Reflections...
Looking back I have a few general observations:
1. There are two rules for a successful trip: 1) Always take a camera, even if you’re going to the grocery store 2) Never use a tour guide--going places alone can be a good thing.
2. The digital camera my mom gave me was a better graduation present than the iPod.
3. Recycling is a big deal. Four empty beer bottles equals a new beer.
4. Nobody wears seatbelts. In a taxi I was once told not to put on my seatbelt.
5. With a thriving economy, large middle class, and high standard of living, we Americans have it so much better than I ever imagined.
6. Beijing will be not be ready to host the Olympics, at least in an appropriate manner.
7. I like Chinese people. They are so willing to help in any way and extremely welcoming. It's almost scary.
8. Chinese food is so much better than American-Chinese food.
9. We have very few identifiable options which are considered true “American food”. Spaghetti came from Italy, as does pizza. Mexican food comes from, well, Mexico. Hamburgers originated from Hamburg, Germany. I guess we have chicken wings, any other kind of chicken, hotdogs, and salad. But in China, every area of China has a distinct type of food. In northern China they eat a lot of noodles, in the south, rice. And there are so many unique foods I’ve never even seen.
10. Chinese TV and humor, in my opinion, is horrible.
11. You can bargain for almost anything.
12. Bicycles and public transportation trump cars.
13. You can’t buy ice. Finding this out after I injured my foot was not exciting.
14. Deodorant and floss are extremely hard to find.
15. There really isn’t any drinking age, but you must be 18 to drive a car.
16. You’d be hard pressed to find a vending machine. Instead, they have drink vendors on the street everywhere. (Labor trumps machines.)
17. Cell phone plans are rare. Instead, you buy a SIM card from a magazine stand and pay-as-you-go.
18. There are no self-serve Laundromats. And if you do find a washing machine, you won’t find a dryer.
19. Teenagers love World of Warcraft, among many other computer games.
20. Security guards are everywhere.
21. No tipping in restaurants. If you give someone a tip, they won't know what to do with it. They'll just give it back. The service isn't quite as good, but I think the no-tipping is worth it.
22. Arm pit hair on woman seems to be okay. This was a quick find when all the women on the subway have to hold the handles up above.

With that said I also learned a lot about myself. Through helping all these students I confirmed to myself that I really enjoy helping others. I had a lot of time to think alone and I still couldn't come up with a good way to help a lot of people right now. Eventually I would like to help as many people as possible, but right now if I can just affect a few people like a did at the college, that would be great. I think I would like to follow the Bill Gates model of a having a successful business career and then giving much of my wealth back. After seeing so many untapped markets in China I am sure that this career in international business is a possibility. Therefore, I am pretty sure that I'd like to work and live in China for a few years after graduation to become completely fluent.

Beyond that, I learned that you can have a lot of fun by yourself, especially when you're exploring places you've never been, talking with people you've never met, and seeing things you've never seen. I know that I definitely want to go back, and this time get a picture with Helen's son Daniel (I didn't get one, my biggest regret).

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who has read and/or participated in this blog. It really has been a great experience for me. It has helped me keep a record of what happened as well as clarify what I felt about what I was experiencing. I think I have a much better understanding of myself, in addition to the people in the country I am very interested in.

Leaving on a Jet Plane...and then sitting in Newark for 6 hours
During my trip to Shanghai I made the decision to come home about 10 days early. Surprisingly the airline only charged me $75. My reasons for coming home were:
1) I had gone nearly as far as I could go in my Chinese speaking. I needed to go through another year of classes before I went back.
2) Except for the Chinese acrobatics, I had seen pretty much everything I wanted to see.
3) I was starting to get injured. Five weeks of running on concrete finally spelled disaster for my Achilles tendon.
4) I wanted to get back to work and start earning some money instead of spending.
5) And of course, I just missed all my friends and family.

