So last week we had a party, a big celebration in the courtyard of the international students dorm, with tons of food, tons of people and a stage with skits, music, and demonstrations from various students representing there countries. It was a pretty exciting night for me and the other Americans because that was the night that 25 new students from a community college in California arrived at our school. They would be here for a month, teaching English to the Chinese students here who were pretty advanced in English already. They had already been to Korea, another city in China, and will move on to Vietnam when they are done here.

I was hanging out with new friends and eating the same old Chinese food, (which I am getting used to these days). And up on stage climbed a man with a bald head who was dressed in monks robes. He had a large monks spade, a weapon of the shaolin monastery, and proceeded to swing it around rather skillfully. This of course drew me close as I tried to get my camera at a good angle, but he finished before I could click the shutter.

When he put the staff away, he came back with two bowls. He then asked for volunteers from the audience, I jumped up as soon as my friend translated. He placed the bowl on his stomach so that it acted as a suction cup around his large belly. (when internal martial artists get very good they get large bellies as a result of many years of deep breathing that has expanded their diaphragm). He then told us to line up and all wrap our arms around the people in font of us, and when we did, he told the first person in line to grab onto the lip at the bottom of the bowl. He wrapped his fingers around the metal bowl we all started pulling, and with all our strength we couldn't pull off the bowl, in fact the bowl broke first.
[IMG]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j109/kungfu_sage/china/Iwantthatbowl.jpg[/IMG]

Then he pulled out another bowl, which proved more substantial, and we each took our turns at the front of the line, until I went to the front and was the only person able to break the bowl. As a reward I got the dish, which I still have now sitting on my desk.
[IMG]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j109/kungfu_sage/china/meandmybowlcopy.jpg[/IMG]

That was all good and fun but it mostly faded into just one more event in China. But a few days later my teacher handed me the Jinan paper, and turned a few pages, ending on the page that had a picture of me with the other guys on stage pulling on the bowl. I thought that was pretty cool, thinking how long I'd been in Portland with out my picture being in the paper. So in addition to the bowl I now have this, the first entry into the “Ian Turner Scrap Book of Chinese Fame”.
[IMG]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j109/kungfu_sage/china/china041.jpg[/IMG]

As it just so happened that was also the day that, as a result of my lowest score on the most recent dictation, I would be singing a song in front of the class, with a friend who's score equaled mine. A few days earlier I had bought a guitar with the money my sister gave me for my birthday, going away, Christmas gift. So we sang “Hurt” the Johnny Cash version, interesting duet with me forgetting some words and my friends thick Irish accent. At the end, my teacher, a pop music fan, clapped loudly and said “oh, very good, you now are pop stars yes”. Which I admit put the whole idea of being a Chinese star in my head.
[IMG]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j109/kungfu_sage/china/china034.jpg[/IMG]

A couple of days later I was coming back from the store, when I saw Ryan and Carrie, standing out side of the dorms with a woman, when they saw me they pointed me out to the woman who laughed, rubbing her hands over her mouth obviously surprised by my facial hair. When I walked up the stairs to them they filled me in on a cool opportunity, they needed some Americans to take pictures of, and some one said something about a billboard. So me needing money, still having troubles with the bank, and very interested in having my picture on a billboard in China, I agreed with Ryan to participate. It was said to be 600 kuai for a half days work.

Three days later at 6 in the morning I found my self skipping class to go to some apartment on the edge of town where I got my hair and makeup done. Very sadly I did not get a picture of my self, but I'll try and describe it. The hair was combed straight back, but blow dried like crazy so it was big and puffy, and covered in a tough shell of hair spray, and my make up made me look, well, dirty. I looked very dark, but not like I had a good tan, more like I was a homeless man just off the street. I wasn't to pleased when we left the apartment and walked around in public, though no more people stared at us than usual.

We got in a van with a crew of people none of whom spoke English so me and Ryan spoke freely about the strange presence of a video camera mixed with the tripods, and a lack of a still frame camera. We really knew nothing about what we were doing so we were a bit unprepared when the crowded van didn't pull into the final stop for 2 and a half hours. At which point we were taken to a room and Ryan was given a suit to change into. While my hair and make up made me appear to be some bum off the streets, Ryan looked like a local news anchor, a big difference from the D'nD type nerd he usually portrays. He wore a full business suit right down to the shoes, while I just hung out in my regular clothes for a while, thinking about how totally bazaar it was that I was gonna be a model in China. Eventually some one came and got us and we went to a room with a video camera set up on tracks, in a room set up like an office, and people working on computers.

