Week 26: Z

ZEBRA:  Can you believe that in all my years I had never realized that my name is just one letter off from zebra? Well, my students did immediately...and they find that fact hilarious!  The really bold ones even write "Zebra" as the teacher's name on tests.  Here's my namesake at the ZOO (did I mention that there is really close access to the animals there?):

ZAI JIAN (Goodbye)! It's time to bid farewell to China. It's my last full week here. I met a lot of great people, visited many beautiful places, saw a lot of fascinating things, expanded my palate, learned a little bit about myself and the Far East, and overall had a wonderful experience.

Oh, if only you could have heard the hip-hop music playing while these ladies were dancing in the park one morning! Let's pretend that they are waving goodbye.

Will the real China please stand up?

In a country that is changing so quickly, it is difficult to figure out what the real China is. Here are some of the paradoxes I've witnessed (based on my limited stay in a modern, coastal city):

--Chinese people will tell you that they are a developing country, yet they are the ones buying our debt.
--A bus fare costs only 14 cents and most people don't own cars, yet I've seen about 15 different Porsche SUVs in this city.
--Few people can speak English, yet everyone says "bye-bye" as a farewell.
--Street signs like this don't seem too bizarre:


--According to the Chinese government, the Cultural Revolution caused the death of 30 million people, yet Mao is still honored and featured on every RMB note.
--Prostitution and dubious "bath houses" are prevalent, and the "family planning" section is at the front of every drug store and abortions seem almost commonplace, yet you don't see many young couples kissing in public. The Internet is censored for (among other things) sexual content.
--People dress their dogs in little raincoats and booties, yet dog appears on the menu in many restaurants.
--Manicures cost $1.40 and foot massages cost $4. (No paradox there; I just think that fact is awesome.)
--All students (even a med student I was talking to) have to attend mandatory "patriotism" classes, yet when I asked a class of 20 students how many provinces there were in China, not one could answer me. (Answer: 22 or 34 -- no wonder they are confused)
--Mere possession of firearms is subject to the death penalty, yet there are no fines for public spitting or public urination????????

One thing is for sure....China has a lot of people:
--Someone just told me that his "town" is only the ninth largest city in his province. It has "only" 1.9 million people.
--The largest city in the world? Shanghai, China (13.8 million)
--The largest municipal region in the world that you've never heard of? Chongqing, China (33.3 million [the population of Canada])
--...but China will have one fewer American in a week!

Things I've Eaten

Well, I know that it is a value-loaded statement to say "strange" things I've eaten, so here are some things that I've eaten in China that I had never thought that I would ever eat:

Pig heart
Conch -- the snail-like substances in the conch shell
Jellyfish
Cicadas -- in a tangy marinade. Not bad, until you feel the little feet tickling your tongue
Squid on a stick
Ox tongue
Chicken necks
Copious amounts of seaweed -- Seaweed is one thing, but the cook at our school makes A LOT of seaweed dishes
Stinky tofu

DUCK NIGHT
boiled duck feet
duck intestines
duck heart
and, yes, four little duck tongues

All pretty tame compared to the things I've seen on menus and in the market.

I know I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth and I really do appreciate the free lunch, but this is a sample of the meals we get at the school. Yummy!

Sheep placenta, anyone?

My stay in China is coming to an end, and it is time to buy some souvenirs. Would anyone like the sheep placenta that I just saw in the beauty goods store today? I hear it is an excellent anti-aging remedy.

A Romantic Sentiment?

We had heard that Qingdao was the most romantic city in China, but this is ridiculous. Imagine coming across this map when you are walking hand-in-hand with your girlfriend. It would seem like the universe were talking to you, wouldn't it? Or is it just more Chenglish?

I'm sorry that I forgot to take a picture of the can of tea in the hotel room. They wanted to say that it wasn't free, but, instead, they had a big sticker on it that said "uncomplimentary." Loved it!

Week 25: Y

I'm back from our trip to Qingdao and Shanghai, where we realized that visiting a summer seaside town in mid-February and Shanghai over the three days of the year when everything shuts down might not be the ideal travel conditions. However, we saw some new sights and learned some new things...and nothing got stolen, so I guess it was a plus/plus.

The YELLOW Sea. Beautiful Dalian is on the Yellow Sea, but so, too, is Qingdao--a big contender for the most beautiful city in China. Controlled by the Germans in the late 19th century, it has a real European flavor to it.  This is the famous pier which appears on every label of Tsingtao beer:

A lonely winter beach, until we came upon a group of men doing a polar-bear dip. COLD!

