Life Here So Far

Here's a very lazy update. It's lazy because it's a copy and paste from an email I sent to my friends and family a month and a half ago. Hehe, anyway, enjoy!

Life here has been fairly uneventful I think. In August, Sally and I moved to a new city called Xiamen in the southeast of China. I really enjoy it here, even though the local cuisine isn't so good. Nothing is spicy! But I do like the seafood. Summers are completely roasting, but I think winters are wonderful so far; I walked around today with a sweater, with no hoodie, jacket or any other outer layer. My winter coat continues to gather dust in my closet, along with my scarf, hat, and gloves. When I go out at night, I usually put on a light hoodie or thick sweater over my shirt, so it's still not that cold. It's been rather dry here, too! I suspect springs will be wet though. My school's location is nice, too; it's not on the island, but it's on a tiny peninsula just north of the island and the high-speed train station is just north of the school. There are a bunch of shops, restaurants, and a big vegetable market around here as well.

For Mid Autumn Festival (in September) and the National Holiday (a week-long holiday at the beginning of October) I did nothing and just walked around the area. It was quite peaceful! Halloween I crossdressed again and went to a big, outdoor Halloween party. That was fun! Next year I hope to dress up as a sexy vampire queen if I can slim down a bit. For Thanksgiving, there's an American-owned restaurant and bar very close by that had a buffet dinner. It was soooooo goooooood. The green bean casserole was amazing, I kid you not!

For Christmas, I wanted to do a potluck like I've done before in China, but none of the foreign teachers were interested, so we went to a Chinese restaurant and had some great chao cai dishes and a huge roasted lamb leg. Yum! I wanted something more Christmasy, so a few days later Sally and I went to that American restaurant again and had Christmas dinner. It was tasty, but nowhere near as awesome as the Thanksgiving buffet. For New Years Eve, we went to a really nice Mexican restaurant that actually had authentic food, delicious hot sauce, and good tequila. After that we hit up some bars.

I've been on my winter vacation since around Christmas and we don't start up again until the beginning of March. Usually I travel during my vacations, but this time around I decided to stay in Xiamen and focus on learning Chinese. I have a tutor who is great and has been helping me a lot, but it's still very slow going. However, for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) I will be visiting Sally's family in Gansu (a province in Northwest China) for the first time. I'm kind of nervous to meet them, but I'm excited to eat northern Chinese food again.

I'm also considering taking a ferry to visit an island called Jinmen Island (aka, Kinmen) in the next few weeks. The island is actually controlled by Taiwan, not China (yes, they are separate countries!), but it's extremely close to Xiamen. In fact, you can see Jinmen from Xiamen's eastern shore.

As for teaching, it's been okay. I teach in a special program that's supposed to be for students who want to study in America, but really most of them are in it because their college entrance scores were low, so their rich parents shell out a bunch of money so they can study here. Therefore, only about a quarter of my students genuinely care about learning, the rest prefer to play on their iPhones and Samsung Galaxies instead (no matter how many times I tell them not to). This past semester I taught only one course (to 300 students) which was Business Culture. I think it did alright, but I would need to really improve it if I teach it again in the future. Next term I will be teaching Business Reading. I know extremely little about business or even business vocabulary for that matter, so it's going to be quite the challenge for both me and the students. I also haven't taught a reading class since my first semester in China, and that was Newspaper Reading. So the subject matter and students suck here, but the administration is more organized than other Chinese colleges, the semesters are quite shorter, and the most important advantage is the salary; this is the most I've ever gotten paid in China and is well over 2.5 times more than what I got when I first started teaching in China.

Alright, that's it for my update. Don't forget to update me about your life!

EDIT: Cleaned up the formatting to make it more readable.

Jinmen Island - A Little, Peaceful Place Between China and Taiwan

Last week I took a three-day trip to Jinmen Island and I enjoyed it so much that I thought I would post a review about it to share with everyone.


Intro

Jinmen Island is also known as Kinmen Island (金门岛) and is controlled by Taiwan, but is extremely close to Xiamen, China, where I currently live. Although it has much in common with the culture of Fujian culture, it also has adopted Taiwanese elements like a clean environment and the use of traditional Chinese characters. For much of the Cold War, the island served as an important military base by the Taiwanese Nationalists. But how did such an island so close to China end up in the hands of Taiwan? Well, towards end of the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalists were fleeing the mainland for Taiwan, and Jinmen became a sort of buffer between the two places. The Communists thought they could easily wrest control of Jinmen from the Nationalists, but the Communists were ill-prepared when they landed and were defeated in a decisive battle that led to the ROC retaining control of Kinmen, Taiwan, and other islands. Thus, when visiting the island, one can see a great number of old military sites. More on this later! Also, between Jinmen and Xiamen is an even tinier island called Little Jinmen (Little Kinmen, Lieyu Island, 小金门/烈嶼), which I also visited for a day.


Accommodation

I stayed in a very traditional guesthouse called Qin Inn in Shuitou (水頭), a small village very close to the port. The price was fairly reasonable at 1000 TWD (200 RMB, $35) a night. I can find cheaper hotels in China, but I knew I was dealing with Taiwanese/tourist prices. The guesthouse had lots of charm and character that made me glad that I didn't book a stay at a big hotel. As for the rooms, they were quite modern considering how old the guesthouse was, and were equipped with western toilets and a shower with lots of hot water. However, there was no TV (not a problem for me) but more importantly the wall-mounted A/C unit was useless as it was meant for the summer months, so the rooms were a bit chilly at night. The amount of staff on hand was generally limited to just the owner of the place, who didn't speak any English at all. She also didn't know that I was coming ahead of time even though I had already booked online, but luckily I showed her the hotel voucher. Although the owner was a nice, old lady, she often hung out with her neighbors, so the place was sometimes deserted during the day. On the third day there, I wanted to go back to Xiamen, but I missed the last ferry (d'oh!) so I went back to the guesthouse and waited in the reception area for almost two hours until she came back from dinner. My phone didn't have a Taiwanese SIM card so I couldn't call her. Breakfast was 8:30-9:30 and was just simple Chinese porridge (). I added tons of sugar to make it more palatable. Finally, the place was a bit hard to find, but I looked at some pictures of it ahead of time, which helped immensely. Despite that, the location is great as it's in a quaint, little village close to the ferry terminal and a bicycle rental station.

I would not recommend staying in the biggest town on the island, Jincheng (金城), as it has the least amount of charm and character on the island. Also, Little Jinmen has very few hotels, so it's best to go there as a day trip.


