Thanksgiving in Hangzhou

On Thanksgiving morning, Rusty and I took a bus to Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Provence. Rose decided to take a night train with her students, Lexi and Lincoln, and she met us as the hostel. The bus ride took about four and a half hours and two movies were shown. I enjoyed watching the scenery and then managed to ignore the incredibly loud kung fu girl gang movie long enough to take a nap.

For Thanksgiving dinner we headed to a place called Kana's Pub. Kana, it turns out, is an immigrant from the small African nation of Burundi, and he makes a mean turkey! Here is a photo of Lexi enjoying her first Thanksgiving meal. Lucky girl got the drumstick! We all missed cranberry sauce and pie, though.

On Friday, Rose accompanied Lexi as she visited a friend from home that goes to college outside of Hangzhou. Rusty and I checked out the lake and went shopping for shoes. Alas, I found some cool boots, but none would fit me! The average women's shoe size in China is a 36. I wear a 40. Too bad!

Later that evening, I had a great conversation with an American woman named Pamela who was having dinner at the hostel (the prices for meals are quite cheap). She has spent the past year and a half living in Hangzhou while attending the Art Institute. Before that, she spent ten years in Tokyo. Pamela has started designing clothing for "Tokyo fashion", which I guess is a specific fashion industry in Japan. Her impressions of China were really interesting since she was mostly comparing it with the culture of Japan. You can see some of her art on www.pamelaslass.org I have to add that the hostel in Hangzhou was great. The people were actually the "travelers" that I had hoped to meet in Shanghai. This hostel even had two friendly collies and three cats to play with. I bonded with one of the dogs and it was so cute the way he would run over and greet me every time I came back to the hostel. The crew of Chinese girls that were running things went out of their way to be helpful even though they were incredibly busy.

Saturday, we started the day by taking a boat out to the islands in the lake. It was pretty foggy on the water. There is actually a famous legend that goes along with West Lake...and Rusty wrote about it on his blog, so if you want to know it, feel free to use the link on the right of this page. The islands were interesting, mainly because I like looking at the kinds of touristy crap that is available for purchase. On the largest island, it is possible to dress in the traditional clothing of the ethnic minorities in China and have your photo taken. The most interesting thing I saw was a Chinese tourist having his photo taken with an American boy dressed in traditional minority clothing. My China questions are these: What is real? What is fake? Is this what happens when East collides with West? The tourist becomes the oddity? I find it very telling that a Chinese man found this situation entertaining enough to want to capture it on his own camera (he was posing so his girlfriend could take a picture).

Rusty and I also went to the Silk Museum (Hangzhou has been famous for its silk for thousands of years) which disappointed me by not having any live silk worms on display. I did learn, however, that the cocoon the worm spins contains 1000 meters of silk filament when it is unraveled. 1000 meters! Another case of nature amazing me! And I also never realized that the leaves of the mulberry tree are the main food of silk worms. Yum!

The Tea Museum was hard to get to and wouldn't have been worth admission if we had been charged any. We did get to see some flowering tea bushes and that made me very happy! I love seeing things grow! I've got some photos of the white tea flowers, but unfortunately, I can't get them to load. Actually, the tea museum was in a beautiful area, outside of the city center and the hills above the tea had leaves that were changing color. It is one of the most beautiful and seemingly un-manicured places in Hangzhou. I'll put some photos of the tea museum and Hangzhou in a web album!http://picasaweb.google.com/lillian.read/Hangzhou

In the afternoon we headed to Silk Street. Silk Street was set up in the 1980s as a street where vendors can sell silk products to tourists. You can get some amazing deals. I did most of my gift shopping on this street. The best thing is that you bargain for almost everything. And the going rate is usually 40 percent of what the vendor has originally asked. Most people would use a calculator to show their original price, then the customer would put their offer on the calculator and you would go from there. I was proud of myself for never paying the originally stated price. In fact, the plastic shopping bags at most places are printed with the following (in English): Rockbottom! If you're not paying rockbottom prices, you're paying too much! I won't tell you what I bought since that would wreck the surprise!

Rose, Rusty and I managed to have Mexican food for dinner. We took a taxi across Hangzhou just for chicken burritos, which were actually more like soft tacos. It's ok though, 'cause they were good! At the hostel, I met another interesting person that evening. I didn't get his name, even though we chatted for about an hour. Anyway, he is an intern in Ningbo, but is from Sweden although his parents are Russian and he went to college in France. Of course we were speaking in English. I am amazed to meet anyone with fluency in more than one language, but fluency in four languages takes the cake! He admitted that his "Chinese is shit", though, so I felt a little less intimidated by his language abilities.

On Sunday morning, Rose and I went to Craft Street, which is a street that is designated as a place to sell traditional crafts, art and more silk. Just like on Silk Street, the point is to bargain.

