by this time today, i'll be in vancouver

there's wireless internet at the Burger King in the Shanghai Pudong airport. ah, the advances of modern technology! i'm writing this post for the sole purpose of posting one picture: eat your hearts out, america.

Hainan (part three): Sun and Moon Bay

sun and moon bay. highly recommended. try finding a picture. it's called riyue wan. or riyue bay. couple thousand meters of pristine white sand beach and nothing but me and matt riding the waves for an entire afternoon. we bought some chinese brand-name sunscreen and definitely got our money's worth, cuz we both got a bit toasty. not as toasty, i suppose, as if we hadn't bought any, but we've a nice touch of color to our faces now. best part of the day: taking a nap on a beach all by myself. matt wandered off to look for some shells. funnest part of the day: trying to wave down a bus to pick up a couple of hitchhiking foreigners with dripping wet bodies, boards, and dollar bills. :)

Hainan (part two): Sanya

Sanya. if there's ever an extra four thousand dollars lounging in my wallet just waiting to be spent, this is on the top of my list. i figure that's how much it would cost to fly here, live it up for about two weeks, and get back with a few pennies. though, i could live like a miser, sleep on the beach (very tempting, even with sufficient funds), and get away with it for about two thousand. oh. that's for two people, in case you were wondering. i was thinking honeymoon. we went to the "big east sea bay" (dadonghai wan) yesterday and decided we wanted to go boogie boarding for the few hours before sundown. we got the guys to rent us two boards for ten RMB a piece (again, with the chinese prices...that's about a buck forty), but didn't have enough money to cover the security fee. in the end, they agreed to giving us the boards in exchange for my flip-flops, matt's shoes, and both our t-shirts. quite fair. we decided not to rip them off (my flip flops were the most expensive...about four USD) and brought back the boards. what nice dudes!

Hainan (part one)

i'm in hainan! you wish you were here. twenty-seven degrees in the air and about twenty-two or twenty-three in the ocean. thousand-meter beaches with nobody on them but me and a constant roll of one to two meter waves. but how did we get to hainan? let me tell you, my over-curious friend! we took a plane. straight from nanjing to guangzhou (insert several hour long layover here) and then right to haikou. in the airport in guangzhou, we met joseph, our ultra-friendly, girlfriend-visiting, new zealand-living, freshman-year-in-college-but-i'm-still-a-pimp buddy. joseph came down and sat next to us in the terminal and we chatted it up until the flight finally left (a half hour late). when he found out we hadn't found a hotel for that night, he told us he'd see if his girlfriend could hook us up. she did. we stayed at a place next to her university (where she studies vocal performance, which is super-hot) for seventy RMB. that's thirty five a piece. that's about five bucks, my good man. they also treated us to a barbequed dinner and some pretty tasty noodles. all in all, i'm pretty grateful for chinese hospitality. he's gonna get whatever he wants when he comes to america. we woke up early, got on a five hour bus, and now we're in paradise.

Shanghai (上海）

Welcome to SHANGHAI!  shanghai was definitely not my favorite city in china, but it was pretty dang beautiful. i'm going to see what i can do about adding some pictures here.

MUD CAVES!

I never actually showed a picture of us soaked in mud in the mud caves.  Here you go!

