Kashgar 1

It was Saturday, April 10^th, and we were en route via plane to Urumqi. A Han man sitting next to me was going there for work, and taught me how to greet people in Uighur, the language and ethnicity most common in Xinjiang: “Yakshimsi”. Whereas in most of China, the population is about 90% Han and 10% the 56 minority nationalities recognized in China, in Xinjiang it’s about 90% Uighur and 10% other things, like Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and, of course, Han.

We weren’t staying in Urumqi, only connecting to another flight heading to Kashgar, the most inland city in the world. If you look at a political map, the northwestern tip of China is where it lies, nestled in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia. On the flight there, I talked briefly to a Han government official who happened to be my seat neighbor. In both his case and that of the last Han, they decided that my ability to ask for water from the stewardess was enough to maintain a conversation. To my credit, I managed, but barely. The official asked me how many characters I knew. I didn’t really know how to respond to that, so I guessed, 200? He scrunched his nose as if I’d just spit up, and I said, 300? Most of the time I just read my book. I hate talking on planes in my own language, much less in another.

At the airport, we met our tour guide in Kashgar, a Uighur man named Mamatjian. I’m not sure if it was all one word or not, but that’s what we called him. He was great, a very professional guide. We took a tour bus (our main mode of transportation throughout) to our residence for the next few nights: the Seman Hotel. The name in Chinese means colorful, which, while comically true, was not what we were snickering at. It used to be a Russian embassy, I don’t know why it still isn’t, and I’m not sure if the interior décor is original or revamped by the local fashion sense, but let me give you some words: Glitter. Pastels. Trees made out of drywall. Okay that’s enough. It was a trip. But also a great sleep and decent breakfast, so, hey.

The next day, April 11^th, we set out on the bus for Lake Karakul. To get there, we drove through the Taklimakan Desert, here with black gravel and brown mountains. We stopped at what seemed to be just a street, called Opal Township. This town seemed to have an economy based exclusively on goats. They were everywhere it was ridiculous. We wandered around a bit, eating delicious nan bread that we saw being taken off the inner wall of a massive dome oven. Everyone was indeed Uighur, though strangely enough, another tour bus stopped right behind us and when I returned to ours I talked to a couple of guys from Indiana. Apparently This street gets a lot of traffic.

We drove on and got to Lake Karakul. Upon exiting from the bus I peed behind an abandoned brick structure, which left me separated from the group, which was already walking toward the coast. As I walked to catch up, I caught the eye of a Uighur man, or possibly Kyrgyz, and walked past him. I was about 50 paces away from the group, not really in a rush to catch up, just enjoying the scenery and looking for cool rocks, when he came up and said hello. I said hello back, not expecting anyone to speak English out here, and he held out a bluish egg stone that shone orange when you put it to the light. I said it’s very nice and he put it in my hand. I didn’t really know how to react, as I hadn’t said anything about buying it, but neither had he. Nobody said anything about buying, and there was a rock in my hand. Was he giving it to me? I asked him. He smiled. I thought, “maybe?” But then he raised a hand, palm open, and said five. Now I understood, five hundred kuai, a little out of my price range, and I said no thank you, and tried to put the rock back in his hand. But he wouldn’t take it back, he simply pushed my hand away and said, “you like, you like, how much”. He wanted me to haggle. I HATE haggling. It just doesn’t fall in my skill set. I always end up feeling like I’ve been had, and I was not in the mood to be had on rocks. So I tried to politely walk away, but there appeared another man, standing where I wanted to walk, holding a scorpion buried in amber. He yelled, “hello! You like!” I tried to walk another way, but there was another man, holding out a bracelet of fragrant rocks. He rubbed them together, smelled them, and shoved them under my nose. I smelled them, it was nice. I was getting a little overwhelmed. I looked around and there were at least 6 or 7 of them, all trying to sell me rocks, yelling “hello! You like this!” I still had the egg stone in my hand and realized it was the only thing preventing my escape. I told him one hundred, and he nodded, and I gave him a bill and muscled my way out of the writhing rock monger mass and jogged to the group on the coast. I thought I was free. But they followed. And now they were bothering everyone. In a way, I was relieved, but I also felt a little guilty, as if I had brought sickness to the group while feeling getting healthier myself. But I had one or two men locked on me all the way back to the bus, and ended up buying far more rocks than I ever needed to buy.

