Oh The Places I've Been!

On a radio show I listen to, the host constantly makes a point that women have a hard time gauging any kind of distance. It was a funny point, but it didn't become real to me until, in class the other day, one of my Chinese teacher asked the hippy girl (she's been in my class the last three weeks!) how far it was from her dorm room to our classroom. Now bear in mind that our classroom isn't in the same building as our dorms. In fact, it is a good 3-5 minute walk depending on how late you are to class.

"I don't know" the girl said.
"Just guess" said the teacher.
"I have no idea. I'm not sure." said the hippy. She was beginning to look nervous.
"Just guess, go on" pleaded the teacher.
"Ummmmmmm..." the hippy girl stalled, apparently doing some sort of unholy mental math, because after about 10 seconds she seemed to have figured it out: "10 meters."

So, using the hippy girls scale, I can safely say that over the last two weeks, my travels have taken me, at most half a kilometer.



They gave us a mighty generous "midterm break" which was all of three days. Those of you that have seen my online photo albums already know the basic outline of the story. We bought train tickets to Shanghai on the overnight, apparently for Thursday--the train was scheduled to leave at 7:30. At about 5:30, John Snyder, one of the four amigos that was going, claimed "back pain" and said that if he didn't make it to a masseuse, it would be a big issue. Now, as far as I know, John has lived in America for the better part of 19 years, where masseuses (massi?) are not so readily available as in China, and he has made do. But as I soon learned, John can squeal like a stuck pig, so I wasn't going to stand in his way. In fact, to emphasize my constant hypocrisy, I decided to go with him.

At the massage parlor, with the best Chinese we could muster, we tried to get some information about how close the train station was. Now, in China, in order to become a masseuse, you have to be blind. I'm not saying that a blind person can't know their way around a massive city, but generally you probably shouldn't rely on them for detailed directions. With this in mind, we rejected their suggestion, out of hand, that we take the subway instead of the taxi in order to avoid rush hour traffic. The subway? Where were we New York? Anyways, everyone knew that traffic jams were an urban legend, and we were taking a TRAIN too. Who ever heard of a traffic jam on a train? Geeze no wonder they had to be massesuses. Nice people, but no common sense.

When we got in the taxi at 6:30 and told him that we had a train to catch at 7:30 he just started laughing. This was probably a bad sign for us. Hoping that maybe he had just heard a funny joke on the radio, or else was a mentally ill cab driver (oh please let him be a mentally ill cab driver) we asked him if we asked again if we had enough time to make it to the train station.

"Oh no," he said, "not even close. You should take the subway."

That again. Well I guess we had no choice. We had the taxi driver drop us off at the subway station which was about 10 meters away but took about 15 minutes to reach due to rush hour traffic, so this was probably a good use of our time. When we got there he gave me a look like I should tip him for all of his great advice. It would have taken to long to try to explain that I would give any money owed him, for services rendered, to the masseuse who had already suggested a similar brand of advice. So, I just said thanks and gave him exact change.

The trip from the subway to the train station is a bit of a blur, but I do know that we arrived at our platform the instant the train was supposed to leave. A big surprise was in store though, as Garret and Phil, the other two amigos, and the purchasers of the tickets, had bought seats for the wrong day! Way to go guys! We can't blame them though because the arabic number system can be hard to adjust to.

In a shockingly non-beauracratic moment, the women at the train station decided to let us board and worry about the details later. What a gal! Might I say, if she happens to be reading this: thankyou so much, your sincere generosity will never be forgotten

As soon as we got on the train we tried to work out some sort of plan to mail our tickets back to Beijing before next day's train left, so that our tickets could be resold.



The train ride was fun, reminiscent of a trip that I had taken in grade school from London to the south of France with all my British classmates. The main difference was that all the people on that train were French and all the people on this train were Chinese. The main similarity was that they both smelled terrible.

We played Chinese Chess with one some of the locals and John ordered a small plate of honeydew melon, which I knew right away was a mistake: never order exotic fruits in China! The bill came and his little fruit plate had cost a little more than his last three meals combined.

In the dining cabin, we also met a guy who was from Norway, who played some cards with us. He was a pretty fat guy, and pretty annoying.

"Did you hear," he asked, "that America is less popular in Europe than China? A communist country more popular than a deomcracy!"
"Did you know," I felt like asking, "that you are less popular in this dining car than Chumbawumba's second album?" though I fear the allusion might have been lost on him.




We were going to be staying with my dad's friend and our former China tour guide, Jeff Noles. For quite some time, my dad had been telling me about this grand architectual innovation that he had made with regards to Jeff's apartment. Upon arriving and being greeted by Jeff, I was shown to the Kip Knight Wall, which was similar to the Great Wall, except for the fact that it was not impressive.

"You see," Jeff explained, "the wall was gonna be here," he pointed to a spot on the ground. "But your dad said that it should go here," he pointed to another spot on the ground 6 inches from the original spot. I feigned surprise and delight in a picture that we then took, though who am I to judge. This single innovation might one day be seen as the turning point of modern architecture. Also, that Norwegian guy might turn out to be a world famous politician, but I'm not holding my breath.