Earlier that morning at the hostel I talked with an Italian freelance photographer that has traveled all over the world. He had some great travel recommendations and his website has some amazing photographs from around the globe. Here's the link: http://www.michelefalzone.net/

It was surprising how different the city of Hangzhou felt compared with Wenzhou. I had such a calm feeling when arriving in Hangzhou. Hangzhou is famous as the home of West Lake, the number one tourist destination for the Chinese, and as the home of the Art Institute of China. Appreciation of the lake and its wild bird inhabitants is obvious. There is also a deep appreciation of Chinese art, both old and new.

The more I discovered about Hangzhou and reflected on the things I was missing, the more I realized how Wenzhou was not a good fit for me and wouldn't become a good fit in the near future. I say was, because I am writing this blog from the library of Pacific University. That's right....I left Wenzhou last Saturday. And I am very satisfied with my decision to come home early. This was not a decision I took lightly. You can email me and ask me about it if you want to. But I'm not planning on blogging about the process. I've got other things to write. More stories of China, and stories of experiences that have yet to be had!

Adventure Lil will not be silent for long.

Let's All Lose Face Together

Two weeks ago, I had an interesting conversation with my students about cultural differences. Specifically, I asked them to explain the concept of "face" to me and tell me how important it is for their generation. Well, they explained "face" as the way you act in order to keep yourself from being embarrassed. I had been told that it is very important to keep other people from "losing face" when you have interactions with them. It was surprising to hear the students say that it is more important to think about your own "face", instead of worrying too much about others. But they did add that it is important to keep things harmonious for everyone.

After that discussion, in which about five student participated, I decided to get their listless bodies moving. The Wednesday afternoon class has had a particularly difficult time getting motivated to participate. As usual, the best way to get them moving was to ask them something ridiculous. I said, "can some of you show me the exercises that the primary students do every morning? I hear them when I'm at home.....yi, er, san, si" (that's supposed to be the counting that is done during the exercising). Anyway, you should have seen the excitement. One of the boys who never speaks came up to the front of the room and reinacted leading the exercises of the primary school days. One of his classmates said, "Lillian...that is lose face" as she pointed at the boy. My reply? "Well, let's all lose face together". The class thought it was a riot. Then everyone else wanted to show off the exercises they have learned in sport classes, like Tai Chi and Yoga. It was exercise chaos, but they were using their English so that was a lesson well spent.

Have any of you ever done the "Rocket Ship" activity? This is something I got from Rose. The premise is that the earth has been destroyed and ten people are supposed to colonize the moon. These will be the last people in existence (at least in this galaxy). I asked my students to come up with a list of ten people for their rocket ship. I told them they could choose living or dead people. The students in Class one (labeled by the school as the smartest) basically listed themselves, their immediate families plus any pet that could fit in. I kept saying, "are you sure you want to be related to everyone on the ship?" I think they finally understood about having more of a genetic mix by the end of class.

The next class surprised me by selecting a broad list of people throughout history. One group said it didn't matter who was there, they just wanted people of all races to be included. Many people selected Einstein, Madame Curie and Napoleon. That's right, Napoleon. And they are not talking about Napoleon Dynamite, either (btw, I showed that flick in class and they thought that he was mentally retarded). They think that Napoleon is the most ROMANTIC man they have ever heard of. I don't know who is teaching them this stuff, but they all started quoting some love letter that he sent to Josephine. I think the quote was something like, "...5000 kisses to your dogs....". Is it strange that I didn't know what they were talking about? Is this some famous letter? Am I missing a large part of literary history that I need to know in order to win when I watch Jeopardy?

The third class probably had the best selection of people if this rocket thing were to ever truly be necessary. Most groups included a famous scientist that has created a super hybrid rice to feed everyone, a famous Chinese doctor, and a Chinese singer/film star. But their other people were all different. One group included Kofi Annan, another had Thomas Edison, another group included the one female ruler of China. I was even included on one groups list....and they coupled me with William Shakespeare. My favorite list, however included the following members: Jesus (for the Christians in the group), Buddha (to appease the Buddhists, since they were annoyed that Jesus was included) and ........Andy Roddick (the young American tennis star that was playing in a match in Shanghai that week). They thought that Andy Roddick looked pretty handsome and deserved to be included.

These photos are from Wenzhou. The top shows the little kid toys that are in front of most shops.

The bottom pictures are from a super manicured park in Wenzhou. The Chinese name sounds something like "Shoe Shine". Rose and I took a walk through the park a few weeks ago. There are an amazing number of carp in the ponds and fish pellets are sold so people can feed them. It is a popular destination for families with small children. It was interesting, but I found it all rather depressing in a way, because it was so manicured and I kept seeing people throw trash in the ponds even when there were plentiful garbage cans around. I guess that old habits are hard to break!

