It's That Time Again

I bet you're all wondering why it is that I didn't post a blog yesterday. I mean, I always post at least every Monday and then either Wednesday or Thursday, right? Apparently that answer is wrong, and I blame it on the Internets. The computer lab here lost it for the afternoon and I didn't want to go to the sketchy internet cafe.

Anyway, now that I'm done blaming other people, I'll return to our regularly scheduled programming.

This weekend our destination of choice was Xi'an. It was definitely bigger and more urban than we imagined, as all of us had come in thinking it was going to be more of a small, spread out, rural city. If anything, it seemed even more urban than Tianjin, as everything seemed to be more condensed and we were staying only a couple blocks from the center of the city. In some ways it still seems old fashioned. The old city wall is still standing and wraps around the innermost part of the city and the city is still centered on the old bell tower that was used to tell people to get up to go to work and to come back from work. Oh yeah, and we got to see a blue sky again.

The biggest tourist attraction in Xi'an is definitely the terra cotta army. First thing Saturday morning we went to see a factory where they make replica soldiers in the same method the originals were produced in. However, it seemed to be less of a factory than a huge overpriced warehouse containing everything from full sized versions of the soldiers (including ones costing almost $20,000) to copies of The Last Supper (apparently Da Vinci was secretly Chinese). Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the painting.

Next we went on to the location of the real terra cotta army. One thing I never knew before is that apparently every single one of the soldiers had been broken. Any one that is fully assembled had to be pieced back together by archaeologists. Seeing all of them arranged in the dig site was pretty amazing, as there are tons upon tons of them.

This is what I want guarding my grave when I die.

Later that night we went to what we were told was a fountain show at a Buddhist temple. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, "Boooring." That's what we all thought, but half of us went anyway. The description given above was the biggest understatement imaginable. It was absolutely insane. By "fountains" they meant "an area of a couple acres of sidewalk filled with fountains" and by "Buddhist temple" they meant "an awesome park that happens to have a pagoda in it." When we pulled up we could see people and neon lights everywhere, and that's when we knew that this was more than we were told. They even had spotlights!

There were so many fountains everywhere with people running around in them. The best was the angled fountains. They rarely went off, but you could always count on somebody getting it in the face or back of the head when they did. The surprising part, they do this every night. In you're ever in Xi'an, hunt this place down.

What happened to Buddhism being about enlightenment? Apparently awesomeness is more important now.

All this leads me to conclude that Xi'an is in fact the Chinese version of Epcot. At the terra cotta soldiers place, they had one of those 360 degree movies. Other than a Ford F-150 factory, the only other place I've ever seen those is Epcot. It's actually exactly what the China attraction at Epcot is. Then there was the fountain. The entire thing just gave an air of Disney World and Epcot, between the huge fountains, the openness of the area, and the music they played. The large crowd of people all leaving simply had the air of the crowds that leave Epcot after the huge fireworks show every night. There is no other way to describe it.

Needless to say, Xi'an has been everybody's favorite city so far (although we didn't really spend much time in Beijing).

8/8/08

So, for those of you who don't know the significance of that date, it's when the Olympics are going to start. While it might just seem like a cool date because the numbers are all eight, it actually has a bit more significance than that. The word for "eight" in Chinese (ba) is really similar to the word for "wealth" (fa). Similarly, I also discovered that Chinese hotels have neither a floor 4, 13, or 14. This is because the word for "four" (si) is the same as the word for "to die", just they have different tones.

So, one thing that's completely everywhere now is the five mascots they came up with for the olympics. You literally cannot walk down the road without seeing them. Especially on campus, since there's a huge mural of them directly across from the gate. They're on literally anything you can think of, car seat covers, t-shirts, stickers in store windows, they even have their own cartoon show! They're at such a severe degree of everywhere I go that I swear they're stalking me.

Today I finally went to that mural and took a picture of each of the five mascots (called the Fuwa, which means "good-luck dolls"). I figure I'll give you a brief introduction of them, especially my favorite.

Beibei

Jingjing. And no, I didn't frame that guy in his crotch on purpose.

Huanhuan

Yingying

Nini

One thing that's interesting is how they named the characters. If you remove the repeated syllable from each of their names and stick them together it becomes "Beijing huanying ni." Translated to English, that means "Beijing welcomes you." It's definitely quite a clever little thing added in there so covertly. I mean, I even know those words yet I didn't notice that's what it spelled until somebody pointed it out for me.

Now, I'm gonna be honest here, I have a clear favorite, and that would be Jingjing. First of all, it's because he's a panda, which makes him awesome. My second (and more important) reason I had to get visual evidence for.

That's right, he's about to bust a cap.

Anyway, he's a panda with a gun. Can anybody give me a good reason that any one of the others should be my favorite? Anybody? That's what I thought.

A Meter! That's Three Feet!

So... I really wanted to put that as the title of a post, and I actually did manage to come up with some justification for it. I found it's kind of interesting how they do the pricing of fruit at the local supermarket place we go to (a post about that place will come sometime). I figured that since China works off of kilograms I'd have to do some sort of crazy price multiplying to come determine what the price would be in pounds. However, it turns out the pricing is actually per half kilogram, which is really close to a pound. So you don't really have to do any mental converting other than between the dollar and the kuai/yuan/renminbi.

