The Haircut

I got my first haircut in China the other day.  I had been a little wary of getting my haircut in China primarily because of the language barrier; Chinese dudes often have strange haircuts and I wouldn’t really know how to explain that I just want normal hair.  But my hair started to get out of control so I asked May to write a note for me in Chinese that I could take to a barber. 

She wrote (paraphrasing) : Dear Barber,

Please help my foreign friend.  He is new in China and wants a haircut.  He wants it short and tidy.

Thank you.

I thanked her for the note and explained to her that she didn’t need to tell them I was foreign, they should be able to work that bit out on their own, but she insisted that “in China” that is the note should read.

Sidenote, May loves to say “in China.”  It’s very funny.  I’ve told her that I know we are in China, and that many of the things that she says happen “in China” also happen in just about every other part of the world, but she still says it.  Hard to describe the funniness here but it really is hilarious.  For example, “In China we often go to the movies.”  This kind of thing.

Anyway, I went to the haircutter down by my house the next day. I went right as they opened.  The place is a chain salon and they are fairly large, probably had around 30 employees working. The employees were all lined up in rows standing at attention listening to the boss give some sort of speech as I walked in.  Many businesses do this “in China.”  The men were all wearing suits and the women were wearing short skirts with a suit jacket.  They looked like flight attendants.  They also were all wearing “stars” on their shoulders like they were in the military or something. 

I walked in, showed the note to an employee and asked how much.  He said 40RMB.  About 7 bucks. Cool no problem I thought, cheaper than a haircut back home.  He then lead me to a chair where I figured I’d have my haircut.  Not so fast.  One of the pretty Chinese flight attendants came around (2 stars) and began massaging my neck and shoulders.  This lasted around 5 minutes and felt great.  She then started wetting my scalp and massaging it, along with rubbing in various shampoos and oils and who knows what else.  It felt amazing and lasted another 5-10 minutes.  I then got a good rinse down and was lead to a different location.  A man with a ton of hair, perfectly coiffed, a holster (yes a holster) full of tools, and 3 stars on his shoulders approached me and began eyeing my head from various angles.  He then unholstered his tools and began crafting his masterwork on my head.  With every snip of the scissors his hair bounced and bobbed but never lost form.  His eyes never wavered from my head as he snip snipped for a solid 30 minutes.  He then busted out the straight razor and lined up the hair around my ears, sideburns and neck.  As he finished it was clear that he was very satisfied with his work as he admired my newly shorn hair. 

As soon as he was done a different, and even prettier flight attendant (3 stars) lead me back to the hair washing area.  She massaged my head once more as she rinsed all the hair from my head and neck.  She even used her fingers to gently massage my ears and remove the hairs from inside their crevices.  It was perfect in just about everyway. 

After she was done I was lead back to the haircutter dude who was waiting with a blow dryer and a comb.  He dried my hair and combed it intently until no hair was out of place.  Only when it was perfect did he allow me to leave and pay the 40 RMB that I owed the place. 

It was easily the best haircut experience I’ve ever had. The massage, the rinsing, the haircutting, etc., all came together to create a really great experience that is not typical at the haircutteries I go to back home.  And the price really can’t be beat. The haircut itself is mostly pretty good, though it could have been blended a little better on the sides.  I’m not complaining though.  Maybe next time I’ll request one of the 4 star generals I saw, see if it makes a difference.  

"Watch? Purse? Blowjob?" E. Nanjing Rd.

I was supposed to meet up with my friend Renee at East Nanjing Road (right near the Bund, major tourist area) at 6 PM, however I was running late and she had an appointment at 7 PM so we decided to meet at 8 after her appointment.  However when we decided this I was already on my way so when I got there to E. Nanjing Rd I had about 1.5 hours to kill.  This was my first time on E. Nanjing Rd alone.  It was a much different experience than when you are with another person.  When you are with other foreigners, or even with a Chinese person, you get plenty of people approaching you asking you if you want to buy a watch or a purse or some other similar item.  However, on my own I was bombarded with people approaching me, usually their sales tactic went like this:  “Hello! Want a watch? Purse?  Blowjob?  Handjob?  Good time?  Sex? Pretty lady…follow me!”

 

Telling them “no” politely doesn’t make them go away. They just follow you wherever you go.  Telling them rudely also doesn’t work.  Telling them you are meeting your girlfriend also doesn’t work.  The only way to get rid of them is to try to lose them in a crowd or duck into a store or shopping mall.  However as soon as you lose one, another person with the same line is right there waiting to pick up the slack.  “Watch!? Purse?  Blowjob?...”  It was incessant.  I walked from E. Nanjing Rd to the Bund and then up the Bund for about 30 minutes and there was almost no time that I wasn’t being asked if I wanted sex. I eventually started just telling everyone "Ting bu dong" aka "I don't understand."  This threw some of them for a loop and bought me some time to get away from them.  

It was weird how different that area becomes when you are on your own.  It changes from an annoying flea market to an annoying brothel.  It’s also pretty eye-opening how many people must go down there for that purpose since there are so many people offering it.  Either that or they lead you to some alleyway or hotel somewhere and rob you.  Whatever it is, I’m not going to find out. 

Sichuan Province - Leshan

For our second day in Sichuan we got up early and rode a bus for about 2.5 hours to the town of Leshan with the goal of seeing the Leshan Giant Buddha and the Buddha Park.  It was the first time for all of us to not be in a city in China.  It was pretty interesting to see the Chinese countryside and how different it was from the vast metropolis’ of Shanghai and Chengdu.  The countryside was a beautiful lush green and dotted with small houses and villages.  It didn’t look like there was much money making its way out to these small communities and it seemed that the people out here lived a pretty simple life, and a very different way of life than the people in the cities.

We arrived at the Giant Buddha Park at around 10 AM.  It was swarming with people.  I had no idea where all these people came from.  We were way out in the middle of nowhere and there were just seas of people.  But anyway, we got into the park and right by the entrance were guys with monkeys.  I didn’t think twice, I asked the dude how much, pulled out my money, and next thing you know I was holding a monkey!  It was amazing.  I held him for a minute, got a few pictures, and smiled the whole time.  I couldn’t get the stupid grin off my face for hours. 

