olympics!

(all my pics have been uploaded to http://picasaweb.google.com/Zheng.Crystal)

August 22nd 7:30 AM venue: national stadium aka bird's nest

events: Men's 50KM walk final

Men's decathalon 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, preliminaries

my seat number: 3rd tier section K row 522 seat 17 (aka very sucky and far away)

Since the event started at 7:30 I left my house at 5:40. I am staying with parents' friends right now, and I had to first go to my own home to get my glasses, because I left my contact solution at home so had no place to store my contacts lens, so i had to get out and get on a cab and get home, wihtout being able to see anything.

Finally i found my glasses and left for the metro station. i had to take the metro because the cab cant even get anywhere near the bird's nest. I took the metro to the special olympic metro line, which you cant get into unless you have a ticket. to enter the metro stop, you have to go through security, and walk a whole freaking long time. finally by the time i got to the olympic park, the two friends i was going with, Yan and Lin, from the place I work, were stuck at the security checkpoint at the bus stop because the tickets were with me. and to walk from subway to bus station took me 40 minutes! basically walking through the entire olympic green and back again because the 50km walk was going on so i couldnt go straight. 

We were so hungry for breakfast that we bought 3 bowls of noodles without asking the price - and it was 30Y each! (for convenient noodles that should be 1Y). later we found the same noodles inside the stadium for 2Y. weird that its cheaper in the stadium. 

By the time we got inside the stadium, nothing was going on. the 50km walk already started and the only thing happening was that the walk was being broadcast on a big tv. We couldnt see that much, so we used the binoculars we bought the night before. We had 4 binoculars for 3 people bc i brought an extra, so we lent it to the couple next to use, who only had one. in return they gave us a paper bag so we could take off our shoes and not get our feet dirty! pretty comfy!

among all the decathlete candidates, there was one chinese - qihaifeng. so whenever he came up, the stadium started roaring. among 50km walk, there were 3. one was 2nd for a while...and then 4th....and then 10th...and finally 14th. there were almost 50 total. some of them after finishing collapsed. oh - what is walk? it means at any one time, at least one foot must be on the ground - basically olympic power walking. the winner was an italian guy, and 3rd place was a russian guy.

After the discus throw, it was lunch time, a lot of people left to get food so the line was really long. you couldnt leave the stadium and reenter, even with your ticket - i guess they dont want you to give your ticket to someone else. a lot of people left and didnt come back. in the morning the first two tiers were full and the third tier half full, but by lunctime, more than half of the audience left. honestly it wasnt the most exciting event to watch.

that was good for us, because we switched to the other side of the stadium, where the pole vaulting was held, and also was able to sneak into the first tier, and got seats really close to the action! the seats we took were vacant because they were in the sun, but after a few minutes, the shade came and remained that way for the rest of the time. we were in the 6th row, amongst the coaches and other olympic personnel. whenever the athetes needed to talk to their coaches, they came really close! sitting there was so awesome!

i like pole vaulting, because its like you set your bar a little tiny bit higher each time, and you try over and over. i think its a good philosophy for life. it's really exciting to see an athlete clear the bar. although the chinese guy didnt make it past 4.5m, it got really exciting once the bar reached 5.0 m. the first place was a german guy who reached 5.2 m

after this british guy named daniel finished, he came to talk to his coach. i shouted daniel! and he turned his head - you're awesome! - he smiled. Later when roaming around the olympic green, we bumped into four people with tshirts saying team dan - they were his mum, gf, first coach, and friend! i got their signatures too - (best you can do right?). Yan told them that i shouted, "daniel, you're awful!" - sigh, fob

After the event ended, we tried to stay in the birds nest so that we could watch the night event at 730. unfortunately, they did a pretty good job of clearing everyone out. that was around 4:30. we left at 10:30 - what did we do for 6 hours? took lots of pictures in the olympic green of the birds nest, the water cube, the random scenery, and lots of foreigners. anytime foreigners were really decked in their patriotic attire, we took a pic with them. i made Yan or Lin ask, or i did it in a fake bad english. We even met some Russian athletes, including the bronze medalist of the 50km walk (i got his sig!). chatting with foreigners about their beijing experience was the most fun part of the day! I even got to practice my spanish with two guys from spain, who were there supporting their cyclist friend. I also realized how much my spanish had deteriorated. i was too embarassed to say that I learned 5 years, so i just said i learned 1 year. I think they were really excited to meet someone who could finally speak to them in Spanish, and not in English. I also chatted with a sports health researcher from brazil who had been to the athens olympics as well - he collects lots of olympic pins.

There is a mcdonalds in the olympic green, thankfully, and its the same as mcdonalds outside, so we got to eat dinner there. we started playing this game where we guess where foreigners are from - canada, US, etc. I dont think people were happy to be disturbed while eating...

We decided to stay in the park until nightfall, because you cant enter the park without a ticket, and because the night scenery was supposed to be great - it was well worth it! the water cube lit up as a bright blue, the media tower changed colors, the miniature birds nest lights, the nest glowed red, and the fountains lit up the lake. the fountains were coreographed to music, they made different movements and different heights to the music, like ballet dancers. so graceful!

we tried to get into the night event, by smooth talking the volunteers - hey were both students, we bought these tickets for really expensive, and only got to see a little bit of the event, the event is halfway over, we'll just stand in the back etc. no good. they told us to go home and watch on tv, its clearer. sigh, it sucks because i watched the 50k walk, but didnt get to see the medal ceremony! 

so we decided to go home, but on the way we saw an NBC station - they were interviewing american athletes - and I got to be in the background! If anyone can find the NBC clip in front of the birds nest (national stadium) interviewing BMX medalists Mike day and the other two - can you tell me? ive been trying to find it to no avail. One of the anchors was meredith viera - I got her sig and a pic with her! she is so nice, willing to sign and pose for her fans, and when she shakes peoples hands she says so nice to meet you! i said - meredith i really admire you! in the end, after the interview, they ran around high fiving everyone in the audience's hand and broadcast on tv - so i really want to find that segment! unfortunately, all three of our cameras had run out of batteries, so we had to ask a stranger to use her camera to take, and she said she would email it to us...dont know if that is ever gonna happen :( but it was still nice of her to offer.

Sigh, yesterday was just such a cool olympic experience.

Some lessons for future olympic visiting - buy food, flags, stickers, etc BEFOREHAND! they dont sell them there or they sell for very expensive. also - bring some small things from your country to trade with foreigners. also - i only thought of this after i left, but i should've made a sort of guest book, with signature, country, and comments. it would be so much fun to collect those from foreign visitors! For example, the nice souvenirs i bought from yunnan were only .7 Y (or roughly 8 cents) - i couldve traded or given those away to people who signed my guestbook. I will try to do that for when i go to the closing ceremony today. ALSO - v important! bring a camera with plenty of memory and also plenty of battery! We brought three cameras, and all three ran out of batteries. which is a shame!

My Yunnan adventures

The last time I talked about what I did - I was in Shiping. My uncle drove us the 1.5 hours to Gejiu, which included a lot of mountainous roads. On the way, we stopped in Jianshui, which is where a famous Confucian temple is located. Apparantly my great aunt went to school there (its now a normal school - not a confucian school). I didn't get to go, because they said it was boring, but i did got o Zhu Family Garden (朱家园). It is the home of a very rich family - and we also got a guide, which was pretty informative. I learned that I should always get guides when i visit places, because there is no way that I could have learned or noticed all of that stuff on my own. She talked about all the intricate reasons for architecture, like why this drain is in this position and in this shape, and why this door is here and made at this angle. The home was pretty impressive, and the story of the family is pretty sad. They became rich through business, but in the early 1900s, because they supported a miner rebellion, they were forced to flee. Later, they also supported Yuanshikai - the army general who tried to overthrow the imperial order. The family basically lost everything. This story reminds me of the story of House of Red Dreams - and being in the house made me feel like i was back in ancient China living as a girl in that house. It was a pretty wonderful feeling. The guide asked me where i was from and I said US. Later she asked me to write on a guestbook where I was from, and when I wrote US she said - whoa i thought you were trying to trick me!