Now on to the actual purpose of this post. I literally just got out of our culture class, which today was Chinese calligraphy. The guy teaching the class is a really really good calligraphist, and along with teaching us some of the fundamentals of calligraphy he drew characters for two of us and even signed and sealed them. I got really lucky and was one of the two people who drew the slips of paper that said "You" (have) instead of "Meiyou" (don't have).

The character drawn here is "Rabbit" for my year in the Chinese zodiac. Because Rabbits are awesome.

After I received the drawing we got a chance to practice doing some calligraphy of our own. I discovered my main problem is just thinking of something to write. I'll let you judge how it came out.

The right side of this sheet is practice for various strokes. The other strokes are my name (second column from the right), the words "computer student" (first column on the right), the characters for "Coke", and three characters that make no sense in Chinese but when you say them out loud they sound like "Chewbacca".

This is my haiku I wrote in Chinese characters. In English it would read "Brett Holbert. I am American. I went to China to study Chinese."

One other interesting thing to think about is that there is absolutely no similar style of art in Western culture. I suppose there are pictures that some people make with really fancy versions of words, but it is by no means it's own entire area of art like calligraphy is.

Oh, and we had an excellent example of something lost in translation the other day. We went to this restaurant called "Seaside Coffee". That is possibly the most misleading restaurant name I have ever heard. It is no means by the sea, although they do serve coffee. However, beyond that the only resemblance it bears to any conventional coffee house is that you sit on couches.

And then there's the menu. Definitely the most entertaining menu I've seen in my two weeks here. Some things are just plain hilarious and don't belong on a menu in any restaurant. Two of the appetizers you can get are popcorn (which is literally served to you in the microwave bag) and "Chutty" (a package of Doublemint gum). Then there's the things which make absolutely no sense. Probably half the menu is devoted to drinks, from various types of coffee and tea to sodas and milkshakes. As for the coffee, you can order "Mandarin Duck Coffee." We declined to find out what it was like. Then there's our favorite, the "Glaucoma Milkshake." We don't know what they meant to say, but like the coffee, we don't think we want to know. Oh, and then there was one of the ice cream sundaes, which came with pears, banana, and "Hawaii". I feel I should have gotten it just because I don't think there's any other tropical island I could buy for 35 yuan.

Then there's the actual food itself. The "Texas Wings" meal appears to be more what the chefs believe that Americans eat rather than things that mix well together for a meal. Fortunately there were wings with the meal, but the other things that came with it were a fried egg and spagetti (complete with tomato sauce). All I can really say is that I'm thankful that wasn't my meal, so I was able to have a laugh without feeling like it was at my own expense.

Anyway, I still have tons more to say on Beijing, I just felt more in the mood to write about other things. Perhaps tomorrow I'll finally get around to talking about the Olympics.

For to Make with the Glorious Revolution

So... last weekend was definitely tons of fun. Friday night we all went out for karaoke, which was definitely an experience in and of itself. Until we had to get up to leave at 6 the next morning. Then it wasn't fun. That being said, enough stuff happened since last Thursday to fill way more than one post, so I'm gonna save some of it to be posted in the next couple days.

Anyway, first thing Saturday we drove to Beijing and went to see Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. It's kind of funny, because they're the two biggest tourist sites in Beijing (the Great Wall's kind of outside) and they're literally across the street from each other.

We went to see Tian'anmen Square first, and after looking around we went to Mao's Mausoleum which is at the end of the square. It felt quite a bit strange filing past to see the body of a person who's been dead for about 30 years, but in some ways it felt more like the sort of attraction you'd see at some at Disneyworld or something. This was mostly because the face looked almost like it was made out of wax and the fact that in the next room they dump you out into the Mao gift shop. I'm sure if Mao knew they were selling stuff with his face all over it (and selling it to capitalists, no less!) he'd be rolling over in his glass case.

Next we took the long hike across the road to the Forbidden City. That place is huge. Really that's the only way to describe it. There's just courtyard after courtyard, each one with a large palace looking structure overlooking at it. With every gate you pass through and at every courtyard you enter, you wonder how many more of them there can possibly be. Just know that it's a lot. Honestly, I can never imagine that sort or construction being built in America simply to serve as a residence. There would be so much public outcry that lots of people would end up being fired.

I suppose I have to write a caption simply because of the precedent I've set.

On Sunday we went to the Great Wall. The weather was somewhat disappointing, as the fact that it was misty meant that even though it was nice and cool you couldn't look into the distance to see the wall going and going as "into the distance" was about 30 feet. However, in some ways that added to the mystery of the wall, as it seemed to just keep coming out of the mists no matter how far I walked along it. In the end we did walk as far as we could along the one side, where we were greeted by a sign that said something to the effect of "You Can't Go Any Farther".