Taiwan

i lived in taiwan for two years, so it's one of my favorite subjects.  any book you read on how to be polite or how to do business in china will tell you to avoid talking about taiwan.  never, never, never.  i'll echo that opinion with business, but if you'd really like an insight to the way chinese people think, start talking about sensitive issues like taiwan.  every time i've mentioned taiwan (to close friends, teachers, strangers), i immediately get the party line:  taiwan is part of china and has always been.  and if you ask for proof that taiwan and china are inseparably linked as a nation, they say chinese.  the chinese language is the reason taiwan is china.  history lesson:  taiwan has long been the trophy handed to the latest victor of the spoils.  the chinese, the dutch, and the japanese have all laid claim on the island in the past two hundred years alone.  the original inhabitants of the island, having arrived several thousands of years ago, were of malay and polynesian ancestry.  the han chinese didn't actually begin to populate the island until about 1200 AD.  the portuguese saw the island in the sixteenth century and began to call it formosa, or the island beautiful, but it wasn't until the dutch began to colonize the island in 1624 that there was a significant european presence.  not too long after this, the fujian military and navy kicked the dutch out and the island came under the rule of the qing dynasty, eventually becoming its own province with taibei as its capitol.  at the end of the nineteenth century, the japanese successfully invaded and quelled resistance.  japan controlled the island until the end of the war in 1945.  the kuomintang that controlled china at the time then controlled taiwan until 1949 when the communist party finally vanquished the KMT and the nationalist leaders lead by jiang jie shi (or chiang kai-shek, as he's know to ignorant westerners) fled to taiwan to "regroup", as he called it.  they never left, and taiwan has effectively had its own economy, military, trade, treaties, legislature, law, political parties, language, and traditions since.  as far as i can reason it, taiwan hadn't been china's since 1895, and (because we know that jiang jie shi was preparing for a retreat to taiwan for many years before the actual event in 1949) the 1945 to 1949 legitimate rule by the KMT only prepared the island for yet another invasion (this time by the nationalist military).  china calls taiwan a province, and the chinese people insist (very heartily) that taiwan is part of china and eventually china will "jiekai" or free and release taiwan from its present situation.  the taiwanese that i know, on the other hand, seem satisfied with the status quo (afraid to provoke china to war with claims of independence, but having independence in practice) but do not consider themselves chinese.  many will actually correct you if you call them zhongguo ren.  interesting, no?

Pictionary in Reverse, AKA this is our writing class

we have a three hour long writing class.  it's tomorrow.  i'm not stoked.  it gets boring enough that sometimes professor ying has to come up with pretty interesting activities to keep us awake.  two weeks ago, we played a reverse version of pictionary where the guys (no girls in our class) described the perfect living room and i had to draw it on the board.  here's the result: two of the three amigos (kris and marc, i think) sit on the couch with an obviously underaged and very unhappy chinese girl.  they're grinning ear to ear.  the couch is purple with polka dots, and beside it sits a mini fridge, opened, so you can see the many bottles of "coke?".  the air conditioner, in a not-so obscure reference to our actually air conditioner in our apartment, drips copiously onto the couch. working from left to right, you'll notice a MATRIX poster in the background: a stick-figure keanu reeves dodging bullets. on the table in the middle sit three cds, three bowls of rice with meat (a taiwanese dish we all miss...paigu fan), a tv remote, and a dancing clown.  yes. a dancing clown in a purple get-up with purple and yellow polka dots, white gloves, painted face, and wacky hair.  lighting the room overhead is a fantastically sketched disco ball, which reflects off the massive flat screen tv (which is playing a barney rerun).  right in front of the tv rests a DDR dance pad for those late night parties.  meanwhile, dave looks in from the door and is aghast.  :)

Basketball Reinvented

it was late. steph and i decided to wander into the arcade at the top of deji plaza, trade a couple bucks in for a bunch of coins, and take on the reigning champion of the basketball toss.  in a completely worthy attempt to establish ourselves as the top of the social ladder among overly-bored and slightly less socially adept teenagers, we found the basketball hoop with the lowest high score and decided to own it.  after three tries, a good break and a turn with "too spicy" (the coolest shooting game ever), and two more tries, we destroyed the record.  and here's the proof:

Reflections on China

this picture was taken from the northeast corner of an intersection about ten to fifteen minutes walking distance from my apartment.  to the left and behind the camera is the super-posh deji plaza, and behind me in the distance is the xin jie kou shopping district.  i can't count the number of times i've been to this spot (the subway exit is right behind the fountain) and i figured i ought to take a picture and remember it.  it really is one of the prettier places in nanjing at night.  mind you, after eleven o'clock, all the lights go off and the whole city goes to sleep.  definitely not the city for night life if that's what you're looking for.  

Power Issues

there's a reason i haven't been posting as often as i used to.  my power cord died.  and by that, i mean i accidentally broke my power cord and i now hate myself for it.  turns out trying to buy replacement parts for four year-old apple notebooks in china is kind of like trying to buy dr. pepper: you can't do it.  i've tried both, frantically, and neither has been a success.  apologies.  however, since i've managed to steal a classmate's computer for a few minutes, i'll make a legit post.

开裆裤－Baby Chaps

so mom requested a picture of Baby Chaps to make my post on the subject more complete.  as you would imagine, however, it's slightly awkward to wander around Nanjing with your camera, taking pictures every time you see a child with its genitals sticking out!  so i figured i'd go to google images, type in 开裆裤, and take a decent picture from the web to post on the blog.  for future reference, don't ever do an image search for 开裆裤 (literal translation: Open-crotch Pants).  google filtering doesn't work so well in chinese.  anyway, what was done was done, so i picked the only picture on the page that was what i was actually looking for and downloaded it for your viewing pleasure.  ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to introduce "Kai Dang Ku"!

