Final Wednesday

Halfway done with finals! Today was the speaking final I had to memorize eight sentences on the topic of “taste.” I then thought it would be cool to write them up in the blog with a translation!

我喜欢吃辣的菜。我觉得我喜欢吃辣的菜。。。我来中国以后，美国辣的菜不如中国辣的菜辣。上个星期我吃方便面。这代方便面好吃是好吃，但是太辣了！所以我要点清淡的菜。我喜欢胬肉盖饭因为又便宜又不辣。我每天都可以吃胬肉盖饭！

So that in English as close to literal as I can make it:

I like spicy food. I thought I liked spicy food...then I came to China. Last week I had some ramen. The Ramen was very taste, but too spicy! Now, I order food light in flavor. I like to eat beef fried rice because it is not only cheap but not spicy. I could eat beef fried rice every day!

Not exactly inspiring, but I used a lot of funky grammar constructs we learned! So that’s something. Anyway, the written portion is tomorrow and then I’m home free! Well, grade-free, for the rest of the trip. Tomorrow is also the day we find out of Brandon, Alec, and my international business idea placed in the competition so fingers crossed!

Saturday night was a little bit odd. We decided to do a little more exploring and ended up in an Irish bar owned by a Belgian man who is the distributor of Guinness in Kunming...and has also never set foot in Ireland. I personally just found it funny he decided on an Irish bar of all things, but he told me about how Irish bars are really an International brand without trying to be: and he’s right! We were drawn to this bar because of what we expected to be inside. No one sees Belgian bars far outside of Belgium and would be less likely to try it. His name is Tim and he’s been in China for seven years, only took him three before he learned Mandarin though! Anyway eventually he had to leave us and actually run the bar, but not before I drank a raw egg! That was an experience. But if you think that’s the weirdest thing I’ve had this week...stay tuned!

Sunday we visited this beautiful temple a few hours outside of Kunming called the “Anning Sanhe” Temple. It holds places of worship for Buddhists, Taoists, and followers of Confucius. We were only able to see the temples to Buddha and Confucius, either alone would have been worth the drive! The Buddhist temple had three massive incarnations of the Buddha and our guide was able to explain the differences between each. From right to left, they stand for Karma, the Head Teacher, and the ability for man to reach Nirvana. Moving over to Confucius I learned that a lot of Confucian temples are dedicated to education as opposed to just worship. Sure enough, just in front of his statue was a small library and classroom built to honor the father of Chinese education. After that, we learned how incense is made and headed back. I ate quickly so I could study for my test on Monday that Brandon and I had pushed back from last Friday in order to better prepare for our presentation.

Monday was relatively mundane, we took the test and class was focused on more review than anything for the finals coming up this week. In Taiji we were able to take pictures with our instructors as a sort of swan song and we finally completed a form! Emma, think like Tae Kwon Do forms, just…harder. I think I could perform like half of it well, and the other half was just making sure I was in the right position when the teachers looked. Monday night I studied for as long as I could, writing down my responses to all the possible speaking prompts...and then when I’d had enough, I blasted Viking metal and played Mad Max. Twas a good night.

Tuesday was very high stress for me. I’ve been far more worried about the speaking final rather than the written because the class has just been a lot harder for me. In some respects, not having to remember how to write each character is easier but at the same time, I have no safety net for pronunciation. So, I buckled down and every opportunity I could I looked over the materials I had written Monday night.

During culture class, we found out a little more about our time in Beijing although not much...I don’t think our professor will be with us for almost any of it, leaving us in the hands of a tour guide. I wasn’t filled with confidence when our professor told us “make sure to remind your tour guide about your flights on Monday!” But we’ll see!

Tuesday night...I ate duck intestine and cow stomach. So. That was interesting. More than anything, they tasted like rubber but the cow stomach was like this prickly gray thing and I had to close my eyes when I put it in my mouth. It started innocently enough, Alec asked his language partner if she wanted hot pot for dinner and apparently she responded with “only if we order weird stuff.” This stipulation was not made public when he convinced me and Brandon to go so we were completely caught of guard when the usual supply of beef and pork were substituted for...innards. I can easily say those were the weirdest things I’ve eaten this trip and while I won’t seek them out again. Should you ever find yourself in a situation where they are offered, there are worse things you could be eating.

I Should Never Be A Gambler

This Wednesday there was a lot of relief when we could all speak English again which manifested into taking it easy and napping often. I, of course, didn’t partake in such frivolities like “naps.” It was the day that I fell to the pull of Western food though and for dinner ended up with a plate of what I had originally thought was Spaghetti Bolognese (which I ordered), but when the name translated to “Spicy Beef”...I was concerned. It was definitely one of the better pasta dishes I’ve had, just hard to eat at times. It stayed very true to the name “Spicy Beef.” Later that night we gathered again in Jonathan and Brandon’s room to play some Dokopan Kingdom, which is that strange version of Mario Party. We all spent the next couple hours laughing our heads off and then went to bed,

Thursday, Brandon wasn’t in class. Generally this wouldn’t have been an issue. Sure, Chinese classes are small but the difference between ten and nine people isn’t a whole lot. In Kunming though my class is two people: Brandon and myself. So the difference was definitely felt. I went into the day a little apprehensive and expected the usual rigor just with no partner to share the pain, but it turned into one of my actual best days here. My first teacher and I didn’t progress very far in the text book and she instead took every opportunity to tell me about particular cultural aspects in China. We talked about fashion, technology, even giant Pandas! I tried my best to talk about similar topics about America in Chinese, but sometimes had to resort to English. All in all though it was a great class. We spend so much time here under the guise of “Language and Culture” but apart from weekends, the “Culture” aspect is severely lacking. We have a two hours each week with something China-like, but our other days are filled with things we could do anywhere. It just seems like there’s more we could do, so doing some of that and learning about Chinese youth was really cool. What I found kind of scary though is the College admissions process.