Anyways, after returning to my dorm after Shanghai, Helen picked me up that afternoon and took me to a upscale Japanese restaurant. Most everything on the menu was more expensive than all the food I would pay for in a day--sometimes 3 days. She said it was the top Japanese restaurant in Beijing. I was given free reign to order whatever I wanted--but I tried to keep it reasonable. I did eat sushi that was octopus eggs rather than fish eggs. When we returned to her house Gao Nai Nai (which means Grandma Gao) was chatting with two other Nai Nai. Of course I had to get a picture with the 3 Nai Nai. They were all very nice and quite tickled by the fact that I was talking to them in Chinese. Then I got pictures with Helen--some outside (below), and then some inside with her camera. The scene of us trying to use the timer to get a centered picture was hilarious, as we struggled with it for about 15 minutes. Mr. Wang, her husband, came home later and then we three talked for about 45 minutes about me and my future. They are so nice to welcome me back next summer; and Helen noted how good my timing was. They only became investors in the college a half a year ago. Otherwise, I would not have had a place to stay.

After doing my run the next morning, I got ready and ended up getting to the airport 2 and a half hours before my flight. I got to my gate with 30 minutes to spare. Everything had gone so well I felt like I should break a souvenir just to get the bad moment out of the way. The flight to Newark was fine--I talked away a lot of the time with the lady sitting next to me who was from Newark. She worked in downtown Manhattan and saw the entire sequence of events occur on 9/11. It was really interesting to hear it from someone who had been there. She could actually explain the fear that she felt on that day and how that fear brought people together, of course more so than it did here in Florida or other states. I arrived in Newark, said goodbye to my new friend, went through more security and customs, and got to my gate.

Great. I was an hour and a half early. I wandered around some, and when I came back an hour later I was still an hour and a half early. So I guess I didn't need to break a souvenir. My unlucky moment was going to come in the form of a 6 hour span. Delay after delay came. My flight eventually got bumped back from just after 8:00 to 1:00 a.m. In this span I got so bored I ate my 5th meal of the day. This isn't as bad as it sounds. I'd been awake at this point for about 31 hours, and had slept only an hour on my Beijing flight. During this waiting period I sat next to next to a woman from London. She was trying to go through Newark to St. Louis, and her flight was supposed to leave an hour before mine. We had a sort of competition to see whose flight would be the most delayed and whose would be first to leave. I won the contest. However, while we were sitting there we had an on and off conversation for about 3 hours. One thing she told me about was the London subway bombings a little over a year ago. She told me how she was so scared to go into the center of city, she didn't use the subways or buses for a half a year. What a coincidence: the only two real conversations I had had were with two people who had experienced two of the most recent and major terrorist attacks. Well, eventually she went for a beer, and I went back to watching CNN's coverage of the Mid-East conflict, which I can now give you a full rundown of. Later, an older man took her seat. I asked him where he was from. All he did was point to the TV screen and say, "That mess." He was an Israeli fleeing to Jacksonville. This seemed to seal the deal for a huge coincidence. All three people I had talked with had seen firsthand some sort of terrorism (if you classify Hezbollah as a terrorist group) or crisis.

To me this reinforced a feeling that I have expressed to a few of my friends maybe a year back and more recently. Although George Bush is not popular now, I think the history books will be kind to him. You've got 9/11, mass transit bombings in Madrid in 2004, subway bombings in London, suicide bombings in Iraq, train blasts in Mumbai earlier this month, and the list goes on. Maybe terrorist attacks are what war will be from now on, rather than country vs. country. Maybe we are fighting a necessary war that is affecting the whole world (my Newark, London, and Israeli friends), and maybe it would be a lot worse if we weren't doing something. He's already gotten Saddaam, al-Zarqawi, and although the Iraq situation is unstable, a new democratic government is being formed. Perhaps Bush doesn't have enough time in office to win the war on terrorism, but at least he is initiating the fight, when other countries are either unwilling or unable. After all, we are the most powerful country, and therefore should be held responsible.

With that said, I finally flew back to Jacksonville, and got an hour's sleep on the flight. Man it was good to see my mom. So the final count when I went to sleep at 5:00 a.m. was in 34 hours, only 2 hours of sleep. Awesome.

(By the way, my next post will be my last. I will attempt to make some sort of sense of what I have experienced on my trip.)

