Obama 08

Obama won and Christine and I represented Shanghai on the internet:

Thanks to midterms, we were able to take a personal day since neither of us had any proctoring duties. We got to an American style bar called "Malone's" early in the morning on Nov 5 (it was early evening on Nov 4 in the states). They offered an attempt at American breakfast and had CNN on all of the tv's. There was an AP photographer there, since a picture of us cheering with our mouths full started making the virtual rounds immediately. A different picture of a large group of supporters cheering (Christine and I included) made it into the English language paper called China Daily.

Thank you to everyone who told us about our new found fame. To our knowledge we showed up on

Huffington Post
Daily Kos
Democratic Underground
Yahoo News (AP pics)
China Daily
various spam e-mail messages

Beijing in 24 Hours: a professional traveler's guide

The chaos of Shanghai station.

We didn't actually set out to see this 2500 year old capital in only one day. We had planned on spending a full weekend there. It wasn't until after we had boarded our over-night train that we learned our 11 hour express train was actually a 21 hour local train. Luckily, we were prepared:

Christine and I traveled with our friends Stephanie and James. For all of you Indy folks, James will be moving to Fishers in 3 weeks, so be friendly.

We were soon discovered by our neighbors, two women from the states who had come to Shanghai for a wedding. After spending a week with the teetotaller groom, these two were ready to par-tay. They thought they were providing us with some quality sake, but it turned out to be baijiu (buy-jeeyo). If you've never tasted baijiu before, consider yourself lucky. Just imagine that a really cheap bottle of sake got drunk and slept with moonshine. Their love child would be baijiu. Blech.

Anyway, after we made friends with those two, the train officials came by to see what all the commotion was about. We asked them to have a drink with us, so they went and got their friend.

Next, we went to the dining car to play cards. It was dinner time for the staff, so we were able to make some more friends.

The next day, we got into Beijing at 2:30 pm (instead of 4:30 am, as planned).

We were starving, so we headed toward the center of the city and found a restaurant. Being such worldly adventure seekers, we naturally opted for Outback Steakhouse. It doesn't get any more Chinese than that. It's actually hard to explain how happy we had been to find such a gem. Two months of weird Chinese cooking had left all of our stomachs a little homesick. Christine and I even eat at Applebees here on purpose. After our hearty meal, we realized we were running out of time to get to the Forbidden City (which stops selling tickets at 4:30). We hustled over to it, but were too late. It turned out to be a good thing we didn't make it in on the first day, since our second day in Beijing turned out to be much more efficient than the first. On our way out, we stumbled on the main entrance, which has been co-opted by Mao's happy mug.

For some reason, all of the soldiers guarding the entrance to this ancient seat of Chinese power didn't want us to take pictures. Here is a picture we got after hiding from them:

Tienanmen square is right across the street from the Forbidden City, so we went there next. The

Here's a monument built to honor the millions who died during the Cultural Revolution in the name of Progress:

We got pretty lost trying to find our hotel. We were confused because the address listed was a hutong, and we didn't really know what a hutong was. We followed the directions of random people on the street, and gradually homed in on the right place. In case your curious, a hutong is a kind of alley lined with homes built in a traditional style. The houses are all arranged around a common square where everyone can hang out and eat sea cucumber. The hotel was nice, and their travel desk turned out to be a trip saver. We were able to book tickets to Beijing Opera and hire a car to drive us to the Great Wall the next morning. We made it there just in time, because we only had 20 minutes to get ready for the Opera. It was then that we learned our bathrooms followed a uniquely Chinese design. Instead of putting the shower over a tub, or in its own waterproof room, they had opted to just stick the shower head right above the toilet. I imagine their typical guest must be in much more of a hurry than I am.

I don't know how else to describe Beijing Opera- this stuff is really, really weird. An actor or actress plays only one role for his or her entire life (there aren't a lot of new operas being written apparently), and it revolves around a very strict sort of singing and speaking style. Our evening was emceed by this young lady, who was wearing a gold sequined prom dress for some reason (sorry for the blurry pictures, there wasn't much light and I didn't want to disturb the performance by using flash):

Act 1 introduced the heroine and her hand maiden (little sister? Slave?) They held notes for awkwardly long amounts of time, and stared into the distance with robot eyes. The whole thing is very stylized. The actresses movements were very precise, down to the way they always held their hands like they were Chinese Spidermen trying to cover us all in silk.