We then went deeper in the park and saw a bunch of different buddhas, walked up a bunch of stairs, saw a ton of people everywhere, and got stopped loads of times by people wanting to take pictures with us.  Sichuan doesn’t see quite as many foreigners… and since it was national holiday there were lots of travelers from other parts of China as well.  So all that combined to make us almost like minor celebrities.  Many people would say “hello” when we walked by, many would stare, a few would say “laowai” and point and stare.  At least 10 times, and maybe more, people asked for pictures with us.  It was mostly teenage girls that asked for pictures with me, but there were also a few groups of men that asked for pictures with my roommates, and a few families that wanted pictures for their family photo album with a group of foreigners.

So with seeing the sights, and taking pictures, and having our pictures taken, it took us a couple of hours to get up to the Leshan Giant Buddha (the world’s largest Buddha).  By the time we got there, there was a massive line.  We got in the line, stood for about an hour, got to where we thought we would be allowed to go down to see the Buddha, only to realize that we were just let in to another area with another massive line.  We stood for about another hour, barely moving, when we came to another area that we realized just housed another massive line we decided to hop out of line and just explore the park a little bit more.  Plus we saw a small area for viewing the head of the Buddha that didn’t require us to wait.  We got down to that area, took a few pictures, and then explored the park some more.  It would have been great to see more of the Buddha, but it wasn’t worth standing in line for 5 or 6 hours to see him.  Plus we still had to get back to Leshan town and figure out how to get bus tickets to return home.

We took a taxi back to the town of Leshan.  We bought bus tickets for later in the day so we had a few hours to kill.  Leshan was a big town by some standards, but by Chinese standards it’s pretty small.  It has a population of about 150,000 people.  While the setting seemed urban, it felt anything but.  Walking around the town was an experience.  More people stared here than anywhere else we’ve been yet in China.  People were in shock to see foreigners wandering around their town.  We went to a small street market and it seemed like business just stopped.  My roommates bought some jewelry and I bought a pocket knife…a huge group of people surrounded us as we attempted to negotiate prices.  They were laughing at our horrible Chinese and probably even worse bargaining skills.  It was a lot of fun though and everyone was very friendly. 

We then ate lunch at a small hole in the wall restaurant.  I ordered You Xian Rou Si , a Sichuan dish, which was delicious.  They didn’t have an English menu and I didn’t know what else they’d have.  I figured they’d have that dish though because it is a specialty from the region.  They laughed and smiled when I ordered it, I think they were pleased that I knew of the food from their province.  We also ordered some rice and veggies.  It was all great and of course dirt cheap. After we ate we headed back to Chengdu to get ready for another trip the next day.

Zhejiang Province - Putuoshan

My roommate Mary invited me on a trip with her and three of her Chinese co-workers (Annie, Felice and Jan) to Putuo Mountain in nearby Zhejiang Province.  We really had no idea what to expect before the trip as it was all arranged by her co-workers.   All we really knew was that it was 2 days and 1 night, and that Putuoshan is very difficult to get to without speaking or reading Chinese. They told us that it would involve a lot of outdoors activities, hiking and possibly camping.  For 390 RMB (around 60$) it would include return journey via bus/ferry, entry into the national park, a guided tour, overnight accommodation, and tea.

Our Chinese friends were right when they said this trip would be near impossible to make without knowing Chinese.  On Tuesday morning at 6AM we met at a random corner in People’s Square where we were expected to check in for the tour and meet the bus.  When we arrived there was no booth, no sign, no nothing.  Just a guy standing around smoking a cigarette.  Annie approached him and asked if this was the place and he confirmed that it was.  He checked us in, but notified us of a problem.  Because of the Communist Party meeting in Beijing, we foreigners would not be allowed to stay in the accommodation that we had booked with the tour.  He said that we could be spies and that we would have to book a room at the army barracks after we arrive at Putuoshan.  This of course made no sense, the party meeting was in Beijing and we were supposed to be staying at some sort of B&B/guest house place.  We were confused and a little bit scared of what the army barracks would entail, but just decided to go along with it anyway.  One thing you learn quickly about China is that everything is always an adventure, even the most basic of things.  If you aren’t easygoing you’ll have a shit time in China; you just kind of have to go with the flow and shrug your shoulders sometimes. 

After a five hour or so bus ride we arrived at the ferry terminal and met our tour guide for the island.  Before we could go catch the ferry, the guide had us all gather around and he began spouting off numbers in Chinese.  After what seemed like 10 minutes, people from our group began shouting numbers too.  Apparently he was telling people various numbers to call in case of emergency, in case anyone was separated, numbers for hotels, numbers for who knows what else…it went on forever, followed by people shouting out their own phone numbers.  Then he shouted more numbers, each group of people on the tour was assigned a number to better keep track of us.  We foreigners plus the three Chinese friends were group 4 or “si” in Chinese.  4 is unlucky in China (most buildings omit the 4^th floor and skip straight to 5) so I think that’s why we got stuck with it.  Turns out it didn’t cause us any hardship, whodathunkit?  So anyway, anytime he said “si” the rest of the trip we had to shout back at him so he’d know we were there, just in case the two white faces in the sea of Chinese didn’t catch his attention.  The trip involved lots of shouting; this was just the beginning.

Next we got on the ferry, and after a 10 minute journey we arrived at Putuoshan Island, where once again we huddled around the tour guide as he shouted all kinds of things in Chinese right there on the dock. There wasn’t anything to look at (the smog was thick), there weren’t any monuments (we were standing on the dock), and there really wasn’t anything worth talking about as far as I could tell.  But we stood and talked for at least another 10 minutes about who knows what.  Two times doesn’t make a trend, but it was an ominous sign of things to come.   Once we got off of the dock and into the park we were told that we would be going straight to a monastery and wouldn’t be stopping to put bags away at a hotel or in storage or anything like that.  I packed pretty light aside from my big camera bag, and the Chinese packed super light, but Mary being a Western girl had a decent sized bag.  So before we got going we asked the guide what we could do with our stuff… he walked us over to a couple of old Chinese people, told them where we’d be staying, told us to take out all valuables and to pay the people 5 RMB per bag.  OK…  So of course we did it.  Why not?!