Hot Pot and A Foot Massage

George, from La Luna, and his girlfriend, Jess, invited Rusty, Rose and I to have dinner on Saturday evening. We ended up at a hot pot restaurant in my neighborhood. For those of you who don't know, "hot pot" is a meal in which you choose raw ingredients to cook in a pot of broth at your table. At this restaurant, each person has their own pot of broth with a burner under it to keep it boiling. When you get to the restaurant, you go to a deli case and choose all the little delicacies you would like to cook in your pot. We chose thin sliced mutton, mushrooms, spinich, bitter greens, tofu, two types of noodles, shrimp balls (no, not shrimp BALLS), and several other plates of food. It was pretty awesome....much better than my first hot pot experience a few months ago when my neighbors highjacked me while I was walking home at midnight and took me for hot pot. They ordered liver, stomach and live shrimp (which you have to wrangle with your chop sticks from a bowl and toss into your pot while they are still trying to escape....) I did not enjoy that experience in the least.

After hot pot, we went for foot massages. Actually, four of us did the feet. Jess went for a full body massage. We went back to the spa that Rose and I had our great massages the day before and since Jess is Chinese we were finally able to find out what treatment we had gotten... some super delux massage treatment that is probably reserved for unsuspecting foreigners that can't protest the price. A regular massage in an open room costs 50 yuan. Our foot massages cost 45. So, here are some pictures of us lounging in these great chairs that have mini televisions attached to them. Foot massages are traditionally done by men and these guys were experts. At first, they massage your shoulders and neck for a few minutes. Then they bring out tubs of really hot water and put this powder in it that changes the water into some special jello-like substance that softens your feet. You are supposed to wiggle your toes around in this stuff. It probably also disinfects the feet and keeps the massage therapist from getting all kinds of gnarley fungus. The guys working on Rose's and my feet had pretty good senses of humor and they laughed while saying their English words. They talked about Yao Ming and Kobe (Bryant) so they're following American basketball just like most of the people in China. I find foot massages to be relaxing, but not relaxing enough to fall asleep. I'm usually too curious about what pressure point corresponds with what body part (since reflexology is a major part of foot massages) to doze off. George, the dude next to me in the orange shirt, fell asleep almost imediately and he was snoring when we took these photos.

Hello, my name is Adventure Lil and I am a massage addict..... 

Three Dorks On The Town

Last Friday, the three of us took in the best of what Wenzhou has to offer....which means that we did some shopping, got massages, watched a pirated DVD and then went out drinkin'.

I've mentioned before that Wenzhou is a major clothing producer and you can find an insane amount of clothing for super cheap. Well, the best deals happen when you stumble across a store that is going out of business. Rose and I found a womens clothing shop with some pretty nice stuff that was all marked down to 10 Yuan, which is about $1.25 American. The stuff was originally a couple hundred yuan, so this was a great deal. We both got really cute skirts. Then we found the sale items at other stores and got more cheap stuff for under $5. You have to be willing to dig through a lot of crappy stuff that looks like it was rejected from a circus, but when you find a good item that seems well made, it is a super jackpot!

Massages....and massage places are plentiful in our neighborhood. They range from these little hole-in-the-wall places that are probably fronts for prostitution to full on spas that also cut hair and do facials. Rose and Rusty have been getting foot massages pretty frequently since we arrived. Since I hurt my ankle, I didn't want to do any massage stuff since the massage therapists tend to bang and twist your appendages in all directions. But, since the ankle is pretty much back to normal, Rose and I decided to go for full body massages. George, the owner of the foreign bar in our neighborhood suggested a place that uses heated towels and will also wash your hair. So, we trekked over and were surprised to end up in a very nice spa. We asked the price and were told 160 Yuan (just under $20 American), which seemed a little more expensive than what George says he pays, but we decided to go for it anyway. We were led into a little changing room with lockers and were given little shorts and shirts to wear. They kind of looked like the scrubs that doctors and nurses wear (although they rarely wear shorts, huh....) Anyway, then we were brought into a heated massage room that had nice decor and dim lighting and clean massage tables. The women that were going to massage us came in and motioned for us to take off our shirts and you should have seen how big our eyes got.....Traditionally, Chinese massage is done with full clothing on. The women pointed to a little table that had a bowl of oil on it and we realized that this would be more of a Swedish and Chinese hybrid massage experience. Does it seem odd that two people will be massaged in the same room? This is really common around here and actually it makes me feel a lot more comfortable having another foreign girl in the room when this stuff is happening. The massage therapists also usually like having another person in the room to talk with as they massage the foreigners. At this spa, it wouldn't be so strange to be alone, but at the little tiny places in the neighborhood, it kind of feels like someone could come in and steal all your stuff while the massage therapist is sitting on you. I actually have seen many business men going into spas together for foot or body massages... it must be like having meetings out on the golf course. Anyway, the women showed us that although we would be shirtless, we would be laying on our stomachs and have a towel over most of the exposed areas so we both relented. I have to say, that this was one of the best massages I have ever received. The women did use a lot of Swedish techniques and that reminded me of home. But they also focused on pressure points and incorporated the Chinese techniques that I remember from my last massage here. Something that has happened to me here is that I have gotten ridiculously ticklish and I kept stifling my laughter through most of the massage. That doesn't usually happen to me at home, but I guess they must hit some pressure point that sets me off...... The best part was when the woman put some hot towels on my back while she worked on my legs. It has finally gotten chilly here (in the high 50s) and the heat felt amazing. And toward the end of the massage, they washed our faces and rubbed our shoulders while we had face masks on. All in all we were in there for around 2 hours and although it cost about eight times what it costs at the small places, I actually felt relaxed and content after this experience so it was definitely worth the expense.