Shanghai: Sunday
Jack met me again the next morning in the lobby and we headed to breakfast, which we both ate this time. I guess no big hamburger today. The first place he took me was to the Century Park. I would later learn from Helen that every major Chinese city has one. Shanghai's was enormous. We walked around for a few hours, I got to feed some pigeons kernels of corn, and we got stuck in the middle of a rain storm. All we had was his tiny umbrella that was falling apart at the ends. Besides that we sat a while and just talked. Probably the most interesting thing he told me pertained to the massage and haircut parlors. Like I said in an earlier post, the hair salons were open unusually late. At 11:00 they're still doing business. Keep in mind, Jack initiated the conversation, so it's not like I suggested the possibility. However, he asked if I had ever noticed a red light on late at night. I had never really looked, but it turns out they're not just selling haircuts or massages in some of those places. He said it wasn't all of them, but for the ones that do, the government just turns a blind eye. In public, such as the news, they denounce this, but a little bribery to the government and local police goes a long way--so Jack tells me. If a foreign ambassador is coming into town, as they often do in Beijing, the government will just tell them to shut down for a few days until the coast is clear. Anyways, after our time in the park we headed to a northern Chinese cuisine restaurant. Interesting dinner. We started off with some fish flavored eggplant, which is usually one of my favorite foods in China. However, it was so spicy that it gave me a shock when I tried it. So I couldn't really eat that. Next they brought out cold pig’s feet. It wasn't as good as it sounds, but I still had three. All it was was the skin on the feet. There really was no meat. And you could still see the grain on the skin. Jack told me that his boss loves this dish so much, when he comes here all he orders is two plates of it. That was disturbing. Anyways, since I couldn't eat the eggplant, the only thing left for me to work on was the stewed bullfrog. Even Jack was scared to order it, and he said that if I ordered it had to eat it all myself. The second picture is of me digging in. Beyond the fact that there were so many annoying little bones, this dish was quite tasty. The funny thing about it was you could still see pieces of the spotted bullfrog skin amidst the onions and bell peppers. After filling up on amphibians, we hit our last stop, which was the dock on the other side of the river. That didn't take long, and I decided to go to the top of the Oriental Pearl--Jack said he was a little frightened so he took a rain check. The view was amazing. All around in the near vicinity there were skyscrapers. Beyond those it was more huge buildings as far as you could see. After hitting that stop I then took a bus to the train station and headed back to Beijing. I met a guy named Drew, but he told me to call him Breaky. I thought that was a pretty funny name, but he said "Drew" translates to something very bad in Chinese. We had a great conversation, and of course he wanted to know all about me. I asked him if he had ever seen Yao Ming, who lives in Shanghai. He told me about 8 years back he saw him at a World of Warcraft convention. Yao apparently likes to play (as most Chinese do) and Breaky was the number one ranked player in Shanghai at the time. He said he knew who Yao was but at the time he wasn’t that famous. It's hard to picture Yao, all 7'5" of him, huddled around a computer. On another note, I slept really well that night.