Attractions

Sights on Jinmen can be divided into three groups: military history, ancient villages, and nature. One of the great things about Jinmen is that all the attractions are free!


Military History

One of the main attractions on the island is Zhaishan Tunnel, an underground naval tunnel near the southwest coast. It was used by Nationalist gunboats to perform special maneuvers in battle. This A-shaped tunnel does not take very long to explore and really there isn't much else to see there other than tanks and artillery, however there were only a handful of tourists so it was rather quiet. Plus, it's very close to a peaceful stretch of beach. On Little Jinmen is Siwei Tunnel, which is longer and ever quieter than Zhaishan Tunnel. It's also in a great location right next to the Little Jinmen ferry terminal and a bicycle rental station. On the northwestern part of Jinmen is the Guningtou Battle Museum, a small museum with paintings of the bloody battle between the Communists and Nationalists. There are also photos of the aftermath and Chiang Kai-shek inspecting the troops. In the back of the museum is a passageway that leads to a viewpoint of the beach where part of the battle took place as well as some old military fortifications. In the village next to the museum there are a few buildings that still have bullet holes riddled all over the walls. Everywhere else on the island you can find crumbling bunkers and artillery posts, especially on the beaches.


Ancient Villages

Although the ROC built up Jinmen as a crucial military outpost, most of the villages retain a very traditional atmosphere. In Shuitou, the village where I stayed, many building have traditional black roofs with special carvings and decorations. Also in Shuitou is Deyue Tower, which was used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as lookout for spotting pirates. Unfortunately, you can't go inside the tower, but there is a museum adjacent to it that chronicles the lives and traditions of the local people, many of whom had ancestors in the 19th century who migrated to Malaysia and then came back with their hard-earned wealth and knowledge of Malaysian culture. Dotted around Jinmen are old statues of wind-lions, ancient gods there protected the island but were also the source of the strong winds. There's supposed to be over 60 of these in random locations on Jinmen, but I only saw one (better than none!). Even more ubiquitous than military fortifications were tiny temples that can be spotted in so many places around Jinmen and Little Jinmen. A couple notable ones were a makeshift temple in a construction shed and a concrete temple with little figurines of soldiers in place of Buddhist/Taoist icons.


Nature

One of my favorite parts of the islands was probably the natural environment. In the winter, flocks of migratory birds come here so I was able to see and hear a number of pretty birds as I wondered around the islands. Many of the birds feed and nest around the ponds and lakes, most of which are actually man-made. Finally, humans did something good for once! There's actually only one natural lake, but it actually had a lot less birds than the man-made ones. Besides birds and lakes, the beaches were another highlight of the islands. They were generally pretty clean and it was rather relaxing just strolling up and down them. Because the islands are so close to China, it's easy to spot Xiamen's skyline from Little Jinmen's western shore and Jinmen's northwestern shore. My phone was even able to get a signal from Xiamen and I was able to call my girlfriend!



Food

Those who have tried Taiwanese or Fujianese food will find the cuisine on Jinmen to be very similar. Therefore, those who love Chinese food with lots of spice might be disappointed by the relatively bland food here. However, I like spicy Chinese food, and I still enjoyed what I ate here. Seafood is of course important here and I tried an oyster pancake and a bowl of oyster noodle soup that were both really good. I also tried cold liquor-soaked chicken that definitely had a very distinct flavor, but I enjoyed it. I didn't have the time to try the other special dishes, but I hope to check off more of them from my list the next time I visit. An excellent guide to the local cuisine can be found here. DIning options are very limited here; there are (thankfully) no McDonald's, KFC's, Pizza Huts, or anything like that, although I did spot a Japanese restaurant. Unfortunately, there are very few restaurants in the villages or even on all of Little Jinmen, and the restaurants that they do have may close early in the evening. So for dinner, it's best to go to Jincheng as they have a lot of restaurants as well as several 7-11s. For Little Jinmen, you'd better just pack a lunch ahead of time. Be aware that prices here a bit higher than in China.


Souvenirs

There are three main souvenirs on Jinmen. One of them is sharp and durable kitchen knives that are made from spent artillery shells that the Chinese fired at the island. The next is a type of liquor called Kaoliang (高粱酒) that's made from sorghum. It's advertised as having an intoxicating aroma and flavor, but I tried it and it's just simply intoxicating all around. I found it's basically the same as the Chinese rocket fuel baijiu (白酒). The last one is peanut candy. I cheated a little and bought some cashew candy instead (c'mon, cashews are awesome!). So, yeah, candy, knives, and alcohol, a winning combination!


Weather and Crowds

Despite the fact that I went in late January, the weather on Jinmen really wasn't that bad. I found it was basically the same as the weather on Xiamen. The first and third days on the island were kind of cloudy and really windy, but on the second day it was pretty sunny and I walked around with just a sweater, no jacket or hoodie on, and I didn't feel cold at all. A winter coat is definitely not necessary here, but a jacket or hoodie is still recommended. So Jinmen makes as a good escape from the rest of China or even from most the U.S. for that matter. Still, winter is very much the low-season here so many of the attractions, villages, and beaches had very few tourists, some of them none at all! This made for a very peaceful break from noisy and crowded Xiamen and was by far what I enjoyed most about my trip there. Another great advantage to visiting in the low-season is the big discounts on hotels and guesthouses, but be sure to use a hotel booking website like agoda.com to get the best deal.


Getting Around

I found the best way to get around the island is a combination of different modes of transportation. Buses are great to get to different corners of Jinmen and Little Jinmen and also when your legs are tired from walking or biking. On Jinmen, most of them cost 12 TWD (Taiwanese Dollars) and on Little Jinmen it's 10 TWD. The bus driver will often drive past a stop if no one is there, so make sure to press the "Get off" button when you want to get off. The disadvantage of buses is that they can be really infrequent outside of Jincheng, plus they don't run very late. To get to one side of the island to the next, it might be best to head to the main bus station in Jincheng where there is also a very useful tourism office next to it.

Walking offers the most freedom in where you can go, especially if you want to walk along the beach or on some of the trails in the hills. However, don't underestimate the distances between places! I walked so much on Little Jinmen because I thought it was easily manageable, and while I was able to see and experience some things that I wouldn't be able to on a bus or bike, I felt I could've saved quite a bit of time and energy if I did use a bus or bike for at least part of my time there.