We met up with Rusty that evening for some pizza and a movie. The three of us ended up watching a DVD I had just bought for less than $1 American called, "Looking for Comedy in The Muslim World". It is an Albert Brooks film and should be called, "Looking for Comedy in This Movie". I had heard about it on NPR before leaving home and was really excited to watch it. As with most movies I've seen here, it was really disappointing, especially since the premise is interesting. Don't read the rest of this paragraph if you are planning on watching it....ok, so the point is that Albert Brooks is asked by the US government to go to Muslim countries to find out what makes the people laugh. It is supposed to be another way for the US to understand the Muslims and combat terrorism. So, he heads to India and Pakistan. And of course, no one laughs at his jokes. Well, someone does laugh at a Polish joke, but that wasn't very funny anyway. There is a scene in which Brooks decides to have a comedy show in New Delhi and he is going to perform every joke he knows and keep track of the reactions. So, he starts telling jokes and no one responds. You can hear crickets in the audience and he thinks that maybe they don't understand English. But when he asks the audience if they can understand, they all say yes. And that was slightly funny, but only because it reminded us of our time in the classroom, trying to get reactions out of the students.... The end of this movie is a big let down and I won't even go into it. Two thumbs down. Go look for "Nemo", Albert Brooks!

After the crap movie, we all needed some drinks and wandered over to La Luna, the bar owned by the previously mentioned George. It is a pretty regular hangout for lots of foreigners in Wenzhou so we chatted it up for a while and had some brews. Then we all decided to head to Blue Shell, which was the first foreign owned bar in Wenzhou. So, we walked over and were surprised to find several "new" foreigners that we hadn't seen yet. These new people have been here for a few weeks and they had spent last year teaching English in Thailand. It is so interesting how some people decide to make English teaching their mobile careers. They were really nice and hopefully will want to play board games (yes, we're dorks) with the three of us sometime. Blue Shell isn't really that great other than the fact that they have five kinds of rum.....and a foosball table. That was actually kind of fun to play. In girls against boy, Rose and I seriously dominated. But in Rose vs. Rusty, I think he made a comeback. After the games, we headed next door to "Why Not?", a Chinese owned bar. In there we found Eric, an acquaintance that frequents La Luna. I actually mentioned Eric a few months ago, in my blog about going to Jianxin Island with Rusty. Eric is the business man that we met in a shop that I thought was kind of shady.... He's not really that shady now that I have seen him a few times. He just seems really lonely. Eric is probably in his late 50s and he owns companies in China that manufacture clothing, primarily formal police uniforms, and some metal products. Anyway, he is originally from Taiwan, so the Chinese are leery of him, and he spent almost 30 years living in the States, so he has little patience for the Chinese way of doing things. I think that he has a hard time being in China, where his national identity is always questioned. So, Eric tends to gravitate to other foreigners in Wenzhou and sometimes you can have some interesting conversations with him. He is also quite generous with his bar tab as he knows that foreign teachers don't make that much money and our drinks were taken care of. The Why Not? has a room in the back for dancing and the three of us had our own dance party since no one else was interested. They also have some comfy red couches for lounging...can you guess how many drinks we'd had by then?! Upstairs is this crazy mural that features black men (rare in Wenzhou), sandwiches, fries, Tabasco sauce and an American breakfast (even rarer in Wenzhou) and if you look closely, the men are playing a cut throat game of UNO (rarest in Wenzhou). Rose really wanted to join in.

It's getting late here, so I should stop for now. I have decided to remain here for the semester, but I'm still deciding about the rest of the school year (which ends in July). I changed blogger so I should be able to see comments, so keep posting them if you've got things to say.

Love,
Adventure Lil

ShangHai'ku

Be warned. This is a long one. And my photos won't upload for some reason. So here is a link to a web album from the trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/lillian.read/Shanghai

I'm sure you all noticed from my last post, that I needed to get out of Wenzhou! I was not the only one. All three of us decided that it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Last weekend, Rose and I made a trip to Shanghai and Rusty went to Hangzhou with some friends.