This confirmed what we had feared earlier. We were not going to be on a billboard, we were shooting a commercial. This idea took us a little while to get used to, but Ryan was quickly taken to sit at a desk with 3 other people dressed as Chinese business men, I don't think there was much to Ryan's role other than “The American.” A good many takes of them shaking hands later, we were back in our room. This time though when they came back they handed me a jacket, a blue jacket that was the same as all the employees' there with the company logo stitched on it. My job was to sit in on a board meeting while the boss gave an inspirational speech to his staff, as it turns out though I was sitting in on an actual board meeting and when the cameras stopped rolling I wasn't sure if I should leave or if that would be rude, I definitely didn't want to just sit there with all the people taking notes, just looking like some dumb hobo. But the meeting ended quickly and slipped out the door with the crowd.

Again much waiting found a lady leading us out back to the the factory where they apparently assembled the cabinets and safes that they sold. Again the cameras were set up and again I found I was up to bat, still in my blue sports jacket. In this role I was to play of all things an American, but an American teaching the factory worker, the actual factory worker, how to do his job, every so often the pang of the utterly surreal would strike me as I remembered what I was doing just a few days earlier, never expecting to do anything like this.

After a few takes I was finished and they called Ryan up to film the final gripping scene, American business man walks through factory flanked by a posse of Chinese business men, surveying the factory workers and being very impressed. And at that point it was finally over. But we couldn't leave before taking pictures with a bunch of the workers, then meeting the president of the company, shaking his hand, taking a picture with him, all while dieing of hunger, thirst and forming a head ache out of the fumes from my hair.

And 3 hours later when our van finally made it into school, we were both fiercely aware of the fact that it was 9:00 pm, and it was just as dark now as when we had left this morning. It had certainly not been a few pictures and it was not a half days work, so when he were dropped off and payed we took issue with the fact that we felt we deserved more than the 600 we were given, it proved useless, I still have no skill in arguing with a Chinese person.

I don't know if or when the commercial is to be shown, but should I catch it I'll try and get a picture. In the mean time I'm practicing my guitar 4 or 5 hours a day, not really out of discipline but really only because it's the best form of procrastination I've found yet. And when I finally hit it big here in China I'll be able to play some really wicked Chinese pop music.

Ok finally just a few up dates, new job opportunity, after class today my teacher told me her friend had a daughter that was looking for a tutor to help her learn English, I don't know how much she would pay me, my teacher asked me how much I would charge and I told her I have no idea, and asked her if she knew what was normal, she said she also didn't know but a stead cash flow would be nice. The really fantastic thing about being an American in China is people just offer you jobs. Now I just need to watch my spelling when I teach.

Second I was talking with some of the Germans, and they told me that they were paying about half of what I was paying for my dorm by living in a flat out side of the school, and not only does it sound wonderful to get away from my Korean neighbors, it also would get me away from the large population of English speakers, forcing me to use my Chinese more, but I think that would be an idea for the next term.

And finally for now, I spent the evening with a Chinese friend I've made here, we had a four hour conversation about all sorts of things. I explained to here the history of American music from slavery to modern rock and roll, we talked about diversity and racism, she is a journalism major so we talked a long time about what Free Press is and that lead to discussing whether she thought she really was free in China. I found that, like with a lot of Chinese I've met, she was either just totally oblivious to the suppression in China, or she was in denial. She didn't believe me when I said that my Internet is censored so I can't get onto BBC, CNN, Wikipedia, or a number of other web sites. When I ask if she felt safe publishing something if it was anti government she just asked why she would want to write something anti government.

But she is not so entrench as most Chinese I've met and eventually I think she really did start to think about some things she hadn't before. But the most shocking thing I heard was when I was trying to explain that most Americans view the Chinese people as suppressed, and I was trying to explain the term suppressed to her, and so I said “It's like the people in North Korea, but thats an extreme example,” and she had no idea what I was talking about, she seemed to know nothing about what was going on in north Korea, the fact that they are so censored and all that, or the terrible conditions they live under. But it was a rather awesome conversation none the less, even though she sometimes felt uncomfortable with the topic she always listened and was willing to try to understand my point of view. And she actually did a pretty good job of understanding me, even when I started getting into taoist concepts when related to marriage, which lead to the theory behind taiji, topics most English speaking people I try to explain to fail to grasp, or fall asleep in the middle of. So I was impressed with that.

