I guess now I should try to write about Yunnan

I put it off long enough, so I figured it's time. I know longer have any real clear memories of the 15 day trip we took at the beginning of the semester, so I have succeeded in my plan to deprive this blog of any real substance. Suckers. Also, I've finally gotten over the PTSD from my time in the Communist pygmy-run internment camp (huzzah!), but we'll get to that later.

On January someteenth, all 96 people in TBC marched from the dorms to the West Gate and rode to the airport in buses that were nicer than we'd ever have again for the whole trip. I mostly slept through the plane ride, only waking up to growl in disappointment at the food given to me that was neither battered nor covered in cheeses (when you're dreaming about fried cheese, waking up is the hardest part) (Also, I just like thinking about American food. I usually try everything on my plate, unless it's still moving. Then I eat all of it).

We landed in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. It was about 70 degrees. I screamed in delight, then remembered I had to make friends. We stayed at a hotel right next to Yunnan University, and ate lunch at a restaurant whose ceiling upstairs was only four feet high. We spent the rest of the day learning about the various ethnic minorities that inhabit Yunnan, then went to a sort of opera where we were given a preview of the various ethnic traditions. It was not really anything like reality, especially since I was eating popcorn and they were professionally trained dancers.

The next morning, the 96 split up into two groups of 48, group A (me), and group B (who had to catch a 5 in the morning flight). I'm still getting to know a lot of the group B people just now, and they're all really weird (just kidding). Group A was further split up into two buses, and most of the people I hung out with were the people I was sitting next to. The bus rides turned out to be wildly entertaining, with the entire bus playing Mafia together. It started out fun, but pretty soon everyone was psychoanalyzing everyone else and I started to realize this probably wasn't a very healthy group activity. It wasn't. But it stayed fun. Here's a sample of the game mechanics:

Tom: I think it's Luis! (He said this every game)

Luis: Guys, it's not me. I swear.

Martina: Yeah, guys, if it were Luis, some of the other Mafia members would be defending him, but no one is.

Me: Hey, Martina's defending Luis, let's kill her!

(Shouts of agreement. Someone in the back yells "Burn her!")

Martina: This game is ridiculous.

When we weren't acting out all the horrible conclusions about Mob mentality, we spent time in various cities or villages. The first village was home to the Bai people. They greeted us with one of those people-tunnels you see at the beginning of basketball games, and then gave us shots of baijiu (a colorless, incredibly strong - like seriously, 55 proof - rice liquor), as they are wont to do at basketball games. There was also a basketball court, and it was kind of entertaining to see village women on their break shooting baskets. Instead of hiking or learning how to embroider, I stayed in the village square and played frisbee with some of the children. After I bent over to grab the frisbee and tore an enormous hole in my "weekend pants," I decided to stop all the strenuous activity and stop scandalizing villagers. I don't know how well I did. After a performance, we went back to our homestay in the village, which was with a nice family whom I later found out were Party members. I guess the poster of the fatigue-wearing femme fatale should have clued me in. I was mostly just really cold, as at this point only about 35% of my legs were covered.

The Beijing air had been wreaking havoc on my sinuses, and I constantly felt like I was eating smog. The clear(er) Yunnan air helped to clear this up, and the enormous welt on my tongue from biting it on the trip from America was finally starting to heal. Everything eventually settles I guess, but I wish I could just skip over the awkward settling phase.

After the village, we went to Jianshui, which was very cloudy and slightly colder than Kunming. It was another standard Chinese "shop 'til you drop" city (I like to think these are Mao's favorites), which didn't make it any less enjoyable. It was distinct in its own way, with cobbled streets in certain areas and a labyrinthine set of streets. A group of us went out to explore the city, and none of us would ever be the same again.

Well, mostly just me. We walked through an enormous gate and into a small park that was evidently the start of the seedier side of town. We stopped to take a picture in front of the gate, and from out of the bushes came two ghoulish, pink-clad young girls who decided they wanted to be in our picture. That was all well and good. Unfortunately, after the picture was done, one of the girls decided she wanted the coke I was drinking, and proceeded to pull it away from me with surprising strength. I have, however, even more surprising strength, but I didn't want to unveil my Herculean strength simply to pull a coke bottle away (as many of you know, a flat Coke is like drinking blended razor blades). I managed to deftly pull the coke out of her hands, and started to walk away, lowering my arm. I did not take into account that she was still behind me, and lost the Coke again. At this point, I figured I was making a scene and this artless dodger had by now earned it. However, before we walked back through, I bought a bottle of Coke that was 3 times as large as the stolen one, and walked back through smug in my victory over this 8 year old.

Over the next few days, we drove up into the mountains. How a bus as large as ours seamlessly wove through these tiny mountain roads is beyond me, but I mainly just tried not to look anywhere, having a lot of practice from my journey into deepest Haiti, the place where liberal guilt goes to die. 