In China, there is one state-produced test given annually for kids trying to get into College. It’s over two days, and entire streets shut down with extra police presence focused solely on making sure cars don’t honk and upset the students. Taxis give free rides to students taking the exams, people come out in droves to cheer them on….where was my SAT procession??

Second class was more traditional in nature. It started with a discussion on the vocab words but then the teacher and I spent a long time discussing what would help me the most in learning Chinese. I definitely struggle to keep up with Brandon and I’m so happy she noticed. It turned into a 1-on-1 tutoring session and I went back to the room that afternoon with a bunch of new ideas on how to study. Best possible outcome.

I went out to lunch with Alec, Brandon, and Jonathon. We actually ended up at the restaurant Kyongnam, Bradon and I went with a bunch of language partners a couple weeks ago. It was delicious and had a lot of the same artwork as the other location, which was kind of crazy because it wasn’t exactly the same. Instead they opted for blown-up segments of the art. Odd, but still cool. In the afternoon, Alec and I tried the Chinese card game I’ve been obsessing a little over: It’s called Seer, and there is no English translation. So, I had made my own. There were still a few holes in my understanding though so I was hoping to iron those out. Instead, we just sat with our “duel mats” and our decks feeling like children and trying so hard to stay serious when one of Alec’s cards told him to yell “Happy New Year!” and it would get more powerful.

That evening Alec and I headed to the Amor Cafe close to the hotel for some consistent wifi that would help us complete our International business project for the presentations on Friday. I think we were there for a solid five hours...we put out a very solid minimalist power point, and spent a lot of the time hashing out ideas that we think could be good if we can actually put time and money into making the idea a reality. I come home wiped at eleven and just passed out.

Friday. Brandon and I were able to avoid a test on top of our presentations but class dragged along real slowly in the morning. I just couldn’t wait until the afternoon and in the meantime I just wanted to get through class. When it eventually did end, we left quickly and met Alec again at the Amor cafe so I could email our power point to Jonathan. They actually have decent food for a cafe, and because I kept my order simple I was able to order entirely in Mandarin! I may or may not have ordered a Coke just because I knew I could…After that we rehearsed for a little bit and then it was presentation time!

So these International Business presentations I think are supposed to be one of the final projects of the Culture class. Brandon, Alec, and I did one together so it was in front of the rest of the dialogue and a panel of 4 judges. Each group gives their idea of a product or business that could create a relationship between the United States and China with three winning teams receiving cash prizes. Grades have gone out, but they’re not going to tell us who won until “graduation” next week. It was a little nerve-wracking, but a lot of fun.

After all of that, Alec and I taught our language partners how to play Texas Hold ‘em and we just played games until the afternoon time was up. I quickly realized the gambling life isn’t for me, and went bankrupt twice in the time we played. Or maybe I just need more practice…Either way, it was fun to do something other than work with the language partners and just relax for a little bit. A great ending to a stressful day. After that, we took a little break before dinner. Julie, Mary, and I went to the Korean Restaurant where I finally tried this thing called Bibnbop? It’s basically a bunch of random ingredients with an egg on top in a hot bowl. It turned out better than I thought it would! We met up with Brandon for drinks at Salvador’s right after and Julie told the rest of us all about upper level Comp Sci at Northeastern. She actually walked at Graduation last May, but needs this dialogue for a comparative cultures credit. So really she’s a wealth of Computer Science information and has offered to reach out and talk to the various companies she has connections with for future co-ops. Woohoo connections!

The night was pretty tame after that, we came back and met up with a couple other people and just talked for a while, then Duncan and I caught Pirates of the Caribbean on TV.

Potatoes

Week four has been a blur. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact I’m coming up on 30 consecutive days in China. I’ve settled into such a routine I feel more like I’m in intensive class with a little extra practice on the side more than anything else. It’s crazy different this feels from Italy last year, but I think that’s because in Italy the culture was at the forefront of every lesson and every excursion while here in Kunming, the focus has been language above all else and the culture is the what you make of it. It’s definitely a better approach for teaching, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve missed some critical things or experiences. This has lead to a more gun-ho philosophy these past couple days of making time to walk around and try new things above winding down or spending more time in the hotel with friends.

Monday I felt pretty awful in the morning, which confused me because my food choices were pretty mundane on Sunday...nevertheless I opted to stay home instead of attending morning class. Not a whole lot of new material was learned that day which made it easy to catch up. I didn’t want to pass up language partner time though because I was still assigned homework so I felt like I should definitely get the help I need when I have the two hours to get everything done. This was a fantastic move on my part because only an hour in Brandon and I had finished the light workload and were deciding what to do. Feeling adventurous, we decided to walk around and show our language partners the really cool shirt store Duncan and a couple others had discovered a week or so ago. That, and we had a hankering for some milk tea.