So that caught me a little off guard, and now I had two pockets full of really nice rocks (they are really nice), and I thought, “that was a little unsettling”. I realized I actually paid way too much for the egg stone, and vowed not to look at it because it simply angered me. I hate hate hate haggling. It just puts a taint on the object when you’re no good at it. Then Darren said, “Okay! Onward to Lake Karakul!” I was a looking confused by that, because I thought we were already there, but was okay with a little more driving. God knows how many more stones I would have bought from those guys.

Leaving for the Silk Road

Hello again. I just got back from a 2-week trip over the Chinese portion of some of the Silk Road. There was a lot of Silk Road, let me tell you. But we’re not here for history. We’re here for me. So here’s the story, from the night before I left.

Actually, I’ll begin with the 2 weeks before leaving. Chongyang left for an entrance interview at Sichuan University in Chengdu (about a 13-hour train ride from here) which left me with a hotel room to myself. You know that feeling you get when you first stop living with your mom? Actually, it’s not when you stop living with your mom, but when you have your own place. My schedule rapidly changed to eating Merona cookies (from Mom, ironically) in bed while reading comics on my computer; taking sinfully long showers; remaining naked (this became wearing only boxers when the maids ruined that dream); playing music full volume and dancing; farting forcefully. I barely got out. I didn’t know the exact day CY was getting back, so as one week crept towards two I slowly readopted civilized habits in the room, and every time I came back from eating or class (honestly I think that was it) I held my breath, as if opening the door would catch a tripwire, and I’d just hear his weak little “nihao” and know it was all over. But the days floated on towards the Saturday of my departure, and a little part of me worried I wouldn’t see him before I left. A bigger part of me happily watched movies under the blankets while eating ramen. Then I got a text the day before I left, saying he’d be in that afternoon. It could not have been more perfect. I would get to see him, then there would be sleep which never poses the threat of unwanted interaction, and then I’d be leaving at 7 in the morning!

Around 6 pm there was a tiny, professional knock on the door. I opened it, feigned gleeful surprise, and let him in while patting him on the shoulder because I didn’t know what else to do. He showed me pictures from his trip, typical unsmiling portraits of him or his father or him and his father with a backdrop of something historic or natural. It was kind of cute. I guess. Then he left to go have dinner with a friend, and was gone for a good three hours. I noticed that he had left 2 Tsingdao beers on his desk. For a few seconds I just looked at them like a confused and cock-eyed dog who’s just had a bone placed in front of him. Then I got as excited as a schoolboy at the thought that CY might be having a beer with me. Honestly, what other purpose could there be? He never drinks I think because it interferes with his sole passions of reading and power walking and bothering me, so they couldn’t be both for him, and he didn’t take them to dinner, so they aren’t for friends, so what else could it be? What other logical, sensible course could my mind go than to think that he wants to have a beer with me? I run to another room where a bunch of Americans and Australians are (there is a large population of Australian college students with physical education majors in the hotel for some inexplicable reason) and say, “Guess what! Guess what! CY’s got two beers!” After quickly establishing to those who didn’t know that CY was my roommate and that we would be sharing the beers in a landmark moment of camaraderie and equality, I received congratulations in about the same volume as if I had won a free combo meal from a Burger King cup (Oh, savory croissan’wiches, how I miss thee).

CY marks his return from dinner by walking about 2 feet into the room (not our room, the Westerner room) and just standing there, looking at everybody. Didn’t bother me, though. This was big. This could change everything. I feel a little bit like I’m endorsing alcohol, maybe I am. There’s really something in having a beer with someone. It’s the letting down of the guard. The removing of the mask. Okay, maybe you need more than one beer for that, but I figured CY’s a small guy who never drinks, it could happen. But beyond that, it’s a marked moment that you share with someone, up until the end of the beer. You talk, you sip, you enjoy each other’s company at least as much as you enjoy the beer.  That’s a beer pact. Anyway, I go back with CY to the room, he tells me he was at dinner, I tell him I know, and then I re-notice the beers on his desk (maybe a little too quickly. I was excited!) and say something like, “Oh, you bought beer?” Then he excitedly gives me one and I excitedly receive it, and right as I open it (fatal mistake, should have waited), right as that first crack turns to fiss, he picks up his Nalgene and says “I will drink water.” I was shocked. He didn’t. I asked him, “You’re not going to drink the other beer?” And he said, “Meishi!”, which is basically the Chinese equivalent of “no prob!” or something. It’s CY’s favorite word.