A great way of getting around the islands is by bicycle. On Jinmen, there are free (yes, free!) bike rental stations in key locations, such as Zhaishan Tunnel, the Wetland Nature Preserve near Guningtou Battle Museum, and the old primary school in Shuitou. On Little Jinmen, free bikes can be borrowed near Siwei Tunnel. There are some other rental stations, too, but I don't remember where they are. For Jinmen, My recommendation is to take a bus to the different places then rent a bicycle and bike around that particular area. For Little Jinmen, I didn't use a bicycle at all, but an excellent idea would be to rent a bicycle shortly after getting off the ferry and bike on the very lovely and serene bike trail that rings the perimeter of the island, linking many of the sights. Be aware that the rental stations need to hold on to your passport and you need to return the bike before the office closes.


In order to get to Little Jinmen, you need to take a 10-minute ferry ride from Shuitou Port from a tiny terminal that's meant just for the ferry there (not the big terminal for Jinmen-Xiamen ferries). It costs 60 TWD (12 RMB, $2) one way.


Getting In

From Xiamen, you can take a 30 minute ferry from Wutong Wharf (五通客运码头) to Shuitou Port on Jinmen. The cost is 140 RMB (about $23). Customs procedures are generally very fast. I did not buy a ticket ahead of time, but in the summer it might be a good idea to book ahead. Americans do not need a special visa to go to Jinmen or anywhere else controlled by Taiwan, but Chinese citizens need a special entry permit ahead of time. When going back to Xiamen, please understand that the last ferry back leaves at 5:30 pm (might be a bit later in the summer). I missed it on Friday and had to stay another night. The price of a ticket back to Xiamen is about 650 TWD (150 RMB, about $25). For those who live in Taiwan, I heard there are some fairly cheap flights to the island. In fact, a lot of Chinese citizens like to go to Jinmen just so they can get a cheap flight to Taiwan. I believe there is also an overnight boat that crosses the Strait from Taiwan, but I don't know much about it.


End of the Trip

My short trip to Jinmen was amazing and I really hope to go back again someday, especially since it's so close. For those who live in China or Taiwan, or are planning on visiting those countries, don't overlook an opportunity to visit these tranquil islands. And if you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to contact me :-D.

Northeast Jiangxi Adventure: Sanqingshan - Longhushan - Wuyuan

I just came back from an amazing week-long journey to Sanqingshan, Longhushan, and Wuyuan, and I thought I would share my experience with those curious about this area of Jiangxi province where I currently reside (but not for long!). So, wasting little time on introduction, here we go!

Sanqingshan

My girlfriend and I left by train last Wednesday night for Yushan where we got in rather late. We stayed at JinJiang Inn, a very typical budget Chinese hotel chain. The following morning we took a taxi (try to bargain around 15 yuan) to the bus station to take us to Sanqingshan mountain. Buses (around 20 yuan, 90 minutes) leave roughly every half hour for the Southern entrance (there's also an Eastern entrance), but the hotels should know the precise schedule. The bus that we wanted to take was canceled for whatever reason, so we had to wait an extra half hour. Ultimately we arrived at the base of the mountain a few hours later than we had planned. The ride there goes through some wonderful mountainous countryside, so even just taking a bus there was worth the trip. As for entrance fees, the cost is about the same as other popular mountain destinations in China: 70 RMB for students, 150 RMB for general admission.

We decided to take the cable car up, which costs about 125 RMB/person round trip. From the cable car, I noticed the hiking trail as we were heading to the top and even moreso going back the next day. It winds like a snake through the forest directly under the cable cars. I imagine the scenery would be mostly the same if you were to hike the trail instead, but you would be a lot closer to the natural surroundings and the trails looked pretty quiet. The "top" of the mountain isn't actually the summit, but rather the top section of the mountain where you would see the main attraction of Sanqingshan, the huge stone formations. It's difficult to describe these awesome structures, so at the bottom I've attached a link to my photo album of them. Anyway, near the top cable car station at the top there are about three hotels to choose from, along with a bunch of larger places at the bottom cable car station. We decided to stay at the closest one we could walk to. Although we did not have a reservation, there were plenty of vacant rooms and we were able to bargain the price from 550 yuan down to 300. The room itself was rather simple for such a high price. I suppose if you wanted to save some money, you could stay in a cheaper place in Yushan, leave early in the morning, climb Sanqingshan until mid-afternoon, then take the cable car and a bus back to town. It's also possible to pitch a tent on the mountain as we saw several young Chinese do around the Eastern section of the mountain. An important thing to keep in remember is that prices for meals, snacks, and water are rather high on the mountain, so it's best to pack enough ahead of time.

After dropping off our bags, we set off to explore the area. There are numerous trails to follow and it's difficult to get lost as long as you have a map and look for the sing posts. The trails follow typical Chinese stone step fashion so there's very little skill needed to traverse the area, but it does require a pretty good amount of stamina. My legs felt like jelly after all of the hiking we did. One of the cool features of the mountain is the walkways jutting out of the side of the mountain; we could view the stone formations better and take a break from all the stair climbing. As the day went on, we tried to scurry to the Western side of the mountain to view the sunset, but the sky was so hazy that it wasn't possible to see much. Since we only saw about half the area, we intended to see more the next morning, but we woke up late and headed back down. However, I believe it's possible to hike the entire area in just one long, sweaty day. The area is becoming a popular destination and has all of the usual annoyances of a famous Chinese mountain, but so far these annoyances are dramatically less bothersome than at most other tourist destinations at the moment. Go there before it gets more developed!

Longhushan

We took a bread van back to the train station in Yushan and took a train to Yingtan. When we arrived, we turned left out of the station and took bus K2 (6 yuan, 30 minutes) to the scenic area known as Longhushan, or Dragon Tiger Mountain. Since we got there a little late, we didn't do much other than go to the cheap hotel that we booked a couple days before. It was a very basic hotel, but they had a good restaurant on the ground floor (no menu, just ramble off some vegetables in Chinese). Also, the location was rather close to the mountain. The next morning we ate some bao zi and porridge at the hotel then the owner drove us to the park entrance for free. The fee here is quite high: 200 RMB/student, 260 RMB/general admission. But included in the price is the tourist bus which you can get on and off at certain places whenever you like, an acrobatic show on one of the mountains, and the raft tour down the river. Just like Sanqingshan, the main attraction here is more stone formations, but the experience is quite different as can be seen in the photo album below. These formations don't come out of a mountain (despite this are being called Dragon Tiger Mountain), but rather come up through the area of surrounding forests. On the first of these formations you can also go along a walkway jutting out from the rock.