The train from Wenzhou to Shanghai takes about 11 hours, so we decided to leave on Thursday evening to arrive on Friday morning. Rose's student, Lexi, accompanied us to the train station to make sure that we would get off alright. Lexi has never been on a train, so she kept asking the people around us what we should be doing. And since Rose's wallet was stolen the day before (the second time she has been thieved), Lexi was super paranoid that we would be robbed on the train or in Shanghai and she kept warning us to be careful. By the time it was our turn to get in the crowd of people heading onto the train I was totally paranoid of everyone around! Luckily, a nice man who was sitting close to us in the waiting room showed us to our train car and my faith in humanity was slightly restored. I wasn't sure what to expect from this train. I have heard horror stories of disgusting trains in China, with poo splattered squat toilets and cigarette smoke filled hallways. This train was a pleasant surprise. We had reserved hard sleeper bunks, since our journey would be overnight and they were quite nice. There were six bunks in each little room and Rose and I were on the top bunks. We had to climb up about 8 feet to get to our bunks and there wasn't enough headroom to sit up all the way, but it was still a very comfortable arrangement. All of the other people in our "room" were men and for the most part, they were pretty quiet. Some young guys thought it was pretty entertaining to see foreign girls on the train, but they never worked up the nerve to say anything. The trains all have hot potable water so that you can bring your own noodles to eat and that is what we did. It was a little sad to be traveling at night because we couldn't see any of the scenery, but it was a great feeling when the train started moving and I could say that we were actually traveling! Around 10 pm, most people had gone to sleep and the lights were dimmed. Each room had a little TV showing some shows and music videos and these were also turned off. I used this quiet time to write a few haiku....and I totally admit that most of them were clouded by my feelings of frustration toward Wenzhou....but you can still read them:

Stepped in Something.
See Toddler in Split Butt Pants.
It Wasn't Dog Poop.

In a Squat Toilet,
Always Perfect Your Balance.
Who Needs Wet Shoes?

This Train is Too Hot.
On the Bottom Level Bunk,
The Man Wears No Pants!

Rose Chats on The Bus.
What Happened To Her Wallet?
Some Asshole took it.

Noodles in China.
A Cause of S.B.D's.
Where is The Window?

Did Confucius Say:
A Loogie in the morning,
Surprise Foreigner?

The lights were turned on around 4am, shortly before we arrived in Shanghai. Rose and I managed to stumble off the train and we went to buy our return tickets for Sunday. Imagine our surprise when the woman at the ticket window said all tickets to Wenzhou were sold out, except for standing tickets. The idea of standing or sitting in the hallway for that amount of time was not appealing so we decided to try our luck later in the day when we could think a little more clearly. Next, we attempted to take the metro to our hostel, but the metro wasn't running yet so we took a taxi. We arrived at the Captain Hostel via taxi around 5am and climbed into our bunks for a few hours of rest.

The Captain Hostel is rated as one of the top hostels in Shanghai, and for the life of me, I can't figure out how the reviewers came to that conclusion. They must have been drunk. The Captain is quite clean, but it is practically sterile. There are no fun announcement boards or relaxed lounges where fellow travelers can mingle. You either sit in your room, or in the front lobby that looks like a modern lounge. Or go up to the roof bar, which does have an impressive view of the Pudong district, but is staffed by unfriendly waitresses and full of people trying to outdo one another with stories of how great they are. The food and drinks at the hostel was overpriced and the employees were not friendly. This was definitely a "Business Hostel" not a "Backpackers Hostel". It was the strangest hosteling experience I have ever had in that so few of the people staying there would talk to one another. I suppose that I can't just say that is a trait of the hostel, or travelers in Shanghai. The strange thing about being in China is that most western travelers do not acknowledge one another. They will not even make eye contact! I have been in Wenzhou, seen a westerner walking toward me, said hello and smiled and have been completely ignored, or even better, frowned to. You would think that people traveling here would have some camaraderie toward each other since we've all gone through the difficulties of being in such a different culture. But it seems that people put on some kind of mental and emotional armor when they go out and they aren't willing to take it down to smile at a stranger. I think it's a bunch of shit.

I'm sure you can only imagine how excited I was when a girl staying in my dorm room said "good morning". Rose and I spoke with her and she an 18 year old German, taking a Gap-year to travel. She is taking classes at an acupuncture school, although she mainly seems to be studying up on how to meet good looking men and party all night. Anyway, the three of us walked over to The Bund, which is the old riverfront street that has European style architecture from when Shanghai was home to communities of British and French businessmen. It was so strange to look up the street and see hundreds of Western tourists. I have to say that the people looked huge compared with the Chinese. It was like aliens from the planet Obesity had landed in Shanghai and were being led around by small Chinese tour guides holding flags so none of them would get lost in the crowds. The Bund also has a great view of the Pudong district, especially the Oriental Pearl TV tower which is a monstrosity that in no way can rival the Space Needle for visual interest.