So I’m crushed. I drink my sad lonely beer and finish packing up my stuff, asking him a question once or twice but mostly just silence. I wondered to myself what he was going to do with one beer. I figured that out the next morning. As I made last-minute checks and preparations, he grabbed the beer and offered it to me. I thought, “he can’t possibly be serious. It’s 6 in the morning. I’m going on an airplane. That beer has no purpose for me.” Also, “did he really buy me two beers? Who buys someone two beers?” Granted, he also bought me some vacuum-sealed tofu squares (nasty) and a package of beef jerky with white fuzzies all over it (unopened). So I said, “Bu yao! Bu yao! Shi ni de! Shi ni de!” (“Don’t want! Don’t want! Is yours! Is yours!”) To which I got “Meishi! Meishi! Meishi! Meishi!”, the beer and his hand inching closer and closer to my face, my already delicate morning temperament becoming more and more compromised, until I snake around him and say I’m getting on a plane, liquids aren’t allowed. Unfortunately, he was now between me and my backpack, so he simply stuck the beer in my water battle holder.

“Meishi!”

Against my protests, CY once again walks me to the bus. Even more awkward standing and staring as we waited for everyone to come down. As everyone got on, he pushed more tofu squares on everybody, and waved us off. I cracked open the beer as we got onto the main street because, well, I didn't want to waste it (just so you know one can of Chinese beer might get a Pekinese tipsy) to dubious stares, and said, “Blame Chongyang.”

Boy drives me to drink.

Luoyang Pt. 2

We went to bed early after dinner, because we had a full day of kung fu (or gongfu in Chinese) at the Shaolin Temple, which is located about an hour outside of the city, on the side of Songhuashan (literally means fragrant flowers mountain; I know, “peace and harmony” for a warrior’s name? “Fragrant flowers” for the birthplace of butt-kicking? China is full of mysteries). Everywhere you looked, hundreds of kids kicked and punched in unison, flipping and dodging with single-minded determination. Everywhere else you looked, hundreds of tourists in red baseball or cowboy hats took pictures with statues and ultimately wandered around in supreme distraction. Chinese people freaking love kung fu. In all of the Chinese movies I’ve seen since coming here (a grand total of one and a half), kung fu has had a large presence. And think about it, most Chinese movies, whether they are dramas or comedies, tend to have at least a little bit of punching and kicking. There’s always some guy saying “your Locust Style is impressive, but you shall not survive the ferocity of the Rabid Dog!!!” It’s one of their main exports. But that’s something I think I took for granted: they don’t make kung fu movies for Westerners, they make them for Chinese audiences. Japan doesn’t really make movies about karate, Thailand doesn’t make a big deal about Thai boxing, so why is kung fu so popular in China and abroad? I don’t actually know, I’m just asking. Maybe it has to do with all those different styles, and the use of qi (which is basically the force if you ask me), and the fact that parents send their 6-year-old children to train and live in a temple until they’re eighteen. This is what Xiaoxin (hope I got that right) told us.

Xiaoxin was a very gifted kung fu student at one of the satellite schools down the road from Shaolin Temple. He took us to his old school, where boys and girls at differing levels of childhood and adolescence were training. We sat down in his old classroom, which was littered with textbooks and notepads. He told us that he had come to this school when he was eight years old. He got to see his parents one day out of the year, and every other day consisted of getting up at 6 am and eating and training. After several years, Xiaoxin’s talent was spotted by his teachers, and he was chosen to be a performer in the international troupe. We saw the national troupe at Shaolin temple. They did not look happy. They essentially had to be monkeys doing tricks for the tourists, who were eating it up. I won’t say I didn’t enjoy myself, we even got a group picture, but there was a very obvious look of boredom and contempt on the faces of the students who performed and posed for us. At least Xiaoxin got to see new places. That’s actually how he learned English—drinking at British pubs and American bars. He was incredibly fluent. When he turned eighteen he decided his jumps were only getting lower and it was time to find his own path. He went to college and graduated with a degree in martial arts. At 23, he’s now running a kung fu school in Beijing. He told us how kung fu isn’t only a matter of punching and kicking, but a way to physically learn the philosophy of Taoism and Confucianism, and hopefully provide a framework for understanding our place in the universe. He said that the discipline and the opportunity to travel the world were very beneficial to him, but there are two sides to the coin, and the lack of familial bond and interaction with the outside world left him unable to negotiate love and relationships now. He then took us outside and showed us the dorms, where students slept 8 to a room. He saw his little brother, who looked about 15, outside training, and we got to say hi to him. He didn’t say anything, but just smiled. It was strange to hear Xiaoxin talk about how awful the conditions were, and then seeing his little brother following the very same path.