When we found the milk tea place we wanted to try was closed, our language partners discussed in rapid Mandarin for a moment before 韩晓康 simply said “Potato?” I had yet to eat a potato in China and was immediately on board. Brandon spent another moment or so deciding whether or not he’d rather find another place for milk tea but eventually he was in too. We walked down Wenhua street, which is where most of the restaurants we frequent are, and then at an intersection where we’ve only ever walked left or right... 韩晓康 took us straight, and the street just kept going. Brandon and I saw a bunch of cool shops we’d like to come back and visit at some point but for now our mission was guided solely by, “potato.” Eventually we came to a small hole-in-the-wall place with scantron-esque menus. No pictures rendered Brandon and I mostly useless besides our limited food vocab, but luckily we had the aide of the native Chinese speakers with enough English to explain to us what was going on. Together we settled on Papaya water, rice pudding thing, and sweet and salty fried potatoes. When the food arrived, Brandon and I were a little confused. The papaya water had come in bowls and I don’t think either of us were expecting to drink it with a spoon. Basically, it was water with a slight hint of papaya and a couple bits of rose chock full of grass jelly and molasses. It was delicious, and for the equivalent of $0.50, well worth the investment. The rest of the meal arrived shortly after and the potatoes were delicious. Think like small bits of potato covered in a sauce not entirely unlike ketchup but spicier and a decent amount of salt. The rice pudding thing was hot, which was not what I was expecting at first and it took me a little while to come to terms with that fact. Overall, probably some of the best food I’ve eaten for just shy of $2.

Tuesday, the majority of our group decided to spend the day solely speaking in Mandarin. Considering we are all at different levels, each person held out for a different amount of time. My trouble mostly came from other students who understand more vocab and grammatical structures than I do trying to communicate. They only know very specific vocab and grammar structures so the common tactic to try and reiterate would be to just increase in volume when I didn’t understand. Meanwhile, my teachers could try and phrase things in different ways til I caught on. This got really frustrating really fast particularly because it was hard for me to even voice that that was a problem. I did my best and held out until about 3 in the afternoon. I had to try and explain a card game to someone who was still only speaking Mandarin and at that point I decided I would rather play the game than just frustratingly point and hope the person understood. I did pick it back up again in contexts where I could understand most of the vocabulary...but it was really hard. I did have an awesome lunch break though. Instead of sticking around campus or grabbing food at one of our favorite lunch joints, I decided to grab a quick bite and go for a walk. I ended up at the beautiful park that borders Yunnan Normal University’s campus and spent about an hour weaving in between the trees and crossing incredibly scenic ponds. The walk also allowed me to create a fully circular map of the streets surrounding the University where before I only knew about the pockets and not the connecting roads. It was also in my trip around the lake for which the park is named, Green Lake, that I stumbled upon a giant yellow palace thing. It wasn’t until I left the palace that I found a sign explaining what it was, but from the outside it just looked like a big old building with a barren courtyard. All the signs were in Mandarin so for some of the historical significance I’m going to ask my language partner today, but it appeared to be a military museum with various areas dedicated to Chinese involvement in world conflicts. I found this awesome room about World War 2 and the “Chinese Expeditionary Force” that from the pictures I was seeing I think teamed up with the Americans against the Japanese. I’m not entirely sure so I’ll definitely find some time to translate the captions to the pictures I found. The place was officially called the “Yunnan Military Academy Museum” which made a lot of sense after watching old war footage and trying to decided what was going on. After that, I showed 韩晓康 pictures of Nikka and BB to pass the time with another light homework day. We didn’t do very much of excitement that evening, we went to our favorite Japanese restaurant for dinner and then Jonathan showed us this really cool video game a little bit like Mario Party that kept us up far later than it should have.

Over the Hump

With the third week behind me, that leaves only two weeks of class and 4 days in Beijing before heading for home. This week ended, as always, with another test. The focus of which was dormitory vocab. While useful should I ever need to tell a graduate student that I have chosen to live on campus because it is convenient and there are washing machines in the building....otherwise the vocab didn't do much to expand vocabulary here in Kunming. Luckily, this week's lesson includes a lot of food vocab and cooking styles. While I'm not sure if menus carry these words are not, I am excited that I can definitely apply some of them to daily conversation!



Friday we went rock climbing again. I think I'm definitely getting better and Alec, Matt, and I attempted most of the V2s in the gym. Some are still really hard to get while on an overhang but they seem to be getting a little easier...we were able to convince Duncan to leave a little earlier than last time and ended up going to a bar with one of Duncan's friends from the gym. After that, we headed back, showered, and set out again in search of a place to play cards. We ended up settling on the craft beer pub we had found the first weekend, playing poker for hours. I'm not sure how we discovered it, but the pub had a Chinese version of Blokus! It seemed to be published by another company...but it was definitely the game Emma and I spend a while trying to avoid on game night! I was hoping my experience would lead me to victory...but I was beaten early by the TA. Poker was more my thing until I ran out of chips. So all in all I didn't win much but it was a lot of fun.