The next scene was the best, a little comedic relief. This guy in an ornate costume twirled a sword around and did spins and kicks. He was wearing a number of masks, and would switch them quickly when he was turned around, or when he was stomping on the ground to distract us. Some of the masks were dark and menacing, and others were clown like. One had a long red mustache that he held by the ends while he hopped from side to side. At the end, he took off his last mask and showed his face. He looked to be about 50-55 years old, and by the way he was panting he was either going to retire soon or his act was about to get a lot slower.

The last few scenes revolved around the heroine and her husband (courtier? Boyfriend? Fatter, uglier step sister?). His makeup and costume was similar to those of the women, and he sang with the same falsetto lilt. I'm not sure if the rising and falling of his voice was following the tones of Mandarin or not, but sometimes he would sing and speak in a normal voice only to jump back up to his squeaky soprano for short outbursts.

We finally meet the girl's father (local wise man? Dog faced boy?), whose beard was strung from a wire coat hanger. He seemed to help the two lovers work out their differences. I wish I had a recording to share with you, because the stuff sounds hilarious to the untrained ear. Happily, the crowd had plenty of locals. At parts, they were giddy with the performance and yelled out “Hao! Hao! Hao!” They liked the heroine the most and cheered every time she held an especially long note. The venue was fun, because we were sitting around a dinner table with tea and snacks instead of sitting in theater seats.

Finally, we took a cab to Da Dong, a Peking Duck restaurant that had been suggested by our friend Ben. It was delicious.

We hit the hay early to get ready for day 2, where we see the major sights of Beijing in whirlwind fashion.

The Great Wall of China!

Since, after all our travel ordeals, we only had one full day in Beijing, we woke up early to get started. Although it is difficult to organize trips, as you have seen from previous posts, the nice thing about China is you can get anything as long as you're willing to pay for it. We were able to hire a personal driver in nice VW Passat to take the four of us to the Great Wall for the day. After Chinese negotiations we settled on 700RMB ($100) for a driver for 8 hours.

We decided to travel to the Mutianyu part of the wall which is about a 2 hour drive from Beijing. Since we were up and ready to go at 7am we didn't hit any traffic and were able to get there in an hour and a half before all the tour groups which didn't depart until 8am. We got there as the local shops were opening and climbed these stairs up to The Wall, talk about a work out!

The stairs we climbed to the top.

The view on the way up.

The first glimpse of The Great Wall!

Before I show you the magnificent Great Wall, I must provide you with a brief history of the Great Wall based on a combination of guidebooks and wikipedia. The Great Wall 長城 or Chángchéng literally means Long City or fortress. It is a series of stone and earthen fortresses built, rebuilt and maintained between the 6th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire from Xiongnu or Mongol attacks. The wall is 4,160 miles long. At its peak, the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall. Some say they even stacked parts of the wall with dead bodies (clearly guidebook info). For more information feel free to wikipedia it.


When we got to the top, it was absolutely beautiful! It was a perfect fall morning with crisp air and bright sun. We were pleasantly surprised to be virtually the only people on The Wall. We were so enamored by the beautiful scenery and the magnitude of The Wall we took tons of awesome pictures.

We got there so early, that we were the only ones on The Wall.

Jeremy peeking out.

The four Beijing Travelers

The fortresses across the wall. Notice how small the entrances are.

From here, we descended down from The Great Wall of China. It was about 10:30am as we made our way down to find droves of tour groups climbing up. It was so incredible!

A small village on the way down.

Greg, this picture is for you. I found the slide that goes down the Great Wall! They also have ski lifts going up and down. Gotta love the tourist traps.

Jeremy and James posing with a big statue. We are often forced make up the meaning of many statues and museum exhibits due to Chinese and mistranslation. Your guess as to the significance of this enormous statue is as good as mine. It only looks about 5 years old, which is another weird Chinese phenomenon to build new monuments commemorating old things. The importance of this picture is really the Chinese/Japanese pose. Please notice the peace sign and the leg kick. These are done in almost every Chinese photograph, however people are generally pictured alone.