Ok thats China in a nut shell, theres no way I could fit everything in here, but I got the best stuff in at least, I think.

and as usual you can see pics of my adventures at photobucket.com under the profile Kungfu_sage.

I'll be a Chinese Pop Star remains copyright of the author taiji_man, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Otherwise it's been mostly just classes, I took a test to get put in a higher level class, worried I wouldn't learn all I could in the class I'm in now. My teachers said I had scored well enough on the test to advance but it would be really hard for me. So I decided that I would rather stay in the class I'm in now. I've been learning quite a bit, especially since I need to do all the make up for the days I was sick.

Last week me and my friends returned to the little shop where the little old lady gave me the painting of the little bird in the grass. The second we walked in she started pointing at me and talking really fast in Chinese, not that I could understand her anyway. But what my friends were able to gather, she had given me the wrong painting, I think she only sold copies of her work, and that I had taken the original, and she wanted it back. Despite this she was still very kind and said she would replace it with another painting when I came back. We were scheduled to come back next week anyway because my one Australian friend, Wei, had bought a painting of a goddess, that needed to be put on a scroll that wouldn't be ready 'till then.

After that we walked around to some of the other shops filled with Chinese antiques and art, and as it turns out there was a whole other half to the market that we hadn't even seen yet. It's becoming one of my favorite places in china so far. As we left though, a man came up to us speaking broken English, “hello hello” he shouted as he ran from the other end of the hall. “hello” we said back politely. When he reached us and started talking to us he pointed to one of the shops we were standing by and said “this place has all real things, all the other places here are not good” we kept the smiles plastered on our faces and tried to escape the clutches of his verbal kungfu grip.

Another week of classes passed and again it was Saturday, and time for my friend to pick up her painting, but before we went strait to her shop we stopped by the underground market place, a tremendous little place filled with nothing but row after row of little booths and shoppes selling clothes, food and some things that don't really fit into any preconceived categories, such as a hamster playing a traditional Chinese stringed instrument.

I took a few pictures of scary looking mannequins as the girls regularly stopped at each hand bag shop to buy their 6th or 7th of the trip. But I did find one thing I'd been wanting for a while now. A mattress for my mattress. The mattress in my room now is currently as hard as a solid block of wood, and not only that but you can feel each individual spring digging into your back as you lay there, trying to sleep. So I bought this mattress, a thin pad to put over the top of my bed. I talked it down from 80 to 60 kuai and sleeping has gotten much better ever since, though I'm still in the market for some industrial strength ear plugs.

After reaching the end of the mile long spelunking expedition we came out into the light and pulled out our map to find the old lady again. We got our bearings and set off. On the way we passed a little restaurant called “millionaires” and their symbol was a blatant knock off of the McDonnalds arches, I thought it was worth taking a picture of. I clicked off my camera and my friends took out their's to do the same. But just as Wei was redying her trigger finger a man came out, very very angry and started yelling at us in Chinese I'd heard that taking pictures of counterfeit stuff is likely to get you in trouble, but I had no idea the same applied to a huge restaurant on a busy street. After he went back inside, a few more pictures were taken and we walked away.

We got to the building and walked up to the 5th floor where the old woman was waiting for us. She already had a big smile when she heard us coming before she had even looked up to see us. We talked a little while and she told my friend that she could have any one of the paintings done of the goddess she had wanted, and she would throw in a painting of tigers for free if we wanted to wait around. So we waited a round, for a very long time. We sat outside the shop in the hall while Wei was inside talking with the woman.

In the shop are a number of awards hanging around mixed with the hundreds of paintings that paper the walls and floors, and sit in piles in the corners. She is also very nice and willing to take time to help us understand her, even though she has a thick accent and we don't speak very good Chinese at all. She really has taken a liking to Wei, she is the only Asian in our group, and even though her parents are Taiwanese she doesn't speak very good mandarin either, though when ever we're out everyone assumes she is our translator. As she was sitting with the old lady in her shop she was offered the chance to learn how to paint for free. A chance I would have jumped on right away, but Wei, seemed uninterested.

