Profiling (briefly) the Nitty-Gritty of Chengdu

And now for some of the more unsavory aspects of living in Chengdu. Those of you who kept in touch with me while I was in France may recall that during my time there, I stopped looking in front of myself and instead started concentrating on my feet. The reason for this was that pet owners allowed their dogs to use the sidewalk to take care of business and never bothered to clean up after them. Well. Suffice to say that after stepping in dog poop twice in two days, I have once again learned to stare at my feet instead of the road ahead. On top of that… this is going to get gnarly. Let’s backtrack a minute. Most people know the air quality in China is pretty poor. They don’t have many government-mandated environmental protection laws, so smog is a huge issue. Chengdu has the same problem. You know when you walk out of the house and you inhale deeply and smile because it smells so fresh and good? Not here. The air just smells a little dirty. Now, a little closer to home, so many impurities in the air tend to build up in this perpetually present phlegm-like substance that lodges itself in your throat and makes it impossible to enunciate clearly. I just try to cough a little bit and deal with it that way, but the local solution is to spit it out on the sidewalk, the street, the gutter – whatever is within the artillery range, as it were. So in addition to dodging dog poop, I am also dodging spit. And I’m suspicious of any amount of liquid I see on the ground. I mean, really. If you have to go, just go! Who cares where you are? China is like an obstacle course that’s never finished.

SURVIVOR: Green Mountain

Pictures:

1. Ancient Irrigation System



2. Will about to deck me with a snowball (Andrew next to him)



3. Me.



4. Tree on Green Mountain with prayers on it (it's a Daoist mountain)



5. The Green Mountain mountainside


The Story:

It was an ordinary day. Well, an ordinary USAC field trip day, I should say.

It started without incident. We went to this ancient irrigation system up in the mountains, beautiful, covered with snow, and so of course wild snowball fights ensued. I personally got creamed more than once, but I did my fair share of creaming as well. We even stopped to get a way overpriced cup of tea – everything was fine.

But then we came to Green Mountain, a very important Daoist mountain. Temples nestled within the forest, monks banging gongs, the real deal. Time of arrival: two in the afternoon. Time we were supposed to be off the mountain and rejoin our group: 4:45. Time it was supposed to take to get to the top of the mountain: one hour. Cable car down instead of climbing: check.

So we set off with ample time, not a care in the world. Little did we know we soon have to fight for our very lives.

The most significant incident on the way up is that I inadvertently stepped somewhere I shouldn’t have and got clobbered by a monk with a stick. I was feeling a little bruised from my cultural ignorance, but aside that I was in prime condition.

It was a cold day, and it started snowing as soon as we got there. Now, keep in mind, the trek up the mountain consists entirely of stairs. Or rather, stone slabs laid down to approximate stairs, or just make you think happy thoughts of real stairs. And because of the cold and the snow and the heavy traffic up and down the mountain, these stairs were covered with ice and compacted snow – no easy walking, let me tell you. However, going up was only mildly hazardous and involved only a few slips and falls with no injuries for anyone.

The time: 3:45. We still haven’t made it to the top – it’s taking a lot longer than we were told and a lot longer than we expected. The members of my group have changed and shifted many times, with groups splitting off, dividing, and finding other members of other groups and absorbing them into our own. Well. By now it’s taken so long to get to not-the-top that we are obligated to get to the top, otherwise we’ll never be able to get the cable car down in time. No problem.

Traci, Shay and I all made it to the very top, the true top of the mountain, just the three of us. By this time it really was about 4:45, so we knew we would be a little late, but not terribly much so because we were going to take the cable cars.

The cable cars were not at the top of the mountain.

We started to descend to find the cable cars. Earlier, we had gotten separated from the bulk of our group: Oliver, Kelly, Lani, Sofia, Mario, and Derek. We made it down to a lower palace – no cable cars. The maps provided were poor, inaccurate, and didn’t show you where you were on the map.

It started getting later.