As mentioned before, there's an acrobatic show that takes place near the other side of the river four times a day. There's no need to hurry to take a boat to the opposite side as the show can be viewed on either shore. There's a gigantic rock formation peppered with small caves that contain ancient coffins. The acrobatic show shows how these coffins may have been put there in ancient time. I thought the idea of these coffins placed inside the rock was cool, but I actually was not too impressed by the acrobatics. There's probably a lot of context I didn't understand though. After the show, we walked to No Mosquito Village. It's a very tiny village that I didn't care about at all, but the scenery around it is pleasant. We checked out some temples and another village that were also not that great. But after all that, we finally took the raft trip down the river. The raft is rather small, but since we took it towards the end of the day it wasn't very crowded nor was the river congested with rafts or boats. Since we walked along part of the river earlier in the day, the scenery was nothing new, but it was still very nice as it was from a different perspective. We got off at the side of the river opposite from where we started and walked around a bit, then we realized it was getting late and that the tourist buses are only on the other side of the river and stop their services at 6 pm, so we rushed to get the last boat to the other shore and walked quickly to get one of the last buses back to the entrance.

By far the best experience of this part of the trip was the beginning of the park with the suspended walkways. Since it was a Saturday, it was a bit crowded, but still quite manageable. Give yourself 9 hours to see absolutely everything, or 8 hours if you want to cut out some of the less interesting bits.

Wuyuan

We stayed another night at Longhushan, then took a three hour bus from the long distance bus station in Yingtan to Wuyuan. Both the town and the region are reffered to as Wuyuan in guide books and maps. The town isn't much to look at, but the immediate area around it is still beautiful. Not long after we arrived, we took another 45 minute bus to Qinghua, a smaller and much prettier town than Wuyuan, with even more attractive scenery, but still not the highlight of this trip. We planned on hiring a guide and hiking along a trail to Dalikeng, but we asked around it seemed no one knew about guides that could take us there. We decided to call up this guide in my old Lonely Planet named Yu Xiaobing who we thought could take us on the hike, but he said the trail was now turned into a paved road. Still, my girlfriend and I agreed to hire this guy for the next day to show us around. The next day, we hired a motorbike taxi for 35 yuan total to take us to the other village. The ride was spectacular! We were surrounded by a stunning environment of ultra-lush green hills, mountains, and farmland. My photo album showcases this a lot better than any descriptions that I could give. Once we arrived just outside the village, a few guides rushed to us to offer their services. My girlfriend had some difficulty calling Yu Xiaobing, but as soon as he picked up we realized he was one of those guides there! Our two options of the day were to either explore the town or walk around the countryside. I easily chose the latter. We also agreed on paying him 120 RMB for the whole day. By the way, Dalikeng (often refered to as just Likeng), costs 60 RMB to go in, but we never went in so we never paid.

So we followed the paved road back until it forked and we followed a different direction. The guide speaks absolutely no English, but he is so incredibly friendly and talkative. I could hardly understand a word he said, so I hung back and took lots of pictures while he talked my girlfriend's ear off. We wandered around a tiny village, ate a home cooked meal near a tea factory, and hiked through a forest (5 RMB entrance fee) along a creek that had some modest but still beautiful waterfalls. We walked back along the same road we came and stayed at a hotel in a larger village (no entrance fee) near Dalikeng where we ate some more local food and drank some stinky-sock smelling/tasting fruit wine. The next day we took a bus back to Wuyuan followed by a four-hour bus back to Nanchang.

Despite being a popular destination for Jiangxi, there were no tour groups and crowds were limited to a couple handfuls of college students, but most of the time it was just me, my girlfriend, and the guide. I reckon if we arrived a couple hours earlier we could have had the time to see an even bigger waterfall on our walk through the forest.

Overall, I am very happy to have gone on such a trip through a part of Jiangxi I never knew was so great. If you're ever interested in visiting any of these places, don't hesitate to ask me any questions.

Here are my pictures of the trip. I apologize that the quality of some of them isn't so good.
Sanqingshan: http://s1258.photobucket.com/user/flapingglass/library/China/Spring%202014/Sanqingshan
Longhushan: http://s1258.photobucket.com/user/flapingglass/library/China/Spring%202014/Longhushan
Wuyuan: http://s1258.photobucket.com/user/flapingglass/library/China/Spring%202014/Wuyuan

China train schedule (in English): http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/

Guizhou Province

So a teacher here wanted to know more about my trip to Guizhou province in China, which was back in the summer of 2012. I responded with a long email about my journey and I figured I might as well just copy and paste it here for all of you to read as well. Only a few things were changed or added.

I first took a train from Nanchang to a town called Anshun, which is about two hours away from Guiyang, the capital of the province. I can't remember how long it took, but you can easily look it up here: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/ . Originally I wanted to go to Guiyang, but I figured Anshun was better because of all the sights around there. But even if you don't want to see any of the sights around Anshun, it's still a major travel hub for Guizhou. After I arrived I had trouble finding a hotel, but a young local helped me out a lot and I had dinner with him a couple times. The town itself has nothing special to see, but it does have a nice night market with lots of delicious local delicacies, like fish hot pot. You can also get fresh fruit shakes around the night market. Be aware that this part of Guizhou has a lot of dog meat restaurants. If you're interested in trying it, just look for the restaurants with pictures of dogs on the sign or the characters 狗肉. If you're not interested, don't be worried because even here you'd have to go out of your way to accidentally eat it.

The area around Anshun is famous for Huangguoshu Falls, an area with a dozen or so thundering waterfalls. The place was massively crowded unfortunately, but the area really was magnificent. This will probably be the most crowded place you'll see in Guizhou. I took a local bus there and at first I intended to walk from one waterfall to the next, but it was too time-consuming and tiring and I hired a motorbike driver to take me around. It might be a good idea to pay a little extra and hop onto one of the tour buses.

After the Falls, I took a long day trip to north to Zhijin Cave, one of the biggest caves in China. It was also kind of touristy, but not nearly as bad as Huangguoshu Falls. The cave is very impressive with stalactites and stalagmites contorted into all sorts of shapes and sizes. I took a long-distance bus to the town of Zhijin that took about three hours, then a local bus to the caves. The trip was really rough and bumpy on the way there, but oddly enough it was rather smooth coming back.

From Anshun, I went farther south to Xingyi. Again, the town itself is nothing special, but the star attraction here is Maling Gorge, which is pretty close by local bus. Don't expect the Grand Canyon or anything, but this gorge is still gorgeous with thin waterfalls cascading down all sides and it's not too touristy. Back in Xingyi, I met a really nice local at a travel office who took me out for dog hot pot with his family. It was pretty tasty, but I think it made me sick the next few days. According to Chinese custom, dog meat should be eaten in the winter, not the summer, so I learned my lesson from that experience.