We said farewell to Xiaoxin and drove back to town. We stopped at a restaurant that had all local specialties, and I think Luoyang has Xi’an beat. It was amazing. Fried dumplings, a quiche-like bread, and noodles topped with chili. We then went out that night and made drunken fools of ourselves at a bar that was situated on top of a McDonalds and a Pizza Hut, showing its level of class (actually very high here—eating at Western restaurants is kind of a status statement, as they typically still have Western prices). We told everyone we were Canadian, and I vocalized perhaps a bit to loudly my disappointment in the DJ for having absolutely no Michael Jackson. But all in all, a great night in which we completely forgot about the long days and celibate, prohibitive nights of the Shaolin monk.

The next morning we got to sleep in, thankfully, and checked out of the hotel at 10:30 am. We then drove to the White Horse Temple (Baimasi), named after the horses used to carry the materials needed to build it. It is the first Buddhist temple built in China, lending it its historic prestige. After spending so much of our time on Buddhist art and architecture, however, we were a little over it, but the weather was so lovely that I just enjoyed walking around and watching people, who usually were watching me back.

We left pretty soon after getting there and went to what was called “Old Town”, aptly named, I think, after the large retired community there. We actually went to a retirement home, where an old man who turned out to be Joe’s grandfather happily watched us while Joe explained retirement homes. He pointed to one old lady, who was 96 years old, and remarked on her tiny feet, saying the easiest way to tell an old woman’s age is to see if her feet were bound. This practice ended only 90 years ago, so we still have living examples of this ancient practice. It was a little unsettling, but she seemed happy enough.

We walked down the street, where puppies were chewing on lamb bones and old folks were playing mahjong (majiang) in the warm sunlight. Joe took us to a friend of his, who was a Chinese painter (Zhongguo huajia) and calligrapher (shufajia), and she let me write my name with a brush. It’s a fairly easy name, and I managed to get a couple of strokes in that she said were very good. She said my name is interesting, because the first character is a woman under a roof, and the second is a man under a roof, symbolizing marriage and love. Or something to that effect, it was all in Chinese. We then took the next bullet train back to Xi’an. 

Luoyang

Just got back from Luoyang. It's a city in Henan Province, and is home of several notable Buddhist locations, such as the Longmen Grottoes, the Shaolin Temple, and the White Horse Temple, all of which we saw, in that order. The weather was gorgeous, which basically made the whole trip incredibly enjoyable. The first day started at 6 am Thursday morning, when I woke up and got my things in order and headed downstairs to wait for everybody to convene and pack up the van. Chongyang insisted on being present during this period, quietly standing while I sat in the lobby, and waved us off as we departed.
We drove to the outskirts of town and there, in the middle of nothing but farmland and construction, was allegedly the largest bullet train station in Asia. It was pretty impressive, if only for its lonesome solitude in the twilight morning. Bullet trains are pretty fast. And they have plenty of leg room, and they would play a Charlie Chaplin clip on the TV between informational videos about trains and weird New Years happy family songtime with Jackie Chan and a bunch of kids. There was no audio for the TVs, which only worked to the favor of Mr. Chaplin and co.
We got to Luoyang in about an hour and a half, and met with our tour guide, Zhou something or other (I called him by his American name, Joe, for reasons I'm sure you can surmise), and our nameless driver. We drove out to the Longmen Grottoes immediately, and arrived there at about noon. The Grottoes are a conglomeration of caves, carvings, and statues carved into the side of a mountain (called Longmen). It's Buddhist, it's gorgeous, and it's been standing strong since Northern Wei Dynasty. I'll let you look up the rest. We got out of there around 3 pm, and were getting fairly hungry, seeing as we had only eaten pre-packaged jelly sandwiches before the bullet train. We stopped at McDonald's because apparently all the cooks take a break at this time and real restaurants are closed. But after getting situated in our hotel rooms, we went out for a nice dinner at a Muslim restaurant where everything, from the fried eggplant to the roast beef over an indiscernible vegetable, was delicious. There was a disagreement over being overcharged, and we got to see Darren's unrestrained Chinese as he argued with the waitress. It was extremely impressive, and very successful. I gained another nugget of respect for him after that. I'm going to go grab something to eat right now, but will forthwith continue with the Shaolin Temple when I return. If it's not too late.