My grandparents live in Gejiu, a small town whose economy is dependent on tin mining. There is this nationally owned company called YunXi who takes care of the mining and basically is responsible for the development of the town. In Gejiu, I mostly played around, shopping the streets, going to the plaza, strolling around Golden Lake, looking at the statues of people in the tin making process. Because, the ILO kept telling me that they were going to come on a certain day, but then they never came. And they never came. and they pushed it back until I finally got fed up and said - I'm going back on the 20th - if you dont come before then well screw you. Finally they came around the 15th, but they told me only the day they came that I couldnt do the survey with them. So I basically waited around for them in vain! They pretty much did NOTHING to help me. This was after I had already bought 300 gifts, made 300 copies of my survey, and 300 of everything else needed. I was so pissed off. I dont think I ever wanted to work for a large multinational, bureaucratic institution. I used to dream about working for a noble group like the UN, but I am now so disillusioned. Luckily, I was able to get about 1000 myself, and I also contracted the rest of the surveys out to a non-profit group. However, they wanted cash, not gifts, and they also changed my survey a little bit, so that i had to make 300 more copies and the other 300 copies went to waste. Sigh - i am very very annoyed with the ILO. I dont think I want to hear their name again for a while.



There are some good things that cameo out of it though - like, I got to observe an ILO training, and attend a meeting at the CDC with them. However, I feel like they got more from me than me from them - because I helped their intern with Chinese during her interviews.



Other notable things in Gejiu that I did - paint a mud picture - very hard to describe, and also very hard to paint - it's basically coloring with mud, and it took many many hours, probably over 10. Finish a puzzle - that my cousins and i were supposed to do tgoether, but they always fell asleep, so i had to finish it myself on th last day. Develop a wild night life - after my grandparents went to their upstairs apartment (because the downstairs one was too small to fit so many people), my cousins and I would take the key and go out and play - for example - to the internet cafe, to buy food, to watch movies at home, etc. We ended up sleeping during the day for a lot of it. I still havent fully turned my schedule aroudn. it started out with the days before one of my cousins was leaving, we decided to stay up two nights in a row to hang out more. After they left, the remaining cousins and I were so tired all the time. Sometimes at night - i would be doing random stuff for my prof, or for other research fellows who needed me to edit their english. Which is why i am so tired all the time - research in the day, english editing at night.



Some places we went to play were in rural places nearby. You stay there for a day and eat, play mahjong, drink, etc. going with a whole bunch of familes, it is really fun. In some parks, there was a swimming pool, water park, and water slides. My cousin, while sliding down one, made a hole right on her butt in her swimsuit. I also hurt my back, because the slide scratched it. We also went to Forest Park 森林 and it was so boring there, except to ride horses - but the horses went so slowly, they wouldnt let me make the horse run.



I realized that I really like animals, especially pigs and cats. Oh that cat was soo cute! it kept trying to bite me but its teeth were not yet developed. But I did get bit by a hamster, and started bleeding. Stupid hamster.



I also learned how to play mahjong, yunnan style, which is a bit different from hubei style. i found out that my grandparents life after retirement is pretty happy, playing mahjong, smking, drinking, etc.



In Kunming, I did some more surveys, but I found out that people in Kunming are not as welcoming as in smaller cities. They are so fierce, and it was so hard to find anyone willing to do a survey. I also did learn that giving gifts out instead of money is much better - people are less suspicious and more doing it in the spirit of research.



Thats all for tonight, I am so tired and I have to wake up at 5 to go to the Olympic games! yay! I bought binoculars tday!

Back in Beijing, and back in cyberspace

Whew - the last month has been a whirlwind for me, but I think that I can finally start updating my blog regularly again! I arrived in Beijing yesterday afternoon. In Kunming, my luggage was over the 20 kg weight limit due to all the surveys I had completed. So I had to pay almost 600Y (slightl less than 100$) in overweight fees. The price of the luggage was almost as much as the price of the airplane ticket itself! Sigh, looking back, I shouldn't have done so much shopping in Yunnan, because a pair of cute, cheap shoes in Yunnan becomes another 30Y i have to pay in overweight fees. Oh well, a lesson learned.

When I arrived in Beijing, I felt so good, because I had not been in Beijing for so long! I really almost consider Beijing my home now, I feel so familiar in it. I really missed it, and was upset that I had been away during the Olympic fever season. In hindsight, the first time I heard that the ILO was pushing back the trip, I was still in Nanchang, not in Yunnan. I should have just went from there to Beijing, and went to Yunnan later. But, I will try to get a feel as much as I can for the Olympic atmosphere while I am here. There are a few main venues for Olympics: 1. Bird's nest for track, 2. aquatics cube for all water events, 3. Chaoyang park for beach volleyball (Across the st from my house), 4. the Olympic Ping Pong Stadium (right next door to my office), 5. the workers stadium for hockey, etc. 6. Peking U Gymnasium for Gymnastics. I have already seen Bird's nest, Chaoyang, and PingPong, and before the Olympics end - I want to see all the other venues.

So on the way from the airport to my home, I started chatting with my cab driver about the differences in Beijing due to the Olympics. I asked him if he had more customers, especially foreginers, due tot he Olympics. He said no, it's pretty much the same as before, the customers are mostly Beijing people who are not here for Olympics. Those who come especially for olympics all have their own rented cars. I thought that was interesting because after all that effort Beijing government made to make the cab drivers learn English, they don't really use it. Also, we talked about how the price of gas increased, traffic in Beijing (on even days, only even numbered license plates can drive, etc.).

Last night I also found out about a dinner that my research center was having to send off two of the fellows - by the time I found out about it, they had already started eating. It takes me at least an hour to get to the office, and by the time I arrived, they had already finished eating and told me to meet them at the office. I had hoped to meet the two fellows they were sending off, because I had never met them before, and also to talk to my professor, but two of them had left after dinner. Sigh, I made such an effort in vain. Afterwards, I went to my parents' friends house to spend the night because my parents dont trust me to live in an apartment by myself. I'm really annoyed, because I'm already 20 years old and they still treat me like a kid. However, it didn't turn out to be that bad, because that family is really nice, has a nice house, has a nanny who can cook, clean for me, and also I haven't seen them in a few years. The only draw back is that - I have to come home relatively early, at least by 10:30 - and sometimes, as a college student in a big city, I just want to have fun at night.

Last night I stayed up until 3 am - partly because I needed to register for classes and because the internet connection at their house is way too slow. Also the keyboard is so annoying. every other word disappears so that if I wanted to type: this is a sentance - it looks like: tasc
Also reading up on Olympic news -

First and foremost, Liu Xiang's dropping out: I don't think anyone in the US can understand the importance of Liu Xiang to this Olympics. He is the face, the symbol of the olympic spirit- the strive for excellence despite the preexisting circumstances. He is a national hero - representing the triumph of Chinese in areas traditionally dominated by western and African athletes. Without him even being able to qualify for the finals, there is no more excitement to this Olympics. So many Chinese have already given up on following the Olympics. Today, I looked out my window and found Beijing overcast with a burdensome fog and a mournful light rain, meanwhile I find myself overcast with an unbearable sadness.

The underage use of Chinese female gymnasts - I have no idea if it is true or not, and I would suspect that it is true. I think it is pretty dishonourable of the Chinese to do that - to use younger smaller athletes who have an advantage over their clumsier, pubescent, colleagues. However, if I had to guess, I would guess that it is the athletes themselves who covered up their ages, and not the nation. Thus, if we were to blame anyone, we can only blame the athletes themselves, and let them carry the burden of having received a gold medal under dishonorable circumstances.

The fatal stabbing of an American - Although he turned out to be related to the olympics, it doesnt seem to me like this was targeted at the Olympics. It seems like the guy was just crazy, randomly stabbing two foreigners and then committing suicide. Perhaps he is in the camp of those who resent western influence in China. However, I would have to say that China is one of the safest places I have ever been. Everyday in the Washingtonpost, I don't even bother to read the numerous articles with titles such as "homocide in northeast dc", "woman dies due to random gunshots". So many in American don't pay attention to the abundant violence in their own country, but balk at Chinese when one isolated instance occurs.

The protests - the Chinese government, in response to criticism surrounding the strict repression of freedom of speech in relation to protesting, set up designated parks as protest zones. The protests all have to be approved beforehand - and so far, not a single one has been approved. Two Chinese elderly women whose homes were destroyed to make way for the Olympics applied to protest, and were turned down. Some media say they were sentenced to one year of labor reform, but according to Chinese media, they were given a warning, and if they do it again, then they will be sentenced.