The rest of the day was spent listening to the tour guide talk for huge chunks of time in random places about nothing, checking out Buddhist shrines and monasteries, as well as seeing the famous (in some circles I guess) golden Guan Yin statue that stands 33 meters tall.  It was all really gorgeous and it was nice to see the ocean and some forested nature type areas again.  At the end of the day we went to the “army barracks” that we were told we would be staying at…turns out it is a converted army barracks and is actually now a pretty nice hotel.  Also turns out that those nice old people that we gave our bags to along with our 5 RMB were kind enough to take them to the hotel and leave them at the front desk.  And they didn’t steal anything either!  China is awesome sometimes.  It’s especially awesome when you have no idea what is going on and things just magically work out. 

After we checked in to the hotel we went out to dinner.  Every single restaurant in the little village was the same.  As we walked down the street all the owners tried to get us to come into their particular restaurant, but there was nothing distinguishable about any of the different places.   Tubs of fish and various sea creatures were on the ground swimming around at each place.  Old sickly looking vegetables were on the racks.  No place had a Chinese menu, let alone an English menu.  I don’t know how our friends ultimately chose a place to eat but somehow they stopped at one place and we began picking out fish, mussels, crabs and prawns. When we picked out our fish the lady casually grabbed a net, picked up the fish, took a step or two away from us, and smashed the hell out of the poor guy on the cement.  After we selected out desired items we went upstairs to find a full dining room of people Chinese people happily enjoying seafood and alcoholic beverages.  When the two laowai (foreigners) walked in people took notice.  The table to our left, a group of older Chinese men, immediately began offering us, and me in particular, swigs of baijiu, which is a strong Chinese liquor.  They poured me a couple of shots as we sat and ate and we all bonded over food and drinks before they headed out while we were still barely tucking into our food. 

The food was amazing.  The poor fish that I had just witnessed be savagely murdered was perfect, easily the best fish that I have ever had.  The prawns were good, the mussels were good, the crab was good, everything was pretty incredible.  We also ordered an egg soup, rice, a tomato and egg dish that the Chinese seem to love, and Yu Xiang Rou Si, one of my favorite Chinese dishes (though it is pork and not sea food).  We were all stuffed by the end of it but it was well worth it for the experience alone, but the amazingness of the food made it even better. 

The next day our tour began again at 6 AM.  We were taken to another Buddhist temple where we spent about two hours, and were then given about 4 hours to do what we wanted before we had to head back to the bus.  We decided to walk to the top of Putuoshan to see the Huiji Monastery, the highest on the island.  It lies at the end of 1300 stone steps and is pretty steep at times.  It was interesting to see the Buddhist pilgrims climbing the stairs.  They would take three steps, go all the way to the ground, touching their forehead to the floor before standing back up, taking three more steps, and then doing it again. They did this the whole way up the mountain.  Couldn’t have been easy. 

The Buddhist temples are all really cool, though once you have seen one you have pretty much seen them all. They all have similar courtyards, filled with people bowing and burning incense.  Inside they have a variety of buddhas and again, people bowing.  Monks walk around doing their thing, ringing gongs or talking on their cell phones.  There doesn’t seem to be much more to it from an outsiders perspective.  They would be really serene places if there weren’t so many people there making noises and bumping into each other.

On the way home we had another surreal China experience.  The bus stopped at a large convention center type place and were ushered into a small room.  Once seated we were given a live infomercial type demonstration.  It was like being on late night TV, live and in the flesh.  The guy had a headset and he spilled various liquids onto the fabric and began demonstrating that water would not get out the mess.  After a few minutes of watching and not really understanding what he was saying (though we could easily have guessed) we decided to head out and go see what else there was in the convention center.  When we left the room our tour guide became very upset.  He began to yell at our Chinese friends and they yelled back.  It was very odd.  They argued for a few minutes before Annie and Jan went back in, and Mary, Felice and I pressed on through the building.  Felice explained that the infomercial was part of our tour and that the guide gets a cut of any money that is made off of the products that the guy was demonstrating.  By us not staying to watch he was losing out on potential income.  The argument wasn’t about Mary and I leaving, he said he didn’t care about us not staying for the infomercial, but that the Chinese people had to stay and watch.  During the argument he even mentioned that the Buddha would not bless them if they didn’t stay to watch the infomercial.  Strange stuff. 

But it would get weirder…the huge convention center was like a giant “as seen on tv” store that twisted and turned its way through the building.  It funneled you through and you had to walk through all of it, there was no way to skip ahead.  Products and shelves and walls forced you around in their desired direction.  Odd products abounded, including a head scratcher that a Chinese worker was kind enough to demonstrate on my head for me (great picture I have of her scratching my head I will add somewhere, likely instagram I guess when I get around to it).  She was very sweet actually, spoke decent English, and for some reason introduced me to her Uncle.  Well not exactly for some reason, she brought me to him because she said that I “have a lot of money.”  I guess because I’m white?  I don’t really know…I didn’t buy anything so don’t know where she got the idea.

After the “as seen on TV” section there was a huge seafood section we had to go through, followed by a strange snack section, filled with all kinds of weird stuff that I had never seen before, not even in China.  Most of it I had no idea at all what it was, and our friends really didn’t know what a lot of it was.  I walked down the aisles asking the workers “zhe shi shen ma?” over and over and whenever I got an answer that I maybe could sound out in pinyin, I’d put it into the phone to see if I could get the English name for it. It was oddly fun.

After this and then a few more hours on the bus, we stopped at another one of these places for another infomercial and more “shopping.”  This time instead of foods it was mostly knock off purses and jackets as well as a variety of knick-knacks and toys.  We made it back to Shanghai around 7 PM, they dropped us off on a different random corner near People’s Square than the one they picked us up at, but we made it back safe and sound and I’m not sure but either more confused about China or much wiser about China…not entirely sure.

Random Only in China Moment #1:  At the hotel a large group of old Chinese ladies, maybe around 20 or so of them, came in to the check-in area at the same time as us.  As we were leaving one of the ladies shouted “laowai” at me and pointed.  All of them turned around and began pointing at me and saying “laowai, laowai.”  I then told them in my horrible Chinese “Where is the laowai?  Where is the laowai?”  They all started cracking up laughing and thought it was the funniest thing ever.  Chinese people that aren’t used to foreigners are awesome.  They have no shame pointing at you and calling you “laowai.”  Seeing a white face must be such an unusual and infrequent experience for them it kind of blows your mind to think about.  If people staring at you and maybe even getting into your personal space bothers you then China is not the place for you, but if you can just roll with everything it is so much fun.

