chatting, playing games, and drinking tea. I liked it a lot:

I took a sort of wrong turn leaving the park, but it worked out ok because I stumbled into this really cool neighborhood of tiny narrow streets between old brick buildings. It felt completely removed from the huge modern city surrounding it, and much more foreign. There were people chilling in the streets, and lots of stalls selling different types of food: my favorite had about six kiddie pools of assorted sizes, filled with fish! I know that live fish are preferred here, but I assumed fish tanks. Probably silly, come to think of it. Other highlights were the chickens—on top of the cages holding the birds was a board with lots of feathers on it. Either a demonstration of the possible options, or maybe they pluck them while you wait? And then lots of really pretty assortments of vegetables and fruits. Plus, uber-cute children in the streets:

Today I went to Yuantong Temple, which is the biggest Buddhist temple in the city:

It’s on the order of a small cathedral in Europe, except that instead of one building there’s several surrounding a central pool and one in the middle of it. The pool itself is filled with hundreds of goldfish, turtles of all sizes, and giant frogs at least a foot long. Those last ones threw me a little—they look just like the turtles at first, and then suddenly you realize that’s not a shell, and those eyes are too big…

(Sorry, no frogs in this one)

I liked the temple a lot. It was really nice because it was so colorful! Unlike dour old churches, all the buildings here were bright colors: turquoise, blue, and red, with lots of gold around as well. And each of the buildings had a huge statue of Buddha inside. I was impressed too because it was definitely still a worship area—probably more faithful than tourists. There was one place where people would light sticks and candles, and then each door had a place to kneel in front of it. The other cool thing was how completely removed the place was from its surroundings: outside was a huge, bustling street, but inside it was all serenity, and it backs up against the zoo so there was a forest of sorts surrounding it. Very nice. One last item of note is that they were expanding it! There were people at work building what looks like will be a new gate in front of the main area, and they’re doing it by carving the structures out of wood, essentially by hand. Novel. And I like that they are doing a more or less traditionally, even in such a modernizing country.

More temple.

And so ends another super long post. I decided after last time that I was going to go for more, shorter posts, but that seems to have failed. Oh well. Yell at me in the comments :-P. One more picture, of the street right in front of my university:

In Kunming

I'm here!!! After successfully navigating my way across the country yesterday (or rather letting myself be shepherded from friendly English speaker to friendly English speaker), I have arrived in Kunming. I can't believe I'm really here--I first stumbled across the wikipedia entry on Kunming probably almost 2 years ago, in sort of a daydream/future potential planning session. I remember it seemed like it would be a cool place because it's small-ish, near great sights, and far away from everything else. But never really considered it because it's way the heck out there, and why/how would an American student end up there? But now it's happened. Wow.

So far it's looking good: rainy and cool these last two days (still quite the novelty), which after boiling in Shanghai means it is living up to its reputation for great weather. Which it definitely has--I think during my entire planning process for the semester, literally every Chinese person I talked to, when I told them I was going to Kunming, would say, "Ooohh, it has great weather. I haven't ever been there, but it's supposed to be very pleasant. You will have a good time."

This morning I registered for classes. Probably the most exciting part was going down to the street to the bank and taking out 6200 yuan in cash to pay the registration fee (I had to use the special line for "elderly, handicapped, pregnant, and foreigners." Nice). That's about $1000, but it goes way further here: a bottle of water (the other thing I've bought so far) is 1 yuan (< 20 cents). So I had to cram 62 100 yuan bills into my wallet--it didn't really close--and walk back to the school to cough it up.

Besides that, mostly I've been hanging out and trying to get to know my host family. I'm staying with a professor at the University and his wife, and they're both amazing. We've been spending a fair amount of time playing "name things in Chinese and English," which is great fun and good for me, though I have some trouble remembering the things afterward. They're soooo excited and enthusiastic: she gave me a big hug the first time I answered a question right without having to puzzle through it for 2-3 minutes! So Great. Can't wait until I can actually talk to them, because I suspect they're going to be super interesting and fun.