This whole experience of reading different news sources reporting on the olympics and China has made me realize how amazingly biased media is. It just seems impossible to find one reliable source, where you can always count on the information to be the truth. That goes both ways - western media reporting on China, and Chinese media reporting on itself and on the west. However, reading a lot of the newspapers, i just find it amazing that those journalists were ever allowed to write in the first place - using facts that simply aren't true, and always bringing up unrelated things simply to criticize.

My thoughts on the issue of human rights and the olympics: human rights and the olympics have no place together. it's like religion and government. The olympics are about sports, and that is all. It's about athletes coming together, regardless of race, religion, the political system of their country, politica, sexual, etc. orientation, performing at their best, uniting the entire world in watching and cheering own the athletes. Such controversial issues such as human rights, where depending on what part of the world you come from, you have a widely different view than another, should be totally absent from consideration of who should host the Olympics.

Now what about the argument that - hosting the olympics improves a country's economy, and thus supports human rights abuse. I bet you that if you track economic progress and human rights record, you will find that the richer countries have a better human rights record, while the poorer countries do not. One does not have time to worry about human rights, when people are starving and dying. Also I bet you will find that as a country's economy grows, that the human rights abuses decrease. Human rights is a progressive line, it is impossible to go from all to none. Just like in the US, where the fight for human rights has started since the Revolutionary War's fight for freedom, to the Civil War to abolish slavery, to the umpteen amendments added over time to protect our rights. None of those could have been done in a single day. Similarly, China has made huge progress in human rights, adding new laws to protect its citizens and esp its minorities. There is definitely still a long way to go. I have to remind you that the US government got to where it is today over more than 200 years. How many years has the Chinese government been in place? Only 59 years. When governments are first formed, there is of course a period of authoritarianism - look at Taiwan, the west's hail to of democracy and human rights in asia - the first regime was also ruled by tyrants. Gradually, as the country becomes more stable, only then can one start to worry about things as abstract as human rights.

With that being said, it does not make sense that only countries with clean human rights records should host the olympics. that means, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The human rights abuses in the poor countries get worse, and no one wants that. Why not improve a countries economy so that it can improve the living standards of its people, bring people out of poverty, make sure everyone can survive first - that way it can finally afford to focus on human rights. On the thought of those protesting by not watching the olympics - watching does not support the chinese economy, rather the TV station that airs it -- the AMERICAN tv station. Unless you are in China, well that is a different story, but I'm guessing that if you are in China you are also too in the olympic spirit, too caught up with the amazing athletic skills and intense competition, to think about anything else. I don't think that Michael Phelps, (well maybe Phelps can given the margin of victory of some of his races, very calmly compete) but - let's say gymnast Nastia Liukin, or Yang Wei - neither of them are thinking during their competition - oh, the Chinese, what a horrible human rights record - they are only focused on what they came here to do, compete, as an athlete, not as a human rights advocate. I guess it just comes down to this - the olympics are about sports.

soo tired

it is 3 am over here, I am in an internet bar, editing an 85 page paper for my prof, who told me he needed it ASAP.

Yesterday I went to Zheng Ying Cun - which means a place where people with the last name Zheng live - which was pretty cool. Although, nowadays, not everyone is named Zheng. The family who established ShiPing's house is now a museum there - it was built about 100 years ago. Most of the people there are farmers who make a living off of grass - which is used to make baskets, and just about anything and everything they use.

Xiu Shan, another Daoist mountain - it seems like Yunnan has a lot of those. Eventually, each of them end up being the same - some steps, some bells, some temples, some statues, some gorgeous nature, and some good scenery of the surrounding cities. Afterwards we went to Bao Xiu, which is my maternal grandmother's hometown. It was really cool because it was the first time I had spent a significant amount of time in rural China. We visited my great aunt's home, where they have chickens and pigs - and piglets!~ I'm in love with pigs now! I want to go back and hold them again! We also ate pomegranites right after we picked them off the tree! How cool is that. I want to live on a farm in China and forget about everything in my life back home. About school, about worrying about med school, about the entire world. It would be so nice just to live a simple life, where all you know is your family, and your town.

Last night we went to the "plaza" of Shi Ping, it seems like every city has to have some kind of plaza - or guanchang - whether its tian an men, ba yi, or a small one. Where people can take a walk at night, roller skate, sell balloons and other things that light up, and just all in all have a relaxing time. I love coming to these places, where old people form dance groups and traditional Chinese orchestras.

This morning I went to a water lily park - we rented a boat and a guy with a bamboo stick drove us around a lake. We also ate on the boat - it was pretty cool. There is a bedroom and a kitchen in the boat - I think the owners must live there. The park was pretty, but also kind of sad - because all the lilys close to where boats could go had been picked. When the drivers pick the lily, they swat it with their pole until the stalk breaks, and then sweep it in the water to us. I felt kind of sad when the driver picked them for us, but - if he didn't, then other people would who then sell the flowers the people. So I think that in the end it doesn't matter. So don't think poorly of me when I am posing with the picked flowers!

Afterwards, my cousins and I shopped or "guan jie" which basically means walking down the street and shopping. We all enjoy shopping for "shi pin" which means small cute little things, like bags, sunglasses, hairclips, etc. I think it's kind funny because we are in the city of Shi Ping right now, so its like Shi Ping shi pin. I bought my little girl cousin a cute dress, and my little boy cousin an awesome remote control car!

The language here, Shi Ping hua - is kind of hard to understand - although not as hard as NanChang hua. Things here are pretty cheap too. All in all, I like this place. I'm even kind of disappointed that I have to leave tomorrow - because I still want to go see those pigs! However, I have a lot of things to do still.

Journeys

I am now on the journey to Gejiu, my mom's and grandparents' hometown. From Banna to Gejiu is pretty far, a total of 14 hours by bus. However, we split it up into three legs, staying for two nights at various relatives' houses along the way. I have never met any of these relatives, so it is a bit awkward, but still it is good to have seen them finally. There are so many relatives on my mom's side - how will I ever remember all of them or get close with any of them? I wonder how close most second cousins are?

From Banna to PuEr is two hours. My maternal grandpa's third brother's family lives there - but he passed away. Remaining are his wife, his three daughters, and their families -- including an 11 year old daughter (whose name I don't remmeber) and a 7 year old son named Li Bei (which I always want to call Liu Bei - the hero from three kingdoms). PuEr is famous for it's tea - and almost everything around there revolves around tea.

Since I am looking at the clock in this internet cafe and notice that I only have 1 minute left, I'm going to write a quick sketch and fill in the details later.

From PuEr to ShiPing is 10 hours, which I did today. It was the first time I had ever ridden a bus for that long - but it was ok because I slept the whole time.

In two days I will complete the last leg, to Ge jiu, which should take two hours.

And buying olympics tickets is a nightmare!

Yellow

This post will be dedicated to the color yellow:

If I had to give Banna a color, it would be yellow. Not because its most abundant (green is - with all the trees and mountains). But because of the important things here like

The Lancang river - it provides the livelihood for the entire Dai people and is a natural landmark of the region. It's also amazingly beautiful

The dirt - which is responsible for the yellow color of the river

Pineapples and Mangos - which are the most common fruit that people eat here

The bamboo - they have yellow bamboo instead of green here! and yellow watermelons too!

The peacocks - although they are blue and green, in the architecture, they are usually gold

The inspiration for this ode comes from Alberto's telling me that I look good in yellow, which surprised me because I always thought I looked horrible yellow, but I think now I will buy more yellow clothes. 

Meh ok - I've decided that uploading pics is way too slow and that it's easier for me to email them out instead with captions - so if I you received an email from me, that means that I will be sending you pictures once in a while of my exploits. If you did not receive an email from me, but would like to be added to the list, please email me to let me know (zheng.crystal@gmail.com)

pics!