Once up in the mountains, we went on an intense hike around and down one of them, through villages and forests. Tom and Luis decided they wanted hiking sticks, so they found some large pieces of bamboo to hike with. Tom's was especially large, so I made a crude yet hilarious joke about it's size and significance. Tom held out the stick in an even cruder location for a picture. Luis, who hadn't really been paying any attention, through Tom wanted to sword fight, so he brought his stick smashing down on Tom's, jamming the butt of the stick into the crudest spot yet. Tom doubled over, unable to breathe, while all of us laughed and I might have taken several pictures. Luis was noncommittal over Tom's demands that Luis's first child belonged to him, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I didn't really understand Tom's anger; Luis had performed an advanced urological procedure that Tom normally would've paid thousands of dollars for. 

Next, we went to Jinghong, capital of the Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture (for a list of the administrative divisions and their significance in the Chinese government, OPEN A BOOK). Jinghong was beautiful. It was warmer than Kunming, and the palm tree-lined roads and abundance of neon lights made me feel like I was finally in China, or maybe Las Vegas. I'm still not sure. The bike ride in Jinghong was surreal. I was wearing shorts in January, riding on incredibly dangerous roads across beautiful bridges next to the Mekong River, my ridiculously grinning face being gently caressed by tropical winds. This must have been how God felt when he was still allowed in China.

That evening, we went to Buddhist Disney World. I'm pretty sure that's the English translation, anyway. I never thought something so drained of significance could be so big. There were about 3 terraces with different temples, statues, and of course, gift shops (they also sold beer), and currently under construction was a 300 foot tall statue of either Buddha or Rich Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly. I raced Luis up 3 flights of stairs to see who was faster, and the hundreds of smaller statues lining the stairs stared disapprovingly at me. It was cool.

Ok, I think this is the halfway point (maybe), and I'm running out of steam, as evidenced by my growing disregard for common courtesy. I'll probably write another entry in a month or something. Don't hold your breath. Or do. It's a free country! (Cherish that)

Watching a Communist Propaganda movie

The other day at the mall, my friend Hilary bought a movie called The Serf from the movie store there. It's an enchanting tale about the liberation of the Tibetans from their evil feudal overlords by the glorious Communists in 1950. It's a signature piece of the government's Red Star Collection. We're at the part of the story where a father has died from being overwhipped and Qiangba,the baby, is left to be raised by his mother and grandmother. A swastika was placed conveniently at the edge of the frame, so I think I know who the bad guys are now. It's nice when I'm told how to think.

Today we spoiled ourselves. We took a cab to the restaurant area around the American embassy and ate at Tom's Texas Roadhouse. I had chicken fingers and potato wedges. It was amazing. Then this Chinese guy started playing Simon and Garfunkle covers. The thing about Chinese house bands is that they're excellent at playing the music, but on a good day they only get about 50% of the words right. The rest of the words just sound like English words, which is pretty funny. But for some reason I went all day today without eating anything, and it was amazing to fill up my stomach with such amazing food.

I really need to get around to blogging about the Yunnan trip. Maybe I'll do that later. I can't concentrate.

Just off the top of my head

I'm sitting in an interent cafe right now, and I don't have my journal with hyphenated talking points, so I'll just talk off the top of my head I guess. Yesterday we went up to Zhongdian, our last new city on the Yunnan tour. The Chinese government touts that Zhongdian is the Shangri-La of Lost Horizon fame, but I didn't really feel any more immortal than usual, but come to think of it, I am a 20 something white male, so I'm basically immortal already.

I was a little wary about being that close to the Tibetan plateau, as Tibet and I aren't really on good terms. I find the Dalai Lama extremely overrated and even more wrinkly. But I decided to follow my rule for eating Chinese foods: try anything once, close your eyes if you need to.

The day started off fun. We traveled to Tiger Leaping Gorge, which is a deep gorge that the Yangtze River run through. Apparently a tiger leapt over it or something. I wasn't really paying attention; the level 2 billion rapids below and the constant pre-recorded English warnings about falling rocks were enough to keep me focused on the here and now. It was incredibly beautiful though. In typical Chinese fashion, the path along the river slices through the mountain when appropriate. The tunnels are immaculate. I took a video of me walking through them, and it ended up looking like a level on Castle Wolfenstein; all I needed was a bouncing gun in the bottom corner.

After TLG (the popular parlance among idiot bloggers), we entered Zhongdian proper and then went to what felt like the 50th temple. For just 10 kuai, we were offered the chance to make prayer flags! I declined, but I did pet a yak who was freaking out after someone gave him cheese. Its eyes were evil, but its love of Kraft singles prevented me from taking it too seriously. We had dinner in a Tibetan home, which was really cool. Butter tea is digusting, no matter what anyone says, but the hot pot was pretty good. Then we danced with some of the villagers for about an hour, and sang songs on the busride home. It was very wholesome, almost like an episode of the Brady Bunch if that family weren't so xenophobic.