Traci tried to call our program director, Wentao, to tell her we were running a little late.

We had no cell phone reception on the mountain.

We found a payphone at one of the palaces, the kind that requires a phone card to use.

We didn’t even have a credit card.

We found some Chinese hikers and asked them if they knew where the cable cars were (in Chinese, of course). Their response: “Meiyou.” Which mean that there aren’t any, but we knew there were, so we just figured we asked the question poorly (especially since I didn’t know the word for “cable car,” so I just substituted the word for “car”).

We continued to descend. Suddenly, the clear, sweet sound of a cell phone ring sliced through the air! Traci had reception! We stopped in our tracks, fearful that any movement might cause the cell phone reception to falter. It was Oliver, long-lost member of our group!

He bore no good news. “The cable cars have been shut down,” he said. By this point it was at least 5:15.

Oliver said he and everyone else would wait for us while we made it to where they were, which is where the cable cars should have been had they been operating. We made it there pretty quickly and rejoined the rest of our group (except Sofia, Mario, and Derek, who had gone ahead). He also said he had managed to get in touch with Wentao, but he got cut off before they could say anything terribly useful.

On top of this, we had been told previously by Wentao that if we were ever more than fifteen minutes late, she would leave without us. So we were faced with the prospect of being an hour and a half away (driving time) from Chengdu, with potentially no way of getting back. To quote Will’s favorite phrase, “Na, zenme ban?” (“Then what are we to do?”)

The hour was getting later, and we began our long descent. Believe me, the going was not easy. The stairs might not have been so good on the way up, but they were ten times worse on the way down. We saw people struggling all around us just to remain upright. The stairs were narrow, slick, icy, and exceptionally dangerous. In fact, the situation we found ourselves in was so absurd that it had become hilarious.

Ah, but the best is yet to come! Like I said, the stairs were in terrible condition. So bad, in fact, that it was simply not possible to remain standing up. Traci was the first to discover our solution. She slipped and went sliding down the stairs on her rear end. What can I say? A good thing catches on quickly. Pretty soon all of us were crawling down the mountain on all fours, or sliding à la Traci.

It grew later yet – at least 6:00. Oliver was having the time of his life. “I have now had the pleasure,” he said, “of watching five women slide down a mountain on their butts!”

I suppose it was inevitable. Traci took a tumble and actually got hurt; she banged up her wrist pretty badly, painfully enough that she was in tears. Oliver helped her down a little ways and she took some time to recover. However, she could still move all her fingers, albeit with slight twinges of pain, so we trudged on.

6:30. And you know what that means. It’s about to get dark.

Much to our surprise, we ran into more people from our group! Daniel, Colin, and Sol were still on the mountain, moving very slowly, because Colin has a bad back and bad eyesight and was not doing so well. That makes at least 12 people still on the mountain, almost two hours after we were supposed to have gotten off it. That’s a fair chunk when there are only 25 people total.

We got in touch with Wentao again, who said that if we made it to a particular lake by 7:00, she would wait for us.

It was getting darker by the minute. Still climbing down icy stairs, we were having more and more trouble seeing the next step.

Poor Traci. She has a bad knee, and after all the exercise it had gotten climbing up stairs (and sliding down them), she could barely walk without assistance. So, a little more sure-footed than she, I put my arm around her to help her down to the lake, which was right around the corner.

At the lake, we found Mario. Sofia and Derek had gone ahead already, he said. There was a ferry that you had to take to cross the lake, which cost 5 RMB, and he didn’t have any money, so he had stayed behind to wait for us.

Once we made it across the lake, we still had to get to the entrance gate, which involved more stairs. And it was completely dark.

Traci had a little LED flashlight with a push-button, so she gave it to me. The problem was that in order to keep it on, you have to be applying constant pressure to the button.

My hands were so cold that I couldn’t keep the button depressed. Supporting Traci again, we walked down the rest of the mountain step by step, with the inconsistent light from her little flashlight, since I couldn’t keep it lit.