I had expressed a desire for an "ultra-local" breakfast, but my friends, with a ravenous look in their eyes demanded American food, and Jeff obliged. We went to the Hyatt in Shanghai where a spread of croissants, sausage, bacon, omlettes, hash browns, and Frog eyeballs caused first, looks of extreme satisfaction, and then, briefly, a look of extreme confusion on my friends faces. Quickly, I imagine, they resolved to avoid the frog eyeballs, and in no time at all the sublime happiness had returned. We stuffed ourselves like never before having found in Jeff a hero, savior and role model forever more, and having found in croissants the first edible breakfast food since ariving in Beijing. You see the Chinese idea of a hearty breakfast is a delicacy known as "rice with juice", no not orange juice, though I can't be too sure about the specifics. Let's just say it involves an animal in some capacity. About an hour, and at least 4000 calories later we set out to see Shanghai.

The first day we hit a lot of the typical sites, including the Shanghai museum, the Jinmau tower (tallest hotel in the world, and featuring, at 5 dollars each, the most expensive moon pies as well). In general, we found Shanghai to be much to our liking, containing many of the modern amenities that you grow accustomed to America such as massive plasma television screens, invisible cell phones, and an ultra-powerful ray gun. They even had Starbucks, the knowledge of which caused John to return to his pre-massage state, until he was filled to the brim with overpriced coffee.

In the course of our preambulation about the city, I caught a glimpse of something that I remembered from my first visit to Shanghai. The Tourist Tunnel! My favorite part about this "ride" is that they pretty much confess to its tourist trap nature right in the title. As I said in my photo collection, I won't try to describe this thing to thoroughly, words can only detract from it's overwhelming suck. But if you are in Shanghai and feel like wasting 30 kuay on a 2 minute ride through a tunnel decorated with Christmas lights, than this is the ride for you.

The next day we went to the Yuyuan gardens and did some shopping around Beijing. In the course of all this we got into a taxi with an obviously suicidal maniac. During two of the most harrowing moments of my life we actually drove through an antique market. There was no road! In another instant we were pinned between two giant trucks and missed being squashed by about a second. John later named this ride as his favorite part of the trip.

We also went to the Bund, and a number of famous buildings and streets in Shanghai, which by this point I have forgotten the names of. Overall, the trip was a total result of a holiday. Because the trains only leave at night and arrive at the morning, it ended much as it began. Our train pulled into the station at 7:15, class started at 7:30...




Last week, the PIB coordinators organized a trip to see the Chinese acrobactic show. This spectacle is similar in many ways to the American circus, although it is so awesome that it makes Cirque de Soleil look like Cirque de So-lame! ZZZZZZZZZZZing!

Having been to one of these shows on my first trip to China, I thought I knew what to expect. Oh, I was wrong! The first couple acts were impressive visually, but overall unmemorable, a sort of Matrix Reloaded of the Chinese Acrobactic world. The first thing to really catch my eye was the group of 6 girls doing the little top thing. Don't you know what I'm talking about, you hold the two sticks and there's the string and you spin it and then toss it into the air and then catch it. These girls gave the most flawless performance I have ever seen. It was amazing and depressing at the same time. They were so good that it was kind of mysterious how they were able to have any time to do any school work when they were constantly rehearsing for this show. Also, if your gonna have a skill set, I can think of only one more useless than this. That is, of course, solving the rubik's cube.

So, I got to thinking, what would the crowd say if I was to get up on the stage and solve the rubik's cube. I guess they probably wouldn't be too impressed. I mean, the other acts generally risked peoples lives in some way, with tiny women being thrown around and gymnasts hanging from thiry foot high poles and spinning from a strand of dental floss. Maybe if I could solve the rubik's cube while reciting the names of the 50 states, I would have something going. Only time will tell.

At intermission, one of the girls from the top act came out to the audience to sell DVD's. I didn't wanna buy one, but I tried to give her a five, which caused a fair amount of confusion, and, in hindsight, was a regrettable act.

An interesting thing about the Chinese acrobactic troupe is that, for the amazing amount of skill that each of the performers has, the production values of the show are amazingly low. On multiple occasions I noticed construction paper costumes. The background music was almost certainly midi, and was blared from some of the most pitiful monitors this side of St. Margaret's "Lunch on the Lawn".

The final performance of the night featured the entire male ensemble clinging, in one way or another, to a giant pole contraption that had been set up, rather shoddily in the center of the stage. This is the dental floss thing I was talking about earlier. Maybe if they couldn't come down till I solved the cube? I'm gonna have to talk to someone about this.




The last thing I will write about for now was the Chinese zoo, which, like the acrobactic show presented some amazing things in a less than amazing setting. I went with my roommate and two friends, and the first thing we decided to see was the Giant Panda. It was an amazing, and amazingly lazy, creature but the habitat they had it in was not too impressive, poorly kept up, and littered with trash. At first I was somewhat dissapointed, but then the Panda started eating a giant stick of bamboo and all my troubles vanished.

The zoo was as large as any I've ever been too, boasting rhinos (what a godawfully ugly creature) hippos (at least 10x lazier than the panda) monkeys (one of them could dribble a basketball!) and derranged dogs. When I say derranged dogs I mean it. One of these hyena type things had apparently completely lost his mind, because, for the 10 minutes that we watched him, he walked in a perfect loop, always rolling over in the exact same spot. But this begs the question, which is worse, the dog walking in circles, or the college students watching it for 10 minutes and giggling every time he starts again?





The other day, I had dinner at a dingy, cramped Chinese restaurant. Unable to make out the smudged menu, I told the waitress I wanted a spicy Chicken dish and she brought out Chicken with hot peppers, which tasted surprisingly good. I had eaten about half of it when I noticed a medium sized bug in the midst of rice and chicken. Quietly I threw the bug on the floor, and finished my meal.