Random Only in China Moment #2:  Chinese buses always have a “bus attendent” for lack of a better term.  They ride on the bus and handle customer issues or tickets or fares and things of that nature.  On the way home on the bus the attendant gave a microphone to a little girl around 6 years old and asked her to sing a song.  She sang a few songs and it was really cute and everyone had a good time.  Next she gave the microphone to Mary and I after telling everyone essentially that “next the white people will sing.”  We laughed and said “no” and that we aren’t going to sing.  However Felice grabbed the mic and began singing a song that the three of us all know and we ended up all singing together.  We were very amusing to the Chinese folk apparently and received quite an ovation when we were finished.  Another one of those “roll with it” China moments. 

Also, Putuoshan had a few more moments for me that I like to call being “China famous.”  Essentially people either taking your picture, either slyly or not covertly at all, or for the more bold, asking you to take a picture with them.  I was stopped 4 or 5 times for pictures while there.  It doesn’t really bother me at all, I think it’s fun, but a lot of people out here seem really bothered by it. 

Overall, another good time in China, that’s all I really seem to be having.  Sorry for the length to anyone that may be reading.

Sichuan Province - Qingchengshan

The next morning we took a train to the Mount QingCheng (Qingchengshan).  I really wanted to come here more than any other place in the Chengdu region.  It was near impossible for us to get tickets because of the National Holiday.  We spent hours at the train station the day before trying to organize tickets.  We were able to get standing room only train tickets for 645 am along with return tickets around 4pm the same day.  The train took about 45 minutes to get to QCS.

QCS is the supposed origins of Taoism.  It is a mountain with many temples and pagodas nestled in the temperate forest.  The QCS park has hiking trails up the mountain, as well as a cable car line and old Chinese boat to help you get around and see everything.  The surroundings are gorgeous.  The forest is dense and lush, the mountains are beautiful, and the temples are all intricately detailed and appear to be placed with purpose within the environment. 

We hiked up part of the way, took the boat across the lake, then took the cable car up.  Outside the cable car was perhaps the best sign I have seen so far in China.  It said that you shouldn’t ride the cable car if you “suffer from habitual abortions.”  I tried to take a picture but it was so dark and far away I couldn’t get it sharp enough.  Anyway, it was a perfect day.  Wispy clouds enveloped the mountains.  Looking out across the valleys and the peaks was breathtaking.  Seeing temples and traditional Chinese buildings nestled amongst the trees and the hills in the distance was something to behold.  It was a very relaxing and beautiful place.  After reaching the highest peak and the final temple, we headed back down the mountain. 

Much like the previous day at Leshan, there were loads of people.  It wasn’t so bad going up because we got there so early.  Going down was almost impossible though because of the sheer number of people coming up.  After we eventually made it down though we walked through “town” back towards the train station.  I say “town” because it was either abandoned or had never been lived in.  At least the part of town we saw.  We walked along a “biking green” that cut through town and saw nobody except for one worker sweeping.  Looking in the apartments that were to our left and right along the path it was clear that no one was living in any of them.  It was a little bit creepy.  We did however stumble upon a small Taiwan Food Festival though and grabbed some lunch before heading back to the train.  I had some fried bacon wrapped cucumber and some dumplings.  Wasn’t bad, wasn’t great. 

At the train station while we were waiting a young mom took her 1-2 year old kid over by the wall and held him while he peed on the ground.  Yes inside the train station.  With a bathroom about 100 feet away.   The janitor saw her encouraging the kid to pee and walked over to her and began to yell and scream at her.  She just walked away and sat back down in the waiting area.  He followed her and continued to give her hell.  He eventually walked away, however he never did clean up the pee during the time we were waiting (about 45 minutes).  China is an interesting place.

Sichuan Province - Chengdu

Two roommates (Mary and Adriana) and I flew to Chengdu during our week off of work for National Holiday and the Mid-Autumn Festival Holidays.  I wanted to go primarily for the food and they wanted to go to hold some pandas. Turns out the food wasn’t all that spicy, though it was still good, but fortunately there was a ton of other stuff to do and the trip wasn’t a failure. 

The first day, while they were holding pandas, I went on a walking tour of Chengdu.  It was led by a pretty Chinese lady named Laura, and it was just me and 4 other people on the tour.  We went all around the city, touring monasteries, nunneries, Chinese street markets, the snack street, an 800 year old tea house, and more.

The highlight of the tour and also possibly the lowlight, was the street market.  It was in an old part of town that was only accessible to foot and bike traffic.  The stalls were filled with meats, produce, drinks, cigarettes, spices…pretty much anything.  There were some ear cleaners and even a dentist office set up (scariest dentist ever, unfortunately wouldn’t let us take pictures). We stopped at one of the vendors selling various spices and peppers, and Laura asked if we could try a few of Sichuan Province’s famous peppers.  First we tried some dried red pepper and it wasn’t particularly spicy to me, however a few of my fellow tour partners felt differently.  Next she asked who wanted to try the famous “Sichuan Black Pepper.”  I was the only volunteer in the group and I soon came to find out why.  She handed me a small handful of peppers that looked like innocuous little seeds of some kind.  I popped them in my mouth and started to chew.  They tasted really good and didn’t have any kind of kick initially.  Laura asked how I was feeling and I said “great, no problem!”  About 5 seconds later my throat, lips, tongue and pretty much my entire head felt like they had swollen up about 3 times their normal size.  I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t swallow, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t spit.  My eyes started tearing up and I felt like I was going asphyxiate.  I was scared that I was having some sort of allergic reaction and that I was going to die in some back alley market in Chengdu, China.  Fortunately after about 30 seconds to a minute of that horrible feeling I was able to spit, swallow, kind of talk, and most importantly breathe.  Lots of Chinese people had gathered around and were having a huge laugh watching me try to eat these peppers and then try to survive the aftermath.  Laura at some point during my suffering bought me a bottle of water which helped a ton to get the pepper remnants out of my mouth and to get me on the road to recovery, so I appreciated that.  She was a great guide and it was a lot of fun walking around the city with a local. 

