Good news! I have survived my mandatory terrible fall quarter. And on the scale of terribleness, this one wasn't even all that bad. It is difficult for me to process my junior year abroad. I feel like it happened in some other dimension, so when I arrived at Northwestern it was hard to accept that nearly everything was different. I wanted it to pick up from the end of my sophomore year, not the start of my senior. Things I've learned from fall quarter

1. The bureaucracy at Northwestern is unbelievable, but there are people on your side
2. Some people will criticize you. And some of those people are hypocrites.
3. I'm amazingly lucky to be a part of MEIV

And so now I can look forward to a good winter quarter. Historically winter quarter has been good to me. I got to know Alice winter quarter my sophomore year. I finally fit in and thrived in Hangzhou last year. Who knows what will happen this year. I suppose I'm ready to find out. And I know that guessing is pointless.

Technically referred to as "Regional Link Jets" the toy planes I flew in this past weekend are notable for one main reason: taxi speed. Perhaps the crew is trying to compensate: "You know it's not the size of the jet, Ted, but the speed of of your taxi." Or maybe the pilot is simply embarrassed to by flying a MiniJet and wants to avoid to detection: "No, Jane, I don't fly those tiny things, must have seen the wrong guy!" It's possible that going fast on the ground is the only sense of speed the pilot gets all day. But for whatever reason, the leg cramped single stewardess tiny window MiniJets sure can stick it to the big boys: on the tarmac.

"I am not a girl... does that matter for this job?"
"I don't know anything about basketball..."
"No, I have no experience of this sort."

One week later after a more or less random encounter at the Work-Study job fair, I am now the newest member of Northwestern's women's varsity basketball team. I can only hope finding a real job goes that well. I present to you, Manager Michael. I am not really sure how I got this job (other than I get up early), but whose going to turn down free shoes, clothes, and charter flights? Yeah, not me. And when my other job option involved passing out flyers, attending meetings and doing office work, the choice is easy. And I bet I have enough time in my life to do a real job too.

In even more improbable news, I went to the international student picnic with my conversation partner. A friend of mine I knew from a couple of years ago introduced me to her parents who were visiting from China. Who recognized me...

from the dating game show on TV. Unbelievable.

Long back in the day, Caroline Na wrote me an seemingly innocuous e-mail, asking if I'd like to staff the football concession stand Intervarsity operates. Reasoning that it would be a good excuse to call and reconnect with people, that it would help me integrate back into Northwestern, I took the job.

Oh dear goodness. I have cajoled and convinced and screwed (sorry Jerett) and begged and pleaded and had people fly international flights and arrive to work concessions. And the concession stand has been filled, though not by any friendship building method I can think of. Even my gourmet dinner offer has not rustled up much, posing the question, "if I avoided the previous concession worker, why would I assume people wouldn't avoid me now?"

Adjusting to Northwestern has been slightly strange. I seem to feel that I am still a sophomore and all the people I know are freshmen. Somehow they're juniors. Above is my current residence, Kemper. Below is my Hangzhou residence.

Nobody has written demanding that I close my blog and turn in my computer in order to assuage their pain, so I will attempt to continue running this blog as I go into my senior year.

Since returning home I have not really passed through reverse culture shock, which is surprising. I miss things about China and enjoy things about America and wonder where all the Americans are. We really do seem to be few and far between!

I have discovered that I am living with five other guys in a suite back at Northwestern, and that all five are Asian. I know two of them. So I suppose that's ironic. Yet simultaneously frustrating because the myth of my ethnic confusion can only grow by this situation. Plus I don't know the other 3 guys, one of whom on facebook has a battery clenched in his eye. Such is life.

Later this week I return to Washington D.C., this time for a post abroad job fair. My scholarship stipulates government service after I graduate. I'm excited to go, and I'll even get to see Rachel Wiggans while I'm there, but sometimes this scholarship makes me crazy. When I was abroad and wanted to leave, I couldn't. And now when I'd like to go back, I have to solve this first. It's like a clamp on the steering wheel.

Saying goodbye to my co-workers at the outdoor shop

It seems, sitting in my house, that the last year may not have happened. It probably didn't happen at all, because nothing else has changed. My grandparents eat hamburgers on Tuesdays, my family goes to church on Sundays, and my sister watches Friends DVDs at night.

Have I lived inside a Chinese University for 9 months? Gone from crying on the floor to clubbing in Hong Kong? Is it really possible that I've taken 31 airline flights in twelve months or gone by train across more than half of China? Have I made my best friends with Chinese workers and been to Beijing for the national baseball tournament? Been ill for weeks with diarrhea? Rented an apartment with an art student and worked at an outdoor shop? Has all that and more really happened?

Yes. But it doesn't feel like that.

On August 8th I returned to the U.S. I had spent the previous three days saying goodbye to my friends, in some sort of strange fog. Slowly shrinking my acquaintances, when all I had ever tried was to grow them. Chinese goodbyes. Wet eyes, no tears but tight throats. Thank you's and well wishes, but knowledge that this was the end. Unspoken understanding that we would not see each other again, that we would not communicate much once I left. And then we would turn, and walk our on way, and when I would turn around, my friend would be gone.

I am glad to be home, though I'm concerned Americans are going extinct. I go to the store and it's deserted. I go to the mall and it's empty. I walk outside and see strange green grass everywhere. And I can feel that I am an American and this is most comfortable. I don't wear pants to try and blend in, I can watch baseball on TV. But at the same time, I find that Chinese life became so normal. I miss the swarms of people, going out late at night for a meal, bartering with people on stuff.

It seems that life in America has advantages and yet so does life in Hangzhou. And that is extremely difficult to deal with, as I feel split between two cultures. And America is ironically a very defined place. White people are white, Black people are black, and Asian people are asian. We're all cool, just don't mix up what race you are.

In China, "How old are you?" is an extremely common question, sometimes even before your name. Except that I have no exact age. In America I'm 21. In China I am somewhere between 21 and 24, though most people say I'm 23. As a result, I just give my birth year and let the asker decide. For a long time I thought that question was funny, that a country couldn't calculate my age. But gradually I actually became unclear about my age. Am I 21? Or 23? Perhaps somewhere in the middle? I realized that I had assumed the factors that go into counting my age only have one answer. But they don't. And the resulting fuzzy range is reality. Sort of.

__________________________________

This blog seems to have reached the end of its lifespan. I am, after all, no longer in China nor do I know when I will return. Thank you to all the people and friends that have read this blog, I am thankful to have an audience. Hopefully you enjoyed most of this blog. I'm not sure if I will continue this blog or not. If you have any thoughts, I'd love your input.

A lot can change in a year. For example this bridge in Minneapolis fell down yesterday randomly. That's a big change. Or you can move a cross the world. That's a change too.