Saturday Duncan ditched the rest of the group to go serious rock climbing with some other guys he had met at the gym (it helps to be able to fluently speak Chinese in China I suppose.) while the rest of us headed to "Blue Chicken Mountain," home of the "Dragon Gate." We had the same tour guide as last week, and the bus ride to the mountain was full of random tidbits about Chinese culture. While I do enjoy the cultural aspects of the stories, I wish they were a little more associated with the place we were going. The mountain itself is covered in shrines. We learned that each individual God has a level on the mountain and he/she shall judge your worthiness once you reach it. A lot of Chinese people associate this to a degree with climbing the mountain to the shrine, a sign of determination. We took a golf cart up the base and as far as it could go. From there, we saw the Gods of Wealth, Mercy, and Honor I believe...towards the end we were suddenly in a rush and frankly I’m not sure if we ever did see the Dragon Gate. At about halfway through the door we never stopped walking until we reached the cable-car descent point. I have no idea where we ended or if I saw all the cool stuff...it seemed like we needed to be in such a rush to get to a Spa we weren’t able to enjoy the beauty of the mountain. All things considered, my general complaint is still that we try to do too much too fast or there isn’t enough freedom for those of us who’d rather take the incredible opportunity to see the homes of Taoist Gods along rocky cliffs and ancient steps...as opposed to spending six hours in a Spa.
We had lunch at “Wang Fu Spa” and dinner was provided, so if we toughed it out...it would be free. Otherwise, we were allowed to leave whenever we chose. A lot of us took advantage of the time to really relax and unwind. I think everyone in the group got one type of massage or another! I curled up in this big comfy chair and read for a few hours before learning how to play Mahjong from Alec. There were also these great roman style baths...that took some getting used to. All in all it was fun, but a little long. I think in retrospect I should have left before dinner and just gotten it back at the hotel or something. Maybe done some personal exploring...anyway that’s the plan for this week! I have a pretty good mental model of the big streets surrounding campus but I definitely want to get out in the city a little bit more. So, I’m thinking from now one I’ll use my lunch break to go exploring and try and build a bigger city image. It beats taking naps for sure!

 ("Blue Chicken" is the literal translation of "Peacock" in Chinese, this is their mountain)

Today...I cracked, and got a Western breakfast. After three and a half weeks I needed the pick-me-up of a bagel covered in fried egg, jalapenos, and cheese. It was heavenly, and served with a cup of coffee. Until now I’ve been avoiding the Western restaurant on the nearby food street as has most of the dialogue but you can only eat dumplings for breakfast for so long...I went with Duncan, Julie, and Mary and we all felt like it was a well-deserved treat. After that, everyone on the dialogue was split by classes and went back to Teachers’ houses to make dumplings. That, was an experience. Brandon’s and my class was put with Advanced 2 so generally conversation flew way over our heads. Nevertheless it was a great time and I even made some somewhat decent looking dumplings. Now, one cannot live on dumplings alone so lunch was a multi-dish affair...of some things I had been avoiding thus far. Probably sensing my fear, the teachers decided to award points for every new food we tried that day. So, I left lunch full on century egg, pig foot, quail egg, and lychee root.

(From left to right: Brandon plays Mahjong while Professor Cai looks at Alec's tiles)

The Beginning of the Middle

All Mondays considered, yesterday wasn't too bad. After a pretty lackluster dictation class settled in quite smoothly and I found myself remembering more of the vocab than usual and focusing on the grammar. This was the last day of the first lesson from "Integrated Chinese Level 2 Part 1" which introduced a new cast of characters and relationships far different from the days of "Integrated Chinese Level 1" Parts 1 and 2. Needless to say it was a heartfelt goodbye Brandon and I gave to Wang Peng and Li You last week. Enter Ke Lin and Zhang Tianming. Anyway the focus for these first few lessons is college life so I suppose the vocab will prove to be useful, and pretty soon we'll be learning more food vocab so that should be incredibly helpful while I'm still in China!
For lunch I joined Kyongnam, Mary, Julie, Brandon, and Victoria in heading to the Korean restaurant. I tried this hot beef soup I quickly found out I wasn't a big fan of...but I'm glad I tried it! Part of the dislike came from confusion on how to consume it. The soup was extremely broth-y, filled with noodles yet came with a rice bowl. I ended up just mixing everything and eating it with a spoon. Before Taiji Duncan and I played a little Lego Star Wars and beat Episode V! So as far as accomplishments go...that's up there.
Taiji was pretty awesome again now that we've started actually learning the ancient art and aren't doing relay races. Taiji is actually just a really slowed-down martial art of brutal effectiveness. When performed at the pace you see in parks it's exercise, but all the moves apply directly to blocks and punches and deflections. The fact we were practicing on the steps of a temple only added to the atmosphere.
We went back to the climbing gym last night around 6. While I was pretty wiped at 8,8:30 Duncan kept going until about 10:30. I was watching and doing some homework and later that night he told me that he was somehow involved in an impromptu climbing competition with a few of the regulars at the gym. They were doing crazy stuff with this epic moves leaping up overhangs and literally pulling themselves up with a single hand. I think I've got a ways to go before I get there...

Tuesday Afternoon was filled with Lego Star Wars after meeting with my language partner. Homework has been pretty light lately so I've been taking advantage of that. After a while, Duncan and I headed to the Korean Restaurant nearby with Brandon for Dinner and then headed over to Mensa's for some dessert waffles. If you don't remember, Mensa is the owner of a waffle and froyo shop two doors down from our hotel and comes from Brooklyn. He moved to China permanently three or four years ago now and started a frozen yogurt company. He is also incredibly fun to talk to. Conversation started as it normally does with Chinese business practices, and how he had to shift his American view towards prices and goods to the eastern market: how when he began his company he wasn't wary of competitor's prices and what foods Chinese customers are likely to chow down on. Waffles, for example, are never considered a breakfast food...only a dessert. From his Froyo and Waffles he has since expanded to Coffees, Frappucinos, Slushies, and now he's trying Hong Kong Waffles which are these crazy egg pastry things. I'll take a picture the next time I eat one! Anyway. he was looking for new ideas or what Duncan and I thought as Americans new to the Chinese experience. Somehow Matt found his way over and we ended up discussing politics and modern education. Having been in China for the past few years Mensa only knew the big points of recent political developments, so that was actually really interesting to talk about. I think we ended up there until about eleven before finally calling it a night.