A Picture for Mama

i promised my mom i'd upload a picture so she could make it into another idol god and put it next to matt's picture in our living room.  love you mom!

just kidding about what i just said (AKA I LIED TO YOUR FACE)

as we got toward the end of the day, the three amigos (kris, dave, and marc) and juliana decided that they wanted to go to the light show later that night.  greg and i weren't particularly interested and, instead, decided that we wanted to go cruise the town on our super-sexy electric scooter (see my previous comment on the sex appeal factor of electric scooters in the first post about the dirty old boatman).  it took a great deal of convincing to get mr. su to say ok.  the day before when we'd agreed to rent his scooters and let him be our guide, he'd promised that we could use the scooters all day.  apparently, his definition of "all day" and ours didn't line up.  to him, "all day" ended at about five.  "that's when i get off work!" he said.  (of course, he didn't mention that it was nearly ten o'clock when he found us on the street and invited us over to his place...BUT I DID!) as i reckoned it, he was working until about nine thirty or ten o'clock the day before, and since he was liable to be up just as late looking for tomorrow's customers, it wouldn't be a big deal if we didn't bring the scooter back at eight thirty or nine.  finally he agreed.  THEN, when we got back to his shop, his wife took our scooters and said nicely, "come back tomorrow!" "actually," we said, "we're going to be back in just a second with a passport for collateral.  mr. su told us that we could keep the scooter until later tonght." after about fifteen "they're out of electricity"s and "it'll be dark outside"s, i finally said, "fine.  keep it then.  but we won't be back tomorrow."  when she heard this, suddenly there was enough electricity AND she could show us how to work the lights...but we had to promise to be back before eight thirty.  so we wandered back to our hotel, stopping for some bandages for my toe and knee, and returned to the scooter shop at around six thirty or six forty-five.  SURPRISE, SURPRISE!  yang yang (the wife) has taken the scooters into the back and has started charging them.  "you two took too long! i've already started charging them.  you'll just have to come back tomorrow!"  needless to say, i was pretty dang grumpy.  few things make me more angry than people lying to my face...probably because it insults my intelligence.  i gave her a piece of my mind, reminded her that she had JUST told us that we could have the scooter and went back on her word, and promised that i would NOT be coming back the next day for so much as a road map.  and i didn't.  instead, greg and i rented a gas scooter from a place right next to our new hotel.  and that's the next story.

the dirty old boat man hooks a brother up

despite his relentless dirty-old-man-ness, the dirty old boatman proved useful.  as we were pulled over to the side of the river, snacking on our newly-purchased barbecued chicken, a couple of girls pulled up beside us.  one got off their raft, came over next to me, and ordered some stuff from the lady there.  just as she got done ordering, the dirty old boatman yells over that we should buy her something to eat and go on a date.  then, to her, he shouts, "american guys are good-looking beyond compare! you should let him take you on a date!"  we both chuckled awkwardly at his attempts at matchmaking and started chatting while we stood there.  finally, as we were getting ready to go, i suggested that she and her friend split up and finish the rest of the river trip with greg and i.  everyone agreed and we spent the rest of the trip chatting about home, work, school, teaching chinese (turns out that's what she does.  she teaches chinese to foreigners in shanghai), etc.  all-in-all, it was a pleasant trip...that is, until my toenail got ripped off and shi jie (that's her name) had to dig through her bag for some bandaids!  