I took a trip to Weining in western Guizhou, which is famous for the rather swampy Caohai Lake. I thought it would be very impressive, but the price of boat tours was really high and I admit I didn't know how to ask the local tourists if I could join them, so I didn't bother. Maybe I was also really cynical, but I really didn't want to ride with the locals either; I was afraid I would be the main attraction and not the lake. During the summer it's not really possible to walk around the lake because it's just so damn muddy. The second miserable thing happened there is that most of the locals stared at me wherever I walked and many of them would giggle and mumble "laowai" or "waiguoren". They're not aggressive at all, just curious and surprised, but I really didn't like it anyway. I should note that I didn't see a single foreigner in town, so I know I was probably the first foreigner hundreds of them have ever saw. Finally, the third miserable thing that happened to me, and this was the worst, was the horrible stomach flu I got from the dog hot pot. I was stuck in my hotel room and I had to stay in this town for a few more days than I wanted. So I would avoid this town if traveling alone, but it might be nice if you go with a few other people. However, this part of Guizhou had the best scenery in the province and I saw so many stunning karsts out the window of my bus.

As soon as I was well again, I went to Guiyang where I stayed just for two nights. It doesn't stand out among other provincial capitals at all, but it does have a nice park with playful monkeys and the cuisine is delicious. After Guiyang, I went to Kaili in eastern Guizhou. It's yet another town with very little to see, except for a hilltop pagoda with views of the dusty city. But I saw a grandma sacrifice a chicken at an altar in front of her young granddaughter; it was so cool! And I did walk around some of the back alleys and that was pretty fun plus there's a small night market with lots of tasty snacks, like potato pancakes with onions, and barbecue. The main reason to come here is as a convenient jumping off point for all the minority towns and villages in the area. Yes, all of these villages are a little touristy, but I never found the tourists to be overwhelming and there was never an entrance fee to the ones I went to. But it's important to note that there are villages that are quite touristy and do charge a fee, but I didn't go to any of them. It's very important to note that some villages may be really crowded with tourists during local festivals and national holidays, but almost empty at any other time. My timing for my trip was just a little off so I didn't go to any festivals, which may or may not have been a good thing. I went to a helpful tourist office in Kaili and the guy there told me a lot of useful suggestions, such as avoid the town of Xijiang. So here are some villages I did go to:

Matang: Tiny, quaint village surrounded by fields and famous for embroidery. I saw no more than a handful of tourists scattered around and I think none of them were foreigners. It was pleasant just wandering down the lanes and I was lucky enough to see a group of teenagers doing a traditional dance/song. It was not a formal performance at all, just practice, but I think that's what made it so special. I had lunch here in a small home where I think I had tomatoes, eggs, and peppers. Pretty tasty, but I was a bit surprised by how it was kind of expensive (for a simple meal in a simple home, of course). There's another even tinier village on a lovely trail that stretches behind Matang and affords fantastic views of the hilly countryside. This village seemed like it was set up for tourists (they had a performance stage and several bad English signs around), but I was the only one there. I suppose in theory you could just strap your backpack on and trek from village to village, but you'd have to be careful not to get lost. Matang was an easy half-day trip by bus from Kaili. On the way back, you might have to wave your arm on the opposite side of the road to get the bus to stop.

Basha and Congjiang: Congjiang is a small, nondescript, two-road town straddling a narrow river in a valley. It has very little of interest, except for it's close proximity to the lovely hamlet of Basha set on one side of the mountain. The central square of Basha feels a tad touristy and fake, but it's very easy to weave your way around the thatched homes and get great views of the countryside, which is a lot more majestic than the area behind Matang. Very little is set up for tourists in the numerous lanes, so it's a wonderful opportunity to seeday-to-day rural life. My guidebook (yup, the Lonely Planet!) says you might have to pay a small entrance fee, but I was never asked for it. Walk uphill from Congjiang for an hour or two, or just flag down a motorcycle. This is not a day trip; you will have to spend the night in Congjiang.

Zhaoxing: Possibly the biggest village I went to in eastern Guizhou, I really enjoyed this place. Yes, the place does look like it's been cleaned up and polished just for visitors. Yes, you'll see bilingual signs and plaques everywhere. But it's still a very authentic slice of rural, minority life and it's still not too crowded with tourists. I was able to wander around the alleys and spotted just a few foreign travelers. Zhaoxing is a very pretty village with attractive wooden homes and bridges situated in front of vibrantly green rice paddies with lush mountains in the background to complete the picture. I had a short but amazing half-day trek up the winding mountain road to a set oftwo or three other villages where I could get fantastic views of Zhaoxing and encounter even fewer tourists! The walk back down the mountain was much better and more tranquil than coming up as I followed some English-Chinese signs pointing me to a narrow trail that snaked back to town with the mountain wall to my left and an interchanging scene of forests/rice paddies/panoramic views to my right. I went directly from Congjiang to here and spent two nights. Going back to Kaili I had to change buses at either Liping or Diping, I can't remember.

The final place I went to in Guizhou was Zhenyuan. This was more of a typical, small Chinese town than a quaint village, but it had a narrow, pretty river snaking through the middle of it that was lit up at night and also had some decent mountain trails with good views and were easily accessible from town by walking. The tourist agency in Kaili recommended this one, but I was overall underwhelmed. On the mountain I met a small group of very friendly Chinese students and later I randomly met a guy who was either a soldier or a forest ranger, I can't remember. Or maybe a policeman. Anyway, he showed me around the river area a little and treated me to dinner. We also watched a movie in his apartment and then I had to go to the train station to take the redeye train back to Nanchang.

One place I regret not going was the Red Rock Gorge in Chishui in northern Guizhou. It appears on the map of the province in my guidebook, but it's never mentioned. A Chinese-British couple I met in Xingyi talked about it and said it was definitely worth seeing. Had I not gotten ill in Weining and had to shorten my trip, I may have traveled up there. You might have to change buses in a town called Zunyi, I'm not sure.

Okay, so there you have it! I loved Guizhou so much and I think it's one of my favorite provinces in China. I like to think of it as a much less touristy version of Yunnan or Sichuan. Here's my Photobucket album for Guizhou: http://s114.photobucket.com/user/thumbtax/library/China/Summer%202012/Guizhou . Although I took over 150 pictures, I'm surprised I didn't take a lot more. But I think at that time I just wanted to enjoy the trip without being bothered with taking pictures of everything. Anyway, there are no new pictures, but I did reorganize the photos into smaller sub albums.