Chinese College Baseball Tournament

Yours truly is the "coach" of the Zhejiang University Baseball team. We went to Beijing, and it was bloody. Combined scores of the four games we played 81 - 9. Put that one in your hopper. But it was beautiful weather, baseball players goofing around, bilingual PA announcements. It felt like baseball. And if I had to pick one high to my year in China, it's this trip. Particularly the first inning of the third game--we won it 7 to 5. The second inning never ended because we only got two outs when time expired (they had scored 28 runs...).

Goodbye my friend

I have started saying goodbye to people, some go easier than others. By far my two hardest will be Shuan Shuan and Ge Qian. On my birthday each year I try to guess what might happen in the year to come. I would have never listed two migrant workers from He Nan becoming my best friends in China. But really it's more about getting by in China, more than anything else, and the three of us certainly make each others' lives brighter. I am taking Ge Qian to the train station on Monday, she's going home for the first time in more than two years. I estimate 1 in 3 I'll ever see her again.

I hate US Airlines

American Airline companies are rotten. For your benefit I have recorded a possible real life encounter with a Chinese airline and then with an American.

me: I'm sorry, I made a mistake and booked my ticket wrong

China: I am soooo sorry! In fact, I'm sure it was our mistake! Please, what could I do to help you in the least bit?

me: do you have a flight I can take today?

China: would it be okay if you went first class with a beautiful woman to accompany you? perhaps we could have a famous baseball player come? I am ashamed!

And American Style

me: There was a mix up. Can I changed my ticket?

US: hold on! Can't you see I'm busy?

me: You're chewing gum

US: yeah well stuff it. No, can't help you. NEXT!

Above: the mining town my friend took me too... and insisted on playing catch in.

Hott Stuff

Zong Ke is hot. Just ask the ladies in the club. On Friday I made good on a promise and went out dancing with some friends, who told me I might have to "find my own partner" to dance with. So we're there, and I'm glancing around. One person is staring back. I mean dead drill nail me to the wall staring. She even gives a come hither look. She's not 20. Nor is she 30. Not 40 or even 50 years old.

The woman was at least 65. There is a white haired hand bag carrying grandma bobbing to JZ along with the crowd. And she was hitting on me.

Only in my life.

Chefs

I make a mean dish of garlic-spicy potato strips (suan la tu dou si), but that's about it. Rae is attempting to teach me to cook a couple dishes a week. I generally butcher them, but my fourth try on potato things was pretty good. Good thing Americans won't know the difference.

Re-Entry

In slightly more than two weeks I return to the United States for the fore seeable future. Meaning at least until I graduate from Northwestern. It seems beyond impossible that I've been here almost a year, but I have. I don't expect my re-entry to go particularly smoothly at all, but I'll be fine. That's really the truth: aside from something happening to my family, anything else I'll just push through. Because you know way?

It's a good day if you make it that way.

Striking resemblences.

That's what I've started noticing. And I am not sure why Shuan Shuan's boyfriend is Luke Liang or how a four year old girl I teach looks as much like a little Alice Zhao as I can imagine, but they do. What I find more interesting is my friends here have started reminding me of non-Chinese acquiantences back home. But at the same time I can never quite place them. Does Ge Qian remind me of Marina, or just some other face that I can't quite dredge up? Tough to say.

Neither cute nor cuddly!

"I'm not cute!" I finally lost it on my roommate as she told me that "I'm so cute" for the 10,000 time. "Where!" I sputtered, "Do I look like a 6 year old girl! And why is it," I continued on, "that every girl I meet tells me I'm cute! Ahhh!" My outbreak (imagine my vioce raised slightly) subsided, Rae proceded to tell me that, "Cute is a good thing," sending me off again.

Turns out we simply suffered from miscommunication. In Chinese calling a boy cute means something like he's not a mean bastard, or that he doesn't treat girls poorly. Basically that he's a Mr. Nice Guy. And so while Rae kept telling me that I'm a "nice guy," all I heard was that, "You're like a 6 year old girl."

Rae then told me I am nothing like a girl. "Good," I said, "why?"

"You don't wash your clothes enough."

Case solved.

Above: I told you airline stewardess can't resist me! :)

Zong Ke Learns to Teach

Zong Ke (me, for the record) is now an English teacher. Bring your nearest 4 to 12 year old to my school and I will teach him or go hoarse trying. I'm not sure that I am really meant to teach little kids, but I really enjoy teaching the 12 year olds. I teach things like, "hot day, hot weather, hot girl!" or "what's up?" Very practical knowledge! If I ever open my own school, it will be called, "The School for Precocious and Sensitive Young Ladies that Want to Learn English Good." Of all my problem kids, not one is a girl. One little boy in particular I wouldn't mind turning him into a slurpee, but that's probably illegal.

Bad bad Baseball

Having completed intensive and extensive daily training for two weeks (no, I'm not kidding) the Zhe Da baseball team is off to Beijing. I will join them for a few days next week, but my four year olds are crimping my style. Despite all the hard work, we are still really bad so I am hoping some sort of mercy rule exists because to be honest, we only have 3 pitchers. And so the pitcher of the day automatically gets a complete game. Besides, we'd have to make a call to the bullpen cell phone because there's sure to be no real phones!

MB Phone Foreigners!

I would, if I could. Except that my cellphone has 70 numbers and only 1 is a foreigner who lives in Hangzhou. And he's a 50 year old man. At first I got pretty lonely when I realized that all the Americans were gone, even though I wasn't close to them I guess their presence was a normalizing factor on me. But I suppose I'm fine now. Give me two weeks and I'll adapt to most things in China anymore. And my friends like to point out, usually while singing karaoke, "you've got us! and we won't leave."

MB Sing Songs!

I do. I even have a repoitoire that I can rock it out too. My specialities: It's my life by Bon Jovi and Everybody by (none else) the Backstreet Boys. In my defense, English song selection is limited and I can only sing about 2 Chinese songs. I ought to be more diligent! Everyone go download (band) S.H.E. (song name) Superstar

4th of July. Left to right: Wu Jian Guang, a student a Zhejiang University of Technology (ZUT) that I met during my first semester in China. Gao Rui Xia, a senior in college in Beijing whom I met in January. She wants to be a psychologist. Chen Shuan Shuan, one of my migrant worker friends, she is from Henan and has mad badminton skills. Huang Lei, my current roommate and a student at China Art Institute. Majors in sculpture. And on the right, Wang Guo Jiang, my first roommate. He probably got the worst end of the deal, as he had to live with me when I hated everything in the universe.

We're celebrating the 4th of July on the 5th because 1) I had the day off and 2)I used the time difference as an excuse. They all piled into my apartment and I whipped up some burgers with steak sauce, chips, fruit and of course pot stickers (饺子). It was a really nice celebration. We even sang America happy birthday.