Laura also took us to snack street as mentioned earlier, which was just lined with food.  I purchased a deep fried scorpion on a stick.  It was fried up in front of me, the stinger was removed, and it was served still sizzling.  Eating it was odd, the pinchers, arms, legs and head all tasted like nothing except for the seasoning that had been added. They were pretty much just crunchy things with seasoning.  It could have been anything really.  The body of the scorpion however was pretty delicious.  It is hard to describe what it tasted like.  It was a sort of meaty, sort of metallic tasting thing, again covered in seasoning. It wasn’t something I’ll probably ever have any desire to eat again, but it did taste a lot better than I had ever anticipated.

The city of Chengdu was much more open than Shanghai, with broad streets and wide sidewalks which made it much more pedestrian friendly.  However it was also a town with a lot less happening.  Shanghai is always so alive and Chengdu felt a bit slow in comparison.  It may have also had something to do with the holidays, with many shops and restaurants being closed or closing earlier than usual.  More about the trip coming soon, including monkey holding extravaganza.

Why Not?

I find myself saying this quite a bit out here in China.

People peeing in the street.  “Why not?” 

Baby pants with no crotch to better facilitate peeing and pooping in the street.  “Why not?”

People spitting or blowing snot rockets right next to you, inside, outside, whatever… “Why not?”

Cigarette packs in a claw machine.  “Why not?”

People wandering the streets in boxer shorts.  “Why not?”

People walking in the road when there are perfectly good sidewalks (though the sidewalks aren’t any safer than the road I suppose, you still have to watch out for traffic).  “Why not?”

People carrying massive amounts of stuff on their bikes, handcarts, mopeds, cars, etc.  “Why not?”

People pushing each other, ignoring lines and ignoring logic (train stations have arrows clearly illustrating that people boarding should be to the side and people exiting should leave through the middle so as to facilitate easier entry and exit of the metro train).  People still crowd around the middle and push and shove to get on the train first.  “Why not?”

Mobile pet stores.  “Why not?” 

Mobile gas stations.  “Why not?” 

Crickets as pets. “Why not?”

How about Chipmunks?  “Why not?”

Drinking on the streets, in the trains, wherever you want?!  “Why not?”

There is so much more that I ask “why not?” about but this city and country and culture are just so overwhelming I often forget the strange shit that I have just seen because something else strange just flashed before my eyes.  But that’s the cool thing about China. It doesn’t matter.  And it doesn’t seem to phase anyone.  Weird shit is so common it is just normal in China. If you want to do it, you seem to be able to do it.  I mean heck, why not?

QQ

The Chinese Facebook equivalent.  Pretty cool I suppose.  Like Facebook in that it has the timeline and you can upload pictures and has an IM system.  Like Myspace in that you can pimp out your page so it looks customized and stupid.  Everybody in China is on it though.  I have a QQ now of course, have a few coworkers and people I’ve met on there.  It’s funny, you don’t add people by name, but you get a unique QQ number when you sign up.  I asked someone why and they said that there are so many Chinese people and so many with the same names that if you looked by name it would be impossible to find anyone.  You can actually search by real name but you also need to know a bunch of information like birthday, favorite movie, blood type,  mother’s maiden name, etc.  Haha. It’s actually pretty close to that for real though. 

It’s definitely useful to have out here, good way to contact people as everyone is pretty much on it all times through their smart phones.  It’s also a good way to make friends as people are more willing to give up their QQ than their phone number to a new person.  The only downside is that it’s all in Chinese…running the website through the google chrome translator helps a bit, but it’s still hard to figure out a lot of the things because not everything gets translated and not everything gets translated properly.  It’s ok though, all part of the experience.

A Little More Than A Month...

...it has been since I arrived in China.  I don't know what to say other than that it has been way more fun than I ever imagined.  Some things are hard, some things are easy, everything is different.  There is so much to take in every single day.  Everything assaults your senses.

Walking around you smell wonderful food cooking one second and the next second the overwhelming stench of feces hits your nose and throat like a ton of bricks.  It's not just the smells though.  It is everything.   Sights, sounds, and tastes are all amplified living in China. It is difficult to remember everything that you see and do in a day, because so much happens all the time, you are constantly bombarded with stimuli. I figure at some point it is going to hit me, and hit me hard.  Everything will catch up to me and I'll just have to sleep for 24 hours straight or something.  As of now I'm operating on less sleep than I ever have before in my life, but the constant stimulation I think is keeping me going.

There is so much to do.  Each and every day I'm doing something new, finding something new, eating somewhere new.  Every night I'm out enjoying the nightlife of this fantastic city.  There are amazing people everywhere, foreigners and locals alike.  Everyone is still mostly so kind.  It's never hard to find someone to help when needed.  I try to pay it forward a bit, I give up my seat on the train to elderly or pregnant people (most people don't seem to do it).  I helped a girl with her luggage up some stairs in the Metro the other day.  I can't do much to repay all the kindness of the people here but I have done the little that I can.  It's weird being so helpless at times and having to rely on the kindness of strangers but it's nice to know that you can rely on people to help when necessary.

This month of the blog is probably not all that interesting I know, so to friends and family reading this, I apologize for being a rambling, long-winded, and poor writer.  I just kind of write quickly stream of consciousness for the most part and don't really double check what I wrote, so again, I apologize.  I hope some of it has been fascinating at least.  The internet here is pretty bad, so pictures are a no go on the blog, at least for now.  I am only going to be uploading pictures to 500px and to instagram so if you want to see pictures and go there.  I have a ton of more pictures I was initially hoping to add to the blog in order to better illustrate the things that I am writing about but I guess you'll have to use your imagination if you are reading this.  If there is anything you'd like to know more about or see a picture of that you have read or will read in this blog just email me at some point and I'll send a picture.  It takes about 20 minutes to upload one picture of medium quality to gmail so yeah, just let me know and I'll try to send something out to you.

Tomorrow I fly to Chengdu with two of my roommates (you can see pictures of them on Facebook, I was tagged in some of them).  We will see some pandas, do some outdoors type stuff, eat szechuan food, and who knows what else.  Be there for four days and hopefully get some good pictures.  So maybe next week check 500px and see if there is anything new.  Thanks for reading.  Feel free to email me sometime, hope every body is doing well!

Luck

It’s good luck to step in shit in China.  Apparently it means you squashed the BS in your life.  It is also good luck to carry a coin in your back pocket.  I always have carried my change back there.  And I tend to step in shit a lot.  No wonder I have led such a charmed life so far.

Metro

The Metro in Shanghai is super efficient and easy to use.  It has been idiot proofed as much as possible, even for people who do not speak Chinese or English.  I will try to concisely try to describe all of the different aspects of the Metro that make it work so well. 