the dirty old boatman

after cleaning up as much as we could from the magical cave, we cruised through the countryside on our super-sexy electric scooters (kind of like motorcycles, but without the engine...or the noise...or the bad-boy sex appeal aura______actually, i'm gonna say that riding an electric scooter increases sex appeal by about the same factor as riding a too-small tricycle).  eventually, we arrived at a dock on the side of the yulong river to the west of yangshuo.  after (again...and this is a repeating theme of our whole chinese experience) debating prices with the bamboo rafter-men, we hopped onto three two-person rafts.  you'll see them in the pictures, but they've got the world's crappiest lawn chairs attached to maybe ten thick, parallel bamboo sticks and are propelled by one wrinkly, tanned, super-ripped chinese dude.  our bamboo-pusher-man was named mr. huang.  we chatted for a while, but after he started talking about how he could predict how the alignment of the stars at the time of my birth and the chinese name i had picked would impact my future i stopped paying attention.  eventually, he gave up on mysticism and picked a topic dearer to my heart: girls...though his approach was a bit crude.  he kept yelling at all the chinese girls on shore (or with other guys on rafts) (or by themselves on rafts) that they should swim on over and take a spin with the americans.  leaning over to speak more quietly, he kept telling me that americans could pretty much hook up with any chinese girl they wanted and that i should probably take advantage of that.  (on a related note, our hotel manager told me the same thing one day.  having heard this enough to make me grumpy, i replied sharply: "so...what does that say about the foreigners, and what does that say about the chinese girls?"  he thought for a second and responded: "they're desperate...and the girls are easy."  "yeah.  exactly what i was thinking.")  we told mr. huang that we didn't need any dating advice, thank you, and that it'd be best if he just kept pushing while we went swimming.  we did, and he did.  when we got back, however, he suggested that we go to Xi Jie later that night and find girlfriends.  i laughed pretty loudly (the idea of picking up girls with this wrinkled 50 year-old dude was that funny) and he got confused.  "no! seriously! chinese girls like you!"  i laughed even louder.  "thanks, but no thanks" i told him.  he made some more comments on the way down the river, but for the sake of all women and those unmarried men reading this page i won't repeat them.  suffice it to say that i got pretty grumpy with him.  eventually, he persuaded us to stop at this barbeque place on the side of the river for some chicken and fish.  i told him we'd buy him a drink and he promptly ordered a beer (the first of two we bought for chinese guys that day).  while we waited for our barbeque to cook, he kept hitting on the girl cooking the lot of it...even though she was married.  i told him off for it and he told me it wasn't a big deal because her husband wasn't there.  oh freak.  though, he did kind of hook us up with a couple of girls at that same barbeque place.  that's the next story!

health mud

as soon as we got to yangshuo, we checked into our hotel (we'd booked it for four nights, but they only had room for two...go figure...so the guy at the desk hooked us up with another place for the last two nights), and wandered the town looking for something cheap to eat.  just as we were walking down Xi Jie (west street) where all the western restaurants and foreigners are, a middle-aged chinese man poked me on the arm and asked what we were looking for.  i told him we just wanted to get some regular chinese food at regular chinese prices.  he chuckled and started talking about some place down some road over there.  i nodded, and we started walking in the direction he pointed.  after a moment, we noticed he was still following us.  after asking what was going on, he finally came out and told us that he owned a bike shop that rented bicycles, electric bikes, and scooters and wanted to give us a tour of yangshuo the next day.  we visited his shop, talked prices for a while, and ended up promising that we'd be back at eight the next morning.  for less than $13 US per scooter and $3.50 per person, we rented scooters for the day and mr. su took us around to different places of interest.  the very first place we went was the "magical cave".  the cave itself was pretty cool, though it would have been way cooler if it were more natural.  instead of picking our way through stalagmites like i had though we might, we walked through the cave on a paved concrete sidewalk lined with different colored neon glowtubes.  the different colors of neon placed throughout the cave made it seem pretty ghetto, but it was still fun.  the best part was undoubtedly the end, where we found the long-awaited and much-anticipated mud pit (health mud, as the advertisements in the tourist pamphlets had bragged). greg and i were the first to strip down to our board shorts and jump in.  and it was DISGUSTING!  clumps of goo floated on the surface and our feet sunk more than six inches into thick, sticky mud.  before anyone else could get in, we were already throwing mud at each other from across the 30 foot diameter pit.  by the time we got out, we had all wrestled in the mud, slid down the slick embankment right into the goo, and floated on our backs (an easy feat, considering the density of the mud!).  kris came out of the back float missing a ring and unable to open his eyes (apparently health mud isn't so great on the ol' conjunctiva!).  we spent a LOT of time trying to get all the grime out of our suits, ears, and eh...everywhere.  my once glaringly white board shorts are now an attractive shade of orange mud. great pictures though.  