Northeast China in Winter

At the moment I'm chilling in Malaysian Borneo, enjoying everything here, blah blah blah. However, this post, as the title suggests, is about my frigid journey into frozen Northeast China, which I took a few weeks before. I don't update my blog very often, but what prompted me to pursue this topic is that I lost my camera on the train the day I arrived back in Nanchang. Yeah, I was a schmuck to lose it, and I took so many pictures of my trip, which I will never get back. So without a photographic record, I feel I should recount in writing what I lost in picture taking (to the best of my memory of course). You can follow along on your own personal Google Image search adventure to enhance the experience.

I started my journey on a 35-hour train ride on a hard seat (not sleeper) from Nanchang straight to Harbin. If there is a hell, then it must be a long-distance Chinese train ride. Or maybe it's just the modern version of the River Styx (with Chinese pop music replacing "Come Sail Away"). Locals dump their refuse and spit on the train floor, smoke cigarettes in their seats when they're not supposed to, and talk loudly to each other in the middle of the night, during which the bright lights in the train car remain on. Any hope of a full night's rest should be completely dashed before boarding. Still, you save a considerable amount of money when compared to a hard sleeper!

Right before I exited the train late morning at Harb​in, the highlight of my Northeast sojourn, I piled on the clothing in preparation for the icy weather outside: five layers of shirts including my coat, two hats plus my coat's hood, jeans and long-johns, two pairs of socks, and two pairs of gloves. Brrrrrrr! All you Chicagoans wondering where your wintry weather went this January? It must've ended up here! A tall, electric thermometer near the city center recorded the temperature one evening at 0 degrees Fahrenheit! The snow blanketing the whole city, however, was not as thick as I expected. Anyway, I survived the cold, though my hands suffered the worst despite the double pair of gloves I had on.

With the help of the Internet and a Chinese friend I was able to figure out how to take a bus to my hotel from the train station without much difficulty. My room was windowless and very cramped, but it was clean, cozy, and warm. After a short but necessary nap, I took a bus downtown where I saw the tiny but beautiful Saint Sophia Russian Orthodox church, surrounded by large upscale department stores of course. Inside was a museum displaying pictures of Harbin's history, but I was more interested in the crumbling, fading walls of the church. After that, I spent much of the day wandering around the downtown area. Around the city, but particularly along the main pedestrian street, were some nice ice sculptures representing all sorts of things, from animals, to mythological figures, to even a few celebrities (I have no clue who) chatting with each other in their icy armchairs. Lights enhanced the whole experience at night. Now, Harbin is advertised as showcasing a lot of old Russian architecture, similar to Qingdao and its German influence. But also like Qingdao, this European influence is quite limited in reality and I have a feeling some of it may just be cheap, modern recreations. Still, it was quite pleasant, despite the cold, to walk around the center of town and I was still able to find an old mosque and synagogue.

During my stay in town, I enjoyed some street food such as thick barbecued sausage, beef skewers, small oyster omelettes, candied fruit on a stick, and even popsicles! Yes, I was that crazy to chomp on popsicles in the middle of winter, but crowds of college kids were buying them at this one shop so I just couldn't resist. For the barbecued stuff, I had to eat them quickly as they went from piping hot to icicles in five minutes. As for the candied fruit on a stick, there were a couple stands that had a huge array of them, with hawthorns being the most popular (yup, you might need to Google that). On the first night there I went to a Russian cafe aptly named "Russian Cafe". Although the small restaurant had nice decor, the food was overpriced, a tad bland, and the staff were kind of pushy. When I finished my meal, I put on my winter gear before paying the bill, but the waitstaff kept pointing to the counter as if they thought I was going to dine and dash! No matter how many times I said "wo zhi dao" (I know), they just couldn't get it. Those who wish to visit Harbin should avoid this cafe completely. Speaking of Russian restaurants, I thought there'd be a lot more of them considering the city's history with Russian immigrants, but I only saw four or five. Anyway, after dinner I thought it a bit too late to see the Ice Lantern Festival, the city's main winter attraction, so I wandered around the waterfront by the frozen river. There was a rather lame laser light show every fifteen minutes, but it was nice seeing families and couples playing on the slippery ice and people going down the huge ice slides.

The next day I had to return to the train station to buy a bunch of tickets in advance for my next series of destinations. After that, I tried to walk from the train station to downtown but ended up getting lost (my sense of directions is indeed horrendous!). But it was okay as through my wandering I saw a few colorful buildings, spotted a really old and tiny Buddhist pagoda, and even had a tasty and cheap leek pancake. Based on the advice from some locals, I was able to take a bus downtown where I wandered yet again. I stuffed myself with street food for dinner then headed to the aforementioned star attraction, the Ice Lantern Festival. After I paid the pricey 200-yuan entry ticket, I casually strolled, albeit shivering, among the sculptures in the small park. At night, all of these creations are lit up in wondrous luminescence. There were small churches made completely of ice that you could walk around in and even little ice pagodas with little ice slides. The theme of this year's festival must've been the sea as I saw so many fish sculptures and a few mermaids as well. Some notable sculptures included a dragon (I think maybe that one was made of snow), a train, a horse and carriage, and a man stuck in an icy and abstract prison. Ah, there were a bunch of other really cool ones, but I can't remember them at the moment! Some of the more intricately carved sculptures were produced by other countries, so that was nice to see some diversity. Besides the sculptures, I also had a bit of fun going down a long ice slide (and it was free!). Overall, I enjoyed walking around the park, studying the various sculptures and lights, as well as appreciating how the park was considerably less crowded than I had anticipated.

The following day I set out to go to the Snow Sculpture Festival on Sun Island, a small island on the other side of the river. At first, I foolishly thought I could take a ferry across, as is marked in my guide book, until I realized that boats can't move across ice! I heard of ways to take a bus across a bridge to the island, but I couldn't find the bus, and there was a cable car that stretched to the other side, but for whatever reason I didn't feel like taking it. A bit distraught at first, I realized yet again that the river is frozen! So considering the shortest distance between two points is a line, I marched my way directly to the opposite shore. From there, I walked to the park entrance where I payed another ridiculously high entrance fee and wandered through the impressive snow sculptures. As I got there late, it was much less crowded, but unfortunately the sculptures were much harder to see in the dimming twilight. Keep in mind that the sky is already pitch-black at 5pm this time of the year in the north. Still, the sculptures were really cool! And a few were humongous! Here's a list of some great ones: sculptures detailing entire stories; one that looked like the most elegant of Chinese paintings depicting a beautiful princess; one that was a massive clone of the Sphinx in Egypt; another that was a mini-reconstruction of the Great Wall; the stone heads of Easter Island (some even sporting Devo-esque hats); dragons; a gigantic head playing a bamboo flute; what seemed to be a caveman with a huge stone (well, snow) ax on his shoulders; abstract works conveying human emotion (for example, a sculpture with four different masks). There were so many works of great art! This was definitely the best part of the whole festival in Harbin. After I saw just about every sculpture (I swear I was one of only a few visitors left in the whole park towards the end!) I walked back across the river to another Russian restaurant that was much better than the previous one where I chowed down on a delicious potato-meat-cheese casserole while a lovely Chinese singer serenaded the customers with some old pop tunes. She had a very good, though generic voice. What amused me most was when she sang the "I'm your Venus, I'm your fire" song and pronounced "Venus" as "wenus".