New Roomie

My roommate has moved in. His name is Liao Chongyang. I have this written down on a karaoke flier, because this is a lot harder to remember than my Chinese name (it's An Ning, in case you were interested, which according to MDBG.net means "peaceful, calm, tranquil, composed, free from worry." I was told it was a warrior name, so that's a little confusing). He's from Henan province, I believe, and I met his parents over the computer yesterday. They were very hard to understand, which I'm going to say is because they spoke in the Henan dialect, or "Henanhua", which they actually weren't I just couldn't understand them because they talked too fast. But they were speaking Henanhua to Chongyang after I left. There are dozens of these different dialects, at least one or two in every province, each one basically as different as French is to German. Fortunately, almost everyone is taught the "putonghua", or common language, in grade school. This is Mandarin. Also, there is no difference in the written language, which probably helps bridge the language barrier a lot as well.
Anyway, Chongyang is a very nice guy with very nice parents (they repeatedly called me "shuai", or handsome) who is extremely enthusiastic about helping me with my Chinese. I don't think I've had a single conversation with him yet that hasn't ended in, "if you encounter problem, or something, you can come to me," jutting both thumbs out and vigorously pointing to himself and cracking a big smile, and then, "understand?" I then shake my head vigorously like a five-year-old being asked for the upteenth time if I've washed my hands after coming out of the bathroom. But he's a great roommate, he doesn't go out or do much but study, also he doesn't know very much English, so not much of a drinking buddy, but that's fine because he's clean and extremely nice. He's starting to grow on me. I'll probably have more to say about him as the year goes on.
Anyway, that's it for now. My mom sent me a care package so now I have a lifetime supply of M&Ms and a sudoku book to do while I poop, so that made me very happy. I like packages. Hint hint.

Food and Fears

People are still shooting off fireworks. Not a lot, once, maybe twice a day I’ll hear a boom or a crack and reminisce about that night 6 days ago. I apologize for taking so long to send another wire, it’s just that they’re doing such a great job of keeping me busy all the time that I haven’t had much time to relax, let alone write. Classes have kicked in and there’s no slowing down, and I’ve actually got my first Chinese test tomorrow at 9 am. So this might be a short post. But let’s see, what’s happened…

I think I ate some cow penis today. It might have been intestine, but that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, and to be quite honest I will probably never know. You might be surprised to hear this, but it was pretty disgusting.  It was cut into pieces, and I picked one up and looked at it. It was the pink of overcooked hotdogs on one side, and some kind of incomparable pinkish-white on the other. I tried to take a bite of it but it was too rubbery to rip apart. This should have been my first, if not second red flag. But rather than put it down and say, “oh well”, I put the whole thing in my mouth and chewed on it, for a while. It didn’t taste good. It was kind of sweet, mostly flavorless, and definitely overpowered by the texture. I tried eating the peppers it came with, but they were fairly flavorless too, and plus, everything was touching. So for the first time in I believe my entire life, I left a full plate of food on the table.

But I certainly got the thought out of my mouth with dinner. Darren texted us before our Silk Road class, asking if we wanted to go to a place with really cheap and good noodles. Considering that Xi’an is allegedly the noodle capitol of China, I was overeager to sample a local specialty. I was also pretty hungry. So after class he took us to a little hole in the wall across the street from university, and ordered us something I can’t remember the name of now. But it was indeed a Xi’an specialty, and it was indeed delicious. Egg and tomato and peppers and square noodles that made music in my mouth. I’m digesting it right now, and let me just say that I have been very happy with my stomach’s reception to the local cuisine. With the exception of that spicy soup, I haven’t had any problems whatsoever.

Roommates come in tomorrow. We’re going to meet them at a karaoke, which is a little strange to me but I’m rolling with it. It’s especially strange because it’s at 2 in the afternoon. But that’s okay, I’m pretty anxious to meet this guy so I suppose the sooner the better. Though I am going to miss having a room to myself…