People often e-mail me and ask, "Michael, when it's 102 every day, what underwear do you like?" I reply that while I have done exclusive testing under multiple conditions, the results seem inconclusive. I present the following scientifically gathered data:

Boxers: while cool and hip, in extreme heat less than ideal. vanderwalls bonding in the boxers will cause them to shear, slowly ascending the corpus rearus and creating a wedgie maximus. Best worn under reasonable conditions.

Stretchy underwear (with cool insignia): while insignia attempts to make them cool and hip, intense cross polyhesional bonding creates an impermeable layer of material, or greenhouse fabric, around critical areas. Also best worn under reasonable conditions.

Conclusion: while no underwear is suitable for Hangzhou in the summer, it still must be worn. Effects can be minimized by replacing jeans with light pants. Shorts aren't the solution.

Despite how much suffering goes into underwear in general, at least underwear shopping can be a real morale booster. Observe:

*Excuse me, what size is this?

*Medium, but that's way too small for you

*Oh? What should I wear?

*I'm thinking at least extra-extra-large, let me look in the back

I apologize for any and all inappropriate imagery that was generated by this entry!

The Travel Gods decided that I was not sufficiently accommodating to my family on their China vacation. And so they arranged for my friend to invite to visit his home in the countryside this weekend. My karma has been balanced.

Perhaps it was the personality disconnect between my friend and me. Dressing in US military fatigues didn't help when he showed me his voyageur home made video of his girlfriend's cleavage. He's likes to pretend he's a gangster, except he has a snoopy backpack.

Or maybe the fact that he mostly brought me along to practice his English on irritated me. His parents speak dialect and Mandarin, he speaks dialect, Mandarin and sort of English, and I speak Mandarin and English. So why the hell did we have to converse in either dialect or English?

More than likely it was the environment. His own house was interesting. Three stories, bigger than my house in the states, and modern. Except floors two and three are devoid of anything. Far more stressful was the mining town his relatives work in. We visited. Might as well have had aliens land.

They mine rocks and then crush them. That's their life. When I walked in the house, the early twenties husband was asleep on the bed, an IV in his arm. A cold, my friend explained. His young wife, several months pregnant, alternated between laying on the bed next to her husband and wandering, comatose, around the house. Flies buzzed everywhere, dust layered. The moment I stepped in, I wanted to leave. I think they felt the same.

Instead, my friend insisted on playing baseball catch in the street. Miners stared. I felt like a moron. My friend showed off and threw the ball out of controll over my head. The ball hit the dirt, rolled lazily past a miner's foot, and into a puddle. The miner blinked. I retrieved the ball. Finally we left.

The food pushed me too. I hate surrending control of my diet because it usually ends like this: octupus tentacles and frogs for lunch, expensive fatty beef for dinner. I managed to dissuade thm from cooking the live eel in a bucket behind the house. It was from the nearby crick.

Unbelievably, we stumbled into the only foreign teachers in this remote town on Friday night. My friend was delighted--English he couldn't understand to listen to and foreign girls to ogle--and I was happy. I really know any foreigners in Hangzhou now. I wonder what my life would have been like if I had if I had somehow ended up in a town like that.

But what you must understand, and probably can't, is that the town was fine. A beautiful park. A huge modern high school with an artificial turf soccer field. A KFC and a department store selling Oil of Olay products. This is the contrast that foreigners can never completely wrap around, myself included. A modern city. Ten minutes outside, it's as if fragments of technology had invaded 100 years ago. Old men on electric bicycles bouncing past cattle.

And I understand ever so much more why working 60 hours a week at a tea shop is a good job in a lot of my peasant friends' eyes.


In other news, I lost my super cool umbrella, which was a crushing blow. Not only did it collapese on its own, but I was also rather fond of it. Other news soon.

Long time, no write. Aside from being true, it's also the result of a family vacation to China. But it's certainly not for a lack of material to select from in my dusty innards. I have thoughts on everything from West meets East (and Easternized West) to why Christian dating books are all garbage to why my mind goes blank when I sit down in front of this thing. So perhaps we'll just go Rumble and Grumble (ala ESPN, but perhaps less interesting).

Family Vacation
Some parts of China certainly shocked my family. Like the ones that weren't built for tourism or shopping malls. But I have to say that they did a good job of coming to a country where they can't communicate and dealing. I've never been somewhere that I couldn't speak, so I'm sure it must be frustrating. Highlights of the trip including my sister (the Panda nut) Emily getting her picture taken with a baby panda and eating a lot of pizza. Perhaps the pizza was my highlight.

It's bleepin hot here. I don't look at the actual temperature because I'd just be sad, but I can tell you that if I had an egg I'd cook it on the black top. If the humidity didn't disintegrate the whole thing first. Family did a pretty good job of dealing here too.

One of the better exchanges on the trip:

*Dad: I'm tired

*Me: Here's some paper, go to the bathroom

*Me to Chinese friends: My dad has to be excused. I send him off.

Mother and Sister: hysterical laughter

Reasons why Christian dating books are gaaar-bahge

1. Where is this author from? Last time I checked, me and any girlfriend I've ever had were from far away places. Prompting the question, how can I ask her father for his impression of me since I've been young?
2. What the heck happens before age 24? Waiting until you're graduated from grad school (seminary, of course), have a high paying job, a house, and a 50 year plan to date would be cool. If it wouldn't mean you're a freak. What should I tell my 13 year old son someday when he tells me he likes a girl? "Well hold on there, sonny, you've still got 12 more years before you ought to think about something like that! Now here's some legoes."
3. Why the pressure? You know what every Christian dating book in history has in common? Nothing on breaking up. Because for God's sake, if you're dating you're going to get married! It's not like you could learn about life and yourself and each other in a healthy way if you dated and, dear God, broke up. These books make Dating some sort of (scary) instant long term committment pact.

In summary, these authors seem to exist in some sort of non-real Christian vacuum universe and would like to apply their utopian physics (perhaps chemistry?) to real life. Here's an idea: write a book applicable to a normal person that emphasizes principles like accountability, openess, growth, and how to evaluate your relationship. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am on this segment.

Sexism in Chinese Airlines (and why it's wonderful)

Chinese airlines have one rule: If you're not beautiful, don't apply. And it has marvellous results: every airline stewardess, steward, bag checker and ticket taker are gorgeous. I choose to look past the gross injustice in forcing perfectly talented stewardess to retire, rejecting good applicants because they're too short and grossly cattering to Chinese businessman. If I wasn't so hot (like sweating writing this) perhaps I'd do something (but probably not).

I'm sure I have more in my thinker, I always do, but I'm done for the day. If you have a brilliant comment about anything, post it or e-mail me it.