We continued our morning by walking down Nanjing Road, a pedestrian only shopping street. When I say pedestrian only, I mean that small trains that carry tired shoppers up and down the street are allowed. On this street there were tons of people holding little photographs and they would run up to you and say "Watchee, Pursee" and if you are interested in the purses and watches they will take you to their shop selling designer knock offs. Rose and I were also constantly stopped by young "students" saying, "hello, where are you from? We are students from Beijing/Xi'An/Shanghai, do you like Shanghai/China? We are art students, here for the arts festival. Can you come see our art? Only will take 2/5/3 minutes!" It was really hard to figure out who were actually students, and who worked at nearby shops and were supposed to bait us in. There was an art festival happening and it was great to see sculptures displayed in the street. Later we met some students by the Shanghai Museum and it seemed clear that they were just interested in practicing their English for a few minutes.

Rose and I returned to the hostel around noon in order to talk to their booking agent about our return ticket to Wenzhou. He said that the trains were all full. And suggested that we take a bus. His assistance was useless! One more thing against the Captain Hostel! One of the employees told us to take bus number 64 to the bus station, but we of course could not follow her direction and got totally lost. Rose used her Mandarin skills (which are far superior to mine) to ask a guard and he tried his best to explain where we would need to go. He used elaborate sound effects and movement to explain how we would need to walk two blocks, wait for the bus to stop, the bus door would open, then we could climb up the step, then pay and end up at the station. It was nice to see how he tried to help us. Two strangers walking by even stopped and tried to help. I have to say that over the entire weekend, the Shanghai people we came into contact with (other than the hostel employees) were very friendly and helpful. It seems like they are much more comfortable around foreign people which makes sense since there are supposedly around a million foreign people in Shanghai. Anyway, we got on a bus and rode it forever to a bus station, which wasn't the correct one. Then we found someone else who told us a different bus to use and by the time we found the correct bus station we had spent about 3 hours on various city busses and walking around lost. Oh well. We managed to find the bus station and were told that the Sunday busses to Wenzhou were sold out. Boo. Some man came over and motioned that we should follow him, so we did even though the entire time Rose and I thought that we were going to be ripped off. We walked and walked and eventually we came to a private bus company that runs a line from Shanghai to Wenzhou and we were able to get tickets. We paid the man 20 yuan for his help. And he walked us to the metro station.

Once we had our tickets to get back to Wenzhou we were relieved, but totally exhausted. It was too late to get into the Shanghai museum, so we wandered into a Taco Bell Grande, a nice sit down restaurant where the Chinese wait-staff say "hola and adios" and wear stylish sombreros! And I totally had an emotional melt down into my melty quesadilla. It was great to be out of Wenzhou, but almost eerie to be in Shanghai surrounded by western tourists and residents, and so many western foods available. I saw lots of families traveling together and I started to miss my family. For me, Shanghai felt like being on a different planet than Wenzhou. I heard and saw two people spit the entire weekend, the streets and sidewalks seemed so clean, there was art in public places, I heard Chinese people laughing with their friends and I actually saw some Chinese showing public displays of affection! It is amazing that two cities in China that are known for business, can be so utterly different.

After dinner we wandered around and tried to do a little shopping. There is a jazz restaurant on Nanjing Road that keeps a band outside to draw people inside, and a crowd of people were standing outside watching several couples dancing. It was so nice to hear live music! When we were close to the hostel we noticed a sign for a place called "The Wine Library" and as I tried to take a photograph of the sign, a waiter came out and said hello. He was a super friendly American and if we could have afforded the wine, Rose and I would have gone inside. After a day of getting the "foreigner glare" from people, it was great that someone actually said hi to us. We went up to the roof top bar at the hostel for a beer, and while the view was interesting, the vibe of people was kind of exclusive, so instead we walked around the bund. I started an experiment to see how many people I could smile at and kept track of who would smile back. Out of 19 people on the Bund, I got two (!) return smiles (although one was a closed mouth half smile). Lame.

On Saturday morning we got up made our way to the Shanghai Museum. On our way there we smiled at two fellow foreigners and one of the men said, "You're obviously not from here. Where are you from?" And we stopped and chatted. The men were from Mexico City and had been in Shanghai for a week. They play trombone and trumpet in the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra and they were performing that night at the Shanghai Grand Theater. Rose and I decided to check into tickets and we bought some for the concert... or so we thought....more on this later.

The Shanghai museum was disappointing for me. It is supposed to be one of the best museums in China, and they do have a good collection of cultural relics, but the signage and displays are boring. There are only so many pieces of porcelain "China" I can see before it all starts to look the same. What a yawnfest! I should have gone to the Shanghai Municipal History Museum instead. The most interesting things in the museum were the artifacts from the minority cultures in China. There was a men's shirt and pants made out of Salmon skin with the scales on it. How durable is something like that?