Oh okay here’s something that happened this week. We went to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda (sounds better in Chinese). If you’re familiar with Journey to the West, or Monkey as it’s known in the actual West, then it might intrigue you that this is where the main character came back to and put all of the scripts that he got from India. It also has some remains of a Buddha underneath it. It’s 6 or 7 stories tall, and something that struck me was that on the 4^th and 5^th floors, there were TVs hanging on the wall with a made-for-Chinese-TV movie about Buddhism playing. I just thought it was weird to have a TV in an ancient pagoda, but I suppose I’m going to have to get fairly accustomed to this kind of tension between the past and the present. Between tradition and modernity. It’s kind of a big deal in China. Bigger than I thought. I don’t mean to imply that it’s on the minds of every Chinese, because that is perhaps far from the truth, but it is certainly something that has struck me. I suppose I was expecting a modern city, but when I see the giant buildings and shops that stretch from street corner to street corner, selling glasses and haircuts and lingerie and headphones, I kind of forget I’m in China. I feel like I’m still in America, but everyone looks and speaks Chinese. There’s barely anything left that gives credence of a living culture. I’ll say it now and I’ll say it again—commercialism is not a culture. It’s culture’s cancer. It’s hard to notice it in America, because we’re in the thick of it, and as a Chinese proverb roughly goes, you can’t see the face of a mountain when you’re on it. So it was strange when, on the way to a restaurant the other day, I walked through an alleyway that looked like China. There were street vendors everywhere, different smells and sounds bombarding me from both sides, mopeds dragging five times their mass while weaving through the throbbing mass of people. There was even a fat little dog with a duck leg in its mouth. And I thought, “this is the China I imagined”. Then I was out of the alleyway, and on the corner of a six-lane street. Billboards, gyms, malls, everything that makes an American feel at home. Except for all the Chinese people. I wonder if what’s happening is right. What’s going to happen when that alley gets bought out by investors looking to corner the alleyway market? What’s going to happen if the whole world turns into America? The scariest part is that a lot of people would like that very much. But Lord knows I don’t want a white bread world.

Maybe I’m projecting my fears a little. True, there is rampant commercialism here, but there are also fireworks! In the street! A boy’s gotta stay optimistic about things like this, so I’m just going to get the food while it’s still steaming and hope it isn’t donkey dong.

Happy New Years, Happy Rabbit Ears.

Last night was the last night of the new year's celebration, and presumably the first night of the lunar new year, given that the moon was swollen and breaking through the soup of of exploded fireworks' ghosts. I had just eaten dinner with the whole group at a nice western cafe where I treated myself to some pan-fried spaghetti with steak and peppers, some garlic bread, and a nice glass of Bordeaux red, all for the cost of a combo meal at Wendy's. It actually did push me over my budget of eating for 6 dollars a day, but hey, it was new years an I was celebrating it my own way. Oh! And this goes out to Darby. There's a Chinese tradition of eating this certain food on the last night of celebrations, these glossy, white glutenous rice balls with yummy stuff inside of them. We ate these ones with sesame paste in them, which kind of has the texture of caviar, but it's sweet. And do you know what those pearly orbs bursting with black specks made me think of, Darby? You guessed it, spider eggs! Little translucent baby spiders just crawling down my esophagus.
Mmm.
Anyway, back at the cafe, I finished my glass of wine and we walked out into the new dusk, and were greeted by some cacophonous orchestra of booms and cracks. Right across the street, a couple of men were lighting off one of the boxes of black cats that had been the bane of our morning's existence that day. For those not familiar, black cats are tiny cylinders of gunpowder lined up two by two on a string that you light one end of, and they go "POP POP POPOPOPPOPADAPOPADAPOPOPOPOPOP  POP" and you go "wow! That was marginally fun and extremely loud!" Right, so these guys were lighting up a box at a time. During the climax it sounds less like firecrackers and more like the ocean crashing into your eardrums.
So that was happening, and instead of taking a right and heading back to the hotel, we "hung a Louie" and walked to the main street, Changan Nan lou. Best decision ever.
As we walked, we began seeing the source of some of the major booms in the night. Right across the main street, there was a legitimate Fourth of July setup on, I shit you not, the sidewalk. I'm talking about the big guns. Greens, reds, the kind that have a sparkle aftereffect, the ones that just shoot white sparks from the ground, the shimmering golden ones. Ones shaped like hearts. Blue ones that exploded in triplets. A wayward green wasn't ready to bloom at the apex and exploded about 15 feet from my head. My reaction was to grab my hat and scream "Woooooooooo!!!" at the top of my lungs, garnering the attention of locals and in hindsight making me question my instinctive reaction to danger. Nonetheless, I continued watching until that particular show was finished, which was about five minutes later.
I then went into this supermarket with some other students, which was our initial reason for going out there. This sounds strange, I know, but I had a dream about this the night before I left America. I dreamt I was in China (obviously) at night and they were celebrating the new year with lots of fireworks, and then I was in a market. But nothing spectacular happened in the store, I just bought some shampoo and notebooks and ping pong paddles.
Back outside, more fireworks. From every direction you could hear the blasts bouncing off of buildings, because it should be of not that few fireworks broke the canopy of the office and apartment buildings that crowd the skyline. My mission now was to get to higher ground. The obvious answer: our hotel's roof. Second best decision ever. Not second best, equally the best, but chronologically second. I had to crawl over a corner where there was a ten-story drop, so there was a faint element of danger in this pursuit that only added to the awesomeness of the night, and climb up a bunch of ladders until I got to a tiny (I'd say 10 feet by 20 feet) platform in the middle of the building. Once up there, I just kept spinning around, slowly, saying "wow", and occasionally, "woo!" when someone really near was shooting them off. Now they were at eye level but they were supposed to be, and in those moments, when someone ten stories below and twenty feet down the street set off a nice blue and white array, my heart sailed and my mouth went "WOOOOOO! WOOHOOHOO!!!!" I can't really describe the scene, of dozens if not hundreds of different places spitting incendiaries into the smoke-choked sky, where there wasn't a moment when you didn't hear a canon or a handgun thundering through the city. This is a really shitty analogy probably only two people will get, but it reminded me of Boom Boom Rocket.
But I'm not gonna try to poeticize fireworks. Really, you don't need to make fireworks romantic. They are inherently awesome. By their very nature. I'm just going to leave it at one of the best nights of my life. China, you have my respect and admiration. I salute you. Actually, that's deceiving. The reason why this was so awesome was that it wasn't set up by a government or a country club. It was people, going out and getting a fuckton of explosives and lighting them off wherever they please. And everyone else is totally okay with that, it seems. Which is unutterably amazing. So, Chinese people, I salute you and your penchant for reckless abandon. And I like your food too.