1.     Each line is numbered and color-coded.  The colors are consistent across all aspects of the metro system. 

2.     This makes it especially easy to find your way, particularly in the Metro stations where you must interchange to different lines. 

3.     All signage, which there is a lot of, within the station is in English and Chinese, in addition to the previously mentioned color codes and numbers.  There are also large color coded arrows along the ground in each station to point you to the platform you need.  This is the most useful part of the Metro for me.

4.     On each platform is a “timeline” of the line that you are on.  The timeline shows all the stops, however, the previous stops are all grayed out, and the upcoming stops are in the color of whichever line you are on.  This makes it almost impossible to get on the train going the wrong direction. 

5.     Once on the train, the overhead speaker announces each stop in English and Chinese, as well as scrolling electronic signs on each end of each car.  These announcements and signs also tell you if you can interchange to other lines so it is very hard to miss a necessary change.

6.     The trains come typically every 4-6 minutes.  Missing a train is not a big deal.  You aren’t waiting for 15 or 20 minutes like on BART. 

7.     The stops are spaced out very well.  They aren’t so close that you may as well just walk between stations like some of the stations in London, and they aren’t so far away that there are islands of isolation from the Metro throughout the city.

8.     It is so cheap.  It moves so many people each day I suppose they can afford to make it cheap, but I can’t get over how an hour-long train ride, with multiple line changes, only cost 6 RMB.  It’s really nice for anybody that needs to commute daily, and it makes getting out and exploring Shanghai easy on the wallet.

Also, like the Oyster card in London, you can buy a card and put money on it instead of buying tickets everyday.  You never even have to take it out of your wallet (except to top it up when you are running low on funds).  Just slide your wallet or purse over the sensor when you go through the turnstiles.  Perfect.

Chinese Food

I don’t know where to begin. 

This city revolves around food.  There is food everywhere.  People are selling food on nearly every corner.  There are restaurants after restaurant after restaurant.  Everything is delicious.  I can’t even begin to say what the best is because it is all so good.  On top of that I have been feasting constantly and have dropped at least 15 pounds since I have been out here.  Granted I have been walking everywhere and working out when I can, but with the amount of food I have been eating I can’t believe how much weight I am losing and how good I have been feeling.

In the past week I have eaten Bull Frog in a hot pot from a Szechuan place, I have eaten duck neck and intestine from a street vendor, hand-pulled noodles from a Muslim Chinese restaurant (only 6 RMB, or about 90 cents) and Malatang. There was a lot more I ate that I just can’t remember right now.  Out of all those though the malatang was the best.  My friend took me to this little hole in the wall in Pu Dong that was just bursting with people.  It was overwhelming  because of how busy it was, how small it was, how loud it was,  and the fact that nobody in there seemed to speak English.  If I hadn’t gone with two Chinese people I would have had no clue how to even get food. 

When you walk in to the restaurant there is a stack of baskets, and a couple of refrigerated shelves.  On the shelves are skewers of food, everything from tofu, to chicken, to cabbage, seaweed, beef, mushroom, and more.  Tons of choices.  Too many to even have a clue where to begin, and many of them unidentifiable to the western eye.  After you fill up your basket with meat and who knows what else, you give it to the cook and he makes it into a soup for you.  You tell the cook the level of spiciness that you would like and he fixes it up in just a few minutes.  I asked for mine extra spicy and that was exactly what I got.  It was so hot.  The spiciest dish I have had so far.  It numbed my lips for a solid hour after eating.  But it was really a wonderful dish.  Every random skewer that I had grabbed off the shelf turned out to be delicious once cooked up and put into soup, I had no idea what most of it was but it all turned out amazing. 

The price of the soup depends on the number of skewers you pick up and the type of product on the skewer.  I got a decent number of items, including meat items which are always more expensive, and my meal was only around 15 RMB.  Amazingly cheap and sooo good.  I am very much looking forward to going there again. 

Housewarming 9/4/12

Since we are now all moved in to our apartment, the roommates decided to have a housewarming party.  We obviously don’t know many people in China, but we invited people from our work centers as well as from our training group.  We told everyone that the party started at 7pm.  However by around 630 all of the Chinese guests who would be arriving on this evening had already shown up.  Not one foreign person would arrive until after 7 and most didn’t arrive until 8 or later.  No big deal of course, just an interesting little cultural difference to take note of for next time.  Chinese guests are not only punctual, but they arrive early in case the host needs help setting up or cooking or doing anything really.  They all said that in China it is considered rude to be on time or late, you need to be early and be willing to help. Of course in the West when you tell people about a party and a time, it is almost always the case that everybody will show up after the time, fashionably late I suppose. 

So anyway, the party was fun, we ended up having about 20-25 guests in total.  We played games including a Chinese game called “Kings.”  I would explain it but I don’t want to waste my time and it probably wouldn’t make sense anyway.  And no it is not “King’s Cup” like we have back home.  At about 1230 somebody suggested we go to KTV.  So that we did.  The house cleared out, some guests headed home while a group of about 12 of us went to the local KTV.  We sang and partied for another couple hours and then at around 3am, somebody suggested we find a 24 hour Hot Pot restaurant.  We still had a couple of Chinese friends with us so we actually did have a slim chance of finding a Hot Pot at that hour, but after walking a bit and taking a few taxi rides around, we ended up just finding a McDonald’s.  Now, as someone who really doesn’t eat McDonald’s at all, this food tasted amazing.  I never thought I’d say that about McDonald’s.   I have finally learned why the drive through is always packed late at night back home.  Afterwards we all headed back home, a few guests crashed on couches and it was the end of another successful day in Shanghai.  It is such a great city.

Housewarming 9/4/12

Since we are now all moved in to our apartment, the roommates decided to have a housewarming party.  We obviously don’t know many people in China, but we invited people from our work centers as well as from our training group.  We told everyone that the party started at 7pm.  However by around 630 all of the Chinese guests who would be arriving on this evening had already shown up.  Not one foreign person would arrive until after 7 and most didn’t arrive until 8 or later.  No big deal of course, just an interesting little cultural difference to take note of for next time.  Chinese guests are not only punctual, but they arrive early in case the host needs help setting up or cooking or doing anything really.  They all said that in China it is considered rude to be on time or late, you need to be early and be willing to help. Of course in the West when you tell people about a party and a time, it is almost always the case that everybody will show up after the time, fashionably late I suppose. 