The flowers I picked
This one reminds me of franklin =>
The Lancang (Mekong River)

Last night we went out to a meal around 10pm until 1am. Lately I've been eating four meals a day! I find that beef skin is a very delicious food - surprisingly. Also, it's very easy to be a vegetarian in China - because the vegetables here are so good! Not the unfufilling stuff you find in the states. These days I rarely eat any meat. Today I ate mushrooms that were sooo good. At dinner, my cousin's cousin on her dad's side who is one year older than me came to practice his English, but we didn't really speak much English. One thing I found was that the soy sauce here tastes much better than any other soy sauce I've ever had. The first time I tried it I didn't even think that it was soy sauce. 

Today I went to ManTingPark by bus- which was cool because I got to see local people- they had a peacock garden with many peacocks - the park not the bus - and they had a lame zoo with only a bear and a monkey. I even picked up 3 peacock feathers. I labored for so long to work on pressing my flowers today. unfortunately, pressing them didn't really work and they are still quite wet - and also some of the flowers started to rot - and turn weird brown colors. I am going to try to press them for another night. The problem is here that the climate is too humid to dry flowers - or anything for that matter, like clothes! My clothes have been drying for three days!

The other day my Aunt was driving us to the hot spring - but she had only been learning driving for two days so it was pretty scary. Her husband was next to her, but still..

Last night I swam in a pool with water from a natural hot spring. It was so relaxing, although not too different from a hot tub, only the water smells funky. The shower water was also natural hot spring water - so hot! a tip for those who want to swim in hot springs - do it at night when it's raining lightly! That way its not so hot and the top of your body gets a light cold shower :)

I've been eating mostly Dai food for the past few days. It's sort of like Thai food, which I don't particularly enjoy. 

I was able to ask my Aunt here to help me with my research. There are some migrant workers from SiChuan that work in the market she manages. My Uncle works in the Business Regulation Department. Together, they have been able to help me find migrant workers. I'm glad that I'm able to get things done while playing. But worrying about my research really makes playing quite not as fun because I'm always thinking about other things. 

Today I went to a place with lots of monkeys and flowers. It was across the Lancang river so we had to ride a aircar across. The monkeys were soo cute! Especially the ones that had babies. There was one exhibit where we could even feed the monkeys - I threw bananas down and they were standing on poles and able to catch and balance! One monkey had a very very loud yell - You could hear it from the other side of the river. I also started a flower collection - I picked lots of wild plants that are native to Banna. Picking flowers really makes you more observant of your surroundings.

After lunch I went to a flower garden featuring endemic plants. The best time to go to a garden is right after it rains - you know why? You can pick up the flowers that dropped on the ground and they look perfect! Just like they were on the trees. The only problem is you have to wait a while for them to dry before you press them. We picked a lot of jidanhua - or egg flowers - because they are white on the outside and yellow on the inside. We cooked these for dinner! But it was pretty bitter. I also finished pressing my flowers and put them under a huge bag of rice - I hope that tomorrow they will be ready!

Now I am just teaching my cousin how to use MSN messenger - which ichat does not support - which is annoying.

Sigh - and also, I thought I would get a ticket to go watch men's gymanstics finals (which would be soo amazing) but I didnt :( so now im just trying to get any ticket I can. They are so expensive, 200-600$!!

The life of a migrant worker

Everyday I give about two tours - three on some days, but I don't like to because it's too tiring, so I just do two. I charge 30Y for each tour, and I can make about 60Y a day - almost 2000Y a month. I live a very simple life. My housing costs only 150Y a month, very cheap - because I am only one person. f I can have 50Y leftover each day, then that is very good for me. I prefer to give tours to students, because they are more inquisitive. They like to take time to enjoy the park and will take 5 hours - while adults just want to walk and look at everything as fast as possible taking only 3 hours. How do I get into the park you ask? I buy a a year ticket, which costs 300Y.

  My Lao Jia (hometown) is Heilongjiang, in the northeast. My entire family is there, including wife and daughter, who is 25 years old this year. I came over to Kunming to find a job in 2004. I very rarely go back now, but my daughter visits me about twice a year. I let her use my digital camera when she comes. I enjoy taking pictures of landscapes, and in addition to being a tourguide, I do photography on the side to earn some extra cash. It's not professional mind you, but I enjoy it and I do it for cheap, so its worthwhile for other people. I just taught it to myself. 

Long time no blog

I think the frequency that I update my blog is inversely related to the amount of fun/business I have here. So if I don't update that much - you can imagine me sightseeing or researching or - anything other than sitting in front of my computer, which is what I usually do.

I am in Xishuangbanna, Yun Nan province. Banna for short. Banna is an autonoumous region inhabitated by many ethnic minorities, but mainly the Dai people. It is a subtropical region about a day's bus ride away from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. Dai people outnumber Han people here. I arrived yesterday by plane - and have been exhausted these past few days, not to mention sick, but I have tried to put my body through playing a lot because I dont have a lot of time to spend here and there is so much to do!

I am going to try to remember what I did on each day since my last blog:

7/17 I had this crazy nightmare about being eaten by tigers, it was very frightening! I stayed home and slept all day. At night I got my hair washed at a haircuttery and got a massage - but massages always hurt! I think I should stop... My aunt's family and I went out to eat hot pot - which I always love! I'm getting a lot closer with my girl cousin, which is nice, but I still dont really know my two boy cousins well at all. 

7/18 I had to wake up early today because there was a lot to do (which is very hard for me!) In the morning I was talking to my mom and she only JUST told me that my aunt manages a factory. I should've surveyed the workers there - sigh, and then she just yelled at me for not talking more to my aunt and my cousins. The good thing is, my Aunt said that she could survey the workers there and at other places as well for me and bring the survey results to Yunnan later to hand to me. Yay, my aunt is so capable, she was just like yeah I'll go to random places and make sure to finish these 40 surveys for you (her factory only has 6).  She said when I get to Kunming, she will help me to finish more surveys there. I wish I could just do that, go to random workers and ask them to fill out a survey about sex. When I went to the copy store to print out the survey, the data was all corrupted! That stupid milk that leaked all over my luggage! And it was the ONLY copy I had - I'm so stupid.  Fortunately I had a hard copy. Printing in Nanchang is so much cheaper than in Beijing. My business cards cost 80Y in Beijing (more than 10$) for 90, while in nanchang, it only cost 8!! 

We went to TianXiangYuan, Sweet Sky Park, which is a migratory bird reserve. It was quite pretty, but we didnt get to see that many birds. My aunt said a few years ago when she came, the place was full of birds, looking at the treetops was like looking at a white layer of birds. Unfortunately, it's not like that anymore. 

Getting money from the bank is kind of annoying in China. To get money from a different city than the one in which you opened an account, you have to pay 5Y per 1000Y. So I needed to get 20kY, which means I have to pay 100Y - or 15$. Also, there is a daily limit - so I would have to go back 10 times to get that much money.

Next I went shopping for a swim suit, but none of them really attracted me - until finally I found two that were way too expensive! However, my Aunt was still willing to buy them for me.. I also bought necklaces and other cute stuff :) Including a journal! Now I can write my innermost thoughts down and try to start some introspection! Which I am bad at. My girl cousin wrote in pretty letters in the cover page of the journal: Love, Sa Rang Hae, Li Meng Ting. Aww! That made me feel very good.

At night, my cousins took me roller skating at a nearby rink. Wow, the people there were so good. I haven't been roller skating since I was like 5 years old - I thought it would be easy, but no way! It's the kind with two rows of wheels, which sounds easier than blading but its not. I felt like I was ice skating for the first time. eventually I got the hang of it, and could even go backwards. Once I stopped thinking about what I was doing, it really did feel the same as ice skating (which I am pretty good at).

I suck at packing - I could not fit all my stuff into one suitcase - but my Aunt has an amazing ability to.

 

7/19 Arrived in Kunming in the morning - and then immediately went to go climb XiShan (Western Hills) - an ancient Taoist prayer mountain. There are many temples. Don't think when I say climb i mean hiking, it is really just walking on slanted pavement. Many people are wearing dresses and sandals to do it. On the way there, the weather was soo hot and the traffic was so congested. apparantly, that is an anomaly in Kunming, the weather is usually cool and the traffic not that bad on the weekends. The lake is full of some green algae - which smells SOOO BAD. China is sooo polluted. My mom's friend, Huan Xu, and her son Chenzichen, and his cousin, Gou Gou, picked me up from the airport. Huan Xu is my mom's high school best friend. Her son is fun enough, but Gou gou was so annoying, by the end of the two days I had spent with him, I was ready to leave just to get rid of him. We also met up with Guo Yang, the daughter of my mom's other friend - who is going to a university in Hong Kong starting this year. Her English is very good! And we both like Christina Aguilera. 