Other thoughts:
--I keep getting hit over the head with how little Chinese I know. It's funny because I keep meeting people who I'm told don't speak English--my host father here is a good example--and they don't really, we couldn't have a conversation, but they still know way more English than I do Chinese--we'll be trying to talk, and I won't be understanding very much, and suddenly they'll pull out an English word for which I have no idea of the translation and I'll get it. Pwnd. I can't wait for classes to start.

--I've been watching a fair amount of TV here, because it lets me sit in the same room as them without distracting them from their work. Liangge thoughts:
--I don't know if this is true to some extent in the US, but here a significant number of TV stations are still replaying the Olympics for most of their schedules. You can literally turn on the TV at any time and see a selection of interviews with athletes, replays of the events in which China did well, and montages of important events/medal ceremonies. That's fun for me since I didn't get to see much of them while they were happening, and I think it gives a nice idea of how important the Olympics were for the people here.
--Watched some of the English-language CCTV9 this morning (not very much, I swear! And it was at my host family's insistence!). They were covering the war in Georgia, specifically the recognition of South Ossetian and Abhkazian independence by Russia. Sort of a different slant from what I've been getting via the Economist and BBC... mostly interviews with Ossetians and Abkhazians who were saying how happy they were to be free at last!! Here's the link to the equivalent bbc story, headline "West Condemns Russia over Georgia" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7583164.stm.

--BIG CITIES HERE. I don't think Shanghai's hugeness really came home to me until we went to the airport yesterday. The drive there was literally one high-rise apartment after another, in all directions we could see, for 40 minutes. That's what's really incredible--the fact that they still have skyscrapers 10 out from downtown. Wow. And then flying in to Kunming got to see some of it: apartment after apartment for a long long ways. Then during the drive from the airport to the university, my guide was talking about how Kunming is "A very very small city, not at all like Beijing, Shanghai." I guess true, but still seems way larger than almost any US city. "But we have good weather!"

Shanghai pt 2

Greetings (again) from Shanghai.  Over the last two days Yimei has done an amazing job of taking me all over the city.  It's been great!  (Possibly too) detailed overview:

On Sunday we started out by going to the Bund, a walk

way on the west side of the Huangpu river that is where all the big western banks used to be during round one of Shanghai's time as globalized center of Asia.  Now it's more about walking down the river with the contrast of the imposing old buildings on the right and striking new buildings across the way on the left:

Impressive, no?  It's actually even cooler because the river does this bend towards you right here, creating the effect that the Pudong is some sort of bubble that's reaching out towards you.  It feels like you're looking across some magical divide to a different world that's tantalizingly close but just out of reach. Yeah.

After that we walked down Nanjing Road, a huge pedestrian shopping street that contained, among other things, a store dedicated entirely to the sale of scissors. This picture gives you an idea, though it doesn't do justice to the crowds.  Note the Radisson hotel in the center right (with the UFO on top)--a not unsubstantial spurt of Minnesota Pride was definitely felt. 

From there we went to the municipal museum, which had an amazing collection of all sorts of things relating to China and art and archeology and history.  This country has a lot of all three.  Among the highlights were the calligraphy (think of reading something written in Shakespeare's longhand), the exhibit on ethnic minorities (including an outfit made entirely from salmon skin), and the bronze work (my favorite piece in the whole museum [not actually true] was a "pillow" made out of bronze which featured five yaks, also made out of bronze, arranged decoratively around the place where you put your head.  Each of these feature 2-inch-long horns also made out of bronze, on its head, making for what I'm sure was a very alert rest.

Next was a trip to the old town, basically what was the entire city before Westerners opened it up in the 1800's.  It's about 4 square blocks.  Very touristy, super crowded, but great for contrasting old/new shots :-):

Finally, we went over to the Pudong (the fantasy out-of-reach fairyland across the river) to go up the Jin Mao Tower (on the left in the above picture).  We went up to the lobby of the hotel which occupies the top half or so of the building to see the view:

Not bad.  After that we came home to eat an incredible meal and watch the Olympic closing ceremonies.  Then bed, rest, and day two. 