In Shanghai, the buildings along the Bund are known as a museum of modern architecture. What do you think?

There was some old, along with the new:

The night lights:

Unfortunately, we saw a lot of this. World Expo 2010 opens on May 1, and they have a lot of work left to do.

The YU Garden. Here is a picture of the ubiquitous Expo mascot on a boat in the 17th-century Yu Garden--all sponsored by Pepsi, of course.

The YU Garden in the driving winter rain. The bridges are crooked to stop evil spirits from entering the homes.

I wanted to show you pictures of the YANGTZE River cruise I had planned to take during this holiday, but when I found out that there were three prices--one for Chinese people, one for foreigners, and one for American foreigners--the idea lost some of its appeal.

Wishing you all a Happy Chinese New Year, and that every day be a happy one.

Week 24: X

**I reserve the right to return to X after I have been to Xi'an, the home of the Terracotta Army. I'll be there from March 1-3.**

In the meantime, a reminder of what relatively warm weather looked like at XINGHAI PARK in September. Just a 15-minute walk from my house, it is also the home of carnival rides, a zip line, bungee jumping, shell trinkets, an acquarium, and the slightly-creepy Asia Sun Polar World.

It's also where a colleague had this picture taken .... and, yes, I completely regret that I didn't put on the empress gear and have my photo taken as well.

Next to Xinghai Park is XINGHAI SQUARE. As I've been told about 50 times, it is the biggest square in all of China. In China, big=good. The easiest way to make our Chinese students lose respect for England is to have them look for it on a map. When they see how small it is, they are aghast.

[Photo source: bbker.com]

XIE XIE. It's hard to pronounce, but this is "thank you" in Chinese. I think I do okay with hello (ni hao) and goodbye (zai jian), but thank you is a killer.

Happy New Year!

February 14th is Chinese New Year, and the festivities have already begun. They've put up decorations for the Year of the Tiger.

They've started selling decorations on the street. At this time of year, everyone cleans off their doors (a bit of spring cleaning for the Spring Festival), and then hangs new signs for the new year. The red signs welcome wealth and good fortune as well as guarding the home from evil spirits.

In most Chinese cities, fireworks are illegal....but not in Dalian. Here is a sampling of the fireworks for sale.

Not to say that we are overprotective of our children, but I'm pretty sure that they don't sell Mickey Mouse fireworks in the U.S.

Odd scene today

So, I'm walking to work in about 30-degree weather and I pass the middle-school children running around the track, in perfect formation of little platoons, wearing their matching red track suits. And what is the music blaring from the speakers? Patriotic Chinese marching songs? No. "Bye, bye, bye" by 'N Sync. A little too bizarro-world for me. I hear that blasted song (and the theme from Titanic) so much in stores that I actually caught myself humming it the other day.

Week 23: W

WALL, the Great: Did I mention that I visited the Great WALL when I was in Beijing? Truly a WONDER of the WORLD.

WHITE: Being white is much desired here (take that, Alex, for mocking my paleness before I left). The beauty stores have entire aisles dedicated to whitening creams. They tell me that the ingredients in the most effective ones come from birds' nests. When I first arrived I kept thinking that it was going to rain, because all the girls took their umbrellas (see: parasols) to go out in the sun.

The quest for white, alas, does not extend to one's teeth. I'm so perplexed by the students who attend our expensive supplemental English classes yet when they open their mouths, they have rotting teeth.

WET TURBAN: As everyone knows, before eating on an airplane, you sometimes want to clean your hands with a wet turban.

Why, you ask, would an airline provide such a lovely wet turban to its customers? Here's why, of course:

"Carring because of the love" is my new favorite slogan.

WIND: The Siberian wind sweeping down from the North and picking up power over the water was one of my least favorite surprises in Dalian.

WEDDING PHOTOS (not mine!!): Wedding photos are quite the industry here. Brides and grooms have their pictures taken months, sometimes years, before the wedding -- all in special complexes that do your hair and make-up and rent extravagant costumes and props that range from everything from traditional Chinese gear to Rhett Butler and Scarlett on a coach. Did I say the bride and groom take the pictures? I meant anyone and everyone does ... I guess having your picture taken on the beach is quite the exciting date activity. We walked near a popular beach for wedding photos this fall and saw eleven different couples frolicking in the surf for the perfect shot.