We taxied to the French Concession for lunch at a place called Zentral. Zentral is known for its healthy food, and sandwiches and salads. I have never been so excited for a chicken sandwich with dijon mustard in my life. We also had a basket of bread with olive spread. Awesome! I miss good bread! In the French Concession is the building where a young Mao met with the first Congress of the Communist Party in China. It is now the heart of the trendiest neighborhood full of boutiques, trendy fusion cuisine restaurants and Starbucks. I wish we had more time to wander the French Concession. It has some great architecture and shops. Maybe next time.

Dinner was spent at a chain noodle restaurant and then we walked to the Grand Theater. I was so excited for the concert. We were on the first balcony, on the left. I was seated next to a man from Xi'an who showed me the travel photos on his camera from his holiday in Suzhou. As the curtain came up, I was surprised to see some big orb with two "dancers" in it. Where was the Philharmonic? We ended up attending a performance of a Modern Dance troupe from Mexico City. I don't know if the Philharmonic was hiding somewhere in the back, playing the music, but I was pretty disappointed. I love seeing musicians play! Anyway, this modern dance was very sexual and it was strange to see partial nudity in China of all places! When the Rolling Stones played a few months ago, they couldn't sing many of their songs because they were too sexually explicit. And Chinese people tend not to clap. So, at the end it sounded like very few people were clapping since it was just the foreigners in the audience making noise. It was an odd experience.

On Sunday morning we did a little walking around on our own. We had a crappy lunch at Fest Beer, The Shanghai Bund Brewerage Company which is a microbrewery around the corner from the Captain Hostel. The beer was ok, but the food was pretty bad. And we just had club sandwiches and those aren't too difficult to make....Then we headed to the bus station and boarded a sleeper bus at 1:15pm. Sleeper busses look like charter busses, but everyone gets a little bed instead of a seat. Kind of like "The Night Bus" in Harry Potter! I had the top "bunk" and enjoyed reclining and looking out the window. They played two old DVDs on the screens that starred Chow Yun Fat. These movies were from when he had hair. I watched a little, but mostly I drifted in and out of sleep. We got back to Wenzhou a little after 8pm on Sunday night. All in all, it was a good trip. Tiring, but good. Shanghai is a really interesting city because of the mix of East and West. I will probably go back in December for another visit.

My feelings of returning to Wenzhou were confusing. On the one hand, it was nice to be back to a familiar place. On the other hand, I can think of many places I would rather be than living in Wenzhou. So, I have decided that I will be here for the rest of the semester. It would be too weird leaving in the middle and I just have two months left until finals start. But as for staying the entire year, I'm still deciding (but right now leaning toward coming home in Feb). I'm not sure how all of you feel about the importance of place in your personal lives. For me, Wenzhou doesn't feel right. I haven't seen enough of China to know if a different city would make a huge difference, or if China isn't the right country for me. I've heard good things about Hangzhou, and the three of us will be going for Thanksgiving weekend and that will be a nice trip.

It has been so good hearing from so many of you in response to my last post. I should tell you that I can't view the comments, though. All blogs are still being blocked around here and I can only post things, not see them. If you want to contact me, send me an email.

L

No Thanks!

It is hard for me to admit, but I have been hit with a severe case of culture shock and homesickness. Everything here is making me uncomfortable. The noise, the food, the language, the stares, even teaching is about to set me over the edge and I have spent most of the past five days in tears. In all truth, I haven't been very happy here for the past two months and now I feel emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted from my attempts on wearing a brave face. Yesterday I told the Medical College that I want to leave at the semester, or sooner if I can't get in a better mood. The Chinese don't really understand culture shock, or depression for that matter. Sure, they talk about "the Cultural gap" all the time, but so few of them have left China that they have no experience in feeling what this "gap" can do to a person. The Medical College people told me that I just need more friends and I need to make myself "happy happy". If it were that easy, I'd have already done it. It is especially hard when my Chinese colleagues ask what I specifically am frustrated with because I want to scream, "EVERYTHING!". I was foolish to think that I had prepared myself for the extreme differences between the culture. I thought that I would be able to accept the differences and go along on my merry way. And in theory, yes, I have a good understanding that cultures are different (duh). However, there is nothing more aggravating for me than living in a place that is so extremely different from the US. I seem to have the exact opposite temperament than the Chinese which has also caused me a lot of confusion and frustration. I can laugh about a lot of things that seem ridiculous, like little kids in split bottom pants pooping on the sidewalk, being pushed on or off a bus, people calling me foreigner when I walk by, having to run for the toilet shortly after eating at a restaurant, horrible smells and trash, but these things still take a toll on me. Everything in Wenzhou becomes a major event. The simple act of walking through my neighborhood takes a lot of effort and leaves me exhausted. People who have lived abroad have told me that this is the worst time, but that I should be able to get through it. I guess I'll give it a few more days before I decide when I'm getting out. Here is something interesting regarding the differences between American and Chinese cultures: http://www.china.nafsa.org/culture/differences.htm I think it is totally accurate.