Upon completing my final paper, rewriting it, giving my oral presentation, going to work, turning in my final paper and realizing that I had finished my year at Middlebury's China school, the moment I had waited for since September, I felt...

nothing.

Perhaps the thought, "oh" popped into my head, but it's doubtful. Later yesterday night I know realized that I am a senior at Northwestern University which temporarily shocked me, before I returned to a state of vacuousness.

I'm not really sure why things are this way, or why the last 9 months immediately collapsed into a blur and folded into a box, but they did. I feel strangely and utterly detached, almost as if the last 12 months starting in July never happened, and when I go home in August this last year won't have counted.

Interesting Musings

• I have now spent more time in China in the last 15 years than most of my Chinese-American friends... for some, more than all their family members' time combined
  
• I recognize 3000-4000 characters, yet newspapers still give me problems
• it's starting to inch towards 100 degree heat

Summer Plans

• Take my family for a two week tour de force around China, with stops including Beijing, Si Chuan Province, and Hangzhou
• Stay here until august, continuing to work at my internship. I am subletting a bedroom from an art student. She's a girl, but she has promised that I won't have to model for David-esque sculptures. Plus, I had no where else to live.
  
• Travel with the Zhe Da baseball team to Beijing to watch them participate in the whole country competition
  

We should be a movie. One of those fabulous sports movies, where the group of misfits comes together and composes the grittiest, most loveable baseball team ever and wins the Big Game. Except we'd lose, because no matter how gritty we are, sometimes there is no substitute for catching the ball. You can ask our shortstop who had a routine pop up careen into his eye (somehow missed his glove entirely). Or you could ask all of us, who collectively amassed one hit in two games this weekend (but multiple beanings!). Or our pitchers, who aquired an ERA that is almost an unreal number. But, just like in little league, we had fun anyway! Especially me because...

I got to pitch! And basically got to pretend for one day that I was a real starting pitcher, uniform and all. I amassed the following stats:

6 IP (complete game--150 minute time limit)
5-8 Ks (not really sure for a number of reasons)
13 Runs Allowed
4-7 of which were earned

Why such uncertainty? Well it's hard to calculate when about 75% of balls put in play result in fielding errors and maybe 1 of 3 strikeouts is dropped and the batter runs to first base. So when the other team gets 5 outs per inning, it's a bit harder game. But it was wonderful and I enjoyed it a lot, especially because I may never get another chance. Foreigners are not allowed to play, technically, and our only games left are in Beijing in July. And if anywhere follows the rules, it'd be Beijing. But perhaps other teams will be merciful and let me play, just for fun.

For my final piece, I present, with flair, My Biggest Flame Out with a Girl.

The scene is my university's back gate, night time, street vendors making "small eats." Across the way, there is a fancy restaurant, the sort where a pretty girl wearing a qi-pao (traditional Chinese dress) opens the door for you and smiles, cutely. The setting is Zong Ke (me), feeling blue as he recently went through a breakup. The thought process is this: this stinks... hey? why not get the phone number of a girl who wears a qi-pao for a living?" And action.

Zong Ke saunters past the restaurant on his way to the fruit store, and notices the girl smiling at him. Unfazed, he buys fruit and then walks back past her on his way home. Then the thought process strikes! Why not ask her for her phone number? Zong Ke starts pacing on the sidewalk, pondering how stupid this idea is on a scale of 1 to 1802. He finally decides to not ponder and heads for the restaurant, realizing that the girl has seen him pacing for the last 17 minutes. Slightly fazed, Zong Ke heads onward. Upon reaching the door, Qi-Pao girl is talking to someone and Zong Ke has to open his own door, fazing him slightly more. She turns around, smiles, and asks, "would you like a table?" Zongke completely fazed, "Um, not really a table, no." "What would you like then?" At this point my internal pressure overflows, my face turns red and I can no longer speak Chinese, "um, no, no, nothing at all, I gotta go! bye!" Qi-Pao Girl opens the door, and Zong Ke zooms out.

End scene.

Never again can Zong Ke eat at that restaurant!

As my last post was so sumptuous to even garner fan mail, I would like to continue my count down of superlatives with today's entry, Most Horrendous Work Moment.

I work at basically a small REI (outdoor sporting good store), which is to say that I work at an upscale yuppie shop in China. As a result most of our customers are newly rich Chinese, who think it's exciting to pay 3000 kuai for rain resistant pants when 70 would work at the clothes market down the street. Most customers are 30 to 40 years old.

On this ill fated day, a forty something woman came to our shop looking for, none the less, pants. Our other workers were occupied (amazing in itself), so I found a pair for this relatively big Chinese woman. Not fat, just fat by Chinese standards. She donned the pants, marched out of the changing room to the mirror and took a good look. Then she asked the dreaded question, "Does my butt look big??"

I panicked. Reply too fast and it means I've already looked at her butt. Take too long, it means I'm thinking. Say it doesn't and her husband is 10 feet away. Say it's big and her husband is still ten feet away. All of this blew through my mind before suavely saying,' Uhh, looks okay to me."

She didn't buy the pants.

As I approach then end of my second semester here at Zhe Jiang Unversity of Technology, I thought it might be interesting to count down some superlatives. Today: My Biggest Waste of Money.

We have a pool on campus, which is really quite remarkable. So my roommate and I decided to split the 300 kuai membership fee and go swimming together. My first experience went something like this: I enter the shower room, full of approximately 200 naked Chinese men and find a shower. I then over hear this conversation.

*I am showering next to our Foreign Country Friend!
*Cool... look at how white his skin is!
*I know!
*You should look at his "honorable second!" I've heard foreigners are big big!

At this point I cut my shower with naked Chinese men short, and if you don't know what an honorable second is, then you're own your own. I never had a second experience.

In Summary: 1 shower with naked Chinese men (and 8 laps in the pool), 150 kuai

Daily life is thrilling. Okay, perhaps not, but I have mine down to a science. And perhaps because I live in China, and for no other reason, you'd be interested in what I do daily.

7:50-- cell phone alarm goes off and I turn it off and shuffle to class
8:20 to 12:00--Chinese language class (read: grammar, vocab, repeat daily for 30 weeks)
12:30--mount bicycle and head to work
1:00 to 5:00--I'm a salesman at an outdoor clothes store. Sometimes we have customers.
6:00--dinner in campus cafeteria. I eat noodles, generally alone
7:00 to 12:00--a combination of homework and watching Desperate Housewives with my roommate
12:30am-- sleep and repeat.

For Scintilation I mix in the following activities

• visit friend who works at a tea shop
• play baseball on the weekend
• rubber neck at stuff
• call home
• peruse inexpensive movies
  

Pizza Hut delivers in China too. Via electric bike.