The ten of us took our little train all the way to the entrance gate. The second we stepped outside, in the inky blackness of a night on Green Mountain, we exploded into cheers, hugged each other, shouted, and rejoiced. There were cries of, “We had made it out alive! We SURVIVED!” We found someone to take a picture of our group of survivors, and we rejoiced some more.

It was 7:30, nearly three hours after we were supposed to be off the mountain.

Fortunately, Wentao had not abandoned us. We got on the bus, and at last we were off the mountain and on our way back to Chengdu.

It took me at least half an hour to regain warmth and feeling in my fingers. I know I said that when I came to China, I wanted to have lots of adventures.

This isn’t quite what I had in mind.



Sliding down the mountain! Shay is in front, with Traci right behind. Up higher, you can also see Kelly sliding down. Oliver and Lani are actually on their feet.

Multilingual Mishaps

Once, on a business trip in French-speaking Europe, my father asked the person working at the front desk when the cruise ship (navire) would arrive to take him to the airport – except that he really meant to say shuttle (navette). Tonight, I spent some time with my first official Chinese friend, Gaotian. I am helping her with French, and in return, she is helping me with Chinese. Now, in China, when you go out to dinner with someone, you are supposed to argue over who pays the bill. Everyone is supposed to want to pay. So once we finished eating, I tried to tell her I should pay since she came to my apartment, and at my apartment she is my guest. The word for “guest” is keren. However, the verb qing means “to invite,” so I thought, not knowing the word keren, maybe the word for guest was qingren. I was wrong, though; when I told her she was my qingren, she started laughing hysterically because I had just called her my mistress.

Gender Equity at Home? I Think Not.

Imagine, if you will, the following scenario. Yes! Rebekah has arrived in China! Land of beautiful scenery, the language I’ve been studying for the past three years, and delicious food. Hurrah! I get to learn how to cook authentic Chinese food! No way! I mean, for goodness sake, I already have requests from all my family and friends for delicious, homemade Chinese meals when I get back. Now imagine my excitement when I realize I have my own kitchen. I mean, not mine personally, but shared but all six people who live in the apartment. It’s large, well-equipped with pots and pans and the like, and at my absolute disposal. Could life get any better? But upon closer inspection, my excitement fades. The original color of the counters is a mystery. The floor is so visibly dirty that it makes me shudder to walk in there with only socks on my feet. The dishes are in a heightened state of disarray. Let me pause for a brief moment to introduce my apartment mates. There’s me, of course, and Liz right next door to me. Also on our floor is Solomon, the friendly Korean fellow who’s studying Chinese as well. On the second floor we have Matt, Jason (who we never see – it’s still a mystery where he spends his days), and Brant, the most clearly non-Asian in the entire apartment. He’s no less than six feet tall, muscular, imposing, and has curly blond hair (the coup de tete, as it were). Okay, boys and girls. Time for a lesson in gender differences. I have chosen to take this semester as an excellent opportunity to really learn how to cook. But in this kitchen, in which I fear for my life every time I walk in? Not a chance. So I decided the kitchen needed to be cleaned, thoroughly, from top to bottom, and I recruited Liz (who, also being female, thought the kitchen was equally disgusting). So we get into the kitchen and realize it’s far worse than we thought. The griddles are so thickly covered in years of leftovers from cooking mishaps that they’re stuck to the stovetop. The counters are frighteningly black. Half the dishes are still filthy even after being washed. The tiled walls are caked with grime. In corners we find something suspiciously mold-like growing. The floor is nearly unidentifiable. Now, keep this in mind for just a minute. Liz informed Brant of our intention to clean the kitchen. His reply: “Is it even dirty?” I’m not even kidding. Boys! Honestly. So we come to the actual cleaning. Liz started with the refrigerator (and a fine job she did, too!). She cleaned it out and discovered icky things that hadn’t seen the light of day in far too long. Among the best was something that probably used to be some variety of meat about a year and a half ago. On top of that, she organized, rearranged, put things in order, cleaned out cabinets, and so much more. I couldn’t have done it all without her! I started with the dishes and the countertops. Once I got going, like I said, I realized that many of the dishes were permanently disgusting. I washed, I scrubbed, I used lots of soap, and yet they looked to be in exactly the same condition as before I started. I had much more success with the countertops. Liz and I found a bottle of some heavy-duty kitchen cleaner, and it made all the difference. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the countertops were actually white! And that in some previous lifetime, the griddles were silver! And those weren’t the only discoveries we made. We also uncovered a fancy black light dish dryer, a towel bar, and a little lion design on the wall that had been previously invisible. On top of that, we found at least a hundred chopsticks, no fewer than three full bags of rice, three bags of salt, two bags of sugar, and such an array of cutlery that we’ll never be at a loss for a knife again. The true triumph will come when we manage to get the floor passably clean. We did a preliminary washing, but in order to be livable, that floor will have to be washed at least once more. Liz and I have decided to let the floor dry and then wash it again this evening. The other part left unfinished was the sticky griddles, which are so irreparably dirty that we’re going to buy steel wool and try again later. However, as payback for the hard work Liz and I put in, I think the boys should wash all our dishes for the next two weeks. I know my mother is proud, reading this. “I knew I raised her right!” she’s thinking. Tomorrow we’re tackling the bathroom, in which some disgusting smell has pervaded since we arrived. Wish us luck. If I never return… you’ll know what happened. Or maybe you’ll just wish you didn’t.