Day two was notable first because it rained.  Given that I'm coming here straight from 10 weeks in LA, that was sort of a shock, ok?  Plus it was a lot of rain--flooded streets, etc.  When it finally toned down we went out to the former French Concession, once the, well, French Concession and now a trendy area.  It reminded me of (wait for it...) Paris!  Legitimately, though, because it had the same bigger sidewalks and huge leafy trees and low, older buildings made out of grey rocks with cute stores in them.  Parts of it are also heavy on foreigners at the moment, to the extent that they don't even have Chinese writing in the windows. 

Probably the best part of that was seeing the birthplace of the Chinese Communist Party.  It's an impressive, black-and-red building, very imposing.  But it's funny because it's part of the same complex as all these western chain restaurants (the ones with no Chinese!).  Which is about consistent with the ideology at this point, I guess.. 

We walked around a lot of really cool, cute, tiny streets with art stores on them, then eventually went for lunch at a wonderful dim sum place.  Then explored some more and ended up on this tiny street chock-full of snack stalls.  We got the Best Snack Ever, these dumplings with soup and pork inside that tasted amazing.  I'm not doing them justice, but I don't have to because Helen does: http://hunckeydory.blogspot.com/2008/08/shanghai-shengjian.html.

That ended our tour, but we went to meet Yimei's parents for dinner at yet another amazing restaurant.  This involved (drum roll...) riding the Shanghai Metro during rush hour.  Whoa.  I was not entirely ready for that.  It took us two trains to get on, and then once we did we were crammed together more tightly than I have ever been ever.  I think I counted about 28 people within a 3-ft radius of me, but you can actually figure this out better than I by figuring out how much space a person takes up (I'm guessing maybe 2 square feet), and dividing that into 9 pi.  That's about 30, which would be 15 people, which means we were crammed tighter than is humanly possible!!!  Check it out:

The picture isn't great, but my mobility was limited, ok?

So that was my Shanghai experience.  Overall thoughts:

--The city is a giant jumble.  The streets are fairly narrow on the whole, and they aren't on any sort of a grid at all.  And they're totally bursting with people, bikes, and cars running in all directions.  Then, all this is overlaid by skyscraper after skyscraper, which don't have any particular order to them, but it's a different no particular order than guides the streets. So you look up anywhere and you see 5-10 futuristic skyscrapers surrounding you in all directions.

--They're futuristic skyscrapers, way more modern-looking than most I see in the States.  Glassy and classy :-).  

--Amazing food, every single meal.  If this is any indication, I'm psyched for the semester.  

Hmm.  I had some big profound unifying thoughts when I started writing those, but they seem to have left me.  So that's my Shanghai experience! Right now I'm at Yimei's house, about to pack a little mroe, and in about 5 hours I'll get on my plane to Kunming.  Exciting... 

Starting up (for real, maybe)

So it's a good thing that I didn't get too much going on the other website (robertswriting.wordpress.com), because I guess the real "you know when you're in China when..." is "...the Great Firewall blocks you for the first time."  I like that one better, so if I somehow get access to it at some point I may resume over there, but for now this seems to work.

Woohoooo I'm in China!!!!! As of almost 12 hours ago, I have officially entered 中国。So far it's amazing.  I'm staying with a friend from Swat who lives in Shanghai, which is an incredible city.  Thoughts at this point:

--Getting off the plane in China was sort of surreal--"wait, that's all it took?"  You just sit down for a while and suddenly you're on the complete other side of the world, np.  It kind of reminded me of last summer when Katie and I got in the car at home and four days later pulled up at the edge of the Pacific.  It's weird how mobile you can be once you start moving.

--Immigration/customs were way easier than the US... no lines or questions or anything.  Sigh.. this is a police state and they're more chill about these things than we are...

--Shanghai 上海 (hah!  it's so much fun using my Chinese typer :-) is pretty impressive.  It's HUGE and full of high rises. Supposedly twice as many skyscrapers as New York at this point.  I got into the new Pudong airport, which is gigantic, and then we drove basically this perfectly straight 8-lane highway back to the city.  Then went to dinner at one of Yimei's favorite restaurants, which was in the "first food mall," 3 stories of nothing but restaurants, snack shops, and grocers.  Cool idea, but what was amazing was how crowded and energetic it was.  Absolutely full of people, all of whom were chatting and shouting and bursting with energy. VIBRANT.  You (Yimei and I, at least) couldn't help grinning and laughing.  Awesome.