Shanghai: Saturday
While Beijing is the cultural and political center of China, Shanghai is the economic. Through a friend of my dad's I made contact with a businessman in Shanghai named Jack Cao, and he was willing to show me around for the weekend. I had never traveled by train, which baffled most Chinese I told this. The train left at 7:00 p.m. and arrived at 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Helen helped me buy a "soft sleeper" ticket, which means you sleep on a soft bed for a higher price, rather than a "hard sleeper." I was in a little car with 3 other Chinese people, one of which just kept talking the entire time, in Chinese, and very fast. Eventually I was able to go to sleep--or at least lay there. The train rocked so much I probably ended up with a little over an hour of sleep. When I arrived in Shanghai, after taking a public bus an hour to my hotel, I met Jack in the lobby. He took me to a restaurant and watched me eat--he said he had just eaten "a big hamburger." I thought this was kind of funny, especially when he said this phrase numerous times throughout the day. We then went to a historic shopping district which contained the City of God temple. This old Taoist temple was good, but nowhere near as extravagant as the previous ones I had seen. Back in the shopping district I went to the magazine stand to add money to my cell phone. There is a company called China Mobile, but it seems that most people just do the pay-as-you-go plan. You can buy more minutes at any magazine stand, which are everywhere. This first picture is of me in the shopping area. After this picture, a girl of about 15 asked to have her picture with me. That's probably the 4th or 5th picture I've taken with a random person on the street. There seems to be a novelty about foreigners. Through Jack, who can speak English very well, I learned that this particular girl thought "I was very cute." After haggling for some souvenirs, Jack and I hit this cafeteria which had Chinese food from every different province of China (food differs greatly by region). We bought so much food it probably would have lasted me half a day. Neither I nor Jack finished our meal, as he noted, "I had big hamburger." We then went to the famous Nanjing Road, an upscale shopping area where Jack and I are together in the second picture. It is sort of like a smaller scale of Times Square--same idea though. In this area I got nagged more than ever to buy fake Chinese goods. Because I was a foreigner, they kept coming up to me and saying, "Hello. Watch, DVD?" This became a common theme of my trip to Shanghai. After a desperate search for Gatorade that proved unfruitful, we headed to the Bund, which is a dock that overlooks the opposite side of the river where all the skyscrapers are situated. The third picture is of me in front of the Oriental Pearl radio tower. Also, you can see two buildings with triangular tops, with a building to their right with a flat circular top. Those are the "Tom Cruise Buildings," as Jack and I called them--the buildings he jumped to and from in MI3. Looking over the river took all of 15 minutes, and then Jack said, "I didn't plan to take you hear until tonight to see the lights." He thought for a minute, then continued, "I'm going to be honest, to really don't know what to do." I threw out a few suggestions, most of which required less walking, and then he said, "Want a massage?" I quickly agreed, anything to get of my injured Achilles tendon, which was throbbing with pain. Two ladies gave us an hour-long foot massage, which was incredible, and only $3.50. We then finished off the night at a Korean restaurant. One thing I found unusual was that Korean chopsticks are metal and flat, not round/square and wooden like the Chinese's. The dinner was complete with a good conversation between Jack, I, and the family that owned and worked the restaurant. Back at my hotel room I gave my mom her first phone call of the vacation. Although I used a phone card, it didn't seem to matter with the hotel, which got me for a $60 phone bill. Whoops. Live and learn.

The Great Wall: Part 2 (The Donkey)
This interesting side trip took place while I was on the Great Wall. On top of the gigantic wall that crests the mountains, bathrooms tend to make themselves scarce. So I told David and Lana that I was going to go searching for one, or a secluded place in the forest, by walking down a set of side stairs off the Wall. I didn't find one, but instead ran into an ass. Actually, the ass of an ass. This donkey (or mule, I don't know) had its big behind aimed right at me as it tried to eat some vegetation that was growing off the side of the mountain. I saw a rope tied around his neck, which was attached to a pathetic twiglike bush. The only problem was, the bush wasn't attached to the ground. In its hunger the donkey had pulled the tiny sapling (I know I'm going to hear it from Justin for using that word) from the earth and was on the edge of the steep mountain, trying to eat some leaves. I couldn't know for sure that he would be alright, so I grabbed the rope and started pulling him back up. The second picture is taken from my point of view while I have hold of the bush. I struggled with him for a couple of minutes until I finally pulled him back up and tied him to a real tree. However, at this point he could not reach any leaves, so I helped him a bit and fed him some. He was pretty agressive and I thought those big teeth were going to take off my fingers, but in the end everything turned out okay (Since I'm sure you were worried about me). The only things that bothered me was that he had little water and that there were so many yellow jackets around him, his legs were cut and bleeding in some areas. I tried to think of a name for him, but it is quite hard to without offending someone. Who wants to have their name be used by a jackass? I think I finally settled on Jeff. After all, helping "Jeff" was an act of brotherly love.