A Note on Surviving Chengdu Pedestrianism

Have you ever noticed how orderly and linear American drivers are? Perhaps not – perhaps it is just assumed to be normal. Well, let me tell you, of all the countries I’ve been to, never have I seen drivers that are quite as organized and orderly as they are in America. Chinese drivers may take the cake, as it were, in terms of lack of linearity. They are left, right, zig-zag, backwards, squiggly, but never straight. In that vein, now seems like an excellent time to include Rebekah’s very own How-To-Survive guide to being a pedestrian in Chengdu. First, whatever you do, never assume a car will stop for you. This is rarely the case, as Chengdu drivers stop for no one. When crossing the street, as the old adage goes, make sure to look both ways! Otherwise, it may be the death of you. Second, keep in mind that lanes in the street are basically meaningless. If you decide to take a taxi somewhere, this will immediately become apparent. Since Chengdu drivers stop for no obstacle (see above), they tend to drive on the opposite side of the street in order to avoid obstacles rather than (heaven forbid) slow down. So if you see another car coming at you head-on, try not to panic; this is normal. Third, there are people employed by the government that stand at street corners and tell pedestrians when to cross by means of whistle-blowing and flag-waving. Their purpose is to make the cars stop in order to provide safe passage for those on foot. Feel free to ignore them. Everyone else does. Especially the drivers. Fourth, if you happen to be subject to an unfortunate confluence of circumstances and get knocked over (whether on bike or on foot), don’t expect any help from anyone. Unless you’re clearly injured or dead (in which case this is a moot point), people will just stare. The driver will most likely not even talk to you. Just get up, shake it off, and continue on to your final destination. Finally, don’t hesitate to cross the street when it’s technically illegal to do so. Even if cars are coming at you, since the drivers will just go around you (see tip #2). Just keep right on walking. Jaywalking is not an issue. Well, I think that does it. Now if you ever come to China, you will know how to cross the street without getting killed. Hurrah!

Yellow Dragon Town




Today we went on a field trip! We went to Yellow Dragon River Town, an ancient city about an hour outside of Chengdu. (Actually, I was informed that although the town is ancient, the buildings are new. I have yet to truly understand how that makes this place qualify as ancient.)