School, Food, and Fireworks

Yesterday marked the first day of classes. Every day except Wednesday and of course weekends I have Chinese language study from 9am to noon. On Wednesday afternoons I have Chinese literature from 2:30 to 5:30 pm, and Thursdays Silk Road at the same time. I'm very excited for these classes, and they are all going to be very enlightening.
I just got back from dinner, where I got food for the first time without the assistance of Darren. I felt very proud of myself. I got kung pao chicken. It was delicious. And roughly 2 bucks, so no arguing with that.
Standing out on my balcony I could see or hear fireworks being shot off from three different locations. I don't know if I already said this, but New Years goes on until the 18th, and it seems like everybody is getting rid of their surplus incendiaries before it goes out of style. It's a little magical, seeing a whole city celebrate something for ten days, with people simply setting up giant fireworks in the middle of the street, or lighting black cats on the sidewalk. I like a holiday with a healthy measure of explosions.
I got to talk to my family today, and at the risk of sounding like an advertisement, Google video chat is the best thing ever. I just can't believe something so awesome is totally free. I'm sure skype is the same, but nobody had skype. Sorry skype. But it was really nice to see everyone's face and show them where I was.
Anyway, that's it for tonight. Just a little post to keep the fire going. I've got a lot of studying and reading to do, which I haven't done in quite some time. I'm still kind of in vacation mode, and I've really gotta shake that out of my head. It's looking like this semester is going to be no cakewalk academically.

Recap #2

Okay, so, where were we? Right. Xi'an is big. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We got out of the train station and smack dab into urbanity and we made a beeline for the first familiar face: a McDonald's. Apparently my resident director, Darren, who is basically our mother hen, had never had pancakes in China before, and upon discovering that McDonald's now served them, we really had no choice but to humor him. One interesting thing that I learned there was that at every restaurant, or really any service industry-type place, you get a receipt that does two things: it proves that the establishment is paying their taxes (and not you yay for no sales tax), and also gives you a chance to win up to fifty yuan(!!!). That's right, it's also a lottery ticket. And the funniest part is that if you win, the government doesn't pay you, the restaurant has to pull it out of their own register. To avoid the chance of this, or perhaps to evade taxes, some places offer you a coke in lieu of the receipt. Darren says in this situation take the coke. It's a free coke I mean who wouldn't.
So we get our food and pile into a van and drive to the hotel. Told you about the hotel, it's pretty snazzy. Smells a little funny, due to some mysterious and enduring plumbing problem, but I'm getting used to it. I tried to use the Dhoop sticks Darby got from Italy, but the stick broke in the little holder and I can't get it out. Sorry for wasting your Dhoop, Darb, but I promise I'll bring it back. After that we went to dinner at a hotpot restaurant famous for its mushrooms which, let me tell you, was great. Remember that bit about being jealous about my foodgasms? Well let's just say that time has come. A hotpot is a hot pot (heh) of soup in the middle of a round table, made this time from a mushroom base, into which a lady puts mushrooms, meatballs, spinach, basically anything you could desire. You then mix up your own dipping sauce from different pastes of sesame, chilies, tofu, leeks, and garlic, and dip everything into that. So sososo good. And you will never have it, unless you come to China. Ever.
So that was Sunday I guess, days are a little wonky for me right now, but the next day we met with our Chinese teachers at a Yunan-style restaurant for lunch. They asked who liked spicy food, and I raised my hand, and they pointed to one dish and said "zuo la", which means most spicy. Of course, I had to pick it, because I didn't want to look like a wuss and I also didn't know what the heck anything else was. I cried over that bowl of soup. I have never cried from spiciness before. I cried that day.  It was kind of epic and made me feel very cold afterwards.
I should tell you right now that I am experiencing diarrhea now, most likely because of that dish. Now you know, and you can't unlearn it. Let me say for the record: it was worth it. And don't worry Mom, I'm drinking lots of water and taking my Acidopholous every day.
Today's Tuesday, and i just got out of my first classes. But that will have to wait for another time, because it's dinner time and I'm am very hungry and yes, you will likely be jealous again.