The Great Wall: Part 1
I got up in the morning with one goal: climb Changcheng (in Chinese) and buy one of those t-shirts explaining your accomplishments. However, all I knew was that I needed to get on a long distance bus. So after asking around, I took the subway to the long distance bus stop, Dongzhimen. When I walked out of the subway, there was this bus just sitting there, with this lady bus driver telling me to get in. Kind of weird, but it looked like a long distance bus and I asked if it went to the Great Wall and she said yes. I didn't really know which Great Wall. There isn't any one "Great Wall". It's all broken up into pieces. It was intended to keep invaders out but proved largley unsuccessful and was never finished. The Great Wall is just one of the paranoid civil engineering projects of China. In the 1960s the government also built an Underground City, which was a massive bunker system designed to protect the nation from the Soviets during the Cold War. However, these tunnels were built too close to the surface to provide protection from even small conventional bombs. With that noted, on the bus I met a very nice couple named David and Lana (pictured). Lana was Chinese and David was American. They were both from UC Berkley. He did computer programming and she did microbiology. However, David said she did more programming than he did. (If that's not an Asian stereotype, I don't know what is) She spoke fluent English and we talked for quite a while. She said we could take a taxi together since we were both going to the Great Wall. She felt this part was better than Badaling, the most popular section of the Wall. She, like most other Chinese, seemed very impressed that I came to China alone. From talking to different Chinese, I have the understanding that Chinese families do not grant freedom as easily as their U.S. counterparts. We talked a lot about Chinese customs and government corruption. Pretty much every politician drives a brand new black Audi. A few days ago I saw a statistics report. In Beijing: 1.3 million vehicles, 8 million bicycles. She said the government corruption is very bad, and getting worse. Also she explained the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. I asked her why and she said because the market hasn’t completely opened up to true capitalism. I asked about the vendors on the side of the street, which it seems sometimes are just selling food out of the front door of their homes. She said that not all of them have licenses, although some do. When the tax collector comes, they just make themselves hard to find. She asked why I liked China, which is probably the most common question I get from Chinese people. I told her the usual about working here, but also that I liked Chinese people. I said they seemed more low key and less in your face. She agreed, saying that her husband David had dated many Asians before her. An hour and a half later, they dropped us off at the last stop where a cab was waiting for us. Lana said that the cab driver works for the same company as the bus, so he knew when we would arrive. Instead of him driving, he had his wife drive. I guess he had something else to do. By the way, no one uses seatbelts in China. I got into a cab late one night, and decided to put on my seatbelt. He stopped me and told me no! It was hilarious. Back with the lady, we took the cab about 15 minutes to the site. However, halfway up, we were running on fumes, and she pulled over to get gas. The gas station had no electricity! She decided to take her chances (and ours) which was kind of disconcerting. I guess she figured if we made it up the mountain, then we could just roll down. We paid her 30 yuan total ($3.50). She said she would wait until we got back down from the Wall and she would take us back. That was really sad that work was that hard to come by. She was very nice though and gave us a lot of tips. We went up to the top on a ski lift and once there we started off left. I guess we walked for about an hour and a half, all up hill. We eventually covered about half of the wall, but I could have done it much faster had I been alone. They kept wanting to take breaks. David was especially out of shape. He was huffing and puffing just going up those stairs. (Granted it was blazing hot) The wall was pretty spectacular though. I could see how hard it would have been to pass through. This one had been greatly restored, but we could see parts in the distance that had vegetation growing all over them (off limits to tourists). I was very happy with the fact that there were very few other people at this site. It seemed more authentic, almost like you could feel the history. We eventually headed back, which didn’t take long. The way down was on a toboggan. It was so much fun, just like in Gatlinburg, TN. You push forward on the lever to go faster and pull to brake. You know I had those elbows locked the entire time! They kept telling me to slow down. I was flying down the mountain. After I got back, I decided not to go running—my body was just too tired. My shirt was plastered to my body from sweating for 8 hours, and I smelled so horrible, even I couldn’t stand myself. Instead I went to find pizza and just relaxed. I went to the little place on my street. I told them I wanted it to-go. They put my 3 pieces in a small Chinese food to-go box. They were all crumpled together like a balled up piece of paper. It was bizarre. That would never fly in the U.S. It tasted just the same though, and I finished it off with a quarter of a watermelon I bought on the street.

