My break trip to China has established a few things beyond a doubt. First and foremost, China has way too many people. You cannot understand the sheer quantities. I went with my Uncle to Yunan Province and visited two towns. Yunan is the equivalent of Montana and the towns were, you know, only about 350,000 residents. It's like plunking Minneapolis in the middle of no where. My second conviction is that the entire country is currently under construction. I would say that it would be impossible to draw a circle with a 3 mile radius anywhere in eastern China and not include a construction project. Roads, buildings, and roads roads roads are constantly being built. My third conviction is that Tiger Leaping Gorge (pictured above) was taken directly from a Lord of the Rings movie. Probably as a tourism stunt by the Chinese government, but I can't be sure. I have created a photo album for you here :)

In China, an Injection cures anything.

I learned this truth on fall break in the tiny tourist town of Li Jiang in Yunan Province. Having eaten some particularly evil food, and having spent an extroadinary night, I stumbled into the little medical clinic and had the following conversation.

*let's hear it
*i ate my stomach wrong...I feel terrible
*did you throw up?
*yeah
*did you blah blah blah?
*i think so
*you blah blah blah blah
*what?
*blah blah blah intestine. blah blah injection.
*ok...

So that's how I got my IV treatment, which did actually make me feel a lot better, but I'm still in favor of going to the doctor in America. Or at least until my medical vocab has a lot less blah blah's in it.

In good news, parts of Yunan have been directly transported from the Lord of the Rings movies. I'll post pictures of Frodo-Michael soon.

With the risk of forfeiting every visitor's interst I've ever had, I present this post. While utterly unrelated to China, I did rediscover something I wrote a few months ago after reading one of those Christian dating books that are only applicable in a traditional New England church community. In my humble opinion, it is mildy humorous.

Before even considering having a crush on someone, a Christian must take a careful self inventory. A crush is a big decision in life. Crushes can lead to dating, marriage, children, death and divorce, listed in order of severity. So I have compiled a basic list of questions to be posed to oneself, before embarking on the journey of such seriousness.

First, are you at least twenty five? Do you have a well paying job? Are you an active church member? Have you ever had a crush before? If so, you should probably be married and ought to stop this program immediately. Have you talked to your pastor about this crush? How long have you considered having a crush on this particular woman? Again, actually having a crush is dangerous. How has the Holy Spirit lead you to Biblical passages that reinforce your sentiments? Do you have a dwelling of your own? How would your grandmother feel about this? If she is dead, how would the oldest and most respected church lady feel about this? Have you known your potential crush for at least ten years? Is your possible crush a devoted scholar of the Epistles of Paul? Are you prepared to talk to this person’s father, in order to obtain permission for this crush?

If you have answered negatively to any of the previous questions, you are clearly not ready for the seriousness of a crushship. But if you were affirmative, then you are clearly ready for your crushship, and all the responsibilities it entails.

Perhaps you found this mildly humorous as well. Perhaps I feel compelled to post this because nothing terribly thrilling has happened recently. Just the usual:

• a middle school introduced herself to me, and I stupidly gave her my cell number. Later I got text messages saying how happy she was to meet me and that her English name is Candy
• ended up on the back of a Shang Hai tourist's electric motor bike, went to West Lake
• saw one of my classmates eat Duck Blood tofu thing

the picture above is West Lake during the Mid Autumn Festival

Let's talk about that famous Chinese productivity. Studying 26 hours a day, striving for constant self betterment, and generally making Americans look lazy all come to mind. Are you ready for this? It's a myth. Or at least from what I have observed myself. But if you come to China for a week, you would probably think that I am crazy--the library is packed, roads are repaired around the clock, people study physics in middle school. But then you live with a Chinese roommate and discover that his behavior can mostly be characterized as lazy. For example, he just let his alarm ring for two minutes because he didn't want to get out of bed.

So what is actually going on? Once again, I argue that it is China's tremendous population pressure. The sheer number of people creates the most ridiculous Prisoners' dilemma (link explains it) that ever was. So when a Chinese person has something to lose, they instantly become extroadinarily dedicated. They'll study all night, operate a jack hammer all night, because they know that if they don't the next person will and will take their opportunity or money. But if their position is relatively secure, ie all of the American students' roommates, they suddenly revert to less than maniacal workers.

As for the packed library, it's worth mentioning that it's a school of 20,000 and the study room holds at most 200. So really, only .5% of the students need to appear studious on any given day!

Life in China is different. I am hoping to be able to capture some every day life and maybe make it a bit more real to you. Because let's face it, my major is China and I basically had no concept of actual life. This is a night bus, running from downtown West Lake out into the city's northern districts. When I first came, I wondered why buses often only had one seat on either side and the middle empty. That's weird, I thought. Alas, it is not weird but rather the only way to put 150 people on a bus. In fact, I think it could be reasonably argued that China's tremendous population pressure is the defining characteristic of their society. But on lighter note, a soft eyed nine year old girl recently used all her courage to ask me if, "America had Mai Dan Lao, too?" All I told her was yes, America has McDonald's too.

中秋节快乐！
Happy Mid Autumn Festival!

I am a shiney new Christmas toy in China, the Buzz Light Year of Zhe Jiang Technology University. But this is not a good thing. Because once my shiney blonde exterior wears off people start pushing my different "Talk" buttons, they realize that my memory chip is faulty. And they quickly tire of,

"I am from America, Infinity and Beyond!"

The phrase, "My major is Chinese government" is only good for a few run thoughs too. And then we quickly discover that there is nothing left to say, my Shiney Newness is gone and our so called friendship is not so everlasting as once was. I believe I am about a triple serving friend.

In other news, I am attempting probably the second dumbest thing of my life (the dumbest being riding a motorcycle down a winding sandy mountain road in Costa Rica with a crazy driving) by waiting in this Internet Bar for the Twins playoff game to start. It starts at 1:00am, so let's hope I am not rediculous enough to finish it!