Although I enjoyed the visit, it came with its own stresses. Our program director, Wentao, found Chinese families for all of us to spend the day with. For those of us who knew even minimal Chinese, she assigned us the families that spoke little to no English. My family consisted of five people – a husband and wife and their daughter, and another mother and daughter. Unfortunately, I can’t remember anyone’s name except for one of the little ones, who was called Yueyue.

Well, let me tell you – this highlighted just how much essential vocabulary is missing from my Chinese education. It was good to spend time with the family and talk to them in Chinese, but most of the time I had no idea what they were saying. The zenith came when we were riding in the car to Yellow Dragon Town and they were trying to solve riddles and asked me for help. I didn’t even know what the riddle was asking, let alone be able to solve it in Chinese!

Despite the lack of coherent conversation, we did eat a fabulous lunch. I got the dad to write down the names (in Chinese) of my two favorite dishes, which were really phenomenal. The first was sweet and sour cabbage, and the second was fish-flavored eggplant. Now, I know that latter sounds absolutely bizarre, but the eggplant doesn’t actually taste like fish – it’s just cooked in the same spices they use to prepare meat.

Before my family left to go back to Chengdu, one of the moms gave me a little flower hat (which you can see a picture of). About half the flowers were actually fresh, and the plum blossoms smelled wonderful. I felt like I should be performing in a Shakespeare play!

Another highlight (of which I am also including a picture) was grinding soybeans into tofu (again, in my awesome hat). My family explained to me (in what I could understand) that this is how tofu was made a long time ago. It was hard work! It was a bit of an awkward contraption and it kept getting stuck at inopportune angles.

In other news, I’m done with my first week of classes! I really like my Chinese class – my teacher really knows what she’s talking about. Tai Chi is pretty fun too, although I need to work on some of my moves this weekend. I have yet to actually have the cooking class, so I don’t know how good it’s going to be. Calligraphy was pretty dull this week, but we’re going to buy brushes and ink tomorrow morning, so hopefully it’ll get more interesting.

I think that’s all for now. Over and out from the other side of the world!