The next day we went to an orphanage run by a woman born in Switzerland who spoke better German than English, and we got to meet the mostly Tibetan children. As with all things Tibet-related, I went in with my guard up. When the leader began speaking German, I immediately thought of that Nazi who wrote Seven Years in Tibet, and how this all might be a brilliant scam by the government-in-exile to turn Westerners in favor of the Tibetan cause. After the kids performed a few dances on the stage, they all ran toward us and grabbed one or two of us by the hands and formed us into a circle where we all danced together. The orphans laughed at us, and I soon realized that I did have a learning curve for dancing. I also realized that if this was a political move, I didn't care. For a wonderful two hours, I forgot all about what I thought I knew about China and got a glimpse of what it must be like to grow up there. I never felt this connected with the other villages we visited, which is no doubt because of the abstract and artificial "minority" status given to these villagers. Decked out in their costumes, I can't help but feel like they're little more than a prop for the tourism industry. How does giving someone the official status of "minority" encourage assimilation? How does it counteract the pervasive Han-chauvinism so problematic in China?

Or maybe it was just because these orphans weren't wearing the hats. After the orphanage, we drove to the local Buddhist temple, which looked like a scene out of Prince of Persia. However, the most menacing thing there was the Tibetan Mastiffs. They're as tall as donkeys. Marco Polo said that, so you know it's true. I don't really remember much about the temple, but I chased one of the puppies around the parking lot for a while and played with a sword that a vendor was selling (not at the same time - running with swords is a bad idea. Marco Polo didn't say that, but his Mom probably did).

To get back to Kunming (and eventually Beijing), we drove back to Lijiang. Kunming was as warm as I remembered it being, and almost the entire group went out to a bar to celebrate our last night in Yunnan.  I'll spare you the details, but the highlights included skewered chicken, exploding beer, and stern warnings from the police that needed no translation.

Being back in Beijing is really exciting, and I'm almost sure the Yunnan trip was scheduled so soon so that we would get homesick for Beijing before we could get homesick for home. So I guess I'm home now (for the time being) with my censored internet, my cheap beer, my new friends, my increasingly mobile chopsticks, and any other symptom of the China Syndrome. 

Photos soon.

I ate a scorpion yesterday and a Big Mac today. I liked the scorpion better

Days just seem to be flying by now. I'm over my jetlag. Staying up late worked, and I stayed out until 2 last night. I guess I'm back to my terrible sleeping habits. Yahoo! We're rich. Yesterday I had my first Beijing subway experience. A group of us decided to go on a shopping adventure in the Wangfujing shopping district, which turned out to be a terrible idea. It's basically a money drain for Western tourists, but it was still a beautiful area. The subway was packed, unsurprisingly. There's a concerted group effort to pack as many people as humanly possible into the cars, but my friends tell me that sometimes even this doesn't work, and people get left behind. As soon as we got to Wangfujing, we were accosted by this older woman and two young women claiming to be "calligraphy students," and asked us to come see their studio. They promised it was right in Wangfujing, so we decided to humor them. They peppered us with compliments and kept us talking, then attempted to lead us down an alley off of the main strip. Luckily Luis, one of the group - whose Chinese is probably the best - told the women we weren't going off the square. I had thought they were just going to put us in a high pressure buying situation, but we figured that they would probably take us somewhere we would be mugged. I'm glad one of us was thinking. 

After this, we went into a mall, the biggest mall I've ever seen. We were all looking for clothes and backpacks for our upcoming trip to the countryside. We ended up paying way too much for everything, something I realized today when we went to the Silk Market, a place where you could haggle. Still, it was less than I would pay in the US. After we'd finished shopping, we saw that a food market had sprung up in the fading daylight. It was here that I ate my very first scorpion, a rite of passage that I had seriously neglected back when I was a filthy capitalist pig. I also ate silkworm, snake, dumplings, some sort of chicken wrap, and a skewered fruit coated in sugar. We stopped at a liquor store on the way home, where I saw the Chinese take on tequila with a worm: some sort of vodka with snake floating in it.