Dazhalan Road--The Bargain Hunter's Paradise
A few days back I decided to hit one of the highlights in my guide book. There are "19 Things Not To Miss" and I am determined to hit every one--except for the vaudeville Beijing opera. When I was in the vicinity, looking for the street, I couldn't seem to find it. All the locals said "Ah, Dazhalan Dajie!". They all seemed to know what it was, but no one could really tell me where it was. I sort of stumbled into it, mainly because I was harassed by an English speaking Chinese kid. It seemed like he was on a mission to seek out foreigners and sell them pirated DVDs, because after he left me he went looking for someone else. But anyway, he found me looking for Dazhalan and took me to a music/DVD shop. He pulled out countless boxes which were locked up under the counter and had me looking through them. I think they were just for foreigners. He kept saying “that one’s good”, and when I asked, “have you seen it?” he seemed to mumble something and just say “it’s good”. I had picked out quite a few, but once he said they were 15 yuan a piece, I started putting some back. The rule of thumb for buying DVDs is never buy one of a movie that just came out, because most likely it will be just a recording of a movie screen. But as I started putting them back, he had an expression of disappointment on his face. I ended up buying two pity DVDs, for a bargained discount, and then as I was walking away from the store, he caught me and said he could take me to another store that had cheaper DVDs. I wasn’t really angry about the fact that he should have just taken me there in the first place, I just wanted him to leave. I didn't really come to buy DVDs. After politely tellin him no, I went into a clothes shop. I bargained hard for a Polo shirt and got it for $7.50. It looks exactly like the real thing, feels like the real thing, and it even had the tag. Whenever you see me wearing the green Polo shirt, you'll know. Then I went into a chopsticks shop and got the girl to cut her price by about 40%. I was pretty happy about that. I just kept trying to walk away and she kept slashing the price. It was hilarious. And when I tried to walk out after the purchase, she said “your bag isn’t big enough—I can sell you a bag.” Wow, they sure are aggressive. It's like you are their only sale of the day. Another funny thing happened. After eating a piece of watermelon, I couldn’t find a trash can. So I walk for a bit, then hear laughing. It was a man and his son, who were also eating some watermelon. I could tell the laughter was because I was carrying around an eaten piece of watermelon. I told them in Chinese that I couldn't find a trash can, and they told me to just put it on the ground. So I did, right in the corner with a bunch of other trash. They acted like this was perfectly normal. Plastic bottles are similar. Ten plastic bottles can be exchanged for one Chinese dollar. So collecting these bottles is all some people do for a living. Since everyone has to drink bottled water, there is never a shortage. I've watched people drink some water and throw the bottle on the ground, only to watch another person in tattered clothes come up closely behind to pick it up and stash it on his rickshaw bulging with other bottles. And if you find a Coke 2 liter bottle, that's like a bonus. Beer bottles, Styrofoam, and scrap metal are also valuables. In short, recycling is big over here. Anyways, back to Dazhalan. The last thing I saw was the funniest. On my way back out of the street I saw a girl of about 7 or 8 just squatting. At first I thought she was just resting. No. She was peeing in a storm drain! And this storm drain is in the middle of Dazhalan, a hectic pedestrian street, with probably 500 people around her. Didn’t even phase the regular passersby. Her dad was just standing over her just kind of looking out for her. After being exhausted from my shopping I was thinking about going to the Westernized Chaoyang district to check it out, but my feet hurt so bad I just went home and had McDonald’s—the new Mega Mac (4 patties), a chicken sandwich, and a chocolate shake. Phenomenal.

Gettin' Learned
So I didn't come here just to roam around the city like a chicken with its head cut off, which I have done quite extrodinarily--I came to learn some Chinese! The two teachers I am pictured here are Glenn and Marianna. They are both from Australia and he teaches economics while she teaches business statistics. I took the economics final just for fun, all 2 and a half hours of it, and dominated it like the White Sox on its opponents last postseason. Out of the teachers, I was closest to them. They took me out to dinner a few times, and gave me some necessities here and there.

Now that their work is over, with the students having finished finals, a few of my classmates have offered their time to teach me Chinese. Cecilia and Tom (below) come over every few days for a couple of hours--they are native Beijingers, so they have a bit of time. Now most of the time we are translating sentences, but sometimes we get a little sidetracked--which is a good thing. Big Tom Lend (I call him Big because I know another Tom and one of the teachers referred to him as this and it just kind of stuck) is such an engaging person. Just by the picture you can probably tell he is very "Westernized". Sometimes I think he was born in the wrong country. He loves basketball, Ben Wallace, hip hop, and black girls. Tom's Eglish is really good, and he is very articulate, but sometimes he misinterprets the question. For example, I asked him about China's political system and if he is allowed to vote for the President. I don't know how he did it, but somehow he steered the conversation to the majority/minority conflict in Iraq and the U.S. He explained, "So I think this is very interesting." He uses this phrase often. First he talked about Iraq, and how they have two violent warring groups--Muslims and Islamics. I tried to convey that they really were the same group and rather they have Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, but he didn't really seem to understand (or maybe he did, he just couldn't explain himself using English). He said he liked America because our "two" groups, whites and blacks, don't get into widespread battles. I tried to tell him that our Latino population is actually larger than our black population, but he felt comfortable shrugging off this small detail.