First Week Recap

So I'm aware I've been out of commission for about a week now, give or take and international date line, and a lot has happened in that time. So, let's just get down to it.
The plane ride was uneventful. Long. You can imagine. One exciting thing is that I am now about fourteen hours into the future from Austin, TX, so when you read this, it's like I've gone back in time to talk to you! Or something. Time travel is a very complicated sport. Anyway, I got to the Beijing airport and found my group without a hitch. My first beverage was a "special" iced coffee from a stand outside the terminal, which was basically just water and flavoring. Coffee is very hit or miss here, but I did invest in some instant coffee this morning, so I should be okay.
I stayed in Bejing for about three days, and stayed in a dorm room in the BCLU (Beijing Culture & Language University) campus, where most of the Alliance kids are going. In fact, only 7 out of I believe 30 of us are in the Xi'an program, which is fine by me. The less the merrier. The Larryer. Anyway, Beijing was way too big, I was overwhelmed by its mass and acutely underwhelmed by my utter inability to say even the simplest of sentences. It seems that all of my Chinese skills have gone into hibernation for the winter, so I'm relearning a lot of the language. It's frustrating, but I think with time I'll be back in shape.
We took the overnight train to Xi'an on Saturday, after visiting a secluded, extremely awesome part of the Great Wall, which was completely unexpected and amazing. I'll post some pictures soon, but let's just say for now that we ate a homecooked meal made by farmers in a mountain town and it had just snowed. Beautiful.
So we got into Xi'an Sunday morning, and got to our hotel, where we're staying on the tenth (top) floor, which is the only floor with a balcony in each room. So I get to wake up and drink my NesCafe with a whole portion of the city in front of me. It's pretty great. And very cold. But worth it. I can watch some Chinese melodramas if I want to, which are great because almost all of them are set in the Tang dynasty or something ridiculous and I have no idea what's going on. But it's fun.
Xi'an is much bigger than I expected. I mean, I expected pretty big, but I don't think I've ever been to a city this big, and it's considered small! "Xi'an?" The Chinese say, "Pah! It only has 8 million people! What a small city!" It really makes Austin look like baby stuff.
Oh, look at the time (me, not you). I've got to get to class. Recap #2 when I get back!

Leaving tomorrow

My plane takes off in less than 20 hours. That's two sets of ten. I'm getting all of my final loose ends tied up, including this blog, and hopefully I will be prepared and ready to go to the airport at 4 am tomorrow.
Right now I'm waiting for a meeting, so I can't see a better time to get started on this journal. It will be my first time keeping a weblog (or "blog" for short so I hear), so I hope my readers will bear with me in the exciting months to come.

I'll be getting into Beijing tomorrow evening, during what appears to be the nicest, warmest day out of the ten-day forecast. Oh, and it's also still in the throes of Chinese New Years, I believe, which means anything from massive crowds, abandoned cities, skies full of fireworks or I don't know what else. I'll be really interested to see if celebrations are still going on or if I'm building something out of nothing. I'm trying to keep expectations low but that's very hard when it comes to China.

Alright so I'm not going to lie, I have nothing to talk about at this point. It's pitiful. I'm mainly just waiting, packing, and waiting. Not a lot of sleeping. Quite a lot of eating, but that's pretty par for the course. Trust me, there will be a lot of food posts, and you will be so jealous. I might even post pictures. Who knows. I don't really know how to do that yet. But check up on me every once in a while, see what I've got to say, or just see if I'm still alive. I think this blog is going places.