Regarding the Stories on the Right

For Your Information:  i just realized that if i published everything in the order that i'd listed over there on the right or (as i'd been doing it) in no order at all, you'd all be lost and have no idea in which order these stories go.  what's worse, some of these stories go hand-in-hand with others, so it's kind of important to get them in the right order.  some of the bottom ones don't really apply...they're just general comments and editorial notes that i'll write when i've got time. many thanks- the author

Baby Chaps (or "saving money on baby supplies")

mendez will appreciate this: baby chaps. that's right.  we have them.  i remember seeing public urination in taiwan.  it was gross.  i mean, nobody wants to see some old dude with his fly down on the side of the road, peeing into the bushes (or a storm drain).  funnier, though, was seeing mothers holding their kids (up to age six or seven, even!) with their pants around their ankles over a storm drain on the side of the road, shaking the kids up and down as they poo right there in full view of the public! --------China has already stepped into the new era of childcare: in order to avoid the inconvenience of pulling down their kids' pants before hanging them butt-first over a storm drain, the Chinese have invented....BABY CHAPS!  that's right, folks! they're just like regular kids' clothes, but they've had a slit cut right in the crotch! the result is simple:  unrestricted flow of poo to street!  not only do baby chaps cut down on inconvenience, but they also enable quick identification of the sex of the child wearing them.  although chinese boys and girls are often and easily confused, with the new baby chaps, one may quickly and discreetly discern the sex of the child and comment to his or her mother on his or her relative handsomeness or cuteness, as the case may be.  the only drawback of baby chaps, as i now understand them, is the very likely chance that your baby will PEE ALL OVER YOU BEFORE YOU CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!  (or, in the case of the restaurant we were at the other day, PEE ALL OVER THE FLOOR IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR DINNER!)-----------apart from these small drawbacks, i highly recommend baby chaps for the children of the future.

my big toe v. the unstoppable bamboo raft

i have ugly toes. they used to be cute... and then i turned three. things got progressively worse in taiwan, where i walked/biked for 16 hours a day in too-tight leather shoes. by the end of my mission in taiwan, i'd racked up three ingrown toenail surgeries and one completely lost toenail (after a surgery one day, i accidentally dropped a 30 lb. weight right on my toe). back to the states and dad took me into the ER and cut me up one more time for good measure. anyway, needless to say, my toes were still in a sad state of disarray by the time i got to china. as we floated the yulong river on bamboo rafts a couple days ago we kept having to go over these small dams (man-made or otherwise) that obstructed the river and slowed the path of the water. we got stuck atop one of these barriers just before the end of the trip and i jumped out to help our guide while shi jie stayed on the raft. the guide (mr. huang) set to pulling the raft from the front while i positioned a pole of bamboo underneath the thing so it could slide forward, rolling atop the bamboo as it came up onto the concrete. one thing led to another and i started pulling the raft from the side with my right hand while positioning the pole with the other hand. we gave one great lurch to try and pull the raft up and it leaped forward, slid onto the pole, and heaved right across my left big toe (the one with only half a toenail...it was still trying to grow back in after being smashed in taiwan). i jumped back to avoid being hurt and looked down at my toe. the nail was pointing straight up at me and the root was starting to bleed. cursing my bad luck, i bent down and ripped what remained of the nail right off my toe and tossed it into the water. hobbling over to where some other members of our group were working on getting their boats over the barrier, i called for some kleenex and a band-aid. i sat down, took a wad of kleenex from juliana, and started to staunch the bleeding. meanwhile, mr. huang started yelling at sun-blackened chinese guys on the shore to grab some 草药 (caoyao...or herbal medicine). a minute later, mr. huang comes running up and shoves a handful of gooey green gras onto my bleeding toe. i don't even want to know how it got as wet as it was...i'll assume he dipped it into the water and tore it up a bit. "this'll help!" he yelled, "it's chinese medicine! it'll make the swelling go down and reduce the pain!" really, it wasn't very painful at all, but to appease him and make him TAKE THE EFFING WEEDS OFF MY BLOODY TOE i politely told him, "wow! that helped really quickly! i'll go ahead and take it off now and put on a bandage." when he turned around, i washed it with as much bottled water as i could get my hands on and bandaged it up with some tissues and bandaids. the picture at the top of this webpage is me sitting outside the drugstore later that evening, after having bought some antibiotic ointment and proper bandages, fixing myself up while these sweet old ladies kept telling me i was doing it wrong. i thought it was classic. anyway. to alleviate my father's doubtless worrying at this point, i'll say the following: my toe is fine. it bled very little, hasn't swolen a bit, and i take care to keep bandaging it. i'll let you know if anything changes, but i don't anticipate any problems. it feels just fine.----------for those of you who noticed that not only am i bandaging my toe in that picture, but also my right knee, good job! the moral to be learned here is that you should not attempt to start or stop a fully-loaded (two people) scooter on certain types of terrain (in this case, coarse gravel). if you do, your knee will look like mine. that one's healing fine too.