At the top of Xishang is LongMeng, or dragon gate, which everyone said was supposed to be worthwile to see. So I paid 30Y to go in, and climbed these crazy stairs which go up and down and all around in circles leading no where. It was exhausting! When I finally got to Longmeng, i was like what?! this is IT?! It was so tiny, and not really any different than any of the other temples we had seen along the way. However, the view from the top was pretty - you could see the whole city scape of Kunming. The plants there are different as well.

At Guo Yang's house, she owns a professional karaoke set and we sang Britney Spears and Christina. Her family is quite rich, so she owns a big house. That is where I stayed, only the bedroom was so full of dust that I couldnt breathe. I asked if I could switch rooms the next night.

7/20 I woke up this morning and had a bad cold. The worst thing was that I had a cold AND a sunburn. LoL. 

We took the bus to GuoJiBoShiYuan - international horticulture garden. We tried to buy student tickets, but they wouldnt give it to us because we didnt carry our student ids! Sigh - don't we look like students? There were people selling cheaper tickets at the front, but we were afraid that those could be fakes. I wonder - I dont think so though, I think they buy packs of tickets and sell them. In the garden, we ran into someone who offered to be our tourguide - not the official ones hired by the park, but a guy doing it on his own - we agreed to let him for 30Y, which is really cheap. It was a pretty good decision - not only could he take pictures for us (otherwise we would have to keep asking strangers to do it) he suggested very good picture angles and poses! We had a pretty short time to spend in the park, so he was able to tell us which places were more worthwhile to see than others. And he explained things to us as we went along, which made things much more interesting. Finally, he had a great, jovial character, and I enjoyed talking to him a lot. To make things even better, he was a migrant worker! One of the first I had talked to - and here was my chance - basically I paid him to talk to me! I asked him about his life, how much money he made, how he made ends meet, interests, life in Heilongjiang before migrating, family, etc etc. That was the most worthwhile part of my trip so far. Because in my research, I only ask them to do surveys, I don't get to learn about people. I had intended to talk more to the maid at Guo Yangs house, who is also a migrant worker, but didnt get time. I did ask Guo Yang a bit about her though. Even though the tour guide didnt make much, he seemed very happy with his life - and even has photography as a hobby! I was so satisfied with his service that I gave him 50Y (20 extra - and he seemed very happy).

In the afternoon we went to Da Guan Yuan, an old temple in Kunming. It was under construction, so we couldnt actually see the temple, which was pretty lame, but the park surrounding it was ok. There were a lot of old Kunming people playing Mahjiong and traditional instruments there. It was cool to just walk around and see what people in Kunming do. GuoYang kept buying me traditional Yunnan/Kunming food! Like in the Horticulture Park she bought me MiXian (rice noodles) - which was very similar to hot pot. In Daguanyuan, she bought me candy art (use candy to draw a picture of a dragon - it was so cool I'll upload a picture later), Mu Gua drink, Lotus Root Pudding.  

At night we chatted about eachothers lives, showed her pictures and music that I like, and finally I slept in a non-dusty room aka her room. In the middle of the night, her mom came home froma  business trip and came into the room thinking I was her. It was pretty funny.

7/21 In the morning I took a plane to XiShuangBanna. The flight was less than an hour and cost me about 50$. I had wanted to go to Shangrila, but we dont have family there so I came here instead. So far, it's not THAT tropical a paradise - and I think shangrila would've been better - but I came here to see family, not to play. My mom's father's sister and her children/grandchildren live here. I've never seen them before. She has two granddaughters, 14 and 16 years old, and the youngest one doesnt really enjoy talking to me. Oh well, I can talk to the older one. Their language here is kind of hard to understand, but easier than Nanchang hua. My great-aunt does look a lot like my grandfather.

We went to Dai Ethnicity Village, which is a park in which we can experience the life of the Dai People. First I watched the Water splashing festival. My aunt wanted me to participate but I refused, using my cold as an excuse. Po Shui Jie is a festival of the Dai New year, in which they splash water on eachother. The story goes that before there was a devil who wreaked havoc among the people, slaughtering people randomly. He had seven daughters, who realized the evil of the Devil. Putting righteousness about family, the worked together to kill their father. Afterwards, they splashed eachother with water to wash away remaining evil. The Dai splash water to commemorate the 7 sisters and to wash away the bad things of the past and bring good fortune with the new year. The Dai also worship the Peacock and the elephant, well I shouldn't say worship, because they are Thai Buddhists, but those animals are very highly regarded and appear in architecutre, art, fahsion, dance, music, etc.

Have you heard of the Mekong river in vietnam? Here it is called the Lancang river - first time i heard it, i thought they said Nanchang - so I said, does it flow through Nanchang? We drove along it to get to the park, and with the mountains in the background it is quite beautiful.

At night I watched a very exotic dance performance about the ethnic minorities in China. The danncing is really awesome - it mimics a peacock. The costumes are colorful and beautiful. The Dai language itself is interesting to listen to. It's written on everything here, but I cant read it at all - it looks more like arabic than Chinese. 

There were two buses in Kunming that exploded today - Luckily i had just left and no one I know was affected. Still, its scary to think what might happen when i ride the bus in china...

7/22 Xishuangbanna (today) - I went to another Park about the Dai People - It was kind of boring. Basically I climbed a mountain and every 500 m or so there was a performance. It started with an animal performance - dogs, bears, and tigers doing tricks. It was kind of cruel and I couldn't really stand to watch it. Following that were various minority dances, costumes, and songs, but really once you watch that many, they all start to seem the same. That might sound kind of insensitive... There was a cool thing where they let the peacock all fly down from the mountain at the same time! Never seen so many peacocks together before. There are so many interesting plants and beautiful butterflies here. I also saw hummingbirds in the wild for the first time in my life! They are so small, I almost mistook one for a bee and almost killed it!

Now I am hanging out at my cousins house using their internet. Tonight I will go swimming and tomorrow I will go see monkeys and flowers! These few days have been productive both in having fun and research! I hope the rest of my trip is as productive and fun. I hope that during my stay in Yunnan, I can get to know my mom's side of the family better, because I have never seen most of them or am not that close with them. I really like Yunnan, the weather is much nicer than in Hubei or in Jiangxi and Beijing. Also there is a high prevalence of AIDS. I should come here more often!

Headache..

So last night I chatted with my girl cousin for like two hours about lots of girly stuff and also about stuff about America. I feel like I'm actually starting to make a connection with her now. Also with the other little girl, who I found out is their cousin on the other side of the family. And since my girl cousin is actually adopted and in reality is their cousin on their dad's side - I'm basically getting to know people who arent related to me at all better, and not talking to my actual cousins. Oh well - it's hard to relate to Chinese boys around middle school age. Even my cousin on my dad's side, who I am pretty close with, never talks to me recently now that he is in middle school and all he does is play warcraft. LoL. 

I ended up waking up at 4 am because of a massive headache - I have no idea what the cause of it is. I couldnt stop it and it hurt so much! I thought that eating would make it better so I grabbed some chips, but they were meat flavored (because I couldnt see in the dark) and meat makes me nauseous.  But finally I went online and Alberto gave me the smart idea of using an ice pack! Well - we didnt have an ice pack, but I used frozen meat and put it on my head. 

Camera happy

I went on the largest Ferris Wheel in Asia today - expecting take pictures from the top - when I realized that it had no batteries! I didn't bring my charger or my connector - but today I went to buy them so now I can post pictures to my blog! Yay! 

Speaking of the Ferris Wheel - it is 160 m tall, and it took 30 minutes to go around. And it has air conditioning and a tv inside, lol but it was still really hot! I had to ride it by myself - that was just about the loneliest 30 minutes of my life. Ferris wheels were really made to ride with friends. 

This morning I went shopping - and man - everything in nanchang is soo much cheaper than in Beijing. I bought so much clothes here. I was just buying things left and right. I heard on the radio today that the yuan is down to 6.8 USD! Can that be true? man! (omg it is true - just confirmed in google). Wow things in China are getting more and more expensive...and the US economy is sucking!