At the bottom of the hill we couldn't help but purchase 4 "I climbed the Great Wall of China" T-shirts. We then headed back to Beijing to move on to our next tourist adventure....

Buses, Trains, and Rickshaws...

This past weekend Jeremy and I took a trip to a town outside of Shanghai called SuZhou (pronounced Sue Joe). The town is about 45 minutes away by train, so it makes an "easy" weekend trip. We went to the train station on Friday to get tickets for Saturday morning, because believe it or not everything is quite a production and occurs in Chinese, not to mention there are 1.3 billion people everywhere. So we get to the front of the "Smiling Friendly, English Speaking" line. Jeremy whips out his awesome Chinese (for real) and gets us round trip train tickets for Saturday. That was easy...

The next morning we wake up early to go to the train station. The train station is a symmetrical maze intertwined with the local and long distance bus station, as well as the metro, labeled in chinglish signs such as "East-Southwest Corner." Needless to say, finding anything is quite difficult. So we left the apartment about 9am, stopped on the street for some breakfast of dumplings and awesome Chinese breakfast burritos, seriously. The train station is about a 20 minute walk or a 25 cent bus ride (if you know the right bus). So we see a bus coming and chance that it's the right bus, and we got it!

We get to the train station and walk into the exact location from which trains leave, seems easy. We get up to the "security" point where you put whichever bags you choose through an x-ray machine. We get through the line of security and a women looks at our tickets and says "Downstairs" in English. Confused, we walk downstairs and look for what we think may be a local train line. Nope, nothing, but we have time it's only 9:40. So we go back upstairs to the same place where someone is trying to tell us something in chinese and then says, "downstairs." So, we go back downstairs. I must add that it's a flight of about 75 stairs crowded with a million people carrying their house in a backpack or garbage bag.

We get downstairs for the second time and Jeremy asks someone else for directions, I'm not sure if it was in English or Chinese (We'll say Chinese, he's getting pretty good). She points to a corridor, that we have no choice but to enter and hope someone else can point to another corridor. That's exactly what happens. We walked through a food court and underground mall and somehow end up at the metro. Where we think we don't want to be, since we bought train tickets. Then a really nice old women tells us "Siga Kuai" Which means 4 RMB. This is confusing because we already have tickets we just want to get on the train. What she's charging us for is metro tickets because it turns out our train tickets leave from Shanghai Railway station and we are at SOUTH Shanghai railway station, about a 30 minute metro ride away. At this point it's 10:20am. Our train leaves at 10:36am.

So we get to Shanghai Railway system via metro and have to figure out how that's somehow connected to the train station, however we've already missed our train so we have to get in line to buy new tickets. We wait in another 1.3 billion person line. By line, I mean clump of chinese people that push you to the front. There's a man behind me waving money, all up in my business. Jeremy yelled at him correctly in Chinese. It completely shocked him and he backed off. That was funny, because this is a very non-confrontational culture, and of course the man was totally not expecting Jeremy to whip out perfect Chinese. So we get to the front of the "Smiling Friendly, English Speaking" line and hand her our tickets, which are clearly expired. All she says is, "Number 39." Your guess on what that means was as good as ours. We figure out that Number 39 is the refund line. At this point we don't even know if there is a train that leaves for SuZhou today and are planning how we're going to spend the weekend. So we get into line Number 39, another pushing clump of 1.3 billion people. She refunds our ticket and puts us on a 12pm train with "Standing Tickets." We have about an hour to kill, so we found a "Mister Donut" across the street and relaxed with a cup of coffee. Whew! Still not in SuZhou...

We found our train with no problems. Having never ridden "standing," we were unclear as to where we were to stand and in order to get out of the way we slid into a row, sat down, and played ignorant foreigner. As we're waiting to get yelled at in Chinese the train starts to pull out of the station and pick up speed. We think, we've got seats! Then it comes, getting yelled at in Chinese we realize the rightful seat owners have showed up. So we move to stand with the rest of the people who have been kicked out of other people's seats. In case you haven't already guessed, there is no "standing section" so we're wedged in between rail cars by the bathroom. Jeremy purchased a map completely in Chinese so he was trying, in vain, to match the Chinese characters. Standing next to us is a very nice man who spoke some English, and wanted to teach us everything he knew about English/Chinese and SuZhou. He introduced us to his wife. told us to get off the train at the right stop, and then shuffled us into the taxi line.

