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.

My roommate, like all Chinese males approximately my age, is an internet addict. Every time I return to the room, if he is present, he is in one of two positions. Hunched over his computer, consumed by whatever website his is staring at, or lying in bed. 99% of the time it is the website. Recently his soul was sucked into a website where if for ten days you neither eat nor sleep, nor rest nor go to the bathroom, but only fill out mindless forms you could win a trip to Africa. He got started two days late, but he surely made an effort in good faith, resting his eyeballs not once.

He's not going to Africa.

The Saga of Finals:

• Social Issues class--Oral and Written exam complete
• Literature--just finished 2 1/2 hour written exam
• One on One (Chinese Government for me)--paper written, oral presentation tomorrow
• Pronunciation Class--oral test Friday

Then

HOME 家 HOME

The China Southern Airlines stewardesses are all in love with me. I can tell by the way they furtively glance at me as they pass by and by how as they pass me my glass of orange juice they hope to brush my hand with theirs. However, what makes it most obvious is when their big green eyes look into my brown ones and they ask me "rice or noodles," they suddenly can hardly speak Chinese at all. Here is me holding them close to my heart, as they made me promise!

But the reason that I was on a plane at all was to visit a certain Ms. Christina Liao! (So there, MEIV--China has at least one benefit!:) She is in Lanzhou, China and has, if I do say so myself, a fabulous apartment/dorm thing. If she could somehow extricate the fact that it's China's most polluted city, she might be completely set. But it was a great time visiting her, she taught me Chinese chess and then beat me at it (which I am glad about!), and we even had blueberry milk tea to go with a lot of conversations. I hope to see her again, maybe in February.


Bamboo flute. My proficiency has not been increasing as much recently, mostly due to the fact that I have not been practicing. But as a man newly finished with class (only review and exams to go) I intend to redouble my efforts. Which would have me praticing at least twice a week. For your viewing pleasure, I want to present the Infinitely Talented Li Laoshi and his suspicious looking apprentice, Zongke.All in all, I have slightly less than two more weeks, then I'll be home to relax, visit, and mostly watch football. I have not seen a game since last January, so it's getting desperate. Zongke, out.

The Pledge reads that I will not speak English until "graduating from The Middlebury School in China." If I am caught violating The Pledge a letter is sent to Northwestern. If I am caught twice, I buy my own ticket home. This is a fine way to learn a language, but someone reported that I

"mumble English," implying that I violate the pledge. In short, somone tried to screw me.

Whoever you are, I don't appreciate you much.

In other news, something has happened. Something has flipped, and I suddenly enjoy China and am thankful to have another quarter here. This is remarkable, considering I spent the vast majority of the beginning hating my life. I think the switch finally went though when my roommate took me to a dance on campus. I met people, I learned Slow Three Step, and I felt like a normal person. A person that can interact and make friends and tell awful, stupid jokes. And that was the best I've felt since coming to China. Plus, I won a little stuffed pig to put on my phone. So I suppose my life is now complete.

Two things I like about China

• the music and annoucements broadcast from speakers around campus at lunch and dinner
• meeting people and starting to have friends and people that i recognize around campus
  

Home in 2 and 1/2 weeks.

Some observations that one might not make instantly about China

• Some people keep all of their fingernails trimmed. Except for one. Which they grow to a disgusting length. You might think the purpose is to gross out foreigners, but it's actually a status symbol. With a nail that long you can't do manual labor, and most of these people are from the country side
• High school in China is super intense. But once you get to college it's pretty much clear sailing because the classes are too big to closely monitor student progress and because everyone slacks together, so there is no pressure except for about once a month
• Long Jing Tea is Hangzhou's famous tea, but I am pretty sure that it tastes like tree bark. I much prefer Ou-Long Tea
• Nearly 1/2 of our program has been in the director's office in tears
• I am addicted to Sprite (雪碧). I have it at nearly every meal, using it to counter act whatever foreign food I am eating
• I have lost weight (but not much, Grandma!)
• Every Tuesday I go to 家乐福a combination mall/uber-Target to visit friends that I made that work in a Tea Shop. They give me free tea, but I try to avoid Long Jin!
• I ride my bicycle all around the city--it's really pretty amazing. The city is rather compact, so 20 minutes can get you most places, and the bicycle traffic is more or less undescripable. I was terrified of it for the first month and a half
• I had Thanksgiving dinner at Pizza Hut with the only other year long student

Hopefully you find these musings thrilling and wonderful. In exactly three weeks I will be on a plane to come home. Thank God for Christmas! Above is me with my roommate, Wang Guo Jiang

For your benefit I have fully researched all the possible situations and combinations of them that can occur when studying Chinese. They are as follows.

• recognize neither the character, nor its meaning, nor its sound
• recognize the character and meaning, but not sound. therefore, unspeakable
• recognize the character and sound but forget the meaning. therefore, unuseable
• somehow vaguely know what it means, but not know how to use it
• only know the word orally
• recognize both the characters in a word, their sound, tone and meaning. have no clue what they mean together.
  
• amazingly know the character, its pronounciation, tone, and meaning. This is approximately a 2% occurance.

One month from today, I am going to be getting off of the
plane in Chicago. Amazing.

Above a woman is lifting a wine cup that was floating down a river--the person who drinks it has to compose a poem or song. This was how some rich Chinese people amused themselves about 400 years ago. Now it's an activity at a famous park by Lu Xun's old home.

News from the Eastern Front

• The concrete guard tower and pillbox on campus were demolished this week. I am not sure what purpose this structure served, sitting in the middle of campus, but I suppose that it is a nice gesture either way
• I have four more week tests (and five more weeks!) until I get to come home for a while
• I am going to a lecture on senility today... we'll see how much I glean from that one!
• Last weekend we visited the home of Chinese author Lu Xun. Think Mark Twain.

And in the best recent news

I recently got a nice compliment from our Academic Director. She told me that they have had students come a year behind in Chinese and they have had students come alone. But they have never had one both a year behind and alone. She said that everyone has been impressed by my "extremely rapid progress" and how I have "held up emotionally." So that more or less made my day.

Above is me with my pronunciation class partner, Guang Da. I think his English name is Dan. Our dialogues are famous for "creativity." He's probably my best friend here.

You may be excited to know that I had my first really happy day in China. It was Sunday. I went with one of the friends that I made in the Jia Le Fu Tea Shop and we goofed around, ending up in KFC for dinner. And as she told me a joke that I actually understood, I realized that I was happy. And had been all day. And it wasn't because I had received 5 e-mails from home. So it was a remarkable day.

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