Possibly the best 10 yuan I've spent was spent there at the wall. There's little gift shops all over the place selling really cheap (and mostly useless) stuff, but one of them had the item I'd been looking for: a Mao hat. If you don't know what I'm talking about then scroll down to the next image. Anyway, wearing that thing as I went along the wall was one of the most entertaining things all trip.

One thing we've discovered since we got here is that Chinese people seem to be amazed by white people. They tend to stare unashamedly and a couple of times have asked for pictures. One guy even did a double take. Quite a few times we've discussed how absurd something would have to be for people to stare so overtly in the US. However, possibly the only thing that attracts more attention is a white person wearing a Communist Chinese cap (hereafter referred to as "The Mao Hat"). If I recall correctly, on the way up the wall alone I had four different people ask to take pictures with me, then a huge group of people at the top. This led us to believe that we're probably making some sort of Chinese urban legend about how if people are really lucky then when they reach the top of the wall they'll catch a glimpse of the Great White Mao. And in case you think that sound farfetched, quite a few people called me "Xiao Mao Zedong", which literally means "Little Mao Zedong".

But that wasn't even the best part. On the way down the wall, there was a mother and daughter that kept following closely behind us. Eventually, the mother shouted "Take a Photo!" and literally dragged her 10-year-old daughter kicking and screaming to take a picture with me. Needless to say we were laughing all the way up and down that wall and it was hardly an experience I'm going to forget.

The Great White Mao.

There were quite a few other things that happened this trip as well, but I think this was by far the most entertaining. So I'll save the rest to post when you're done laughing and/or thinking I'm insane.

I Live Yet Another Day

Soooo..... Today we had a culture class on Chinese painting. Perhaps the most interesting part was how the teacher started out pointing out the differences that it has compared to the Western style of oil painting. Much of the point of this blog (and indeed this entire study abroad trip) is to describe how things are both the same and different as at home. I thought the most significant comment she made was that Chinese painting focuses on capturing the spirit of what is being drawn while Western paintings focus more on creating a representation of reality. Of course, my interest could simply be because most of the other differences had to be with the actual technique of the drawing rather than the intent behind it.

At the end of the class, we got to try drawing ourselves. Let's just say my picture wasn't very pretty. It was however, at least one step (or even two!) above a stick figure.

I can't think of a witty subtitle.

As far as our Chinese language class, it's interesting to compare the order at which we learn certain things compared to how they teach it at Maryland. We just went over the various types of classes today, but that was something we never touched upon until my fourth semester of Chinese classes back home. But I suppose you can't do everything at once.

Unfortunately, the class is a bit behind what I've learned already, so I'm not really learning any new grammar. However, it has been a good chance for me to perfect the basics of the language (tones, pronunciation, etc.) without having to worry about being overwhelmed by the amount of new material. Plus, I also have to get acquainted to the simplified style of writing characters. In some ways it's almost like a completely new alphabet, although fortunately many of the characters are the same between both writing systems.

On a completely different note, it seems I got really lucky getting that picture up. My camera battery just died.

Also, as much as I've complained about the food, I have to say there's one thing I'll definitely miss (two if you count the prices). Bubble tea is almost everywhere. Already I know of at least three places to get it around Tianjin, which is more than I even am aware of at home. You can even get it at the grocery store. Also, for that matter, Coke is even better here (or Kele, as it's called in Chinese). I think they use actual sugar here as opposed to the corn syrup they use back home. It means it tastes really awesome without leaving a sort of sticky and disgusting aftertaste in your mouth. But I suppose it has to be better to balance out the whole lack of water apart from bottled water.

A Third Post in as Many Days? That's Impossible!

And yet my friends, it is possible. So yeah, everybody decided to go to the lab today (no more sketchy internet cafe!) to type up their list of phrases from Wild Swans that's due today. Believe it or not I actually had this done a week and a half ago, but I decided to tag along for the fun of it. And so I decided to type up another blog post while I'm at it.

After a week, Chinese food every day is starting to lose its novelty. Most people broke down Sunday night and went to the T.G.I. Friday's across the street. I however, stayed strong. I made it all the way until Monday before a few of us went to a pizza place. Of course, I got spagetti, which isn't technically American food, depending on how you argue it. Either way, I've decided the first thing I want when I get home is a nice burger. So if my family is reading this, I suggest you write it down.

As I've said before, the traffic here is nuts. However, the road signs are quite entertaining. Not the translations (of which there frequently are none), but the pictures. Here are two of my favorites:

It is advised to drive as fast as you can when you realize that a giant hand is going to smite you... with a telephone.

And here we're warned about the dangers of driving in a wine glass. They don't support cars very well.

Unfortunately, I later discovered that the second picture was an advisement against drinking and driving. I was disappointed how much it actually kind of sort of made sense. Needless to say I prefer my version better.

A Brief Respite from Seriousness

Well, I managed to get ahold of some time today (and a less sketchy place to surf the internet), so I got a chance to upload a couple of pictures. Do a quick skim over my two previous posts to see them.

Also, since I had this picture on my flash drive already, I thought I'd go ahead and post it. And yes, I do have a lot more where this came from.

On our way to Confucius' house we took a quick stop by the Mushroom Kingdom.