We arrived at the hostel and of course didn't book in advance, so we stayed in a dorm-style room with 4 Brits. We dropped off our backpacks and went out to explore!

Sadly, my camera is broken so we didn't get any pictures. It was a beautiful town full of famous gardens and canal streets. We spent the majority of the weekend reading in tea houses. It was very relaxing.

Here are some google images of where we were:

This an image of the canals we saw in SuZhou. We went here at night and the red lamps were all light up and lining the water. Very beautiful!


These two photos are of one of the gardens in SuZhou. The one we went to is one of the most famous in China called "The Humble Administrators" Garden.

There area of Jiang Nan is supposed to have the most beautiful gardens in China, and SuZhou supposedly has the most beautiful gardens in Jiang Nan. The interesting thing about the gardens is that each Dynasty created their own garden, which they used almost as their recreation/ vacation home. There are about 18 famous gardens from different Dynastys in SuZhou.

The story of the Humble Administrators Garden, as copied from the Chinglish walking map/city guide, is as follows, "Being the world cultural heritage site and one of the four famous gardens in China, the garden was built in 1509 in the Ming Dynasty and covers an area of 5.2 hectares. With water as its center, it has fine studios, halls and pavilions surrounded by rookeries and brooks and dotted with trees and flowers. This spacious garden represents the graceful and natural style of art of classical gardens in SuZhou. Really poetic charm reigns everywhere in it."
(yes it says rookeries, which is Chinglish for rockeries, which is Chinglish for ???)

This is the temple next to the Garden. We didn't go in. It's in a really touristy area. Sometimes it's hard to appreciate these things because there are a million tourists and the Chinese idea of historical places is to tear down the old one and reconstruct a new one that would have looked like it in it's place. I think this is a result of everything being destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. It's an interesting concept because western culture values preservation versus recreation.

As I told you we bought round-trip train tickets, so we had a 4:30 train to catch. We left the at about 3:15 which is plenty of time for a 15 minute cab ride and finding the train. However, we could not find a cab ANYWHERE! So we started to walk in the general direction of the train station. We were walking faster than the grid-lock traffic. I called the hostel to ask which bus to take, and of course she told me to take a cab... Thanks Lady. So, we kept walking. Finally it got to be 3:50 and we had to make a move fast! All weekend we'd been hearing, "HELLO?!" shouted at us by the local bicycle rickshaw drivers. Well, this was our only hope.

(Please click on this picture to enlarge it; so funny!)

We found the sturdiest looking Chinese biker. We tried to negotiate a price, but he would budge because he could tell we were in a hurry, and well, he had a bike and wasn't lost. So for 30RMB ($6.50). This man biked us to the airport. Let's just say we're slightly bigger than the average chinese person; our driver had to get off the bike and pull us up a hill. However, as I learned in my crash physics course bigger goes down faster/ harder. I don't think he'd ever taken his bike as fast as we went down that hill. We got through "security" and made our train! This time we had seats, and had to kick out the standers that had staked out our seats.

It was such a fun and relaxing weekend! Sorry it has been so long since we posted!
Miss you all!
Christine

How to...

There have been quite a few stories due to the simple/very complex issue of the language barrier.



Go to the bathroom (as a women or a man who needs to squat for that matter)

Many of you may have heard of the oh so sanitary squat-pot. This is basically a porcelain hole in the ground. The task of squatting without peeing down your leg is extremely difficult, and I've learned to carry tissues and hand sanitizer everywhere. Some are more discusting than others. I believe Jeremy alluded to the one in the middle of the street in Moganshan, that was the worst. They aren't "horrible" in restaurants, but a wierd concept nonetheless.



Get a manicure/pedicure:

There are massage parlors about every 30 feet. Deciding which to go to depends on whether or not you want a "happy ending" or "more throrough service." Massage parlor type can usually be determined if the windows are a very dark tint, or there are women in matching outfits and platform stripper shoes out front, however most places have the option if requested.