Breaking Through the Great Firewall

I'm FREEEE! I think, yet to see if it fully works but we might be in luck. As you all probably know, internet usage is heavily monitored in China. This means a heavy firewall on internet activity preventing access to a lot of sites that we use everyday in America. No Google (or Google products! So no Gmail, Google photo backup, or this blog that runs through Google!), Facebook, and so many other services. What this has meant so far is doing pretty much all online work exclusively on my phone and typing on a tiny keyboard. This is mind-numbing. I was using a friend's VPN but for some reason it wasn't working here in China. (A VPN basically hides internet activity from China and connects to another country that would allow me to access these sites.) Today though, Duncan ran into a similar problem with his VPN so his brother sent him the link to a super powerful one. It worked for him...so I signed up...and viola! So as far as the internet is concerned I'm in South Korea typing this AND! (Probably more important than the blog itself) my phone can finally back-up photos I can put into blog posts. No longer will these things just be walls of text! It's been a productive morning, for a Sunday. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Friday I felt sick as a dog but with a test in my first class of the day, I drank probably two thermoses of tea and sucked it up. I had plans to slink away after the test and go back to bed but after seeing how bad our teacher was sneezing too I felt too bad trying to leave when she had come into work. The test was relatively straight-forward, most of the listening and reading pulled from the work book so content was easy enough to understand. Where I struggled was with English-to-Chinese translations. I can do the reverse easy enough, but I struggle the most with speaking and writing in Chinese and less figuring out English meaning. I did get an A though!!! We just got the scores back. After the test class could not have gone slower as I was just really, really looking forward to the noon nap I was planning. I picked up some ramen noodles for lunch and had an easy lunch in with a couple other guys.
For culture class we had to do another presentation about our life goals like we did last Friday. Today's official topics were what we wanted to achieve with unlimited resources and some role models. I was able to bring the DRC into my speech so I've considered it a win. After that, I met with my language partner to deal with the mountain of weekend homework and got all the translations done. Now all that's left is memorization and studying for Monday's dictation. Luckily, the day was saved with an epic climbing marathon Friday night. We got to the gym around 6:30 and didn't leave until 9:30-10:00ish. This time we had a larger crew go as some of the girls joined in and we all had a blast. The climbs are the same but I've been able to do some harder over-hangs and wall traversal. I also thought it was time to throw $10 in for a chalk bag, they had better ones but this has the Gym's logo on it. A practical souvenir! (I'm hoping to attach a photo of the gym to this post.)
We all went out to hot pot following the climbing and could barely hold our chopsticks. They fit all eight of us around a tiny table and the resulting chaos luckily didn't leave any burn victims with the boiling hotpot.
By the time we were done and home and showered, contemplating going back out it was midnight and everyone lost interest in favor of their beds. Duncan went out and came back with a 6-pack of Delirium beers. I think I've seen them before, but never thought to try one. If you're reading this Dad, they're worth trying. Anyway, we had a couple with some street meat skewers and had a blast well into the morning.

Saturday started earlier than any of us really wanted it to, but we did have a two hour bus ride to the Stone Forest to recuperate some of the sleep we felt we were missing. The Stone Garden is this beautiful area of free-standing rocks that were once submerged in an ancient sea and over the millions of years the water left the area and different ancient people moved in. Some communities have remained in the area making Yunnan the home of many of the minority groups present in China. We started out all together, but soon some groups had split off to search the forest for themselves. I stayed with the tour guide along with a lot of others, until Matt and I ended up lost after following a side path and spent about an hour trying to find our way back to the group. WE had a great time exploring and venturing to places we hadn't been, but it sounds like the main group had to remain somewhat sedentary while they tracked us down. I got a lot of good pictures though, including a couple of me! Some I didn't even take... So there's this big thing here where people will constantly take pictures of/with us because we're not Asian and while some people in our group love it, I'm a little less enthused about the constant attention. For example, I was walking over to a rock formation and someone was following me with a camera and another person was walking quickly behind me trying to get in the frame. Before I knew it I was arm and arm with an entire family smiling for a photo.
After the Stone Forest we headed to a very fancy Kunming meal complete with Kunming Roast Duck. It was served with plenty of rice, tea, and other vegetable dishes. The duck even included the head! William tried eating it, but found there's not much meat in a Duck head. We were then hustled back to the bus and on to the next stop...Jiuxiang Scenic Area, home to massive karst caves.
We traveled through these huge caves full of fancy lights and plaques talking about the area. I think all the security cameras and fancy lights took a little away from the majesty but they were still totally cool. At one point we came across this huge open area that concerts have apparently been held in! Underground! The caves wove in and out of massive canyons too so some parts were covered bridges crossing over rivers far below and open to the outside before plunging back into darkness. When we finally got to the bottom and the only thing left was a massive staircase back to the surface, we rounded a corner and were faced with temptation of a level unmatched. There were local guides offering rides up the staircase in plush chairs for only $10. I considered....considered...and then realized I could probably use the exercise. So I climbed up and felt very accomplished when I finally reached the top. I like to think the playing kittens were there at the cable car station solely because I decided to walk, but either way there were these adorable tiny kittens duking it out while we waited for the rest of the group. Also waiting for others, I couldn't believe my eyes at first and needed to ask Matt who was with me at the Stone Forest if it was true, was the family who came up to me that morning! The whole clan noticed me about the same time and started waving back, at which point Kyongnam informed me they were Korean tourists. So that was interesting.
Duncan and I ended up in a car together and posed for the camera as the cable car crested a hill and I bought the printout! So that's something else that is mildly entertaining. Everyone passed out on the bus ride back home so we were are marginally ready to go do something that night. A group went to

go sing Karaoke, another camp decided to go out for Japanese food. I'll let you guess who I went with. After we got back from the restaurant we sat in the hallway between rooms and just played cards until we all got too tired to continue. Then, we slept.