As this was going on though that man from last week who spoke English walked by and again started talking with us very enthusiastically. He was wearing a track suit and a watch that he made us guess the price of, which was apparently 16,000 kuai. He really liked to talk about himself, and after a while started asking what we were doing here. We told him we were buying some paintings and showed him what were were getting, upon looking at the paintings he immediately told us we were being riped off and that this lady was a bad artist. He then took my friend Ryan off to look at some subosedly very nice porcelain, but Ryan returned reporting some rather unpleasant lower back hand placement by the man, so though he sat with us and talked with us a while, mostly insulting the other artists we were talking with right in front of them because they couldn't speak English, we generally tried to avoid any in depth conversation. He had no problem telling me that he thought a religious studies major was a bad idea.

When we finally had our paintings he followed us out, giving Ryan his number and promising him a painting if he wanted to get together some time. We turned down invitations to show us more art and got out of there quickly.

We hopped a cab home and unloaded our goods in our rooms, then went out to dinner. We went to a nice Taiwanese restaurant. Then we went to another market place some other people had been to before. I ended up buying a really nice Chinese suit coat. I like to wear it around my room and just feel generally pimpin. The other thing I bought is generally the coolest thing ever. A belt with a huge buckle in the shape of the Transformers symbol, and when I wear the two things together I feel like the coolest nerd on the planet.

Well thats it for now, I'll have more to write next time in a week or so.

journal 4 remains copyright of the author taiji_man, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

In the same vein of comfort though, some things that are starting to get on my nerves are as follows. The pollution, which is so bad that for the most part I can never actually see the sky except right after a rain storm. Most of the time one can easily look directly into the sun without squinting and just see a red disc hovering over you in the sky, and at night when it's the worst, the air stings your eyes.

This leads to the next thing on the list, the smell. For the most part I've gotten used to the smell, but on days when I leave my air conditioner on all day then leave my room I get a renewed introduction to the olfactory offerings of China. But most of the smells come right here from the dorm building. Now I've been in dorms before and realize that they smell, as college students tend to smell. But it's much worse here for the main reason that there is no authority on campus, no rules anything like those rules that I would expect in an American college, generally people smoke anywhere they want, though those who don't like the smell of smoke in there things, usually hang out in the halls filling them with clouds. And usually at a certain time of night the smell will change from tobacco smoke to more illicit substances, and on weekends literally you can go stand out side the building and still smell the pot smoke that has permeated all 5 floors of the building.

This again leads to the next problem I'm having, my neighbors, specifically my Korean neighbors. As my Irish classmate said, and as any Korean who understands European culture will tell you, the Koreans are the Irish of Asia. They get tremendously drunk every day of the week, and stay up late yelling and running up and down the halls. Cement floors do nothing to mute the sounds, so most nights I have a lot of problems with sleep quality, and find my self wishing the worst hang overs imaginable on them every morning when I awake more sleep deprived than the day before.

Nearing the top of the list, showers. I don't have hot water. Like I don't mean that the water is room temperature, it's cold, it's really really cold, And it's bad enough now when the weather is relatively warm, but in a month or two it's expected to get well below freezing at times, I was told the weather is similar to Wisconsin, and I do not relish the idea of a cold shower on a day that would warrant a winter storm warning back home. In addition to the temperature of the water I also am held to a schedule as to when I can shower. If I don't shower with in a specific time either in the morning or the evening then there's no water at all. Just empty pipes and empty dreams of a less smelly lifestyle.

Next I come to the people that I've met, the other English speakers here. In fact there not that bad, there pleasant to hang out with and everything, but there not the kind of people I would chose to spend time with if they weren't literally the only people I have to relate with. The girls are the biggest problem, they are very much the epitome of ditsy American girls, they party all the time and we can't walk by a hand bag store with out them stopping to gawk. No one really likes the same music as me or shares my ideas. Even though they speak my language I still feel like I'm with a totally different culture than my own.

The food is actually quite good and the only thing that sucks is that I really miss American food, I miss ribs, or hamburgers, I miss butter and cheese, cookies that are actually sweet, and donuts made with more than a teaspoon of sugar, and root beer, I have yet to find anything other than sprite, cola, or this gross mint soda. And I so miss a knife and fork, the simple pleasure of not making each meal an exercise in muscle control and coordination.