Big Tom Lend may have missed a few of the facts, but I was very impressed that he takes an interest in these global issues. This seems to be concurrent with what I find with much of the Chinese population. Helen, the lady I stay with, reads Cosmo and other America-based magazines and knows more about American celebrities than I do. American and other foreign brands are everywhere: people use Nokia phones, wear Adidas shoes, drink Coca-Cola, eat McDonalds and drive Volkswagons. Sure half the stuff is made in China, but the ideas--the entrepreneurship, that comes from America and abroad.

And now China is trying to join the club by opening their economy. Part of the reason China is so globally aware is that for the longest time it was so inward-looking. Marco Polo of Spain ventured from Europe to China--a Chinese explorer didn't venture from China to Europe. There was no reason to--Chinese rulers felt all the knowledge they needed was within their own borders. They didn't allow their scholars to leave, or anyone for that matter. It wasn't until some 30 years ago, if that long, that they finally let foreign journalists in. And the native name of China, "Zhong Guo", means "Center nation". They felt they were the center of the earth. And indeed much of their ideas and technology were superior to the rest of the world (ships for example). And if they had used these superior ships for the banned exploration, it is quite possible that we could all be speaking Chinese now. Pretty crazy.

The Forbidden City (I GOT IN!)
It was tough, but I did it. Although the city was opened to citizens a bit after the last emperor left in 1924, it seemed every bit as hard to get into. After getting off the subway, I headed toward the massive walls. However, before I got there I was first stopped by a man, whose name I never did get. We talked for a bit, and I always had a feeling he wanted money. The thing about China is that people of a different decent are a rarity. In America we take our diversity for granted. We have African Americans, Latinos, Italians, etc. But in China, in general, everyone was born here. So when people see a foreigner, especially one that is conversing in Chinese with another Chinese person, they come a running. Within a minute or so of talking to that man, I had 3 other people around me. The mother, Xian Xi, took the picture of me with Linda (in green) and Lucy. I talked to Linda the most--her English was pretty good--but we spoke mostly in Chinese. We traded phone numbers and made a plan to help each other with our languages. The next day she called me 8 times while I was working out. Pretty impressive. Anyways, once inside the walls I still wasn't over the massive moat. I next was snatched by two college students, who I mentioned in an earlier post. After spending an hour with them, and buying some artwork, I finally got in. The city, called "gugong" in Chinese--meaning "old palace", was overwhelming. It was built by an estimated 1 million people and was completed in 1420. The huge stones came from different provinces. It is said a well was dug every 50 meters so that water could be sprayed onto the road in the winter. The massive stones could then be slid along. After spending a few hours in there, and an ungodly amount on lunch, I looked for a way out. It seemed that the guards had blocked the main way out. I was pretty confused. So was a Chinese man next to me. So we spent about a half hour searching for an alternate exit, while my new friend talked to me in completely incomprehensible Chinese. It was like that scene in Happy Gilmore, where Happy is trying to learn Spanish: Happy: "Slow down"; (teacher says it again, same speed); Happy (sarcastically): "Oh now I get it". In the end I left satisfied with myself for sticking it out as long as I did with the sun beating down on me all day. Then I tried to ask a man where the subway was. It was unlike anything I've ever seen. He wouldn't look me in the eyes or even acknowledge me. He simply walked, almost ran, as fast as he could, looking like he thought I was about to pull a gun on him. Maybe he had a bad experience with a foreigner. I guess now I've had my first bad experience with a Chinese person. Been here a month, not too shabby.