So promised pictures..

Today I woke up late, went out for only like an hour or so, then slept from after lunch until 7.....then ate dinner.... and now i'm going to sleep again. I don't know why I keep sleeping. Maybe it's all the sleep debt I've accumulated from debate camp. eat sleep eat sleep. its my new rhythm. 

Ok so this morning I went to some temple, which I dont even understand nor do I know what its called, but apparantly its one of three great temples in China. Ok so my cousin tells me its called Teng Wan Ge. Apparantly some country king wrote some piece of literature there. or something. Obviously I don't understand my Chinese history at all. All I know is that it was so freaking hot. 

I got to see the city scape from the tower though, it's pretty - a lot more developed than I had thought. At the top of the tower, we watched this Classical Chinese performance - a traditional orchestra played Butterfly Lovers, which is such a good song! It makes me want to take up er hu again. Apparantly my cousin can play Gu Zhen. Is it bad that I don't even know what my counsin's name is? I just call her "mei mei" - which is what everyone else calls her.

After dinner, we went to "ba yi ji nian ta" or - August first memorial - it's to commemorate the communists fighting against the guomingdan for the first time in Nan chang on 8/1 1927. There was this whole sidewalk with a timeline about the communist party army history. They were selling these little doggie balloons that were SOO cute! Its like, those metallic balloons, but its full with helium only to the point that it rises from the ground a little bit, and there are legs hanging off of it, so that when you walk its like you are walking a little dog! How cute!

So my aunt still hasnt bought the train tickets to Yunnan yet.. she says that if she can't get them that we will just drive over... 6 people in one car driving for four days? I hope not. If we can't get them, maybe I will just fly to Hubei first and see my dad's family - Hubei and Jiangxi are right next to eachother.

So I need to go to sleep early tonight because I slept way too much today and we didnt get to do half of the stuff that we were planning on doing. So goodnight!

another nightmare

I don't know why I keep having these consecutive nightmares..

Meng and Yang, who are bf and gf, are both my old very close friends. Me, Alvin, and them often hung out together. So. in this dream, Meng confessed to me that she had a crush on Alvin, and to not tell him. Of course I felt pretty angry that my friend liked my ex-bf. For some reason, I invited Meng, Yang, Grau, and Alvin to my house. I got them all in a room and I told Alvin that Meng had a crush on her, to try and make her feel embarassed. Then I left the room and let them talk. When I came back into the room, everyone had left except Meng, who told me that she and Alvin had a really personal chat, and she now understands why Alvin doesnt like me anymore - because I was disrespectful to his mom. So in trying to make her feel bad I actually brought them closer together. God that was a horrible dream. Despite how much I am trying to say that I am over him, I think I would still feel really hurt if my friend suddenly started liking him.

Other than that - I'm not sleeping that well here. The bed is really hard and hurts my back, and the air conditioning blows right into my face so I think i'm getting sick and whenever I wake up I have a bad headache. I even stopped taking my medicine because it makes my headaches worse. Also - I cant stand spicy food. But all of these complaints I can't say to my aunt...

I just can't wait until I get to Yunnan and I can stay with my grandparents.

How much do taxi drivers make?

The other day I was chatting with my cab driver - and they only make 100 yuan a day - net. That's after they have to give 6000Y a month to the company, pay for gas and maintenance! Dang. Imagine living on 12$ a day, having to pay for rent, food, raise a family, probably tuition, and they work 17 hour days. Living life in China as a normal person must be so hard.

The capital of Jiangxi, Nanchang, is kind of underdeveloped compared to Beijing or Shenzhen. It reminds me of the city that my dad's side of the family live in in Hubei, which is in the rural part of the province and 3 hours away from the capital. The language here is so hard to understand!

My aunt's house is pretty nice, two story house. She even owns her own car, which is pretty rare in China. There is this small 4 year old girl here, who will shake her head whenever I ask what her name is. I taught her to play with paint and pinball on my computer, so now she keeps asking to play it. I still havent really talked to my male cousins, who drink a bowl of beer with every meal, but my female adopted cousin is pretty nice to me.

Today - I slept all day. Woke up at 11:30, ate breakfast, then lunch an hour later, then took a name until 4 or so, went shopping for dinner food, am about to eat dinner, then plan on sleeping again. Sigh, I am so frustrated by my research.  I decided im going to take a few days vacation and not think about it, because it is stressing me out too much and I am too tired. I am instead going to take some time to think about my own life and sort things out. 

btw - thanks everyone who actually reads this, it makes me feel good to know that people care enough about me to read this consistently! I love you!

Chink in my plans.

Dang. I just found out that the ILO isn't planning on going to Yunnan until the first two weeks of AUGUST! which means that I'll be gone from Beijing for like an entire four weeks. Which leaves me absolutely NO time to do my research anywhere else. Sigh...Maybe I can go to Hubei in the meantime or something. Sigh, this complicates things a lot. So much for my "invincibility feeling". Maybe this is why I had a sad premonition yesterday.

I had a really bad nightmare last night. Alvin asked me to get back together with him and I rejected him. Then he got really mad, turned bright red, and said "When I dumped you you were crying and begging to get back together!". It was very very scary. I hope it doesn't happen in real life...

overcast with a subtle inexplicable sadness...

I arrived in Nanchang today, the capital of Jiangxi province. My mom's sister's family lives here. The plan is after staying here a few days, I will go with them on a 37 hour long train ride to Yunnan to see my grandparents. I am not very close with my mom's side of the family, so this will either be a very awkward experience, or a very rewarding one. So far, I haven't talked much to my cousins. I can't understand the language, Nanchang hua, that they use, so I can't understand when they talk amongst themselves, which makes me feel like an outsider.

My aunt's family has three children, two boys and one daughter. During dinner, I felt pretty bad because I couldn't really eat any of the food (it wasn't exactly my taste). I was surprised that they let the younger son, who is only younger than Victor's age (14 or so), drink beer during dinner.

Today when I was packing, my dad said that to waste all this milk and juice we bought would be a shame, and that I should pack it. however, when I opened my suitcase, everything was wet, and some of my electronics, including my voice recorder which i need to do my interviews, were broken. I'm still not sure whether my computer charger still works, im afraid to plug it in out of fear that it will blow up my laptop or something. But it's funny that in order to save a few dollars, I ended up breaking hundreds of dollars worth of equipment.

As she cut my hair, I felt like the burdens of my past were being snipped off. My straight long hair, which has been the same way for the past 20 years of my life, which I have been preserving, just like I preserve so many other things...

I think I know why I am obsessed with history. Because I am obsessed with preserving the past. I am afriad of change. I hold on to things longer than is healthy for me. Anyone who has ever seen my room will know that I am afraid to let anything go, even the tags from my clothes. (Once, even my hair after I had cut it). Whenever I throw something away, I feel a slight pain in my heart. Like a pity feeling, that its a shame how much I've invested into that one object.

More abstractly, my relationships are all like that. I'm afraid to meet new people, I hold on to my old friends too tightly. I can't let anyone go.

Now - with my new hair - I am ready to begin a new decade of my life. Leaving my past behind on the floor of that haircuttery for them to sweep up later...

invincibility

After all these bad horrible days, things are finally starting to turn. I almost feel like its so coincidental that someone must be watching out for me! Like a guardian angel or something. I can't believe it's already Saturday! There is so much to talk about!

On Wednesday I had a meeting with Richard Howard of the ILO, who is the director of their HIV/AIDS workplace project. Basically, the ILO does a lot of pilot projects in certain areas of China implementing AIDS education projects in workplaces with lots of migrant workers. This is exactly what my research is about, evaluating these programs. I needed him for two things: 1) to send this letter to the IRB so that they will approve my research saying that my research was ethical, and 2) I wanted him to help me connect with the people at those workplaces so I could survey them.

I'm leaving Sunday for Yunnan, to visit my mom's family. Originally, I had planned to stay in Yunnan for one week, take a vacation, and come back to continue my research. However, when I was having dinner with Theresa the other day, I found out that she is going to Yunnan as well to write case studies about those programs, around the same time that I am going! This is such coincidence, not only is my friend the intern at the ILO HIV project, but also she is going to Yunnan at the same time! Wow.