So anyway, the party was fun, we ended up having about 20-25 guests in total.  We played games including a Chinese game called “Kings.”  I would explain it but I don’t want to waste my time and it probably wouldn’t make sense anyway.  And no it is not “King’s Cup” like we have back home.  At about 1230 somebody suggested we go to KTV.  So that we did.  The house cleared out, some guests headed home while a group of about 12 of us went to the local KTV.  We sang and partied for another couple hours and then at around 3am, somebody suggested we find a 24 hour Hot Pot restaurant.  We still had a couple of Chinese friends with us so we actually did have a slim chance of finding a Hot Pot at that hour, but after walking a bit and taking a few taxi rides around, we ended up just finding a McDonald’s.  Now, as someone who really doesn’t eat McDonald’s at all, this food tasted amazing.  I never thought I’d say that about McDonald’s.   I have finally learned why the drive through is always packed late at night back home.  Afterwards we all headed back home, a few guests crashed on couches and it was the end of another successful day in Shanghai.  It is such a great city.

Ping Pong 9/2/12

After talking about ping pong at work today, a co-worker asked me if I wanted to go to a Chinese ping pong hall.  Of course I said yes, so straight after work we hopped in a cab and he took us through the pouring rain to a large building called Mr. Su’s.  We first stopped at the ground floor restaurant/bar to grab a beer and wait for one of his Chinese friends to arrive.  Jerry is a middle-aged woman, whom he met while living out here in China, and who according to her,  is just “ok” at ping pong and only plays “ping pong from time to time.”  My co-worker told me that she was good and that she was just being humble about her skills.  I figured I was in for a beatdown just from her appearance though when she arrived at the bar.  She was wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt, tennis shoes, and had a small purse with two ping pong bats (paddles) sticking out of the top.  After we finished our beers we headed up to the ping pong room.  The second and third floors of Mr. Su’s were both KTV while the top floor was the ping pong hall.  As soon as the elevator doors opened it was like something out of a movie.  There was about 12 tables lined up in a dimly lit gymnasium like room.  Almost all of the tables were in use and old sweaty Chinese men sat around the tables with their shirts off or in their tank tops, while mostly youngish men played the most intense, fast paced, and skilled ping pong I have ever seen in person.  It was highly intimidating to say the least. 

Above each table were two large lights.   The tables that were not in use had their lights off.  It created a bright spotlight on the tables with the players, but the rest of the room was poorly lit and kind of dingy feeling.  Once Jerry asked for a table we headed over to our corner in the back and began to rally a bit.  Jerry was just warming up but it was immediately clear that I was going to get destroyed.  She played Chinese style with the handle between her pointer and middle fingers.  She had nasty spin, a ridiculous chop shot, and could get any of my shots back onto the table, no matter how or where I hit them.  Once we started playing for real things just got worse for me.  It really didn’t help that I hadn’t played ping pong at all for a few years, but I don’t think it would have made that much of a difference had I been playing regularly recently.  She was really good.  We played about 8 or 9 games to 21.  She beat me soundly in most of them.  My highest point total was 18 and my lowest was 6.   I only made it past 15 in two of the games.  Everything I did she had a counter to.  When I got my slams down she had almost no problems putting them back on the table, and with nasty spin.  When I hit a chop after backing her way away from the table on the previous shot, she was quick enough to get forward and reach it.  It was utter domination.  I thought I was pretty decent at table tennis, but I couldn’t even come close to this little Chinese lady. 

It was an awesome night despite the ass-kicking. Also, the fact that in China they have ping pong halls like we have pool halls or bowling alleys is pretty damn cool.  And it was cheap.  And it was full of people on a Monday night at 8-9 PM.  Wish we had places like that back home.  I hope to go back there, or find one closer to my apartment, and go take on some more local players.  

KTV 8/30/12

Karaoke TV.  KTV.  A large group of us went to a KTV joint to celebrate after the last day of training.  I wasn’t sure what to expect before going because I’m not particularly fond of karaoke but it turned out to be an awesome night.  We arrived at the place (maybe 15 of us) and paid up front for two hours.  We were led down a long corridor lined with doors, with more corridors branching off in different directions.  As we walked you could hear the bass from all the different songs in all the different rooms and at times it was possible to hear a person singing along to whatever track was playing.  As we walked down these corridors lined with rooms with their closed doors, Christen remarked that it “reminds her of a brothel.”  I don’t think she was too far off the mark with that observation.

After we made it to our private room, complete with three TV’s, a large U-shaped couch, and a long table, we started adding songs to the queue and people began to sing.  An attendant came by fairly quickly and took our drink order.  The drinks arrived quickly and people began to loosen up.  By the end of the night our little karaoke room turned into a private party, with everybody singing together and dancing and having a great time.  People that said that they “don’t do karaoke” were singing more than anyone, and people that “don’t dance” were shaking their moneymaker like there was no tomorrow. 

The KTV experience was great.  The private rooms allow everyone to be at ease unlike the karaoke bars that we have in the US.  At bars in the States it seems like there are usually only a handful of “karaoke pros” that sing most of the songs at bars.  They hog the playlist and think that they are performing on some big time stage.  It tends to be oddly enough, very exclusive, despite there typically being a much larger pool of candidates to sing when you are at a bar.  Being only in the company of those you know really makes the karaoke experience more inclusive and fun for everybody and every personality type.  The comfort level is much higher and more people are able to get involved.  All in all, a very cool experience.

The Bund 8/27/12

The Bund 8/27/12

The flatmates and I went out to The Bund to A) look for a guitar on “music street” and B) so I could take some pictures of The Bund at night.  Our first task of finding a guitar did not go over so well…we only found one shop that was open at the time and there weren’t really very many music shops at all anyway on the street.  We either had false information about the amount of music shops on the street or we went the wrong direction down it.  We plan to go back out searching for it again some time soon.