I've fallen.....

....and my neighbor is laughing at me. It's really more of an "oh shit, the foreigner fell" kind of nervous giggle rather than a vindictive "take that, foreigner" cackle. Either way, I do not enjoy it.....

A few weeks ago I was rushing down the concrete stairs of my apartment (to go to dinner) and I came to the lowest landing which has 3 steps. I waited on the landing while this man wheeled in his scooter to park it for the night and then I managed to step off the landing and basically fall on my face. Actually, I fell on my ankle. All of this could have been prevented if I had managed to turn on the light in that hallway, but of course it was too dark to see the actual light switch. Now I'm much more careful!

Anyway, my ankle swelled up to gargantuan size. It looked like an elephant ankle compared to my other foot, but since I could still walk on it I figure that it wasn't broken. But after a week of it being swollen, I decided that an x-ray might be in order.

In China there are no private doctors....well, there are no private doctors for the working class. Only rich people have a family doctor to look after them. Everyone else goes to the hospital when they have an illness or injury that Chinese medicine won't cure. Xiaohong took me to Wenzhou Medical College Hospital number 1. We started off my visit by standing in line to register me as a patient. The woman creating the file could not wrap her head around the I, A, N in my name and my patient file says that my patient name is "LLIGN". I had to pay 10 yuan (a little more than $1) for my file which is a small notebook and a little id card that has a scanner strip on it.

In order to see a doctor you must find the area in the building that deals with the part of your body that you think is unwell. Then you go to that area and wander the hall to find the name of a doctor that you think would be good. So, we went up to the 6th floor to the osteology area, then wandered the crowded halls until finding a doctor, then we went inside his little office and placed my "file" on his desk to show that I was next, then we sat on a bench in the office while he examined other people. There is not a lot of privacy or patient confidentiality in a Chinese hospital. And since the Chinese aren't that big on forming lines, people kept coming in and shoving their painful body part in the doctors face for him to look at while he was trying to examine other people. Eventually it was my turn and the doctor examined my ankle, said that it isn't broken and that an x-ray wouldn't be necessary, but that I hurt the muscles in that area and I shouldn't run or walk long distances for several weeks. Then he prescribed some Chinese medicine that is kind of like herbal "icy hot" to wrap my ankle. The doctor scanned my little card, then typed in his prognosis and also wrote it in the little notebook. Then I had to go pay for his time and the medicine which ended up costing me about 30 yuan (a little under $4). I should add that smoking is very common in the hospital and I also saw a few people spit.

While we were at the hospital, I also had a urine test to see if maybe I had picked up a bug. The most celebrated Chinese medicine doctor happens to work at the Medical College and be married to my boss, so I had seen him a few days before because I spent a day where I had to pee every five minutes. He had prescribed some Chinese medicine and also suggested I get a urine test. For this kind of test you have to go to the lab window, grab a little cup that looks like a half cup measuring cup and then stand in line to use the one stall squatty potty. I think these little cups are used over and over. Then you bring your sample to the lab window and this is where it gets interesting. Since people don't like to line up, everyone is bumping into each other trying to get their sample in first. And you have to make sure that you don't get bumped and spill your sample on yourself or other people. And you can see everyone's urine. There was a woman in the crowd that had pee that looked like coffee. I let her go in front of me.

After I turned in my sample, Xiaohong and I went next door to the city children's library to wait for an hour while they did the lab work. The Children's Library is in a very nice building, although I did not actually see any books....just a lot of study rooms. We spent the hour talking about how China is changing and what will happen to the traditional holidays and if the spoken dialects will be lost. Then we picked up the results of the lab work and had to try and find a doctor to interpret the numbers. Eventually we found a female doctor who said everything was fine.

Both Xiaohong and I had Chinese medicine prescriptions to fill so we went into a Chinese medicine pharmacy. I think these pharmacies are so interesting! In the front are cases full of all kinds of herbs and animal body parts for people to buy. In the back are a bunch of pharmacists in lab coats opening up drawers and measuring all kinds of herbs with brass scales. It reminds me of potions class from the Harry Potter books! The top two photos are from the pharmacy. My flash was off so the top one is a little blurry. The second photo shows the crocks in which the herbs are cooked into a kind of tea for you to drink. When you have a prescription you can either get the herbs and cook them at home, or have the pharmacy cook them for you and put them into individual servings that look like little Capri Sun juice packets. I had them cook the stuff and I went back a few hours later to pick it up. The last photo shows my bum ankle, which is now almost completely better!

Actually, the last pics have not shown up for some reason. I'll try and get those added soon.