中国通。Old China Hand. There are not a great deal of these people, often single white males, so called China-Experts. And there won't be all that many more in the future, either. When you've been here long enough, you can start to divide the foreigners you see. And they often divide into four groups. Tourists are obvious. They're loud, they walk in packs and take pictures everywhere, they eat at McDonalds in groups, stabbing at picture menus. Short term workers are obvious too. Often young males who have come to establish factories or advise projects, their expressions demonstrate that in two months they've learned everything about China there is. Ask them if they can speak Chinese, they slaughter the phrase "I want beer now," and grin. They eat at McDonalds too, not alone but in pairs or threes, again stabbing at the menu. The third variety is Long term workers. They've been in China, or the East, for years and you can see it in their eyes. They move slower, they flow with the crowds, and they eat at McDonalds, but they're alone. They often have a sort of quiet control, because they know that the tide will just wash over them anyway. I'm not sure what a China Hand looks like, I've never met one.

By far the most damaging is the short term worker. He comes to China on a foreign salary, giving him loads of cash to fling around. In addition, he comes on his own terms looking for what he wants. The second most common response his Chinese level is, "I Can speak to her..." and he points at some girl wearing an outfit a Chinese prostitute might wear, except the STW thinks it's normal. So not only does he come and harm Chinese society by bludgeoning his culture upon it, but the stereotypes these men create also damage the reputations of other foreign workers in China. And ripples move on to America and beyond, until the only possible reason a man is interested in Asia is because he is obsessed with Asian women.

I would like to congratulate the short term foreign beer drinkers of the world! Quite an accomplishment you've made.

Above is my campus in the spring, a plum blossom tree.

I have two main rules that I live by in China:

1. Don't see the inside of a police station
2. Don't see the inside of a hospital
   

Unfortunately, I have broken the second rule for a second time. Perhaps my quota is now filled. It was interesting to see what a Chinese hospital is like (previously I just saw a tiny medical clinic), and it's not much like Western hospitals. I was sent to the internal medicine department where a doctor sat in a room. The patients then pushed into the room and all lined up to see her. She asks you your problems, and everyone listens. "Diarrhea for two weeks, huh? How often?" Me--often enough. Ten other Chinese patients, "ohhh, interesting!" She then proscribes some sort of test that you preform (minus points for filthy bathroom) and return with the results. They are then publicly analyzed. And some sort of medicine proscribed.

On the whole my impression was all right. It was a standard hospital, not an elite level, and while the service basic, it was at least available and professional. Privacy, you must understand, is not part of the Chinese professional package. And they can handle high level issues as well. Last year a girl broke her collarbone and required surgery. It was done and set perfectly. Still, send me home for open bypass surgery. Or a colonoscopy: 200 Chinese people, "Cool! Pink!"

Above is Yellow Mountain, more or less China's premier tourist mountain. They say you won't want want to see other mountains after this one. I went during China's travel holiday (Golden Week) and they're right. I never want to travel again.

Double Killing. Think I am in trouble? Think again, because now all that means is a double play. Yes, it is true, I have found baseball in China and it is better than the Field of Dreams. After searching for 8 months, literally, baseball came and found me at my job. And now ever Friday, Saturday and Sunday I am fabulously occupied with the ZheJiang University Baseball Team.

We are bad. My first time over I was selected to pitch because the team only has 3 pitchers. Two were gone on break and the other had thrown the entire previous day. And working from my constantly morphing delivery, I baffled batting practice with 50 mph fastballs located in the general vicinity of the plate. But hey, only nailing one guy isn't so bad is it? And I did bring the heat to actually break the catchers' mitt. Even Johan Santana doesn't actually break gloves. The mitt might have been from 1869, but I don't think that matters.

Watching the Chinese players arrive was my own personal Sandlot. There's fat ones and tall ones, a couple girls, and one that can't throw the ball in the air. Worm burners, every time. But when Worm Burner isn't working his outfield magic, he's an oncology major, so he should be all right.

In other news, the Chinese and Korean women's soccer national teams are playing in Hangzhou this weekend. And the Chinese team is visiting our university on Sunday, so I might have to go over and see that. But I hope for the Chinese women's team sake, they do not win in a dramatic shootout, which will require the last women to rip her shirt off in excitement. Instead of popularizing the sport like in America, the whole team would probably be banished.

Let's examine this method of celebration--does it make any sense? I have never seen any other women rip her shirt off in excitement, though perhaps this is for the best. "283 pounds? I met this week's weight loss goal, Yes!" Everyone would need therapy after that. But lets constrict the field to athletic celebrations, though weight loss perhaps might bizarrely qualify anyway.

Do baseball players rip off their shirts? "No don't celebrate yet! I still have some more buttons to go..." Or how about football players--nope, they're not allowed to take off their helmets. Perhaps that is why football executes so many jiggle-based celebrations. Basketball? They'd rather celebrate by whomping a fan or two. Ice hockey, I'm going to just say no. So why do soccer players?

Perhaps the first shirt ripping celebration was practiced by the Dutch, where as we all know, anything is legal. Then in an effort to not be out done, Germans had to go ripping too, prompting the entire French squad to develop the "Synchronized Shirt Strip" which is performed while speaking the most beautiful language on earth. I don't know.

Perhaps it is just best to hope for a 0-0 tie, preventing the need for any celebration whatsoever. Might be a relief to everyone, anyway.

For your viewing pleasure, I present some pictures from my China-crossing trip. Alas they are not in order, but I shall provide witty captions.

High school seniors in Hong Kong. They interviewed my in startlingly good English about Hong Kong's air pollution, to which I generally replied, "uhhh."

Sunset in Gui Lin, you can see a glimpse of the odd hills. They're everywhere, and really are beautiful, but I have no idea how they happened. As with most things, probably "carved by tiny glaciers millions of years ago."

Modern Junk. Ok, the ship is a Junk (pronounced yoonk) against the background of a modern Hong Kong. The city is truly remarkable, absolutely squeezed into the foot of a mountain. It appears to be one huge interconnected shopping mall in some ways, with signs warning everywhere, "smoke and be fined 5000 HK Dollars." No wonder it's clean.

You want Hong Kong's antidote? I present The First Normal School, the stomping grounds of Mao Ze Deng. Many Chinese landmarks are rebuilt (having either fallen down or been burned down by zealous Red Guards). Amazingly, this rebuilt school operates normally today, which would explain the eruption when I almost wondered into the female students' dormitory. Mao would not approve.

Last (actually my first destination) is Lu Shan, site of the Lu Shan conference. Now site of the worst place I have ever visited in China. I did escape with one nice picture, I suppose.

Si Chuan food is famous for being spicy. Unfortunately the little known truth is that Hunanese food could make an seasoned sichuanese veteran cry. I recently learned this truth.