A friend and I wanted to get a mani/pedi, and we went into a more reputable place. By reputable, we knew we would not be propositioned afterward. The two of us were ushered into a room upstairs; the room was decorated in pink and purple satin and lace, very gaudy. We were then instructed (through pantomimes and gestures) to lay down. I don't know if all of our readers have had a manicure, but this is not usually done in an isolated room lying down. It was the slowest process ever! There were about 10 girls working there and one came up to do both of our nails. After about an hour, my friend and I decided we didn't want to stick around for the pedicure. We decided to get massages instead, because that is the specialty around here. I'm still looking for a place to get a pedi.



Use a squat pot while getting a manicure:

Not easy! Before I began my massage, I really had to go to the bathroom. (Which I asked to do through pantomime and gesture.) The woman escorts me downstairs to the bathroom, and I walked in. She followed. Walks over and undoes my pants and pulls them down to my ankles. I'm standing there letting her do this because I can't tell her not to. She turns around, takes two steps, stops, and waits. She's waiting for me to finish going to the bathroom in a squat pot! There's no toilet paper, but I can't communicate that I want some. So I go to the bathroom. When I'm finished, she turns back around, walks over, and pulls up my pants, buttons them, waits for me to wash my hands and leads me out. Needless to say, it was so awkward and uncomfortable. I ended up peeing down my pant leg. Gross!



I went back upstairs and began to tell my friend. We are cracking up! This is also awkward, because we are clearly laughing about the situation and they have no idea what we're saying. Then again, their probably laughing at us to because we have no idea what they're saying. As for the massage, it was wonderful, although my friend and I were instructed to undress right in front of each other, and the two Chinese women. It's funny how private we are as Americans.



Make friends with old Chinese men:

As many of you know, I enjoy making friends wherever I go (probably an understatement). Jeremy, 2 other friends/teachers from school and I went out to eat one evening at a place with a semi-english menu (rarely found and always a treat). As we're eating, we've been stared at the during the entire meal (we are a spectical everywhere we go). So I finally lift my glass and say, "gam bai" to the table of 5 Chinese men across from us.



In Chinese "gam bai" is like saying "cheers," however it literally translates to bottom's up, which they take very seriously. You can't say, "gam bai" and not finish your drink, regardless of how much is in the glass/bottle. So of course, they get a kick out of this and come over and challenge us to "gam bai" contests. In China it's extremely rude to turn down drinks. When drinking in company, they literally drink until they puke. In fact, while I was summoned to the other table to "gam bai" with our new friends (who did I mention had been there since 10am and it was dinner time), the shirtless (yes disgusting shirtless fat old) man at a different table next to us turns to his right and vomits all over the ground, right where I would have been sitting; so glad I had moved! No one batted an eye, the waitress came over and put down some newspaper, and everyone kept drinking. After that, the men continued to buy us round after round and we returned the favor, which made them so excited. So we were cheers-ing and having broken Chinglish conversations, they then began taking pictures with us; hopefully we don't end up on Chinese interent. Finally, remembering we had to work in the morning, we tore ourselves away and went home. We made plans to meet them at the same time and place the next night, but regretted to show. What a crazy night!



As an aside, Chinese men grow their fingernails long to show that they do not do manual labor. Generally it's only one or two, usually the thumb and pinky. They grow them about 1 inch. They turn all yellow and gross. So disgusting! All of our new found friends had gorgeous non-laboring hands. It's a wonder manicures are so forign?

-Christine

Moganshan

Christine and I just finished a three day weekend over what they call the
"National Holiday." We went with a group of around 25 (10 of whom we already knew) to an area called Moganshan. Moganshan used to be a big expat summer house location, but that all ended during the Cultural Revolution. The tour group is called Bohdi Bikes, and it consisted of a full day of hiking (4 hours, 4 miles, and 2,500 ft of elevation) and then a full day of biking (4 hours, 26 miles, and 1000 ft of elevation). It was advertised as being for beginners, but thanks to the typhoon that hit the coast to the west of us, it was a little more intense than expected.

We were bussed 3.5 hours out of Shanghai early Saturday morning. We were dropped off with Dan, our western tour guide, and Orange and Vince, our Chinese tour guides. They weighed us down with bottled waters and sandwiches, gave us our first glimpse of how bad squat pots can get, and we set off. The first sight was a working coal mine.