the best bargain ever

on our last day in yangshuo, greg, brooke, and i wandered down into this underground shopping center that we'd walked past several times that week but never explored. most of the stores were closed up, steel garage-style gates pulled down over the storefronts. i wandered away from the other two and into this shop that was selling some colombia, north face, and abercrombie pants and shirts. i asked the guy for the price on a pair of abercrombie pants i was looking at. "150 yuan." (a bit over $20 US) pretty cheap for abercrombie, i thought, so i told him i thought they were fake and that if they weren't, they were selling them for way too little. since they're probably fake, "70 is the most i'll pay" i told him. he refused and i walked out and across the way over to where greg was standing next to a ridiculously good-looking twenty-something year-old chinese girl, looking at the ties on the racks in front of him. "how much?" i asked him. "twenty-five. she told me one fifty at first." i looked at her, mock outrage in bold letters on my face... speaking in chinese, i said "you told him ONE HUNDRED and FIFTY yuan? that's more than we'd pay in america for these ties if they were REAL! one hundred fifty... poor college students can't buy ties for that much." she giggled uncomfortably and we talked a bit. i asked her were she learned her english. beijing. and how she ended up with a german/european english accent. no idea. she looked back at greg and at the pink tie in his hand. it had some sort of stain right on the front. "just buy it. wash it tonight, and if it doesn't come out clean, i'll refund your money." "HIM wash it?" i asked, "what if YOU wash it and WE come back tomorrow?" she shook her head as greg put the tie back on the rack. looking at me, she said, "twenty-five yuan. do you want to buy one?" i countered, "do you want to give me one for free?" no hesitation whatsoever, she nodded her head and said, "ok."---------------"Are you serious?" i asked. i was just joking with her and here she tells me i can pick whichever one i want for free. i start looking for the best-looking, most expensive tie i can find and brooke (who was listening to the whole thing) asks, "is it because you think he's handsome?" The girl giggles and nods. "yeah. that's right."-----------anyway, I got a free tie. pastel green, and pretty dang good-lookin, if you ask me. :) wore it to church this morning.

The Faux-hawk and the Golden Tree (it's the next installment in the Harry Potter series...just you wait)

This new post is completely for the pictures. Here we have the faux-hawk, mentioned in the last post...it might not last long, so save this picture for posterity. And we also have myself (the tall white guy) standing under the wishing tree outside of the famous Fuzi Miao (or confucian temple) of Nanjing with Zhang Ping (whom I met maybe 50 yards from this spot on Mid-Autumn festival) and her friend Han Rong (with the shorter hair...she's actually one-fourth minority race (how on earth do we say that in English?)...she's tuzu (or of the dirt tribe...yep. no lie.). Good thing I cut my hair, no? It was getting unwieldy. We wandered around the mall, played some super-fun (and yet embarrassing ) video games...like dance-dance revolution, but with fifty people watching...and you have to use your ARMS too! Then we called up Greg and went to dinner. After we'd finished eating, I called a bunch of people from our study abroad group and we went to a KTV and sang for a while. Both girls sang surprisingly well, but there was one song that Han Rong just went to town on! It was way good. All the guys sang (twice!) a song by Guang Liang called "fairytale" or Tong Hua. WAY FUN. Ask me for the song sometime. UPDATE! I PUT THE SONG IN MY MUSIC PLAYER AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE.  LISTEN TO IT! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!

The Huang Shan post you've all been waiting for (or maybe just my mom)