Once we were back to campus, we hung around until 11 and then went out to the bars. I didn't realize until too late that we were going to the touristy, overpriced bar district. That seemed to be a trend for the day. The first bar was the most overpriced, and definitely the most entertaining. I paid about 7 dollars for a beer (my only one at this bar)  and enjoyed the house band, who serenaded us with a hard rock version of "I Want it that Way," the apparent anthem of bars hoping to lure in Westerners. We didn't stay very long, and started wandering down the strip. Outside almost every bar was a man touting the superiority of his bar, who would often try to push us inside. Finally someone shouted they were selling beer for 10 kuai, about a buck fifty, at Happy Pizza Bar, so we went inside. A rugby team from New Zealand convinced the band to let them sing a song, which turned out to be "I Want it that Way" with new lyrics about their desire for females to perform a certain popular lewd act on them. The refrain still rhymed, so I don't think the MC noticed. The last bar of the night was called Smuggler's and sold even better beer for 10 kuai, but I'm beginning to notice a certain trend in this blog, so I'm going to leave it at that. This place was packed with people from my school, who were about to go to a club. I declined, and Tom and I decided to take a cab back to campus. I still haven't paid my half of the fare. I hope he doesn't remember any time soon.

Today I was awoken by Nazar asking me if I wanted to go to the Silk Road. He meant the Silk Market, which was a good thing. I don't think we could cover the entire Silk Road in one day, as we barely covered the five floors of the Silk Market in one day. To continue my other trend of informing the readers of this blog of every item I bought, I got a watch and some sunglasses. I also got a crash course in bartering, something I neglected to pick up in Korea. You have to get past the seller's compliments about your looks and occasional threats upon your life (today I heard "I will kill you!" and "I will eat you!", neither of which sound particularly enjoyable) and pick the most ridiculously lowball price you can think of, which, as it turns out, will still give the seller a significant enough profit to make you both happy. I also tried China's McDonalds, but avoided the Red Bean Curd Tart. They put cucumbers on their burgers! 

Ok I'm tired of typing. This is also a really long entry, and I apologize to everyone who read it. Today I read that China officially passed Germany to become the world's third largest economy. I don't know who to root for in this situation, as I enjoy bragging to people that I'm descended from the stock of sexy German immigrants, and can you even feel schadenfreude about Germans? I'm confused, but no longer sleepy. Well, I'm about to go eat. I'll return to ramble later and remind everyone how much cooler my life is right now than theirs.

Dear America (and other interested parties),

So far, China is great. It's been a crazy few days, but I'm no longer worried that I'm going to feel homesick (yes, for me, it's more of an encroaching feeling than a sudden realization). The plane ride actually went by pretty fast, and it was an easier plane ride than when I went to Korea earlier this year. Continental Airlines had about 400 movies to pick from, so I got to enjoy starting one and then realizing there was something better to watch. This process occurred about 20 times. I tried to watch Dr. Strangelove, but a movie about several Cold War-era US Soldiers headed to their inevitable death in Russia just didn't sit well with me. Speaking of Russia, I'm pretty sure we arched over on the way from Newark to Beijing. I saw the sun coming up over the Arctic Circle, and I actually paused It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to take it all in. It was pretty, and I felt like a stupid girl. However, the most entertaining part of the flight was when I pulled out my Chinese textbook from school to bone up, as they say, and the middle aged man sitting next to me started laughing and pulled out the same book. The least entertaining part of the flight was shortly after this when I bit down hard on my tongue instead of my gum. The right part of my tongue is still swollen, and I'm currently using this as an excuse for my inability to produce tonally correct Chinese speech.

Fighting jetlag is no fun, but it's comforting in a childish way to fall asleep before 9 every night. Me and Tom (who also goes to SLU) have a pact to stay up until at least 11 tonight so we can eventually get the right sleep cycle again.

Beijing is an industrialist's wet dream, and the urbanist inside me enjoys the towering buildings at every turn and the green spaces added as an after thought. However, the human being in me doesn't enjoy the smog so much. It smells like a campfire all the time and I constantly have to sneeze.

Today I woke up at 8 AM and talked with my roommate, Nazar, about how our toilet was clogged. Then I took a shower and went to the bakery down the street for breakfast. I bought a cellphone with the assistance of a Chinese host student, many of whom decided to stick around campus after finals to help us out. After buying a cell phone, we went to a kiosk on campus to buy a sim card and pick out our number, during which I learned that the Chinese are willing to pay more for numbers that are "lucky." I am now sure that any catastrophes that occur to me for the rest of my life are simply because my cell phone number had too many 4's and 6's in it.

Later, the entire group went to Tiananmen Square, which was surprisingly tankless (I hope I can say that). It's the largest public square in the world, and is packed with tour guides offering their services to wayward foreigners and street vendors selling Coca Cola. The irony of a miniature free market bazaar under the watchful eyes of Chairman Mao himself seems to be lost, but then, I don't really even know what irony is. We saw some other place with some drums, which was cool I guess, and then went to this huge shopping area with a skating rink. That was fun. I saw my first Starbucks, and could read every Chinese character. It was really exciting, and the first time that had happened.

Well, it's past 9, and I'm starting to get sleepy, so I'll go find some caffeine or something. I promise to be more funny later.

Hope the Dow went up today,

Luke.