Coal train

This guy unleashed an avalanche on us. Fortunately, no one was killed.

They store coal in this building.


A view of the town of Moganshan as we start to climb.

That first day we climbed stairs through a bamboo forest. Mist obscured the distant hills. Our tour guide said that it was normally much clearer, and blamed the fog on the typhoon.




We climbed a lot of these


I don't know anything interesting about this old Chinese house.


This rubble was a house owned by a German family. It's address is 210 (shout out).


Dan was feeling adventurous, so after about an hour and a half of hiking he proposed adding a loop that he claimed would take an extra hour or so. No one complained, so we kept going up hill.


The long hike option.

People paint their family names on the bamboo to claim territory.


Caution! Beware of Pandas.



Guai Shi = Strange Rock, Monster Rock, Surprised Rock, or Queer Stone


I was born in the year of the Pig, so I rubbed his ears for good luck.


This guy is drying tea in a heated metal bowl.


Washing your hands in this spring is supposed to bring wealth. It's even safe to drink.

Chinese tourists being carried around in chairs. They had numbers, like race cars.


This little guy made his dad come talk to us. I think he was afraid I was going to steal his walking stick. It would have been so easy...


Christine and I looking sweaty and gross.

A view of town from the top of the mountain.


We finished the extra "hour long" loop about 2.5 hours later, and our guide balked at hiring cabs to bring us to the hotel. We had started backtracking when the fog got noticeably thicker and it started pouring on us. We made it back to an old, toothless woman who had sold us water earlier in the day and Dan found a taxi driver who made a special trip to bring back a bus large enough for all of us.


Our hotel. The air conditioning dripped all over Christine during the night.

The hotel wouldn't win any awards, but it was comfortable enough for a night. Our guides cooked us Chinese style BBQ while we crammed into a stairwell to stay out of the rain. Christine and I met an interesting Finnish couple and got some valuable pointers on traveling through China. We tried to watch "The Big Lebowski," but the audio was messed up so everyone sounded like chipmunks. It was funny at first, but the Dude was not meant to sound like Alvin. I think everyone was asleep by 8:30.


Day 2 was bike day. We took fewer pictures, since the camera was stowed away in a backpack for most of the day. The ride started with a huge, fun downhill. We regrouped at the bottom, and Orange led us to the reservoir.

Christine and I on day 2, after the downhill. We were in the fast group, since we're so cool.

There were tons of tea fields around the reservoir.


We got lost in the tea field.


From far away, the tea fields look like grape fields.



Christine and I posing with Orange, the leader during part of the biking day. Like our helmets?


My friend Nichols and I. He teaches at SHSID too.



Christine's artistic vision.

After the reservoir, our path started going slightly uphill. Then it started raining. Then we went off road. Slogging through the mud got pretty difficult, and there were a few falls. By this time we knew that Dan was full of it every time he described the next section. Once we got through it there was a snack shop waiting, and 1 kuai could buy a bag of chips. That's a bag of chips for less than $0.15. As part of the tour, we were shown the pot plants which were growing on the side of the road.



Pot plants grow wild in Moganshan. Don't do drugs kids.

The last leg of the ride started by going through a dark tunnel through the hillside. Then we had a bunch of fun downhill switchbacks as we headed back to the town we had started day 1 from. They bussed us back to the hotel for showers and a Chinese style banquet (I'm already tired of being served a plate of crap [chicken feet, sea slugs, sea cucumbers, etc, etc] that both they and I know nobody is going to touch).

We were dropped off back in Shanghai by 7 on Sunday night. The trip was a great start to our traveling adventures here in China. We've been inspired to get bikes to ride around the city, hopefully expanding our stomping grounds in Shanghai, and maybe giving us a reason to keep exercising while we're here.

Now I really should get back to making my 6th grade MS Excel lesson plan. Do you know how hard it is to explain how Excel works to someone who can't understand "left click on the black line?" It's the kind of thing that's hilarious an hour or two later. When I'm actually saying, "No, that's a right click" for the fifteenth time, though... well, that's kind of aggravating.

-Jeremy