Task B however was highly successful.  Pretty much as soon as we got to The Bund and I started setting up my tripod we began drawing a crowd. Chinese people were walking up to us and taking our picture, asking us to be in pictures with them, attempting to talk to us, and just in general crowding around us like we were some kind of celebrities.  One girl about mid-twenties came up to me with her DSLR and began asking me questions (actually more like pointing to different settings on her camera) about why my pictures were sharp.  She showed me her pictures and they were blurry and not very good.  I tried to tell her that she should get a tripod for night pictures and that would help a lot, I think she understood that.  But since she didn’t have one I showed her how to adjust her settings so that she could get better handheld pictures at night and I showed her how to stabilize her camera against objects instead of using a tripod.  She was very nice and very grateful to me.  She thanked me about a hundred times before leaving me to go attempt to take some pictures. 

We also met a lady likely in her 30’s named Luo Guo.  She was very excited to meet us.  She was from some other place in China that I didn’t recognize and had recently moved to Shanghai.  Her English was pretty good so we had a bit of a chat with her.  She was with two guys, I think one was her father maybe, and they mostly just stood and stared at us, took a few pictures, and stared some more.  Like I said Luo Guo was very excited, she could barely contain herself.  She asked us all kinds of questions, gave Christen a Chinese name (Sue Hoe…Su Ho?  I should have asked her to spell it) and she gave me her phone number and QQ information.  QQ is pretty much the Chinese Facebook.  After we said goodbye to her and the crowd that had gathered around us we made our way down The Bund along the Huangpu River through the throngs of people to take a few more pictures.  Anytime we stopped however people just gathered around us so we decided it was time to head back to the hotel. 

It felt like being a celebrity for an hour or two and was definitely a surreal experience.  Shanghai is a popular tourist destination for many people in China and The Bund is a popular tourist spot.  Many of the people down there likely don’t see Westerners that often so seeing a group of 5 (and four of them girls, including a blonde) was apparently pretty exciting.  It would be interesting to know how many Chinese vacation photo albums and slide shows we made our way into on that night alone.

Ura 8/24/12

Ura was one of the people that I met the previous weekend and who had invited me to the club.  She barely speaks a lick of English but she had told me that the following weekend she would be again visiting Shanghai on business and would like to hang out again.  We texted off and on throughout the week (her using a translation app) to just say hi and to make sure we were still on to hang out when she came back to town. So Friday night after she got off work I met her and two of her co-workers in Pu Dong.  They told me that they had a lot to show me of the city and off we went to the metro and onto a whirlwind evening of shopping and dining.  Ura (her English name) and her colleagues Fancy and Messi (again, English names) first took me Tianzifang, an old Shikumen neighborhood of brick walls, small alleys and traditional Chinese apartments.  Tianzifang however is quite different from most Shikumen neighborhoods because it has been developed into a high-end boutique area, full of fancy restaurants, art dealers, jewelry sellers, and other sorts of expensive retailers.  The streets are very narrow and it is a pedestrian only area. It was a great place to stroll through and had many nice shops to duck inside and visit.  There are open-air cafes and bars throughout the neighborhood, and it had a decidedly European vibe to it.  It really did not feel like China at all.

After we spent some time wandering, the four of us hopped back on the Metro and took it to the Shaanxi Rd station.  From there we got up to street level and walked a few blocks before heading into what appeared to be a department store.  However immediately to the right was an elevator with a sign next to it in Chinese that apparently indicated that there was a restaurant at the top of the store. 

The restaurant itself had some very outdated and what some might consider to be tacky décor.  It had weird crystal columns around the tables and some strange looking light fixtures.  The restaurant itself was also quite dark and was just oddly laid out.  Despite the odd décor it was clear by looking at the wait-staff uniforms as well as the clientele that the restaurant was going to be relatively fancy and probably decently expensive.  They asked me to decide on the food and handed me the menu.  I looked over the menu and saw all sorts of things on it that I had never had.  Anything from pigeon to bullfrog to snail was on the menu. I told them that I hadn’t ever had much of what was on the menu and that I’d prefer if they ordered.  I also don’t exactly know the customs and wasn’t sure how much to order so it was kind of imperative that they order the food.  It turns out I was happy that they did, because they chose four amazing dishes, as well as some great appetizers and drinks.

The drink came first.  It was a dark purple drink and quite thick.  I asked Ura what it was and she did not know the name so she looked it up.  In English the translation was “Sour Plum Soup.”  Whatever it was, it wasn’t exactly sour, and it wasn’t exactly soup, but it was very good.

For starters we were given small dishes of corn in some kind of mildly spicy sauce, as well as some chips of some sort.   We were also given a cold soup (which has been very common here so far) that was slightly sweet.  The liquid was clear and inside the soup were some dates, as well as some jelly like things.  When I asked Ura what it was she could not come up with the name in English.  She typed it in her iPhone in Chinese and what came out in English (latin?) was “Tremella Fuciformis”… ok.  It tasted fine so I ate it.

Next came the meal.  Easily the best meal that I have eaten so far in China, and the first meal that claimed to be spicy and actually was.  The first dish was “Spicy Cabbage and Beef.”  It was only mildly spicy but extremely flavorful and delicious.  Next came an Asparagus dish that was mixed with garlic and peppers and again was ridiculuously good.  Third came Calimari and Onions in a tangy bbq type sauce.  Also very delicious.  Finally came a bowl of  “Spicy Fragrant Beef.”  This was amazing.  It was so spicy but also so flavorful and wonderful.  One of the best things I have ever eaten.  There were peppers, mushrooms and other vegetables and “things” in the bowl and all of it was incredible. 

I of course attempted to repay Ura for the previous weekend by paying for the dinner.  I gave the waiter the money but Ura and her friends said something in Chinese and he gave it back to me, then her friend paid.  I tried to pay them but they insisted I was their guest and again refused to let me pay.  They then asked the waiter for a “Fa Piao” which is essentially an “official receipt” that most people ask for when they need to be reimbursed by their company.  I asked her if her company was covering the meal and she just kind of laughed.  I certainly hope so because if not I feel kind of bad for her and her friends paying again. 

After dinner we parted ways and she said reminded me that I need to visit Tianjin so she can show me around.  It was another very fun night.  Her and her friends (and all of the Chinese people that I have met) were wonderfully generous and kind.  I hope to hang out with her and her friends in Tianjin some time in the near future because they are very cool people despite a pretty significant language barrier.  Unfortunately again I didn’t really get any pictures with them.  I took some of the food with my iPod, but I accidentally left my SD card for my camera at the hotel so the pictures I took with my camera didn’t save.   She and her friends took a few pictures so hopefully I can get a hold of them sometime.