The last day in Harbin I went to a Buddhist temple that had a rather tall and impressive Buddha statue and interesting pagoda. What was much more amusing were the small, amateur snow sculptures someone made near some bushes. I saw a little snow Buddha and a little snow dragon with fruit for eyes. I later walked to a nearby Confucius temple that was unfortunately closed so I wandered some more (is that the only thing I do when I travel?), had a small dinner, then hopped on an overnight train for my next destination...

...Dandong! The witch is dead, which old witch, the wicked wi- wait, no, that's not right. Er, anyway, for the most part Dandong is a very typical small Chinese city that's nestled along the North Korean border, which is the reason why I went there! Upon arriving, I left the train station, walked a short ways to the hotel, and checked in. The first place on my agenda was the Museum to Commemorate U.S. Agression (in the Korean War). It took a while to figure out which bus to take, since by guidebook was not up to date and the bus it suggested didn't exist anymore. Whatever. The museum was perched on top of a hill with several flights of stairs leading up (how symbolic! ...of something). At the top I was very warmly greeted by a massive sculpture of North Korean and Chinese soldiers looking defiant and all that jazz. Before entering, I gazed for a while at the city's gloomy skyline and could just barely see the river that separated China from North Korea. Inside the museum, I wandered the halls filled with earnest propaganda, Korean War bric-a-brac, information panels, and even a 360 degree battle diarama. It was funny how they tried to avoid mentioning South Korean soldiers as participants in the war and cast all blame on the U.S. They would sometimes use the word "Korea" without "North" or "South" before it. This all reminded me of a couple museums I went to in Vietnam where that kept talking about the American Puppet Government and rarely mentioned the South Vietnamese forces. But it was also sad thinking how Chinese visitors to this museum might be misled to believe all these lies. For example, they portrayed the U.S. as the invaders and painted themselves as both the liberators and winners of the war, which by the way has never officially ended! The best part of the whole museum was at the end; right before the gift shop there was a large Coca-Cola poster. How's that for U.S. agression? The gift shop also contained So​uth Korean soft drinks and American toy soldiers.

After the museum, I walked all the way back to my hotel where I took a short break, then headed to the main event: the Yalu River! Okay, the words "Yalu River" don't inspire awe, but this fairly narrow river is what separates the P.R.C from the D.P.R.K. There is a bridge that connects both sides, but I didn't attempt to cross it. It was still interesting seeing traffic slowly make their ways to either sides and I also saw several North Korean trucks downtown, too. Anyway, what a contrast there was between both sides! Dandong's riverfront was fairly built-up with small parks, restaurants, shopping areas, and of course neon lights. The North Korean side was very sparse, grey, and had a creepy-looking ferris wheel. I was able to get a better look by walking down a bridge that was partially destroyed in the war. It felt cool standing over the middle of the river, knowing the world's most repressive regime was so close. The bridge itself was also pretty neat as you could see a lot of shrapnel holes in the steel beams. After gazing at the Crazy Kims' Country for a long while, I went back and strolled along the neon-lit riverside. I walked past some North Korean restaurants and glanced inside where I saw pretty Korean hostesses patiently waiting for customers, though I was not one of them. Instead, I ate at the crummy little restaurant next to the hotel where the giggling waitress nuked up some bland vegetables. Okay, so I should've splurged and tried some regime-cuisine instead.

The following day I took a day trip to the easternmost part of the Great Wall of China. While this section of the Great Wall doesn't match up to the scenery and grandeur of the sections close to Beijing, it earned a lot of points in peacefulness as there were very few tourists here (remember, this was in the middle of winter!). Before I went to the entrance, I wandered to a fake, touristy palace-thing (still not sure what it was) that was closed for the winter. Not notable at all, except there was a small building right next to it for some form of children's entertainment (again, I don't really know what it was, laser tag maybe? arcade?). Now I can't remember exactly what I found so funny about this building, but I vaguely remember a picture of Spider-Man web-swinging next to a picture of Buddha. Okay, enough of this nonsense, back to the Great Wall! Because the wall was fairly short, I took my time climbing it, enjoying the views. And here's where it gets interesting: more views of North Korea! Except you could see it so much better here than back in Dandong. The Yalu River continued up this way, but was a lot narrower. I could see farms, fences, and houses, and even some people here and there. It reminded me a lot like rural China and if I hadn't known that what I was looking at was North Korea, I would've easily assumed it was still China. At the end of the wall was a small museum, though this one concetrated on Ancient Chinese history in the area. I think I was the only visitor inside! The day trip got a lot cooler when I left the museum and walked back to the entrance via a trail sandwiched between the wall and the river. I was able to see the other side in a different perspective and even though there was no danger of me accidentally crossing the border, I was still a little nervous. At one point, I was spooked when a pheasant suddenly flew out from some bushes behind me. Yeah, I was freaking out for no reason, but whatever. At another point along the trail, the river narrowed quite a bit, enough where I could've very easily swam across. And those who are familiar with my swimming ability, or lack thereof, will understand that's saying something! I took a (now lost) picture of my leg raised and pointing to the other side to show how close I was. To those wondering, I didn't see any soldiers, Chinese or North Korean, but I did very clearly see a North Korean farmer walking on the other side. On the way back, there were amusing signs warning visitors not to speak to people on the other side, not to throw things to the other side, and of course not to cross to the other side. I got back to the road next to the entrance, waiting for a long while for a bus to come back, but gave up and flagged down a van heading back to town. That night I had some pretty tasty black bean noodles (zha jiang mian). On to the final destination!