A Lesson in Cultural Ineptitude

Well, we all knew there would be some difficulties once I got to China. Yesterday unquestionably qualifies as one of those times. Our first adventure was our return trip to Carrefour. Since we didn’t have enough time the first time (only an hour and a half, remember?), we decided to go back to the unbelievably over-stimulating supermarket. We all found lovely space heaters (because gas is expensive and our rooms are a tad chilly) as well as other bulky, ungainly purchases. There were five of us on that fated day: Will, Traci, Shayron, Liz, and myself. Well, it came time to check out. Traci and I were the last to make our purchases. We paid without incident. But lo and behold! Traci and I could not find the other three! We searched about high and low, left and right, near and far, but we could not find our counterpart. Traci and I decided the other three went ahead and without us, so we decided to try and hail a taxi. Mind you, Chengdu is a city of a thousand taxis. Everywhere you look, there are taxis! Loads of them! Waiting at a single stoplight there may be as many as 15 within a mere 100 feet! Yet when Traci and I tried to hail a cab, we were baffled by our inability to do so. Every single of the umpteen taxis that passed us by were either occupied or ignored us completely. We changed positions – we still could not get a taxi. We moved down the street – still no taxi. After a frustrating half-hour long attempt to find a taxi, we decided to hoof it and head back home with our bulky boxes on foot. Halfway home, Traci slipped (the sidewalks here are tiled, I don’t know why, but they are quite slick when they get wet) and hurt herself, at which point I was at a total loss. We still couldn’t get a taxi, and now my friend was injured. Eventually we made it back to our respective apartments. Apparently while Traci and I were checking out, Will, Shayron, and Liz went outside because they didn’t know where to go once they had all their bags. Well, when they looked inside, they couldn’t find Traci and me. Each half spent quite a long time looking for the other half, checking other exits, and so on. And they couldn’t get a taxi either! So I guess we all walked home. Well, we were exhausted from this little mishap, which was a clear indication that we all need cell phones. We decided to go to the first restaurant we could find for dinner. Now, let me tell you a little about Sichuan province. This region of China is very well known for its food – it’s quite spicy, but quite good. The local regional specialty is called “Hotpot,” which is kind of like fondue. You get a pot of boiling broth and you dip meat and vegetables in it, let it cook a little while, and then eat it. We were warned by our program director to put off eating hotpot for a while because we probably wouldn’t be able to handle it at first. We came to a restaurant. It was close to home and well populated. Great! Inside we go. We’re shown to a table. We realize there’s a big pit in the middle of the table – uh oh. This is a bad sign. We are given a Chinese menu, of which we only know a fraction of the characters. Oh man. Half the restaurant staff comes over to try and overcome the language barrier that surrounds us. They’re trying to explain to us what to do in a mix of Chinese and English. We’re totally clueless. Will and I are sinking in our seats, incredibly embarrassed about all the attention we’re drawing to ourselves. Other customers in the restaurant are watching. Someone from another table tries to comes over and help out. Eventually we communicate that we would like vegetables and that they should just pick food for us to eat. Whew! First hurdle passed. But when the food comes – oh man, when the food comes, we have no idea what to do. They keep giving us more and more and no one has more than 50 kuai on them (about $7). The restaurant looks upscale. We start getting nervous that we won’t be able to pay for our meal. We’re surrounded by food and have no idea what to do with it. We’re just staring at the vegetables and at the broth boiling in the middle of the table, unsure of how to proceed. One waitress, taking pity on us, comes over and makes us each a sauce out of the two kinds of broth in the middle, MSG, sugar, and plum sauce. She dumps all the vegetables and meat into the broth to let it cook. She shows us what to do, how to fish it out once its done cooking. Overwhelmed, we still have no idea what we’re doing. Somehow, though, we managed to get through the meal, and it wasn’t nearly as expensive as we thought it might be. We paid, we left, we feel asleep out of sheer exhaustion and an unsettling feeling of cultural ineptitude. Today, on the other hand, we started classes. Hurrah! So far I’ve had my Chinese class, which I love. My teacher seems to really know what she’s talking about and know how to teach effectively. Later on today, I have Taichi. It’s going to be a great semester!

Imagine the madness of outfitting an entire apartment in the space of one and a half hours. Now add to your image a supermarket that sells everything imaginable, one that could easily fit five Walmarts inside it and still have room to grow. If you have accurately imagined the above, you will understand what I went through today. We made it to Chengdu without incident and promptly were driven to our apartments. I am on the ninth floor of my apartment building, in a gigantic six-person apartment. I have the smallest room (which means the cheapest rent) which is passable but sadly lacks a desk. The other major drawback is that at this point, I have only managed to turn on the air conditioning in my room. As far as I know, everyone else has a heater that is working. Mine only blows out cold air! So after we made it to our apartments, we headed for Carrefour, the gigantic supermarket I alluded to earlier. If ever there were anything that was unbelievably overwhelming, this would be it. Aisles crowded with people and merchandise, innumerable brands and choices, countless products, multiple floors. In my mad dash around the store, I only managed to procure a fraction of what I actually need, which means I will be going shopping tomorrow too. The good news is that I found really awesome sheets and now have a mug, plate, and bowl. I think the mug is my favorite – it has one of those really fantastic pseudo-translations from Chinese to English, which could not have possibly been done by an English speaker; it proudly proclaims, “Dream of the candy.” So you want to know what China is like? For less than $30, I got a quilt cover, a bed sheet, two pillowcases, laundry detergent, a gigantic bottle of water, two clementines, a mug, a plate, and a bowl. UPDATE (The above was written yesterday): My heat is working! And we have hot water! I was still so cold though that I slept with two quilts, a heavy duty sleeping bags, woolen socks (borrowed from my roommate), and a sweater. Another room came up with the solution of all sleeping in the same bed (apparently they were very warm). I think I might buy a space heater. Pictures of the apartment are to come. I just haven’t taken any yet!