Today was relatively tame in comparison. After a late start around one, Duncan and I headed out to an Indian Restaurant for lunch where I had "Spinach and Cheese" according to the Chinese with a healthy serving of Naan. After that we went and studied in the Elephant Cafe for a while before coming back and doing some laundry, by hand!! I've decided I'm glad the Washer Machine was invented.

Here are the pictures promised!
In posted order: Now Climbing Climbing Gym
                          A Boat cruise before entering the Caves
                         Brandon and I in the Stone Forest
                        Jonathan and Duncan at a nearby Korean Restaurant

Hottest of Pots

I was feeling pretty down yesterday with the beginnings of a cold, so after a cup of nescafe that tasted not unlike gasoline I hunkered down and got through class best I could. It was a struggle.
After class and time with language partner (I know her name now too!), We headed out to dinner with Brandon and his language partner (still don't know HER name...). Unfortunately my mouth was still sore from where I had too aggressively flossed the day before so hard chunks of meat really didn't help my situation much. That being said it was a lot of fun! We all had chicken and just had to tell the cook "no", "a little", or "a lot" referring to spice. After dinner I gathered some supplies for my room and my poor mouth: salt, sugar, and tea. I was eventually successful, but not before I had spent 30 minutes casing a convenience store trying to find the salt that was in tiny little bags below the cooking oil. That, and tea is only loose here...Which means without a tea ball, things were about to get interesting.
Our room does have a working kettle, so the warm salt water was easy. The tea required some ingenuity I must have inherited from my parents...Them being engineers and all. After many different ideas I ended up making a coffee filter out of papery toilet paper (from a new roll!). It worked! But I chuckled the entire time it was straining.

Today was far more interesting. While I started off still feeling sick as a dog, 张老师 (Teacher Zhang) noticed and went easy on me. After Reading/Writing in the mo
After class I took a nap in the lunch break, and read some of my THIRD book of the trip, Odd Thomas. This was followed by a meditation where I fell asleep (I'm sure of it this time!) and studying with 韩晓康 (My language partner). I was ready to head back to my dorm and go back to sleep, but Kyongnam asked if I was interested in hotpot so...韩晓康 and I joined him and his partner across town at this really crazy hotpot place. We ate so much I'm still stuffed! The hotpot was insanely spicy though so we all took larger breathers and gulps of orange juice between bites. Somehow Kyongnam's partner won a set of soup bowls with the receipt? Still not sure about that one...

rning is Speaking/Listening. Our teacher came in today offering us what looked to be roti, an Indian buttery bread treat and I had never been more happy to see it. I pulled off a big chunk and while it smelled a little funny...I popped it into my mouth. Hey Emma, you remember the white fish salsa days? As soon as I had filled my mouth with buttery goodness our teacher told us what it really was:fish jerky. I couldn't spit it out, so I chewed, and chewed, and chewed...And it was the most potent thing I've ever eaten. If Dad ever pays us to eat fish oil pills, I know I got it down.
 Kyongnam pictured

The Weekend

This weekend definitely had its moments, most of which happened on Saturday. Sunday is our one day off so I took extra special care to be particularly lazy. Saturday we got up around nine and headed to this huge museum on the history of Kunming and the Yunnan province. Just recently the remains of a kingdom were found that predated known records so there's been this huge push to excavate. I think my favorite parts were these crazy sacrificial jugs that all had the zodiac animals doing crazy things on top and something to do with human sacrifice....It seemed like this past Saturday every school in Kunming let their kids free in the museum so hearing the tour guide was pretty challenging. There was also this awesome hall full of small golden Buddha idols discovered from around the age Buddhism really grabbed a foothold in China.

After that, we went to this street market area for a traditional lunch and a look around. As far as the lunch went, I haven't a clue what most of the dishes were called but most were excellent. One of the professors from the local university brought her five year old daughter along who kept spinning the lazy Susan holding the food dishes. This translated us all needed to up our chopstick game in order to grab anything before the dish disappeared around the 13-person tables. We were given some time to explore after lunch so I went with a group of guys that continuously got smaller the longer we walked through streets full of cheap knockoffs. (There were building toys named "Lekos" which seemed to even be using Lego product lines.) 

