"Apologize"

Today I gave back quizzes from last week. Most of the grades were good. Some, however, were not so good. Jason failed. After class he stayed in his seat in the back row. This did not phase me; we have a 20 minute break in between my two, two hour morning classes. What was out of the ordinary was when he turned his mp3 player up as loud as it would go, stood up, and played/sung "Apologize" by Justin Timberlake. The main chorus - "its too late to apologize." This was an awkward situation. Being sung to in general is awkward. I anxiously checked Sunday's NFL scores while he was doing his thing. Oh look, the panthers won their first game. You hear that Jason? No. The only voice he was hearing was Justin's guiding him through this emotional catharsis that was apparently necessary in order to move forward with the day. At least he wasn't asking me to change his grade.

Qingdao

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post about the first part of my travels to Beijing and Qingdao. I have actually been a little sick this past week. When we got back from Beijing and got off the airplane we noticed something strange, literally, in the air. The airport was smoky and had the matching smell that something was indeed burning. As it was 1:00 in the morning, none of us felt the need to solve this mystery immediately. A very quiet and fatigued cab ride back to our barracks seemed much more appropriate than an ecological investigation. Unfortunately, the next few days also were smoky, for lack of a better word. Weather.com concurred. It listed the weather as “72 degrees, smoke.” Apparently, that is a weather condition in China. The smoke also made  me sick, and in the end was believed to be from farmers burning mass amounts of straw. But anyway, I’m better now.

 The Qingdao leg of my journey was incredible. In brief, Qingdao is a medium sized modern city on China’s coast.  The skies were blue, the temperature moderate, and the scenery, sublime. Qingdao is also China’s beer capital as they are home to China’s largest brewery, Tsingtao. At one point we saw a sign that boasted the city as the beer capital of the world. Ohh, the Chinese. Highlights included a tour of the brewery, a walk on the beach, and a nice hike to the top of a park where we could see much of the city overlooking the Yellow Sea. The strangest (the word “strange” is losing meaning to me and is an inevitable descriptor of at least one part of everyday) part of our stay occurred after a couple bags of beer while meandering about the winding streets of Qingdao which  has a tangible European feel as it was under German control from 1898 until 1914. As we were passing one alley way with seemingly not-too-out-of-the-ordinary Christmas lights, “Let’s check this way out,” Anna said. I was sold; after all it was curiosity in its purest form that brought me to China in the first place--even if I told you it was because I wanted to learn Mandarin and I was an Econ major or any number of official reasons, although most are true. We continued down this rabbit hole of an alley way that presented clues that this alley way was extraordinary. But it could be that we were all sharing a bag of beer with straws? no, the alley gives way to archways and  louder sounds… a hubbub. Joe, Anna, and I pressed forward with steeled resolve, and like Alice and her rabbit hole we found a bizarre world which seemed only the imagination could conjure.  

We entered what was called “Vallerium City.” This place was the strangest of strange. It was a two or three block European city replete with artificial sky. But in practical terms it was a really cool mall. There was a magician performing publicly as we entered. As we continued we saw a man dressed as a pig, a man dressed as a witch, a man dressed as a princess, and several other men dressed in ways that would not make their mothers  proud. Eventually, we pressed through Vallerium City and shook off its confusion to put some grub in our bellies. We spent a total of two days in Qingdao and enjoyed every second.

Travels Part I

38 years before I was born to the day, October 1^st, 1987, Mao Zedong declared China a People’s Republic and thus signaling an end to a long raging civil war with Chiang Kai-Shek of the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang. The Kuomintang retreated from mainland China to Taiwan. To this day there is still strong ambiguity where exactly Taiwan falls in terms of sovereignty. The result of the declaration, however, was the birth of an overtly communist China and an annual week long holiday from October 1^st to the 7^th also called “Golden Week.” With this holiday Joe, Gillian, Anna, and I decided to set out for Beijing and subsequently Qingdao, knowing that we would be up against one of the most powerful and formative forces in the modern world, the Chinese population. 

               

Our first activity on day one in Beijing was touring Tiananmen Square as well as The Forbidden City. Everyone involved knew that this would be tantamount to walking into the lion’s den. Maybe that’s not the right analogy because there are only five or so lions in a pride and the Chinese people aren’t exactly the most physically imposing opposition, but you get the idea. Tiananmen Square, adjacent to the Forbidden City, would be a mad house. They are the two largest tourist attractions in city of Beijing, China’s capital, and it’s their equivalent of July 4^th, and it’s a Saturday. If you didn’t get the idea hopefully now you do. When we finally got to the subway exit that empties in between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen it was a packed stairway going up. All I could see were people and blue sky, I had no idea what I was walking into or what to expect at the pinnacle of this stairway. I just took one patient step at a time as it was gifted to me.  To sum up these attractions, they were both very crowded but not so much that it detracted from the overall value I took away from them.

              

   I have stated before how China is land of many contrasts. For example, they have the first operating mag-lev trains but use troughs regularly as their toilets. They have one of the most beautiful countries in the world, but it is often bogged down in a hazy smog. This theme could be continued ad nauseam, but I will apply it to the average Chinese person and their desire to both push and shove their way to the front and help you at whatever costs. Example 1 in present tense: After seeing Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City we set out for Jingshan park, a short bus ride away. Eventually, the correct bus is pulling up, and we have positioned ourselves well, though a short sprint in either direction is likely to correct for how far or short of our position the bus, more specifically the bus door, stops from our current position. We and the masses behind us can all see the bus coming. The calm before the storm acquiesces to a murmur then a roar of anticipation. As the bus is still pulling up the man operating the door in the middle of the bus sticks his head out of the window and yells something in Chinese. This is atypical. If I were judging on inflection alone he was saying “save yourselves!!” But the piranhas don’t signal that he has said get the next bus and thus the rush is still on. It finally stops. GOOO! If you are old, young, tired, on the verge of death then that is too bad.  You have just died via trample.  You should have known better; you shouldn’t have been standing there. Elbows, grabbing, pulling, shoving, it’s all fair game to get on the bus that I can only assume is the last transport off of a doomed planet. In the craze of this moment once I had established myself on the bus I would not have been surprised to see a strange women trying to hand me her baby, so long as I would take it to the next stop, maybe the next stop would offer a better life.

               

That is all very real, but I will offer its counterpoint. Almost every accurate description of China has a counterpoint. On our last day in Beijing we wanted to go to Hou Hai Lake. On our way there our bearings became unsure so I asked a passerby, “Zai nar hou hai?” (Where is hou hai?). They were not sure so they in turn stopped the next random Asian that walked by and asked them. Again, they were not sure. Before we knew it we were holding a conference in the middle of the street on where exactly Hou Hai lake was and what was the best way to get there. It was too much. They were already into this subject way more than I cared to be. Eventually, we were able to adjourn the committee, but these are the lengths that they will go to help you on an individual level. Just don’t expect them to hold a spot for you in line. They have no concept of a line aside from may the best line cutter win. China, the land of contrasts.

This concludes part one of my Golden Week summary. I will post on Qingdao tomorrow. ..

... The Bird's Nest from the 2008 Olympic Games.