So I asked Richard if I could join their team to go to Yunnan - I can offer help with Theresa's case studies (since she knows little Chinese), and in return, I can use the participants for my survey. He agreed - and not only that, but when I asked how many people there were, he said there were about 1000! That is more than enough for my research!

Then, he put me in contact with the Global Business Coalition, who told me that they also have 3 pilot projects I could survey, and that they would put me in contact. WOW! I got so much work done within like 3 hours on that day. I am soo happy! But now, I have so much work to do before I go!

So after that I felt invincible! I felt like nothing could get me down! And I had never felt so confident in my life! For one, I actually started to LIKE my haircut, even though people say I look old. While I was walking from the ILO to the bus stop listening to my Ipod, I felt like one of those people in the ipod commercials who walk down the street really confidently. After all these days of my research going no where, suddenly I had a plan for the summer.

I also bought a new cell phone! I got to pick my cell phone number, insnt that interesting? The more "lucky" numbers were more expensive, so I just picked the cheapest one..136 8174 1645

Well after getting to work, Kevin is like I'm having dinner with Stanford kids - wanna come? I had just gotten to work at 3, it takes me one hour each way, and he wanted me to leave at 6 for dinner? no way! But I gave in..because I had gotten so much work done that morning..so after English tutoring I left. We went to Hou Hai and ate at No Name Yunana Restaurant, and they frikkin said they would charge us for water! So I left and bought some drinks outside, and brought them back, but they didnt let me drink it (which although is normal in US, is not normal in China). So I had to sneak in little gulps here and there. The food was ok - their fungus was soooo good! The fried banana dessert thing and the cheese sticks were ok... So after that we walked around Hou Hai, which is a lake surrounded by bars. People always accost you so aggressively to try to get you to enter their bar. We took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in a hutong neighborhood, which are the older buildings from old beijing. Well - by the time we got out of there, it was past 11 - and no buses to my house run after 10. The only bus that still runs at 11 doesnt go directly to

On Thursday, I woke up late and decided to take the day off. The problem is that it takes me so freaking long to get to work. So I went with my friend Kevin to lunch, we decided to go to this restaurant we found good reviews for online - because we were craving italian food. I called the place, and the number was empty, which I thought was weird. But after taking a cab to the place, we found out that it had closed down. We took a cab to the restaurant's other location, but it wasnt there. After walking around everywhere looking for a internet bar, we finally called all the various locations and decided that the entire chain had gone out of business. Sigh. So we finally took a cab to Annie's, another italian restaurant. By the time we got there, we had spent 3 hours searching for food, and were SO hungry! Too bad the food wasnt that delicious... (reminder to self: you don't like creamy pastas and pizza).

Then we took a cab to Xidan, a shopping place - which is on the West side of the city (we were on the east side) - during rush hour - which was a HUGE mistake. Note to self - remember that Beijing has a good subway system! The cab's air conditioning was broken and we were melting! not only that, but the driver had no idea where the place I wanted to go to was, so he dropped us off somewhere and we had to ask directions on our own and get there by foot (15 minutes away).

At least I got a lot of good shopping done! I really want to buy these sunglasses that Kanye wears in his stronger music video, but they are so freaking expensive! (35 yuan) I bought really cute overalls, shirt, skirt, shoes, and earrings!

Then we went to the Huge Olympic Flagship Store in Wangfujing (by subway this time - learned our lesson) - dang, olympic souverniers are soo expensive! How can anyone afford this stuff? But recently, I've been so nauseous all the time, I'm not sure why. When we finally got to eat (around 10) I told kevin i was too nauseous and that he should order for me. Well you see, Kevin is vegetarian, so whenever I eat with him its kinda hard to order food. He ordered a meat dumpling for me. After he already ordered it i said, I hope you didnt order any meat, because it would make me throw up right now. And so we ate the skin around the dumplings and left all the meat on the table...

Yesterday was Friday - and I don't know why but I always wake up late! I can't get to work earlier than lunchtime. But I stayed at work until 12:30am, so it was ok. I got so much freaking work done yesterday, mostly finishing my survey. I stayed with some other Beida folks who live only 5 minutes away, I had been thinking about moving in with them after my dad left bc its so close but after last night, no way. The apartment is so small, two bedrooms for 7 people, one tiny bathroom. No air conditioning. It was sooo hot. I couldn't fall asleep for the longest time, so I just listened to the traffic outside the window. Unfortunately, I woke up at 12:30 again today, and didn't feel like waiting for the bathroom, so I took all my stuff to work, walked over in my pajamas, and washed up in the bathroom here.

I printed out my business card today! (90 copies). but I made a mistake which I only realized after printing it..gr... the layout of the Chinese and the English side aren't exactly parallel. Oh well...

I wanted to test out my survey on some migrant workers here, so I walked around and asked, but no one wanted to. One said that he couldn't read, which reminds me that I have to practice reading this survey in case there are illiterate people. I even offered to pay them... Sigh... Hopefully this will be easier in Yunnan.

The days just keep getting better...

...don't they?

So - today, determined to meet up with Richard Howard, the one key component of my research, because without this one email from him I can't get my research approved, and without approval I can't get any money, and also he is leaving for another business trip tomorrow. I woke up at 8 and stayed at home until 11 hoping to catch him by phone at his office. But by 10 I found out that he had a meeting that would last until 2.... so I gave up and just emailed him a "please submit this form even though you've never seen me before" note. I hope he complies...

So getting off the bus at ZhongGuanCun, I think to myself that I should go buy my cell phone now. When suddenly, a woman asks if I have two minutes to complete a survey. I'm like sure - why not? But she leads me up the elevator to the 11th floor and says oh we're letting people have free facials. So I'm like ok...not exactly a survey but its free so whatever. So the lady does the facial, saying that its a free check up and if I want treatment, I have to pay. I was like I don't want treatment. Then she was like well do you want to use the good medicine to remove the cream or the normal medicine, and I was like well it's free right? and She's like no, the medicine to remove it isnt free. WTF. I got so mad I was like - look I didnt even sign up for this, I thought I was here to do some survey for you... can't I just wash it off with water? So it turned out the medicine was like only 2$ less than the actual facial, so I was like fine do the facial. But I was pissed. It cost 88Y, and I gave 100Y (they were supposed to give me change). But after the facial was done they said - oh do you want to do something something (Chinese I didnt understand) we'll just not give you back any change. If you don't do it, your face will get infected. wtf?? Well of course, I don't want my face to get infected right? and its only like 1.5$ so what the heck.........


Still - I'm soooo pissed right now! And when I got out I couldnt buy my cell phone bc it was raining so hard and I was already really late for work...and now my shoes are wet. I hate when that happens.

Rough day..

Saturday I watched Kung Fu Panda at Wangfujing's New East Mall. It was sooo cute! everyone should go see it! The animation is amazing and it its so funny. I watched it with my dad, which made it even more funny, because the man laughs really jovially. He is a very strange person - I have never seen him so jovial before in my life... I was always so intimidated by him. The other day he was searching for his name on google, and discovered that there was another Kangbin Zheng with the exact same characters. The cell phone number was online, so he sent the guy a text msg inviting him to dinner. Isnt that weird?

Speaking of weird...So remember that guy on the metro? He sent me this email later:

可以听到你的拉小提琴的声音就好了，还希望知道你的全名，

呵呵，我有点健忘！

How strange right? I politely emailed him back, and he hasnt responded. I was pretty clear in my email that I didn't really want to continue communicating, and I think he go the point (Let's hope).

So after lunch, Kevin and I went to take a tour of Beida, given by its very finest recent graduate, LinLi. Beida's campus is sooo pretty! I like it soo much better than Stanford. It has so many trees and pretty romantic areas, including a lake, pagodas, willow trees. It's like living in a Chinese park almost! There are so many areas I would want to just sit with my boyfriend and chat. Not like Stanford, everything is so open and hot.

Then we went karaoke! Which was fun, well...I usually LOVE karaoke. But it's not that fun when its with people you don't know that well and also when you're singing Chinese songs that you never heard before. Additionally, I had a massive headache and was really tired due to jet lag. But still, I learned a few new Chinese songs and met some cool people.

I'm really not used to text msging people, which is really really common in China.