Hunanese food is prepared in different ways, depending on the quality of the restaurant. If it is your standard family joint, before serving each dish is sniffed by the house grandma. If at least one of her nose hairs is singed, the dish is declared fit. However at the five star restaurants, a much more advanced method is used. Imported chefs from Mexico and France are both feed two mouthfuls. If either the Mexican blinks or the Frenchmen cries, the dish is a success. Bonus points if the Frenchmen attempts to surrender.

The food having driven me out of Hunan, I arrived in Gui Lin last night. This morning I went in search of a bike to rent. Fortunately I ran into a friendly local that lead me to a push cart stand with a sign, "We Rent The Bike." Delighted to have rented the only bike in all of Gui Lin, I headed off to see some mind warping scenery. Gui Lin is famous for these odd hills that seem to be blasted up out of the ground.

In route I managed to use the only bike in Gui Lin to run over probably the only thumbtack in Gui Lin. Being a genius, I looked at the silvery thing in my tire and promptly pulled it out. Poof--no air! I then got to walk to the only bike shop in about 5 miles, but all in all it was still a good day. I find that traveling with myself is like buying a bond. You know that nothing is going to go wrong, but probably not the return of traveling with friends either.

Returning to my regularly scheduled, highly polished broadcasts, I am on vacation. Which means I have infinitely more potential to land in ridiculous situations than usual. So far I have visited Lu Shan, the site where Mao strung Peng De Huai out to dry.

While Lu Shan is no longer a communist party hot spot, it can claim two superlatives: world's biggest tourist trap and world's most advanced cross walk signs. The tourist trap is run by the entire city and is specifically designed to skewer everyone. Are you an elderly Chinese and a big Mao fan? Take pictures of yourself sitting in the director's chair. Do you like picturesque landscapes? Buy the obscenely expensive 180 kuai entrance ticket (wait, everyone does that), hike down a mountain and then be forced to take a cable car up or die. Are you an ignorant foreigner? Have your two locals give you "the Tour" and have them lock your stuff in the trunk of their car. Then argue about the ever increasing price and have them ask, "where is your stuff again?"

The cross signs, though, are exciting. Oh yes, the little green man actually walks. And then walks faster, breaks stride, and finally becomes a little green blur. The light then turns red, implying imminent death (probable) if you weren't smart enough to follow the man's example.

On to Gui Lin tomorrow!

I am going to do something drastic, bordering on dumb. I am going

to tell the truth.

When I got to this country 227 days ago, I hated everything about this country and my life. My Chinese level needed a finely tuned scientific instrument to measure. All of my friends were in Chicago and I came alone. The school in Hangzhou that I attend is run by Middlebury and each semester they transport a clique of students to China and back. The language pledge prevented me from really communicating with anyone.

In addition to my massive dysfunction, I was cursed with a scholarship that stipulates a full year abroad. So while all the other Americans counted down the weeks until they got out of China on one hand, I counted the months on two. I visited the office in tears more than once, thinking of any scheme to get me out.

But China slowly broke me, or perhaps I learned to bend China back. My Chinese took a flying leap, and as I leaped my friends began to shift too. Very slowly at first. I made friends with some girls that work at a tea shop. I started to spend sometime with the guys in the dorm. After my roommate's girlfriend moved to Shanghai (to his hysterics), we became friends and I met people at some school events, dances and performances.

Then all of the Americans, including myself, went home. And I'll never see them again, but I was back in China a few weeks later. I continued to learn to make friends in Beijing and then came to Hangzhou armed with two weapons: an internship and old friends. Throw in acceptable Chinese for good measure. At the same time, my contact with my American friends grew less and less. Not because they're not good friends, but simply the distance. Too hard to cross.

China recently dealt me the blow that I feared the most: it cost me my relationship with Alice. I had feared this for so long. Speaking honestly, after I got passed the culture shock the reason that I fought against China so much is that I saw it taking it from me. And while it certainly has hurt, I have also found that I don't have to fight this country anymore.

China has taken everything except my family from me (which it won't ever), but I don't even mind any more.

It's ok.

The resident director here told me that students generally don't make many real Chinese friends. And they don't--they eat together, study together and go out together. And while they are "living in China" what they're doing is skimming over the top, getting the cream off the milk.

Well I say the hell with that. China started as the most bitter pill I have ever swallowed. But the medicine works. I am more patient than I've ever been, more relaxed than I knew I could be. Life moves much more slowly here. And by far the best part for me is that I have entered into it. My friends are Chinese. The activities I participate in are Chinese. I am going to my friend's birthday party week after next. I'm going camping with my co-workers.

In short, I've made my nitch, and while my nitch absolutely involves listening to Twins games broadcast from around the world, most of my nitch is Chinese. And that is

Amazing.

I have an inordinate amount of peasant worker friends, most of them from HeNan. This perhaps requires an explanation. You probably know that Americans say, "it's not what you know, it's who." Well in China that is true, but could be amended to, "who you know you will know more and more of until you are squished under a pile of Chinese people." Perhaps I have taken liberty with the translation, but you're just going to have to trust me. After all, who's been in China way too long for their own good--you, or me?

This is brought on by my recent weekend. I had made plans to eat the elusive Green Tea Ice Cream with my friend from teashop. Well, I should have known better, but she of course invited her friend 2 who took us to her little sister's shop. Friend 2 also invited friend 3 and friend 3 invited her guy friends to come. And also brought her older sister, who is actually her brother's girlfriend. Clear so far? So by the end of the night, a cone of ice cream had turned into about 5 more friends, all from HeNan. And the world spins on.

In other news, this blog has had almost 1000 unique visits. Exciting! Nobody has mailed me New York style cheesecake yet, but I am still hoping.

It has recently come to my attention that my best friend from Beijing, Gao Rui Xia (高瑞霞), has not appeared on my blog. Never one to ignore my heinous errors, here in all the grandeur of Beijing University is the two of us. On skates, no less. She and her boyfriend treated me to my first taste of Beijing Roast Duck (which is just as delicious as advertised) and we have even been known to climb The Great Wall of China together. This summer she has agreed to help give my family a tour of Beijing (surprise, family members!). So no more heinous errors for me!

In other news, I have been assiduously planning my spring break trip: go South. So while I do not know exactly where I am going, I am sure it will be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Especially considering monkeys make a big mess.

I don't need to go to China to learn about myself. I can just take the flipping Briggs-Myers personality test and have myself described perfectly:

does not like being alone, thinks life has purpose/meaning, organized, values organized religion, outgoing, social, does not like strange people/things - likely intolerant of differences, open, easy to read, dislikes science fiction, values relationships and families over intellectual pursuits, group oriented, follows the rules, affectionate, planner, regular, orderly, clean, finisher, religious, consults others before acting, content, positive, loves getting massages, complimentary, dutiful, loving, considerate, altruistic

Well it did make one mistake: I like Star Wars. Above is a panda trashcan.