Finally I just miss Oregon. I miss Portland, the best city in the world, the rivers the streams, the fact that the wilderness is just minutes away, rather than hours. Fishing, hiking fresh air, and people who understand what I'm saying to them. I miss my friends, I miss camp, where I could spend everyday in the woods and wouldn't have to see a city for the whole summer if I didn't want to. Where I slept on the the ground once or twice a week rather than on a mattress as hard as a concrete slab every night.

But of course this is why I came, I came to subject my self to a challenge that was harder than any challenge I'd endured before. In high school after doing out door school for the first time it made me feel stronger than I'd ever been before, it made me capable of handling situations I'd avoided before hand. After learning the lessons you can only learn by being in charge of 12 unruly 6th graders for a week 22 hours a day. The most important thing I learned is that the only way we can really grow and learn is by being placed in situations where we are uncomfortable, where we are afraid and where we make tons of mistakes. Ever since then I've been doing hard things and putting my self in situations where there was no way out, where quitting was simply not an option, and I think I have grown considerably as a result of it. And this was my biggest one yet, I can't just go home, I have to see this through to the end no matter how hard it gets, and when I come home, I will be stronger and smarter and more able than ever before. Thats why I did this, not just to learn Chinese but to push my self to the next level, take some maturity steroids and take another step towards that person I want to become.

When I was working at camp if I had a good group of kids I would alway talk to them about. “the person they want to be” as opposed to the person they are right now, and I would tell them that every thing they do every day would either lead them closer or farther from that person, and then I would ask if the things they are doing were contributing to that person they wanted to be or not. And since I gave that talk regularly to each new group of kids I had, and it often became a topic of conversation through the week, it was something I often asked my self, and here I think I can really say I am making my self who I want to be, I'm not just being directed by the strongest forces in my environment, but am actually my own propeller. And that so far has been my most comforting thing.

Well anyway that was my therapy for now, already I feel better about it here. I promise I'll have an actual report soon.

journal entry 3.5 culture shock is real remains copyright of the author taiji_man, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Well it finally happened, I knew one day, after getting a PC it would screw me over one way or another, and lucky for me it was in china, and even more lucky for me it happened right as I hit “save” on the tool bar, but before I had actually managed to lay the final key stroke in the title. “September 11, 20.....system not responding” off went my computer, with the hope it was just over heated. But this was not the case. When I turned on the computer again it was moving slower than a slug across the great salt lake. 2 or 3 minutes after hitting the “start” button I managed to get Symantec anti virus running, in 4 minutes it had scanned 83 files. I had no idea what to do. Having no real knowledge of windows, and the computer being my only reasonable form of communication with the out side world I couldn't even ask for help.

“hey Ctrl. Alt. Delete” I thought, “aren't nerds alway talking about that?” so I hit the keys and was given a window to look at, it was a pretty window but not much help, I force quit the 70 or so “volume” applications that had popped up on my desk top and started poking around. I found a nice little graph that looked like a heart monitor, though all it seemed to tell me was my computer had flat lined. I found another tab that told be how much memory each running program used. So I started force quiting all the big programs, each time I did so some terrible message would pop up and say something along the lines of, “if you cancel this program your computer may have technical difficulties, the world as you know it may end, Satan could rule the universe and you might kill a small kitten” and each time I would hit “ok” and the world would continue spinning and my computer would remain unchanged. So I again I set about flipping the tabs in the window. I saw that that my cpu was running at 100 percent. “well good” I thought “at least I know thats working fine” having no idea what a cpu was. But running out of options in the “windows task manager” I found my self looking back over the running programs, and found that none of the programs were using any “cpu” save one. Which was using 99 percent of it. Now from a taoist perspective this seems very unbalanced, so I did the other nerdy thing I know about and used the right click. It did nothing and I decided it was time to take a gamble with my computer, and I hit “end process one more time, risking the possible regain of torment and morbid felines. And praise Bill Gates, the virus scanner jumped into high gear, finishing 1000 files in 30 seconds. I laid on my bed and let it run. I got up a while later and saw that it had been restored to it's original crawl, and I saw the program “spoolsv.exe” had turned it's self on and again was sucking the life from my computer, I killed it again, this time leaving to go practice some tai chi. When I came back the virus scan was over and it had found nothing. When I rebooted the computer that same program kept starting it's self up. I looked it up on line and found that it had something to do with printing, but was often used as gate ways for viruses and worms. Have no need to print anything from my computer while I'm here I deleted the files from my computer and now it works fine. Hurray for me, one step closer to geek hood, as playing “Magic: The Gathering” with my friends only qualifies me as a level 3 tech-less nerd. And with out further delay I bring you the new and improved, rewritten from scratch, third installment of my china adventure journal.