Huang Shan (黄山) is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been. Period. It just barely edges out Maui. Mind you, Maui is probably still my favorite place... Huang Shan is just better-looking. Imagine granite boulders shooting up from the tops of jungle peaks like roused giants from the blankets of sleep. There isn't an actual "huang shan peak". The whole area is called Huang Shan. To pick a peak and call it Huang Shan would be like picking a single hair on my head and saying that THAT is his hair. ____On a completely relevant note, I finally gave in and got my hair cut today. I'll describe it and you can name the price you think appropriate. I got a 15 minute (kid you not) head massage/shampoo (it was by a dude...Greg's hair person was this super-hot asian babe, but I'll take what I can get), the world's most meticulous stylist (he never took off more than an eighth of an inch at a time, I swear on everything precious to me, and had his eyes approximately 2 inches from my head for the duration of the 25+ minute cut...for reference, it usually takes about 10 minutes for a professional to cut my hair), ANOTHER washing of the hair...shorter this time, but still satisfying, and a final touch-up by the stylist (who, by the way, was wearing the coolest pants ever...like faded army fatigues but with zippers and buckles all over the place...very urban. I'm gonna buy some first chance I get) in which he first blowdries my hair in the direction he wants it to go, then puts a fat glob of texture cream in his hand and sculpts my very first faux-hawk (I chuckled, but let him keep going) and finishes off with hairspray. To be frank and honest, I look like a sexy beast.______Well, now that I've gone off on that tangent for long enough, back to Huang Shan! PS-if it bugs anyone that I can't put returns in these posts, you're not alone in the universe. Anyway, our trip to Huang Shan---> We met Thursday afternoon at the building in which we usually hold class (mom's gonna go get on google earth the first chance she gets, so it's the Zeng Xian Zi building just to the East of Shanghai Road at the western edge of Nanjing University campus) at 1 o'aclock and it took about six hours to get to Huang Shan City. The city's just one continuous street of hotels, so I'll skip it. It was pretty boring. The next morning (Friday), we hopped on a bus and drove to the base of the mountain. Then the torture began: approximately one point four billion steps up the mountain. There were no dirt paths, no switchbacks, and no hikers with the good sense to carry water (except for foreigners). I saw young ladies with heels walking up the stairs like they were on their lunch break. They've got the WHOLE MOUNTAIN covered with hand-made stone steps. So while every single one of the native chinese was carrying nothing but the clothes on their back (and even that was optional!), here we were, a bunch of americans walking up the stairs all decked out in hiking gear and toting our camelbaks (people thought these were the coolest things they'd ever seen!). Anyway...I can't do justice to how beautiful this place was, so take a look at the pictures. We hiked up to the top of one of the peaks and around to two other peaks and finally took the cable car back down. I'd recommend the cable car up and down to anyone going. There's nothing to see on the way up, really...just lots of trees. I wasn't able to upload as many pictures as I had wanted on this website, so you'll have to check out my new albums on my facebook profile. If I'm not your friend yet on facebook, you'll have to request it. Maybe I'll consent. Maybe I won't. Kind of exciting, isn't it?

黄山 (Huang Shan)

Just a teaser for more to come! Get ready for the coolest place in the world!

Regarding KTVs

k. my mom just emailed me and asked approximately 1,057 quesions about KTVs. for your convenience, i've included the wikipedia article on KTV. remember- wikipedia is your friend. just click on the title above- "Regarding KTVs" and it'll send you to wikipedia. i'll answer her questions as they appeared for everyone's benefit. (ps, mom, you can just write questions like that in the comments section under each entry in my blog) What does KTV stand for? Korean television? NO. BUT GOOD GUESS. KARAOKE TELEVISION Are there individual party rooms and your group had one, with a Chinese group next door? YES Is it like racquetball courts where there's a huge window to see into the room? THE RACQUETBALL COURTS AT BYU HAVE THE WORLD'S SMALLEST WINDOW AND YOU HAVE TO BEND IN HALF TO SEE INTO THE ROOMS. IF THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE REFERRING TO, THEN YES. Is this television the one that has the lyrics on it? YES Why then would they dance with one hand on it? BECAUSE THEY WERE DRUNK AND CHINESE. Can you see anyone on the screen? ONLY KOREAN SINGERS, BACKUP DANCERS, AND ANIMATED DANCING GIRLS (TRENT'S FAVORITE) Did you go with just your BYU group, or are there others from other universities that you're hanging out with? BEN, A FRIEND OF GREG'S FROM ENGLAND, CAME WITH US TOO.