I promised big news. Well it's not just big. It's provincial sized! Multi-provincial sized! If you haven't guessed it yet, I would say that it's pretty obvious that I am starring on a Dating Game Show on Zhejiang Province TV. You can see me with my successful partner above. Her names is Good Good (no, not kidding) and I am sure we're destined for a long and fruitful relationship. Especially considering after the show she told me that, "Glad it's just a game, huh? I'm really busy right now, but maybe I'll see you later." Oh well, it's the hotness that counts, right? For all my Western viewers, I know what you're thinking--not hot. But in China, this girl is pretty much Angelina Jolie. I have more thoughts on this experience, but they perhaps require polishing. May I note that the one sketchy part of this show was performed with a seaweed barrier!

A lot has been happening. So many things I ought to tell you! From two trips to Nanjing to my amazing skills at my job to my bicycle's special trick. So might as well start! Above is my first trip to Nanjing on independent travel weekend. Last quarter I met peasants in a village, this one I decided to "casually climb" a mountain in Nanjing. Well I almost died about 2/3 of the way up, but I was able to pull myself together and look smooth for this picture. My mood was not helped by the numerous old grandpas running up and down the mountain yelling, "This isn't steep! This isn't tall!" Crazy communists! Nanjing is in the background.

The next week was group travel weekend. But instead of heading for the mountains of some remote oppressed minority, we went back to Nanjing. Don't get me wrong, our Director wanted to go the poor oppressed minority, but three days of rain thwarted him. I am not sure what my roommate is doing, but it's pretty much his standard thing. Sai Xi is a good man. This time we visited Sun Yat-Sen's mausoleum, which I found scintillating, as I pounded out 26 pages on him last spring.

Who is that man? Only by far the handsomest employee at Wind and Snow Outdoor Store. Oh yes, I, for four hours a day four days a week, peddle the likes of North Face, Mountain Hardwear, and more to rich Chinese people. The real mystery to me is why the don't just by the fake one that looks the same, but I haven't brought that up yet. So far my proudest moment is selling a polar fleece jacket to a man and his wife. Big deal you say? I say you say "light but warm, quick drying nicely fitting guaranteed quality and 25% off polar fleece jacket." Yeah, that's what I thought.Seeing as I have no picture of my devious bicycle, I have chosen this unflattering one of my co-workers. My bicycle has a special trick: when you ride fast, the chain falls off. Perhaps this doesn't sound so bad, but it is less than ideal. As in look here is a huge thunderstorm coming--ride fast! Or, that crazy electric bike rider might squish me--ride fast! Seeing as I commute half an hour to work each way on my bike every day, my hands were getting a little black from chain grease. I recently took it to a local guy with a wrench, and whatever he did seems to have solved it. But I am waiting until I really need to GO FAST! I assume then it will fall off.

I have some more really Big NEWS... but you'll just have to wait until Monday or so for that. Can't blow it all in one day.

I have become the stuff of Legend. At least, somehow, here in Hangzhou where faulty stories transferred by thousands of miles of wire become even more faulty. The newly arrived students were convinced that upon my arrival in China 6 months ago, I did not speak a word of Chinese. But somehow through superhuman acts of improvement, I have arrived at my current state. Which, as far as I can tell, is also overestimated. Or how about that it took me three weeks to make a note on the bamboo flute (but arduous study made me the best). Neither one of those facts is true. Or the fact that I had a life threatening illness on fall break. Not quite. But I am probably foolish to shed Truth on my legend.

Who wants to know that in reality my fall break illness was a result of hiking 27 kilometers barefoot through brush with a Chinese peasant on my shoulders? Or that my incredible concentration when learning Chinese is due to the lighted candle I hold my palm over?

No, no one, I would think.

Fully aware that this might backfire and cause her to kill me from afar, I will post this picture and bravely announce that today marks one year for Alice and me together. And that it has been quite a year. Above is Dance Marathon, probably around hour 12,327.

You try and claim this: I went on vacation to Shanghai and back. In 6 hours. Aside from the astounding speed of my roommate's and my trip, we also visited a really old church, the Shanghai City Planning Museum, the Bund, a psychotic tunnel under the river to the other side, and Asia's third tallest building. We ended by literally dashing through subways and hurdling barriers (think James Bond, but more handsome) to make our train. Whew. I hope you're as tired as I am.

I would say that my brainwashing, I mean course on the Chinese Communist Party, is going well. We have only met once so far, but the effect has been impressive and immediate. Not only am I clearing up a lot of misunderstandings I had, but I am all important vocabulary to properly discuss the subject. The next time students in Beijing cause a ruckus, I will be more than prepared to go out and explain to them the error in their ways. A recent excerpt from class:

Teacher: What function does Marxism-Leninism have?
Me: It is the basis for Chinese socialism. It must be adjusted for China's situation.
Teacher: How do we know the "correct road"
Me: We must study Mao Ze Dong Thought and Deng Xiao Ping Theory
Teacher: Yes.

As we read about the possible need for class struggle in the future and the elimination of the capitalist class (it is necessary for one group, preferably high ranking officials, to get rich first, and then make everyone else rich too), my teacher shows no indication that he finds this to be, well, polished. Meanwhile, I am trying not to laugh. But I suppose as a political science professor and member of the CCP, he's had a lot more practice than I have.

Above is my professor, Yang Laoshi and me, finishing up fall semester

Sick of my international travel horror stories? Good, me too. So I won't tell you about the Big Fog in Beijing that canceled over 200 flights and delayed mine until 3:00 in the morning. Nor will I bring up that I stayed up the night before leaving, so by the time I got to Hangzhou on Thursday morning (China time) I had not slept since Sunday night. No, I won't mention any of that.

Above is me and my new roommate, 卢赛喜 (Lu Sai Xi). He is an applied chemistry graduate student from southern Zhe Jiang province. I knew things would be good when I woke him up at 6:00 am to let me in the dorm and he could smile. As for my generally scalding re-entry into China, things are going pretty well. Classes start Monday, and I am hoping that I won't instantly be reduced to tears, ala my previous start of classes. Of course, it's probably best to count on the worst. Then nothing can go wrong.

I hate rollercoasters. You can ask my College Prep Program students whether or not I chickened out from riding on Batman. Definitely did. The whole thing with rollercoasters, generally speaking, is that they are Instant Consquence Decisions. One sees a rollercoaster, is then pressured until he breaks, and finally sees his whole life pass before his eyes with every single click-clack of the elevator chain. The whole terrible process is over in maybe 10 minutes and the victim swears of all ICD for the next 23 seconds.

This is to be compared with Delayed Consequence Decisions. These DCD move through stages. First, some sort of exciting or seemingly innocuous decision is made.