(you may now take a 10 minute break for snacks and pop)

Well it finally happened, I knew one day, after eating from street vendors, dirty restaurants, night market fruit and something out of the bike baskets of some guy who was probably named the Chinese equivalent of Ray, the thing that finally got me hold up in my dorm room for a day and a half was a single snickers bar....some Oreo's and a few bags of these marshmallows filled with yogurt....and a few bottles of soda.... for breakfast. But thats all. Now a thing about china is, apparently the western toilet is a relatively new invention, because you find it relatively few places. Instead the most common thing found is a trough, in the ground, over which you you take on a much more “natural” pose. And I discovered this right at the dawning of my chocolate induced illness, at the doctors when i went to pick up my medical forms that I needed to get my Chinese residence permit.
Walking into the bathroom I quickly assessed the situation and made the decision to take a mile walk back to my dorm rather than experience such a new device for the first time with my prediciment. So I got my forms quickly and walked home, and it had as happy an ending as could be expected. And thats all I have to say about that.

So as I said, I got my forms, and the other thing I've managed to finally get is the money needed for my tuition. 9410 kuai. About 900 American (don't check my math). I gave a check to the Bank of China a week ago, and afterwards talked with my master who told me that it would take up to 30 days to get my money, and as I need to get my money immediately I came up with a new plan. I would become a serial bank robber. Or at least thats what it began to feel like it. My plan consisted of walking with my friends who were going shopping and withdrawing my limit from each atm at each Chinese bank that I could find. The limit usually being 2000 kuai, 1500 at the cheap places. Soon I found my baggy pants stuffed with hundred kuai bills, and I felt very rich. I now have it in a pile on my desk, and it looks very cool. At the beginning of my trip I noticed how when money doesn't mean anything to you, like when you see money from another country, it dawns on you that all your holding are pieces of colored paper, and you get a sense of how absurd it is that pieces of paper run so many things. But that feeling is gone now, as these pieces of paper now hold that great emotion of power. And seeing a huge stack of power is exciting.

Though I have yet to turn in my money I have started classes, Monday was my first day and so far there pretty much what I expected. If living with Chinese people has shown me how little Chinese I know, being in the beginners class is showing me how much I actually do know. A lot of it is below my level right now, but I am in the accelerated beginners, so I expect it to get hard soon. I'm already making flashcards, even though I know all the characters there teaching this week, I am making cards for other words in the book they haven't gone over yet, I really want to learn as much Chinese as I can quickly so I can talk with my new Chinese friends.

Bob, I don't remember his Chinese name, is a regular student here at Shandong, he is pretty good at English, and met me my first morning here, I was walking around the campus watching some older gentlemen doing tai chi, when he came up to me and asked if I was an American. He has since shown up to my dorm un-announced a few times, and left a few messages on my phone. He's nice enough and the other day he stopped by to watch Mr. Bean which I bought at a video store a few days ago, it had Chinese sub titles, but there is so little talking any way that I think he would have been laughing regardless. He really wants to practice English with me, though he does try speaking Chinese to to from time to time. At which point I look with a blank stare and an apologetic smile and he translates it into English for me. Today I taught him the word “hard core” and played him six shooter by Queens of the Stone Age.