The last place I went to on my Dongbei journey was Dalian. Dalian is basically known in China as being a pleasant city with decent beaches (beaches in the winter, yay!), and not much else really. But the lack in sights made my stay there more relaxing, I think, especially since it was less cold than Harbin or Dandong. The city had a nice, long, pedestrian street with a bunch of department stores and whatnot. It also had some old, European architecture and a Russian street, though there wasn't much there other than a small-but-tall church. On the other side of town was a large park with a huge TV tower, but the visibility was so bad that I didn't think it wise to waste my money going up it. One of the days I was there, I walked all the way to the beach. It was a lot farther than I thought! But along the way I saw some odd houses that looked like they were plucked straight from my hometown. Houses like that are quite rare in China, and other than Dalian, I've only ever seen them in some small neighborhoods in Shanghai and Qingdao. I finally got to an ocean park and snapped a (now lost) picture of an imposing statue of a tiger. Though it was getting late, I took a really long walk along a road that wound along the cliff overlooking the ocean. It would've been a spectacular view had there still been daylight, but the surprising and nearly complete lack of traffic and people gave the stroll a sort of meditative quality that I quite enjoyed. One of my favorite things about the city was some spectacular street feed along the pedestrian street. I munched on a superbly delicious rice-peanut-mashed potato lettuce wrap and splurged on some milk tea with rum. As for the local people, although they were not particularly warm and welcoming, I really appreciated the lack of stares and mutterings of "laowai" (foreigner), which I typically get elsewhere in China. Overall, Dalian had a good vibe to it and I may even consider teaching here in the future.

Alright, boys and girls, you can breath! This mammoth-sized post is over! And remember to always be aware of where your camera is when you travel with it, otherwise you too may end up composing a novella about your journey!

EDIT: This post was ultimately completed in China, not Malaysia. Ta-ta for now!

Massive Photo Album Overhaul

Alright, I'm in the process of uploading all my pictures since when I first came to China back in February 2010. I've already uploaded a massive amount, but check back within the next week or so for the rest. The page may seem a little difficult to navigate. To access the albums, click the button on the left where it says "Show Albums and Stories" then you can explore all you want! Check out the China, South Korea, USA, and Vietnam albums.

http://s114.beta.photobucket.com/user/thumbtax/library/

Also, for those who want to know what my old school in China was like, here's a rather comprehensive (and awesome) video to show you:

http://www.56.com/u67/v_NzgwODE4NDA.html

A Sample Taste of Home

So I just got back home last night and I'm looking forward to a great week of friends, family, food, and festivities. There are some things I want to jot down before I forget; so far I haven't experienced much reverse culture shock. I experienced that much more when I went back home last year, but this time around it's not as big of a deal coming home. Still, some things rather minor shocks:
Went to a fancy restaurant where I had a large piece of meat (duck breast). It was very delicious, but kind of fatty (different from leaner Beijing duck and any meat in general in China). 
My parents' fridge having so much food! And...
...There was cheese!
...And ham! Real sliced Polish ham! In China, what they consider to be ham, is a lot closer to Spam. Blech!
Driving a car. Also, I drove after morning rush hour and the streets felt calm and comfortable!
Getting change back and expecting $1 coins (1 RMB coins are common in China). Nope, they were quarters.
Awesome customer service!
Walking across the street and cars actually stopping for you!
Putting toilet paper in the toilet and not in the waste basket. Made a mistake with that today.
Delicious desserts!
Not saying "xie xie" (thank you). I also went to a bakery today and I really wanted to say "zhe shi gou le" (this is enough/that's all).
Root beer! Or any beer that's not a watered-down lager. Don't get me wrong, I love Qingdao beer! I had two cans of it on the flight to Chicago and it really was better at 10,000 feet! And last month I actually discovered a Chinese soft drink that tastes very close to A&W root beer!
Trees. Okay, that sounds weird. Of course China has trees and my campus has a moderate amount of foliage, but as I was driving in my little hometown, I noticed that many of the trees looked awesome.

That's all I can recall so far. Hopefully I can go back and some more at the end of my trip.

It Opened Up My Eyes

I just uploaded a bunch of pictures I took of silly English signs in China (and a few from Vietnam).
http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n245/thumbtax/Ace%20of%20Base/

Some of the signs have awful translations, whereas some are quite accurate, but are still humurous to native English speakers. Well, my Chinese is horrible so I can't really judge the quality of the translations, but I don't need to be good at Chinese to recognize poor English. There are also a few signs that are more poetic than ridiculous. Enjoy!

Shirtty Engrish

Well, I should've posted this a week ago when it was still quite fresh in my mind, but whatever...

Last week, as I was walking to class, I saw a girl wearing a shirt reading "I'm not easy, but we can discuss." This is the second time I've seen this shirt, both times on two different girls, I think. I told this story at the beginning of class and I had to explain what "being easy" means so they can understand why it was both inappropriate and hilarious. Here's the best part; as I was finishing telling the story, a girl walked in late (she's quite happy because she found her lost phone, but that's irrelevant). When she sat down, I gazed in astonishment at her shirt and made her stand in front of the whole class. On her pink, cute, and lovely shirt was a list of several offensive words for various races, sexual orientations, and ethnicities. I then proceeded to explain a few of these nasty words to the class. This, I told them, was an example of why you should read your shirts before you buy them. One day later, I saw another girl wearing the same shirt (er, it couldn't have been the exact shirt, right? I don't know).

So I must mention that shirts with horrible English are a fairly common occurrence in China. Now, most of these shirts simply have silly misspellings, awful grammar, or even a random of string of letters, but you do get a few that cause a double-take. The majority of university students in China don't bother reading what their clothing says before they buy it; they just don't care. And yet, it is extremely difficult to find clothing with Chinese on it. So far I haven't found any suitable explanations for this, but some say it's just more fashionable to have English on clothing, even if you can't or don't read it. So of course, being the strange teacher that I am, I enjoy making fun of my students who have bad English shirts. I must admit that it is a bit ethnocentric to tell them to read these shirts before they buy them. Yes, it does teach them to be more aware of their actions and the world around them, but considering how few foreigners they will meet, the bad English on these shirts have nearly no impact on them or the world around them.

Signs in China also have strange Engrish, but that's for another day/post. Here are some funny shirts:Hard to read, but her hat says "Nebraska" and there's a Jewish star underneath.
It says Nebraska on top. Also notice the Star of David.I wished I asked her for a free hug, but I wussed out.Look closely: I Heart JesusThe shirt to end all shirts.

I've been taking less pictures of people's clothing because I've been told it makes me look creepy.

Bureaucracy

The university is making me give one-on-one listening tests (actually an oral test that's labelled as a listening test) to my freshmen international business majors this coming week. A test using a textbook which I've never used and on material I have never taught. They first told me about this last Thursday and gave me the textbook on Friday. A few of my students asked me how to study for the test and I honestly told them that I had no idea. Sigh...