Beijing!

Finally got internet in my dorm! My Chinese roommate is supposed to get in tonight. It's pretty fun here though I haven't had a chance to go out and see the city. The flight in from Shanghai was freakin horrendous...

There was heavy fog in Shanghai so my original flight was canceled, I managed to find a seat on this crowded ass flight that was suppose to take off around 5 pm… the shit didn’t leave until midnight. But that’s fine, I was lucky just to get a flight that day right? Well we were halfway to Beijing the plane decides it just didn’t spend enough time waiting in Shanghai and turned back around. (Actually it was just still too foggy in Beijing) About two minutes after we landed back in Shanghai, weather conditions in Beijing clear up and we’re set to take off again. So instead of getting into Beijing and meeting the rest of my group at the airport at 9 pm, I didn’t get into the city until 4 in the f’ing morning and into my dorm until 6… brilliant start to my Beijing experience.

I’ve been getting a chance to hang out with my other CET classmates. Apparently we’re a smaller class this semester but I think that it works out better since we all seem to get along pretty well. Our bonding consists mostly of going to Wu-Mart (the Chinese knockoff of Walmart) and lighting fireworks while drinking. Beer is ridiculously cheap in this country (by volume it’s actually cheaper than bottled water) and the fireworks are everywhere. Combine those two things and you get instant fun!

I’ll try to get some pictures this weekend when we all go out with our new roommates.

I love crappy Chinese wine! Note the label: “Constantly drinking this wine is good to your health.” Well if the Chinese are saying it, its got to be right!

Happy New Years!!

It started around 8 in the evening, at first just a couple of fire crackers going off, maybe some flashy bottle rockets. Slowly the pageantry started to escalate. A couple dozen fire crackers became a couple hundred, bottle rockets turned into full on fireworks. By midnight it was like I was living in early 1940’s Berlin during an RAF raid*. Shit going off everywhere, bright explosions in the sky, the crackling of machine gun fire, err I mean fire crackers going off in the streets. It was quite a show.

Chinese New Years was in full swing. This being the civilization that first invented cool explosions, it only seemed right that everyone buy as many exploding projectiles as they can, aim them at the many tall buildings around the city, and let loose. This is the first time seeing what fireworks looked like on the receiving end. For those of you curious to know, most Chinese made fireworks will either explode accidentally on the ground due to improper manufacturing or detonate around the 27th floor of a building (when people are trying to sleep.) It was really cool to see one explode right in front of my window, but after the 30th or so, it gets a little annoying. It’s like a war zone here… a beautiful, flamboyantly colored war zone…

Various shots of the city below, managed to get some shells exploding right outside my window:

*I know, the reference is a little dated and I should have picked a more recent conflict like Baghdad 2003, but then I thought “hmm… maybe too soon for an Iraq zinger.

Pushy bastards

So in my dealings with Chinese people so far, I’ve learned two things:

One is that in a crowded area, like a market place or sidewalk or ANYWHERE, Chinese people are jerks! Bicyclists try to maneuver through people as if they were on foot, taxis drive as if they were bicycles, buses drive as if they were taxis, and pedestrians don’t seem to understand the concept of the personal bubble.*

Typically when a walkway is bustling with pedestrian traffic, if you see someone headed towards you, social etiquette would stipulate that the two opposing walkers each politely turn their shoulders as they pass so as to avoid contact with the other. This way, both sides accommodate the other just a little bit... clearly not the case here. Walking down the street is something between a game of bumper cars (minus the cars) and human chicken (if you’re the one the changes course you’ve clearly dishonored yourself and your ancestors.) At first I tried to be polite when walking along a street and avoid clipping people as they’re walking towards me. But after being run into by everyone walking along a sidewalk, I’m done with that. Bring it on, bitches!! It doesn’t matter who’s in my way; businessmen, school children, the elderly, I’m stampeding them all down!

I could do it to. Because as I’ve also noticed something in my short time here: Chinese people are tiny! On a crowded street I can easily see the tops of everyone’s head. I feel like a regular human walking in a world of hobbits… pushy, rude ass hobbits…

On a lighter, Valentine’s Day related note, I was walking in a shopping center on Nanjing Road, and I see a giant line in front of a restaurant. A bunch of young, college aged couples all had reservation tickets and had clearly planned in advanced a very romantic night that would begin with dinner at this place. I had to see what establishment was drawing in such a crowd. Turns out, it was a Pizza Hut!! I don’t’ understand how any pleasant evening can contain the words Pizza and Hut in them. But I guess the Hut must make some pretty sexy pizza…

Top left: Taco Bell's aren't just big in China, they're grande...