I also made some other friends that don't speak English at all. Me and my American/Australian friends had gone out shopping, like we did every day since I got here. But we were all tiered so we came home early and went to our respective dorms. But even though I was tiered I had that feeling you sometimes get. Where you suddenly feel like you need to run as fast as you can as far as you can for no reason at all. So I ended up walking to the store. I got some water and cookies, a misnomer as far as cookies go a Chinese cookie is far closer to a cracker than anything sugar related, and started walking back to my dorm. Still with the feeling that my night shouldn't be done yet I took a very out of the way path back, and found myself watching an old couple practicing taichi in the dark, in an open cement tiled area next to a 20 foot statue of Confucius. I watched till they finished then walked up to them and did my best to explain “hi” in mime, then I managed to get across that I thought they were good. I eventually got that they wanted me to practice with them, and we listed the names of the forms we both knew. We did 24, then 42, then 48. It was great to get back to tai chi, I hadn't really practiced much since the summer started, when I started work at Camp Namanu. When I was done my legs were rubber and my breathing was soft, and I had that pain I get in my neck when I don't practice enough and all the extra blood rushing through my veins hurts. At departure they asked if I had a jian, having bought a strait sword the day prior I said yes and they told me to come back the next night at the same time, and I've been back every night since, practicing with them. It turns out only the women really does tai chi and has been practicing for less time than I have, though I think she practices more often. A few times their son has come and watched us, he speaks a little English so there was a little more opportunity for communication. They are very nice people, and I have fun every time I go.

So as I said we went shopping every day up until classes started. I hate shopping normally but it's so much fun when haggling is involved, it makes it a game, and also you are given the chance to look at all the knock offs you can find every where, and read all the t-shirts written in “English”. You know how from time to time a person will get a tattoo with a Chinese character and it will turn out to mean something completely different than he thought it did, or it will be pure gibberish? Well it seems to work the other way around. Apparently having English written on your clothes here is just as popular as Chinese calligraphy on your underwear is back in the US. And boy do some of these shirts have some terrible translations, just walking from one shop to another looking at what is written is hilarious, and it doesn't seem to get old, we've now taken to just saying what ever we see written in English. “one pepper on heavy call”, “mail letters and many years kind” it serves as great entertainment for the passing of time.

But the other thing shopping has done is it's let us see all corner of china, and taken us to some shops filled with some amazing art, and some tremendous pieces of Chinese history. In one area we found an entire square filled with jade shops, and other Chinese arts and antiques dealers. In one store I got a beautiful scroll with a painting of bamboo in red ink and some Chinese calligraphy, I bought it from the artist him self, and he told us all about himself and his teacher, and showed us some of his late masters works. Then we found another store filled with hand made books, each book a Chinese classic of some kind, like “The Art of War” of “The Tao Te Ching” and the most amazing part was that each book was written by hand with a brush in traditional Chinese writing. They were the most amazing books I'd ever seen, but they were way out of my price range. It's made me think about the prospects of being an Asian arts dealer in the US. Having taken on the hobby of attending every Asian antiques dealer in Portland many times and spending hours going over each little item, I know a little about how things are priced, and I didn't see one thing there that I wouldn't have seen priced at least 5 or 6 times as high in the US.

Speaking of jobs and friends though, I met a nice guy in my class from Ireland. He is teaching English to pay his way through here. He gets 2000 kuai a week, and free room and board, and that is far more than is necessary for tuition and food and all those things. He told me that they would be hiring again around January, and that he could put a word in for me if I was interested. I had been planning to teach English in china at some point for a long time, but I sorta thought it would be after I got my degree, but this is a very interesting opportunity. It would be nice to have a regular cash supply, and even more interesting to live off campus in the place they provide. It would get me a whole new experience of China, and I would have had 6 months of Chinese by that point so it would make some things easier. It's an idea that intrigues me, and something I'll consider. He said they would help me through getting a visa and all that, and it wouldn't be a problem, and that there alway looking for Americans. But anyway, I don't have to really worry about that for a few months any way.

Ok, before I go I want to send out a thank you to all those people who have replied to me so far,it's nice hearing from the people I love, when I'm so far away. And the question has arisen weather you you are free to forward these e-mails around, and definitely you can, I love people reading about my adventures, the more the better, so I would encourage you to send this to any and all people you might think would like it. Ok love you guys, until next time, Zai Jian.

entry 3 remains copyright of the author taiji_man, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Well thats the news so far from china, more surely will follow in due time, I hope all you my friends and family are having your own adventures in your own lives.

journal number 2 remains copyright of the author taiji_man, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

I was dreading the 11 hour flight, and was disappointed that I didn't get a window seat because I was hoping to look down on Beijing as we landed. But the flight was ok. On the way they showed mission impossible 3, which I did not watch due to the lack of enthusiasm for craning my neck over the seat in front of me for 2 hours, but by the time they started showing “take the lead” the Antonio Banderos movie about ballroom dancing in public schools, boredom had won out and I plugged in my ear phones.