Alive and well in Shanghai!

Good news: I am alive and well and in China! Bad news: the air quality is atrocious.
I’m starting off the semester with a group tour in Shanghai. I like the pace of the tour; we get to do a lot and see a lot, yet I don’t feel rushed or exhausted because we’re doing too much.
But Shanghai is a city where the sun shines brown. The kind of city that makes you wonder if you’ll ever see the blue sky again. I feel as though I cannot fully inflate my lungs, like my heart is constantly beating too fast, and that the air that does manage to find its way in is thickly layered with grit and grime.
That aside, there are a lot of fun things to do in Shanghai and I’m having a great time. On Tuesday (the day after I arrived), we went on a tour of Old Shanghai. We saw the Jade Buddha Temple, which has a gigantic sitting Sakyamuni made out of white jade. Since it was the first of the month of the Chinese lunar year, loads of people were in and around the temple, lighting handfuls of incense and filling the air with smoke and prayers.

Later that day we went to Yuyuan Garden, which is this really wonderful natural escape from the big city surrounding it. It is a traditional Chinese garden, which means that all four elements (I’m not sure what they are, but I think one of them is mountain and another is water) are incorporated. The mountain bit was accomplished by a carved rock that rock climbers would love because of all the excellent handholds. It was really nice: a beautiful garden, though a bit too much stone (it was entirely paved) for my taste. I love the architecture here—it’s softer, rounder, less severe. The round doors in the garden made me think of hobbits!



On Wednesday we went to Xitang, a small town about two hours outside of Shanghai. This adorable town seriously exemplified my silly westerner’s view of China. There was not a single house bereft of red lanterns; canals filled the city (in fact, we saw the town’s fire department from the 1960’s: a boat); the main method of transportation was carts. Apparently part of Mission Impossible 3 was filmed here. There are pictures of Tom Cruise randomly distributed throughout the whole town.




Thursday was “Modern Shanghai” day. It was a walking day (which I thoroughly enjoyed). Our first stop was the Bund Underwater Sightseeing Tunnel, which wasn’t much more than a tunnel filled with lights, random spoken phrases, and creepy inflatable jesters (like the big blow-up Santa Clauses you see around Christmas time).

After that we got to go to the top of Jinmao Tower, the tallest building in Shanghai. The building was constructed hollow in the center, complete with viewing panel at the very top of the building (the 88th floor), so we could see all the way down to the lobby on the first floor. It was awesome. Check out the spirals made by those little balconies.


On Thursday afternoon we went to a Chinese market. Here they give foreigners highly inflated prices and you have to bargain your way down to about a third of the price they name. I never thought I would be saying this, but bargaining is so much fun! Seriously. The other great thing about the market was that I got an opportunity to talk to some Chinese salespeople. This guy in my group who I was wandering around with, Will, decided he was going to pretend to be a salesperson, so he sat down and started trying to sell shoes. The shopkeepers around us really got a kick out of this and so they started talking to us and quizzing us on our Chinese vocabulary. They ended up telling us (in Chinese) that we shouldn’t bother going to Chengdu—we should stay in Shanghai with them and they would teach us all the Chinese we needed to know!
Today (Friday) was a free day, so I went to the Shanghai Museum (it’s a history museum, one of the best in China) with several other people from my group. My favorite part was the coin exhibit—it was a comprehensive collection of Chinese currency from when it was first introduced to the country to modern day. It was fascinating! They were arranged chronologically, so you could watch technology improving and learn about the different methods they used for casting coins. The other really interesting part of the coin exhibit for me was watching the orthographic evolution of Chinese characters. For those of you who don’t know, the Chinese character system did not always look the way it does today. The characters used to be a lot rounder, very different from what they are today.
Tomorrow we’re flying to Chengdu—my new home! My best to you all—I love you and miss you and can’t wait to see you again soon.