Top right: Random shopping area full of pushy bastards

Bottom left: A good view of the Marriott, looks like it should be the headquarters of an evil corporation rather than a hotel

Bottom right: Not sure what it is, but I'd like to think it's a shrine to Asian tourists all over the world. Keep reaching for that camera my traveling amigos...

*For those of you who never attended Springridge Elementary School (Go Eagles!), the personal bubble is an invisible one foot bubble that encompasses all people and should never be encroached upon, especially when walking in a line on a field trip or to the cafeteria on chicken nugget day.

Hillbilly or sophisticated international palette?

Here’s a fun little math fact for you:

+ =
pigeons + China = my lunch

What a day. We went out to lunch at this restaurant in the Galaxy Hotel. The sign at the entrance said seafood restaurant, but apprently this place is known for their crispy pigeon dish. I kept imagining those annoying ass birds on the UT campus that would always fly straight at you as you walked to class. Sure they’d turn at the very last second to avoid flying into your face, but you would always flinch or dive for cover and look like a complete idiot to everyone around you. Today would be the day I get back at those flying bastards by eating their Chinese counterparts. For those of you curious to know, pigeon has a duck like taste to it. Evidently they're a pretty common snack in these parts of China. Every table I saw had a plate of pigeons on it. We must have taken out an entire flock today. And now that I think about it, I really don’t see that many flying around the city. I’m not really sure who came up with the concept of eating annoying birds, but I bet centuries ago a crafty Chinese businessman was hired for the task of clearing some Chinese metropolis of this winged nuisance… and a short time later the Lee’s Pest Control and Eatery was born.

After the pigeon lunch we headed over to the Shanghai Walmart. I figured if there American prices were already so low, their Chinese prices must have been amazing! China’s take on Walmart was really no different than those in the US. It’s a one stop shopping for everything from socks made in the sweatshops next door to hanging chicken carcasses (now bird flu free for a limited time only). I wanted to completely document my first time in this foreign land of savings and deals, but sadly my freedom of speech was strictly censored. Not by any Chinese state security service but by Walmart management, a force much more brutal in its treatment of its own people. But I didn’t let the man completely stop me from capturing some of the wonderment:

Left: They were having a sale, one chicken for 8 RMB (that's about $1)

Right: As far as I can tell, that's some sort of giant fish that's been gutted, butterflied, and dried out

I’m glad I've been able to travel 7000 miles from my beloved Texas to live the life of an Appalachian hillbilly. When eating pigeon for lunch and going to a Walmart are the highlights of your day, you really need to be expanding your horizons.

+ =
pigeons + Walmart = Cletus

Shanghai days...

I’ve made it to China. I didn't think I was going to be jet lagged, but I've been passing out at 10 and waking up at 5 the past 2 nights. It's like I'm an 80 year old.

After months of hearing how horrendously cold the weather will get, turns out its no colder here than it is in Dallas… what a let down. Here’s hoping Beijing will be a frozen tundra so I can finally experience life as an Eskimo. My time in Shanghai ain’t too shabby… living at the Marriott, working out in the morning, lunching with the yuppies, shopping in the afternoon, dining at sushi restaurants in the evening. It’s what I imagine life would be like if I were an Orange County housewife…

The flight from Chicago to Shanghai went over the North Pole rather than the Pacific. It was a pretty cool view. The sun was barely peeking out over the horizon the whole time and I could see the massive sheets of ice down below. Northern Canada and Siberia are actually really beautiful landscape. As long as you're 40,000 ft above them sipping champagne in a climate controlled aircraft and not trying to survive the brutal winter in a shack, living under the constant threat of frost bite, cabin fever, and polar bears... But very beautiful nonetheless.

The vast nothing of the North Pole...

Shanghai is exactly how I remembered it, crowded and noisy with a slight hint of massive air pollution. For a city of close to 20 million, I'm shocked that there aren't more traffic accidents and cases of vehicular manslaughter. Chinese drivers ed must have been half an hour long because the only thing taxi drivers seem to know is red means slam on the brakes and green means floor it. Trying to cross the street is like a real life game of Frogger. All you can do is walk at a steady pace so that cars and bikes can avoid you.

So these past 48 or so hours in China have led me to one definite conclusion... I don’t know shit about Chinese. At this point I’m only understanding about every 5th word being spoken. This makes Chinese media both hilarious and terribly confusing. Like a real life Mad Libs that only I can play. I have been able to pick up essential phrases like “Starbucks” and “Which way to the sauna.” Most other things require half sentences and hand gestures worthy of Kabuki theater.

Panda Juice… *ding*

Hello? Is this thing on?

Still in Dallas packing up for my move to the Orient. My life is pretty much in a suitcase, two duffel bags, and a backpack... It was "snowing" briefly today in Dallas, I guess this is just a small taste of what cold ass Beijing is going to be like.