This was all followed by an incredibly accurate tea ceremony in a dedicated tea ceremony house...We all sat at a very low table with gentle Tibetan music playing. The hostess was calmly telling us about the wonders of tea and the long history of Pu'er Cha (I think. 茶, Or cha, is tea. But the other bit I'm having trouble recalling). By the time the first part of the ceremony concluded we had drank about 8 cups each. It was supposed to make us feel relieved and warm and cleansed. I think the most I felt was a newly burnt tongue, but it was fun! Then a few of the staff pulled off this really intricate synchronized tea brewing that was...Interesting. we came back that night quite tired, and after a few hours began thinking of how to spend the evening. Duncan, Jonathan, and a few others went to a karaoke place with the program's local TA (The one from Yunnan university) while the rest of us just started ambling about. Somehow Matt, Julie, Mary, and I were separated from the group of about 14. This turned out to be quite fortuitous when we were able to finally get a booth in a bar with our smaller size. In Chinese bars (and most restaurants) you pay up front and then have as much time as you want to just hang out. We were able to buy some beer and just hang out playing card games for hours! And when we wanted to leave, we just got up. It's a great system!

Sunday, I rested. Until about noon then I got antsy. Duncan and I went exploring in the afternoon after getting coffee and cake at the Elephant Café. I ordered all by myself! We set out down a different street than we have gone down before, walking a long ways past a pretty decent outdoors store until it intersected with the main road of Kunming. Then, we walked to a hot pot restaurant in the climbing gym mall for lunch. Unable to decide on anything there, we got this crazy combo hot pot thing and spent about an hour cooking meat and random veggies in boiling soup (they had little pieces of corn on the cob to cook too?). The rest of the day was spent mostly studying and prepping for a new wave of daily verbal quizzes instituted by the professor who came with us from northeastern. This new mandate is neither liked by students or the local teachers.

Monday I was able to get back to the gym with Duncan and Jonathan, this time Matt and Kyongnam came too! It seems like Duncan is going to make it a 3 times a week thing which I'm definitely excited about, I even bought a month pass! It will pay for itself in 4 more visits...Should be there by next week! I definitely felt some improvement to the last time I went, feeling more comfortable on the harder climbs I had tried and willing to push myself a little harder. I really have to do more of this at home...

In which i did a V2

So I'm not sure I've mentioned it before, but Duncan (my roomie) is a very outdoorsy dude. He loves to hike, backpack, and rock climbing. Duncan ALSO happens to be president of the new recreational rock climbing club at Northeastern. He even brought his own shoes to China! So needless to say he's been working me over since we got here. Before we had even landed in Hong Kong he had found a climbing gym in Kunming he was going to visit once we got here. He did that on Wednesday with Jonathan and had a blast. So, today when the two were set to go after class I joined them and off we went deeper into Kunming than I'd ever been. Basically, the gym is down the main road one over from our hotel and down a ways until you reach a massive mall. A day pass was about 20 bucks and shoes are 50 cents to rent. It's seriously worth it! So I was able to spend my Friday evening climbing (bouldering specifically) in this neat little gym learning all kinds of cool stuff from Duncan and watching him kick ass on overhangs. Seriously, the man is a monkey. I was also able to talk to Jonathan about what it's like to be in the founding class of a fraternity, since he was in the founding class of Delta at Northeastern five years ago. All in all a fantastic afternoon. Apparently they just redid the routes too, and I found I could comfortably do V1s and some V2s. I'm headed back Monday and Duncan is going to push me to keep going and I'm excited to! After that, the three of us grabbed some dinner at a Korean restaurant and met up with everyone else for a while hanging at a craft beer pub. By the time I got back to the room I was beat!

Thursday 5/19

Today (Thursday) was a good day. Aside from some minor stressing out in class, I made it through! Woohoo! After class Brandon and I met up with Jonathan for lunch at the cafeteria. He showed us the special Muslim cafeteria that has different food options and, word around campus, the food is much better than at the big cafeteria. I'm not sure I tasted the difference but it was pretty good! I had rice with veggies, tofu, and a fried egg. We came back to the rooms to eat and just hang out before meditation. Today when we listened to the meditation recording I either fell into a deep trance... Or I fell asleep. Not sure which! After that my language partner took me to this awesome little cafe called "The Elephant Café," it was an awesome place to work for a couple hours with a modern design in the spring area and the rest of the place was devoted to books of all languages. I was even able to finish half my homework! Tough work like that required some extra relaxing so we headed to the ramen place we knew we liked and had some seriously good noodles... Part 2. After that, I finished my homework, and conked out!

Kunming up through day 3

On Monday I discovered the work expected of me and definitely had a bit of a shock. We have class four hours a day plus study time with my language partner for an additional two hours. This is up from the three WEEKLY hours back at Northeastern.. So mom and dad will be proud at the amount of time I spend studying. I ate lunch in the school cafeteria for around 8￥, roughly a little more than a dollar! I came back to my room to read a little before taiji. That being said I'm not sure what we did was taiji as we ended up doing relay races with many curious onlookers...

For dinner Duncan, Alec, Johnathan, Brandon and I went to an awesome ramen house with the fancy wooden counter and everything! We ordered from a machine...I got spicy noodles and sake. Good choices. We ended that first night the right way, watching a hilarious movie called Kung Fury.

Tuesday I went into class a little anxious, remembering how rough Monday was. My Chinese isn't as strong as Brandon's, the only other person in the class so sometimes it gets really rough. As luck would have it, Tuesday was a little easier than Monday and I felt a bit more comfortable, but there's still a long way to go. We went to a seafood noodle place for lunch. Even though I botched ordering, I still ended up with some delicious clams and noodles! Johnathan has been telling us we have to go repeatedly because it's one of his favorites. I'm not sure I feel the same... But I also have a lot more to explore before return trips! After that, we visited the Dream. An American emigrant running a froyo and waffle shop two doors down from our hotel, Mensa met a group of us the day before when we were on our way back from class and introduced himself. Today, we found ourselves listening to stories about Chinese business and racism in the far East. Then it was time for folk dancing/meditation (I'll let you guess which one I'm doing). This was followed by working with my language partner and a beautiful walk through the park surrounding a nearby lake. It had everything from bamboo groves to shrines to massive Chinese chess gatherings. I need to go back! That night we went to a small traditional Chinese restaurant where I ordered beef fried rice and found it delicious.