A "Haircut" to Remember
Before I left for China, my hair was getting pretty shaggy. My mom asked me, "Are you going to get a haircut here so that you don't have to worry about it there?" I told her that we'll just have to see how the Chinese do haircuts, and boy am I glad I did. First off, I walked into the shop (pictured) around 1:00. I figured it would be less busy. The thing about Chinese salons is that they get busy around 9:00 pm. I walked by the other night at just after 11:00 pm, and they're still cranking 'em out. I soon learned out why. After a muddled conversation about what I wanted done, I just told them "the usual" and that I just wanted my hair shortened and thinned all around. So first this very nice girl sits me down. She squirts what seemed like a quarter of a pound of shampoo into my hair. I'm thinking "I just came for a haircut." Next she starts rubbing it in until the top of my head is one big poof of suds. She then transitions into a full on head massage. I've never really had a real one, but this one sure was good. She even did some weird stuff like hard knocking on my skull, as if to see if I actually had some American brains in there. After about 5 minutes of that, she transports me over to this sink, where I get to lay down. She runs warm water all through my hair, then after a few minutes of that takes me back to the chair and dries my hair. Then she tells me to put my hands on the counter in front of me, with my head close. She gives me a complete back massage, including hard pounding and a deep massage in my neck and shoulders. Almost a half hour in I finally get to see the stylist--a very indie looking guy who starts cutting my hair with his mp3 player headphones in. For some reason it didn't bother me. Maybe because I was in this subdued state of delight. The only word I knew how to describe what I wanted was "duan", which means "short". With this little info, he took it upon himself to just do whatever the hell he wanted with my hair--and it actually turned out okay. Afterwards, I went back with the girl, she put some conditioner (I think) in my hair, did the whole head massage routine, rinse, back massage routine, and then I went back to the stylist. He did some final cuts, and then gelled it up to how he saw fit. After over an hour of being in there, I walked out, not really knowing what happened. All I knew is that I hope my hair grows enough to get it cut again. And to think, all that for under $2! That is what I call a bargain.

Graduation Station
Although I primarily worked and hung out with the freshmen college students, I also knew a few of the sophomores and decided to go to the graduation. This first picture is of me and Fly (I don't know why she chose that English name). I had only met her once, when she offered to tutor me. I ended up being tutored by someone else, but because she is so nice, like most Chinese women, she noticed me and had to get a picture. The program at this language college has the students spending 2 years in China, taking all courses in English--to sharpen up their speaking skills--then sending them abroad to English speaking countries such as England, Australia, or Ireland. Now this was a small graduation, probably about 50 students graduating, but the ceremony was just as long as mine a year ago (with all 350 students). They had everybody under the sun give a speech, and I swear, this one lady probably talked for 15 minutes. She was talking too fast for me to understand, but I could tell she was a bad speaker and it wasn't very interesting when the students starting brushing their hair, sending text messages, and taking pictures...this is during the speech. It was pretty hilarious, but it was warranted--I mean she was bad. Even I was looking for a shot of novicane during what seemed like a short lecture. But in the end, it was a nice ceremony, and all the students were thrilled to be finished and ready to explore new places. One speaker was particularly good. He was a one of the few male graduating students, and he was the only student one to give a speech. He was particularly good because he spoke English fluently, above and beyond any of the other students. After the ceremony I made it a point to compliment and talk to him. His English name was Z, just Z, which I thought was so cool. I asked if he was the top student or anything. He said they had no such distinction, it was simply a matter of no other student wanting to speak. I really admired him for this. He said now that he has graduated, he will work in a Human Resources office for a Chinese company, rather than go abroad. He mentioned that it would be expensive for him to go abroad, and that he could get a job right now. Apparently, he was able to get a job because of his English speaking abilities. Jobs are hard to come by in China. It is not like in America. Just today I talked to two girls who I met while in downtown Beijing. They were graduating from a good university and their English was quite good. However, they said they have been unable so far to secure a job. I met them outside their school's art exhibit, and got to see their teacher's and their own artwork. In the end I bought two pieces, one which was done by one of the girls. Half the money will support the student in going abroad. We swapped email addresses, so now I will always have a connection to that artwork, which I think is very important. As a side note, this last photo is of me and J.J. She is 19, but I swear if you saw her in person you'd say she was 16 or 15. I've noticed this to be a trend among Chinese girls and young women. Anyway, J.J. is one of my favorite people I've ever met. She is so diligent. I walked in the classroom one day after school, about an hour after class finished. I saw someone sitting alone, just studying away. It was her. Also, she is one of the nicest people I've ever met. She always takes times to ask questions about me, and when I answer, she always has this look of extreme incredulity on her face that makes you feel like a god. And lastly (perhaps most importantly) she is just crazy cute.