*"We're getting married!"
*"Let's adopt that puppy"
*"Going to China sounds important..."

Then numerous binding agreements are signed, triplicated, sent to government agencies where they're triplicated again. Promises are made to friends and family alike. Thousands of dollars are often spent. Finally, one realizes that the C of his DCD is about to happen and that it's not exciting at all, but rather executing and he is strapped to a huge rollercoaster that instead of being over in 10 minutes will affect the rest of his life and probably kill him first.

Great.

This is the part where I start realizing that I am standing in line again and where I look up to the top of the coaster and I can't see it. It's up in the clouds, beyond anything I could ever predict. The difference with Michael version 2 is that I have ridden this coaster, or its variant, once before. And that if I am not dead yet, it probably won't happen for a while.

Above: My favorite place to ice skate, Bei Da (Beijing University)

Do you wish there was more time in the day? I don't. My recent Friday was 36 hours long. How? Well if you get up at 5:00am China Standard Time, and fly to America and go to bed at 1:00am Central Standard time, that is the same as getting up at 3pm Thursday in Chicago and staying up until 1:00 am Saturday morning. So no, I am not in the market for longer days.

All done with my 4 week stint in Beijing, and I am thankful to have attended. If I had not, I would still be at home simultaneously forgetting Chinese (not hard) and dreading a return to China. Instead I now can sort of read newspapers and I am excited to return to Hangzhou for the next quarter.

Three things I'll miss from Beijing

1. Ice skating on the pond at Beijing University
2. Tang Huo Luo--basically a candied fruit-kabob
3. Time to go out and explore the city with little pressure
   

Reverse Auction. Possibly the most effective sales method I have ever seen, not to mention my favorite. How's it work? A pair of men setup a shop in an alleyway (Hu Tong) and equip themselves with a loudspeaker and two wooden mallets. Big ones. Whatever merchandise is being sold is presented to the crowd and placed on a table. The following conversation ensues:

• "Everyone! This stone lion is beautiful! Give it to a friend! Put it in your house! Should be 800 kuai!

WHAM!

• My friend he's crazy! 500 kuai!

WHAM!

• No way! I say 300!

And down the price goes until someone someone decides that yes, 80 kuai does satisfy his need for a decorative pig. (It's the year of the Pig.) Unfortunately, there is a limit on the price and if nobody wants it, the item is simply returned to the shelf and replaced with a new, probably jade, object.

I just returned from dueling underground dance parties for middle aged Chinese people. I was led to this event by the school's cook who told me that she often goes to "underground dance parties." She did not mention that she only watches (never dances), but that I suppose is a minor detail. There were plenty of 50 year old ladies happy to dance with me, which was cute at first, but not so much by the end. Perhaps I will explain this phenomenon better.

In the 60's and 70's, Mao decided that China needed a huge underground city, so construction was obviously started. The whole Cultural Revolution thing derailed plans a bit, so they "city" was never finished into the metropolis it was to be. Now there are ramps and stairs leading down underground, where there are some cheap markets. The ramps are key, because they allow three wheeled bicycles down. The bicycles are key because the come equipped with speakers, a subwoofer, a car battery, an MP3 player and an old man. The old man, in this case two old men, setup their speakers, connect the car battery, and then begin the dueling dance party. Everyone starts dancing, and wahlah: a night to remember.

I recently visited Detroit. Okay, perhaps it was the Detroit of China, but upon arriving in Tianjin I promptly wrote that I did not like the city. Having decided to travel the past weekend, I chose Tianjin mostly (99 % mostly) because it was close and convenient. The lady on the bus I asked for a hotel recommendation, a native, asked me several times why I was visiting Tianjin. She wanted to know what there is to see, in case she had somehow missed it in 30 years there.

So prepared for failure, I immediately looked up the expatriate magazine for all the hip happenings. I found three choices: foreign student night at the Cozy Club, a dance club, and College Student Night at a coffee shop. I chose the coffee shop, and discovered that it was an English corner. This means that Chinese, with shockingly good English, materialize from the woodwork and then proceed to practice on you, the foreigner. This also means you are a prize possession, which I was lucky enough to use wisely.

By the end of the night, two cute twin sisters (okay, cousins) were more than delighted to take me around the city on Saturday and I was lucky enough to be invited to an American family's house for dinner and my favorite game in the world, Settlers of Catan. They say you know these sort of people (chrstns) by their love, and let me tell you, I was loved. By the end of Saturday, I was actually depressed to leave China's Motor City.

Sorry, once again, no pictures. Soon. I promise.

The Chinese don't walk. No, it is a truly a flow. They flow in and out of stores, across streets, and particularly down into subways. In fact, it is quite possible that the Chinese might collectively form a new type of matter, a gaseous liquid. For their shape changes, but yet so does their volume! Put 1000 people on a street, they spread out to cover it evenly. Put 1000 people in a subway car, they pack into it. It is a feat worthy of witnessing, but oddly at this point I am participant more than anything else.

Indeed I somehow now flow as well.

Orientation literatures states that once a person has emerged from culture shock, the shockee will not be able to recall what was once so extraordinarily irritating. I laughed at that--I knew going in that I was going to remember exactly what bothered me. I planned on it, and knew that I would never forget it. And yet I can't. Against all of my carefully laid plans I have forgotten, and instead really enjoy myself here.

Of course, it might just be that I have class 6 hours a week this month, too.

I have the power to Time Travel. Unfortunately, it's a balanced equation and only for about 14 hours per trip. Adding to the misfortune of my adventures, I also am required to sit on the inner row of up to three different time traveling airliners for up to 15 hours at a go. But I suppose that, combined with Time Travel Lag, is the price I must pay.

MB go home. Home was wonderful, even if they recommend staying in China as to avoid a second round of culture shock. I got to watch a lot of football, sleep on the couch with my grandpa, and eat an inordinate amount of sweets. I also got to spend some time with Alice, which was not only enjoyable, but productive. I was going to post incredible photos of exploits at home, including when I battled ninjas dispatched to bring me to the Northern Capital, but my internet is so sloooow that my e-mail even doesn't work. Sorry.

Return to China Culture Program (CCP) Shock Stages

1. First Day: Arrive at Beijing Teachers' College disoriented and admire my ridiculously nice room (it's a single.)
2. Second Day: Realize that my single room is a lot like a horrible cell and want to go home because, once again, I know nobody
3. Today: Stand by white board, meet friendly roommate. She takes me to see Bei Da and Qing Hua University, we go skating on a lake at Bei Da (accompanied by a crowd of adorable Middle Kingdom people), and then eat eat delicious Beijing Roast Duck for dinner with her boyfriend. Whom I would marry if it weren't that he's taken and a man (yes, he's that nice).

Final verdict on 4 days in China: spend more time standing by the white board.