Today (Wednesday) I woke up late, after Oakley called at 4:30 to ask me something about summer housing, it took me a while to get back to sleep. Rushing around at 7:30 I was out the door by 7:40 and buying weird cream-filled bread to switch up my breakfast routine from just dumplings. Needless to say it wasn't much of a breakfast and between classes this morning Brandon and I ran back to the hotel for some baozi (dumplings).
Today we had a four hour break for lunch and after a trip to the cafeteria I took the opportunity to get some homework done and watch some Chinese TV. While not as immersive, I needed a little solitude today. It helped keep me same during paper cutting that afternoon and deal with the mountain of homework my poor language partner helped me through.
After that ended around seven, I met up with some different people than my usual crew and we went to a pretty awesome place a few streets away where I was able to order entirely in Mandarin! It was fantastic! I even ordered Coke just because I knew how! On the way back, we ran into Duncan at the $1 boba place at the corner of the street our hotel is on and he reminded us how to order milk tea. When we got back I called Dad for a bit and read The Mountain Shadow until I finished it. It was incredible. I will already recommend that and Shantaram.
I think I'm starting to ease into life here. It took a couple days but I'm starting to fret a little less about interaction and am more open to trying things. Let's hope it keeps up!

Kunming Day 1

So it's day three of classes here in Kunming... And I've already studied the equivalent of three weeks worth of work at Northeastern. It's rough. We got in on Sunday after taking a bus back to the airport in Hong Kong and flying to Kunming in the early afternoon. We were then unceremoniously dumped in the middle of a busy intersection with our baggage a few minutes from the hotel. Location wise, the hotel is perfect. It's located right across from the Western gate of Yunnan university where we have class everyday at eight. The rooms aren't half bad either, just your typical hotel room fare. We were given about an hour to settle in before we met our language partners who will study with us two hours a day everyday we have class. The language partners are graduate students studying how to teach Chinese as a second language, and so far it's been great! Mine started by speaking very little English but as I've gotten better at Chinese her English has improved as well.

After that, a group of us toured the nearby street full of restaurants. I can't remember where I got dinner, but it was delicious!

Welcome to China! (Hong Kong)

你们好! (Hello all!) So it's definitely been some time but I finally figured out how to post from 中国 (China)! Unfortunately I can't use my laptop because China blocks most major Western websites so I have to use my phone...I'm also not sure how I can successfully upload pictures but, baby steps! I'll split my time here into two posts to start with, Hong Kong and Kunming. Here we go!
Hong Kong:
Today started by local time 37 hours ago. I've probably slept for five of them. After going to the North End in Boston with some friends from Northeastern, I headed to the airport around 10 PM. Needless to say it was a grueling flight. Gate to gate it was 13 hours. I did get a couple good hours of sleep in there... In fact all five were on the plane! I also got through a couple movies. For the most part though that flight was a blur... Besides the food! The food was delicious! I had steak for dinner and an omelet for breakfast! Breakfast being around 2 AM...

We got in around five local time. After clearing immigration and getting a bus we made it into Kowloon around 6:30. We were a few hours early for check in, so Brandon, Duncan, Alec, Matt, William, and I went out in search of breakfast part two. We ended up in a small Cantonese restaurant, each with a plate of eggs and noodles... For four dollars!! This was the first experience with prices in China, and so far it's remained pretty consistent.

After breakfast we still had a couple hours before the rooms would be ready so the six of us began a very undirected search for a park. We travelled further down tiny cramped streets filled with little shops and busy people, even in the early hours. Eventually, we found our way to "Old Age Park" whose name became clear when we realized we were the youngest there by 50 years. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our time in the oasis, taking paths through people practicing taiji and badminton. We even saw some strange clapping group, we still have no idea what they were doing... There was also a weight and aerobic section of the park like an outdoor gym disguised as a playground.

After a while we made our way back to the hotel just in time to be handed room keys. Duncan and I dropped our stuff off in our room and headed to the lounge with some of the other students on the trip. We had a buffet lunch some time later and finally the real fun began!

The afternoon was spent touring around Hong Kong with a totally awesome tour guide from the "New Territories." She brought us to this beautiful temple and Victoria Peak before we finally got on a boat cruise through the Harbor for dinner. It was raining off and on all day so the view from the top of the peak was a little clouded in fog, but still breathtaking!

What really amazed me was the style of Kowloon. Unfortunately we never had time to explore Hong Kong Island so I definitely want to go back, but Kowloon...(Kowloon actually means "nine dragons." Many centuries ago when the Emperor visited and discovered the area didn't have a name, he counted the nearby hills to be nine and decided that was a decent enough name.) Kowloon had a verticality I haven't seen anywhere else. Since Hong Kong is so limited in size, the only place it can grow is up. This leads to massive buildings so large the cleaning costs are far too high to be reasonable and therefore most buildings have an almost run-down look. That plus the crowded streets give a sort of beautiful chaos to the city.

I wish today hadn't been so rushed. I could definitely use a week here. I'd love to explore all the temples and surrounding mountains. In the meantime, off to Kunming! 再见!