So Sunday, I ate Peking Duck with my dad's old childhood friend and his family. I had been dreaming about Peking Duck and lusting after it ever since I arrived, but its a lot better to dream about than to actually eat. I really enjoy eating the fat and the skin...which is probably not good for my health. It's really the thought of eating it which is better than the actual taste though..

I've been teaching one of my colleagues English to prepare for exam to go to Oxford. He's been offered contingent admission, meaning as long as he can get a certain score on the exam, he gets in. And since I'm going to Oxford next spring, I'm determined to help him succeed! In return, he teaches me Chinese, basically - I read aloud these articles pertaining to my research. It's so hard!

I had been craving Italian food for the longest time, so I finally ordered some to deliver to my house. My dad said he didnt want any bc it was too expensive, but when it arrived I felt bad for him so I offered him half of my food. Well anyway, we each ate only half of what would fill up one person....I still crave italian food...I was eating it while watching AntZ, which is a really cute movie! I also watched the goddess, which is this old 1930's silent movie made in Shanghai about a prostitute who does everything to make a living to send her son to school. It's pretty touching, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in old Chinese films.

Anyway, now that brings me to today. I had a really rough day:

for starters, i left my key at home. Then, my cell phone ran out of batteries as soon as a got to my office. I was supposed to meet my mom's friend for lunch but with no cell phone, I could only call her from my work phone and arrange to meet at Shangdao Coffee at noon exactly. But by 12:16 she was not there, and so I walked back to my office to call her and it turns out that she couldnt find parking and went home and was going to take a taxi instead to some OTHER place, because she didn't know where my building was. So I had to walk to the other place, and well...she was supposed to invite me to lunch but she invited me to KFC, which is a little weird. Then by the time I got back to the office, did a little bit of work, I had to leave again to meet my friend for dinner/work. So I called her from my office phone and she told me the address..only it was the WRONG address, so I end up taking a cab to somewhere I have no idea, and she calls me to tell me I'm in the wrong place, and I take a cab to the right place, but it turns out the right place was only 1 block away, so I paid 10 yuan for like 5 seconds of driving.

Then...well, my cell phone was out of batteries and couldnt make any calls, so my friend had no idea what had happened to me and started to go home. I finally found the friggin building and went to her office but she was gone. Well, I was finally able to find her and eat dinner, which was actually pretty good hot pot.Then - I took a cab home and realized when I was trying to get into my house that I left the key at home. My phone was dead so I couldn't call my dad. I banged on the door but no one was home. I went to a nearby convenience store to call my dad. I had to keep turning on my phone and hoping that it had enough batteries for me to look up the number. My dad's phone said something in Chinese that I didnt understand, but the only part I understood was "please hang up now". So I did, and I couldnt contact him. So then I decided to go get my hair cut. That ended up taking like 3 hours because I also got it permed. Then, when I left the hair cuttery, I realized my cell phone was gone. I went back to the convenience store to ask if they found it but they said no. I went back to my house to see if my dad was home, and there was a business card with his number on it left there for me, which was good because since i lost my phone i had no idea what his number was. I finally got in contact with him, but first I had to go back to the haircuttery to see if I left the cell phone there, which I didnt. So anyway - now I have no cell phone. And it was my dad's birthday today, so I had tried to go home as early as possible to spend it with him... but instead I made him and my mom worry so much. By the time I got home, I told him happy birthday, but it was already past midnight, so it was over.

Shut up just drink

My dad's friend from the Bureau of Agriculture invited me to eat at this restaurant. He brought a lot of food from his own farm, including a (duck-goose-swan???) hybrid. I'm not really sure what one of those would look like alive, but cooked, it looks like a big chicken. MMM i love Chinese food. Everytime I come to China I gain weight - I had lost a lot of weight this year, but I think I will gain it all back in a few months. MMM just thinking about it makes my mouth drool....that potato slices...

My dad and I went to go get full body massages. OMG it hurt sooo much! I'm not sure if its just me, or if its that my masseuse is very harsh, but my whole upper body is sore. When he did the massage, I was clenching my teeth the whole time.

My friend from Peking U invited me to go to San Li Tun, which is a bar street that foreigners love to hang out at. Man there are so many foreigners, more than Chinese people. You'd think you were in New York or something. But my dad and I had to walk in the pouring rain, which was not fun bc we were too lazy to go home and get an umbrella.

Wow - it just hit me that its july 4th! Well, no one celebrates it here, obviously....

So I spent the rest of tonight in a bar called shut-up-just-drink, but I didn't drink anything. I was with a bunch of seniors who had just graduated from PKU, so they were pretty drunk. But wow! I didn't know Chinese students were that much the life of the party! They are even more wild than I am! But I enjoyed dancing and sipping my apple juice hehe.

omg I am soo lazy these days. So first of all, three days ago I slept 20 hours and missed my meeting with the ILO，who went on a business trip the next day for a week, so now I have to wait forever to get my research approved. So I spent the next day writing my paper, and then had dinner with my dad's friend and his son who goes to Oxford. The next day I woke up really really late again, and decided to wait until after lunch to go to work, and then met up with my roommate's friend Lin li who goes to Beida and will be at Stanford this fall. I had to go to a concert at 7:30 at the new egg-shaped national theater to see Kevin perform with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. In the middle, I was helping a colleague prepare for his English exam to study at Oxford - so there was another day wasted with no research done. Sigh.

So I went with XuZheng, the Oxford kid, to watch the concert at the National Theater. I was sooo late - it was embarassing because I had to make Kevin wait for me to get the tickets - and he was performing! Anyway - the Beijing metro is so slow and annoying! To switch lines it takes forever! I had to switch lines three times. So I asked this random guy - how do you get to the National Theater? and he told me and he was like, oh I am happening to go that direction as well, so he spent the entire like one hour talking to me and asking me for my contact information! He was nice enough, but it was still very weird. He asked me if I had a cell phone and I said no I didnt, and then later my cell phone started ringing and I had no choice but to answer it because it was kevin. Sigh... I told him I would send him a text msg later so that he would have my phone number...but I never plan to.

The National Theater is HUGE! And beautiful! And the seats are comfortable. I watched the Stanford Orchestra and Choir perform with the Jin Xing dance troup. Jin Xing is the first transexual in China - and her dancing and choreography is very modern - though I dont really understand much of it...

Anyway - and then I went to sleep around 12 am and didn't wake up until today at 4pm! Another day of research wasted.... I don't know when I'm going to get around to doing my research! And who knows how productive I will be over the weekend...

Two-Oh

Wow - I am 20 today - I can't believe it. I had forgotten how bad traffic in Beijing is, the commute took 2 hours on the way back today and in the middle there was a huge thunderstorm. Not only that, but I accidentally got off one stop early and had to run all the way home. Hopefully I can find housing closer to Peking University sometime soon...

Oh man - what am I going to do with my summer? I need to figure that out...

I went to dinner with my dad at Hou Hai, which is a very pretty lake with lots of bars around it. The food is friggin expensive though, but it was good! A little boy sold us three flowers - I feel sorry for them.

These days, my stomach is always upset and I always feel like I'm about to throw up. I think I'm just dehydrated.

So 20..I feel like I haven't accomplished anything with my life thus far...maybe I can make some goals for before I'm 30? Like, go bungee jumping!

Jet Lag

This is a blog mostly for me to record my own experiences this summer. However, I would love to share it with all of my friends who are interested in keeping up with my adventures.

This morning I almost missed my flight because I hadn't really slept in the past two days, so I fell asleep at the gate while waiting to board the aircraft. When I opened my eyes, all the passengers were gone, and I was freaking out that the plane had already left and that I had missed my flight. Luckily I made it with only a few minutes before the doors were closed. Whew. I then continued to sleep the entire flight, as well as sleep when I arrived at my apartment. Well - what can I say, I had received an average a 3 hours of sleep a night during debate camp! I'm glad that's almost over!

The new airport at Beijing is huge and gorgeous! Everybody should fly to Beijing just to see it. The light rail station next door is like a turtle shell. Being in Beijing this summer should be very exciting and there many new changes since last year! However, the air pollution is still the same.

Tomorrow I plan to arrive at Peking University to discuss my project with my adviser. I will also meet with Richard Howard, the director of the International Labor Organization's HIV workplace program. I hope this will be an exciting and productive summer!