Y'all just WISH you had a KTV next door

i don't know whose idea it was, but a bunch of us ended up at a KTV last friday night... a KOREAN-style KTV, at that. i'm blaming that on dave. anyway- the place is halfway between my house and the school...east side of 上海 road, right next to the "cat hole cafe" (remind me. there's a story there too). look for the super trashy blinking neon lights and korean characters. we showed up and rocked out. i've really never willfully sung karaoke (i think that goes for most of the group that went with us), but i remember EVERYONE in taiwan telling me that i had to go sing karaoke with them on my day off. classic moments from karaoke- 1. trent. i can't even begin to describe how hilarious it was to watch trent jump into karaoke head first. the rest of us rolled with laughter as he became the designated back-up dancer for pretty much everybody's singing. i think his claim to fame might always be repeating dance moves with those three peppy anime chicks. 2. brinley. the new spice girl. we're sending her to american idol with her rendition of "wannabe". 3. "hey jude". ben picked the song for himself and greg. before twenty seconds were up, the whole group of us were standing up, arms on shoulders, swaying with the beat, and singing at the top of our lungs. The lyrics on the screen were classic, too. half the song- "da da da da da da...!" 4. and you can't beat number 4. the drunk chinese dudes next door. ben, brinley, greg, and (i think) dave wandered out of the room after about an hour to breathe for a second (we had no less than fifteen sweaty bodies locked in there with no airconditioning)...while they're out in the hallway, i guess the chinese group next door to us started waving through the window for them to come in. they wandered in and most of us trickled in over the next five minutes. i don't think i can do this justice, but imagine: maybe twenty staggeringly drunk chinese dancing with ten tall white kids (and trent...we love you, man). have you ever seen anybody dance with a freaking television? these kids would walk up, put a hand right on the middle of the screen, bend over, and bust a move with the tv. somehow, brinley and juliana ended up dancing on the table on either side of the television, and i'm pretty sure i saw the three amigos (chris, dave, and marc) on the only other table in the room. meanwhile, there's this plump, spectacled chinese dude going to town on the light switches over in the corner. i don't think i've had that much fun in years. three guesses what we're doing next weekend.

Backmail from Last Sunday

Sunday, September 7, 2008 It’s Sunday. Weird to think I’ve been in China for nearly a week now. Our apartment doesn’t have internet yet, so I still haven’t emailed my family since those first two days… mom and dad are probably dying a thousand deaths. I think we’ve FINALLY stopped buying stuff for the apartment. It feels like we’re spending a lot of money, but then when you realize I got all my bedding for under twenty bucks, I guess it’s a bit less disconcerting. Everything’s super cheap. I bought a pretty tasty rou bao 肉包 for 1.2 yuan (or about 15 cents). In Taiwan, those things cost nearly twice as much! There are seven of us in the apartment. Here’s the breakdown: Greg- he’s the program facilitator, which, in his words, means that he “makes it so we don’t have to talk to Prof. Lefgren directly.” We all laughed. He served his mission in England, speaking Chinese when possible. James- our resident married man. His wife’s back in the states, and won’t be coming to meet up with him here till December. I don’t envy him, but he says they both felt right about it, and I guess that’s what counts. James hails from New Mexico and served his mission in Indiana. Keith- he and I were in Prof. Honey’s Chinese philosophy class winter semester of this year. We liked the class, but it was pretty special. Prof. Honey spent most of the last half of the semester talking about some meditating survivalist’s book and how his mental marker for meditation was a huge ice cube on his butt. Good ole 韩老师。 Keith served in Gaoxiong, Taiwan (高雄，台湾)。 Trent- also in Prof. Honey’s class…though he spent most of the time surfing the net. Good subject matter, he said, but too many tangents in class. Trent’s something like fourth generation Japanese-American…went to Hong Kong on his mission and spoke that bastardized version of the people’s language they call Cantonese. Dave- for some reason, Dave decided he wanted to learn Chinese after serving his mission in Spain. I should ask about that sometime. Poor guy’s currently on the floor in the spare bedroom (because the landlord hasn’t brought up that extra bed yet…he said he’d ordered a new one that was soft so that he didn’t have to sleep in hard beds like the rest of us…except for Greg, of course, who’s sleeping on the couch). Matt- he’s Canadian. Served in Ogden, Utah, and met a bunch of Chinese people that he taught in Logan. He says he found out that BYU had Chinese classes and that once he started he couldn’t stop. And yours truly- I’m sharing a room with James. Short story: Last night, I was coming back to the apartment at about eleven and I said hi to the zhuguan 主管 at the bottom of our building. He was chillin on a chair, leaning up against a car, just watching people come and go. We started talking and he pulled up a chair and asked if I were in a hurry. Nope! I’m wandering the streets looking for random Chinese people to talk to! So we talked for a bit. He introduced himself as Mr. Hua 华, and was pretty dang impressed that I knew it was pronounced with a fourth tone instead of a second tone when it’s a last name. Thank you Elder Manjarrez (his name was hua too). He taught me a few phrases as we were chatting, and I wandered in a half hour later feeling pretty happy about life. AAAAAND…. We’re off to church.