As we chased the sun across the pacific ocean I became more and more chronologically separated from my family and friends. And when we finally landed I was 15 hours different. As it turned out I missed nothing by not sitting next to the window. When we landed I could see enough out the window to tell that there was construction going on as far as I could see, which was no more than a mile in any direction because of some of the heaviest smog I've ever seen. At one point after getting to my next gate, I was looking out a window, and thinking I was seeing the moon covered in blood red, I was amazed, but soon found my self disgusted when I found I was looking directly at the sun, and that was all I could see of it through the smog, a faint red disc in the sky.

At this point the separation anxiety really started to kick in, though there was a lot of English writing all over the place, people now were looking at me funny, mostly they were nice, but I really felt strange being the only white person around, but more than that while for everyone there it was 6 pm, for me it was 3 am and “sunny”. When my gate was changed I almost didn't notice cause they only mentioned it in Chinese, luckily I heard some one in line for the gate next to mine say “Jinan” and I followed them. On the plane I immediately buckled my seat and closed my eyes, they were making one announcement after another and I was getting pretty annoyed that they weren't just leaving. I opened my eyes to see what was the hold up and everyone was standing and getting there bags. Next to me I saw a bottle of water and a bag of cookies, apparently I'd fallen asleep and missed the whole flight, though I still have no memory of dozing off or waking up, and looking back I can't imagine how I was comfortable in that seat.

At this point it was 5 am but 8 pm local time. I groggily grabbed my bag and walk off the plane I went to baggage claim and for the first time in all my flying experience there were people standing and waiting to make sure I had proof that my bag was actually mine and I wasn't just taking random luggage.

Leaving the airport at Jinan, I found a man holding a sign that read “Ian Turner” so ignored the young girl asking if I needed a cab and walked over to the man, I was way too tiered to be polite and curious, even if the girl did seem to speak English without an accent.

The first thing that hits you in Jinan is the smell, a mix of cigarette smoke smog and Chinese food. They second thing to hit you will probably be a car. I have never seen anything quite like the drivers in China. The laws seem to almost not exist, the lane lines, barely a blip on the driver's radar, the traffic lights seem more like suggestions rather than any sort of authority. If you don't like your side of the road your free to just hop across the double yellow line and chill till another car comes the other direction, and then you only need to move if your honking and flashing head lights don't persuade him to move first. If there is a crowd of people crossing the street theres no need to stop just slow down and lightly encourage them to move out of your way with a horn and possibly a gentle bump. My driver honked and flashed his lights at everything. Bicyclists, people, stray dogs, large trucks that we barely missed hitting, cop cars we were passing, some times I think he just honked cause he felt like he hadn't made enough noise in the last 30 seconds. It suddenly dawned on me why master Chen had been having so much trouble getting his license in the US.

When I finally got to the university and dealt with checking in to the dorms I was taken to my room. It really is the first place that is entirely mine, that I can decorate, and am completely responsible for. It is small, about the size of a mini trailer home, but it has room for a desk, a bed, a book shelf, a tv, and a bathroom. The bathroom contains a sink a toilet and a shower all in the same space. When I take a shower I have to take out the toilet paper, hang my towel outside, and close the toilet seat. Then when I turn on the water I have to make it quick, the first shower I've taken was sans hot water, though I'm told that at different times of the day it may warm up. The floor in the main room is just a cement floor, no carpeting. And the bed may as well be cement for how hard it is, on my list of things to buy a pillow features high.

Buying things in China is a thrifty mans paradise, today me and some new American friends I made went to lunch, where we had noodles and 2 drinks each for a total of about 5 bucks between the 3 of us. And I was told that that is actually a bit spendy. Later I bought a 20 oz soda for about 30 American cents off a street vendor. It really is quite amazing.

Finaly the bad news. Because for registration I need to have a medical examination, and for some reason I cannot find the original copy of the document that was filled out my by doctor, tomorrow I am going to the doctors, a Chinese doctors, I have to get in a taxi and get to the hospital with out speaking Chinese, then have a doctor who may or may not speak English give me a physical. I am not looking forward to it. But at least in the future I'll be more experienced if I ever need to go to the doctors for a serious reason.

So thats my adventure so far, I have two more days before I start classes, I think, so it's 2 more days of hanging out in china, I'm looking forward to it.

the first entry remains copyright of the author taiji_man, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs