Well he's not really sure what's happening, but Andrew is unable to log onto his blog. So he trusted Mom with his secret ID and asked me to pass along the message...
All is well, the papers are coming together, and he's looking forward to getting home in a few weeks. But when he comes home, he'll first be taking a detour by LA to meet up with Stephen, Miss Miriam and Andy. Andrew and Stephen will both be home on the night of June 3rd.
So if he can't get blog anymore, it's not because he doesn't want to!
That's the message. Hope Andew will be back on soon.
Gail
Monday, May 18, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
BBQ- June 6th
Taking a break from writing my final paper for my Modern Chinese History class, it's on the the motivations of various groups during the intellectual movement known as the May Fourth Movement in 1919... don't worry mom, I'm almost done.
It is almost that time, most of my friends have already finished their finals and are back home and I'm about 5,500 words, two tests and eighteen days from heading back to the good ol' US-of-A. I've been informed by my mother that on June sixth (a Saturday) that there will be a BBQ happening at the Leiser household, and I would love to see all of you who can make there to share even more stories, pictures and good food with all of you. I am also planning on giving a presentation at church for those locally who may have a conflict, as for those a little further away (Grammy, ala), we'll figure something out.
Sorry I don't have anything ground breaking to share with you, been spending a lot of time staring at a book or a computer (apparently I have to do real school work). The weather has been a little nicer (aka, cooler) the last two days, and I had chicken tongue for dinner the other night.
Mark your calenders.
-AL
It is almost that time, most of my friends have already finished their finals and are back home and I'm about 5,500 words, two tests and eighteen days from heading back to the good ol' US-of-A. I've been informed by my mother that on June sixth (a Saturday) that there will be a BBQ happening at the Leiser household, and I would love to see all of you who can make there to share even more stories, pictures and good food with all of you. I am also planning on giving a presentation at church for those locally who may have a conflict, as for those a little further away (Grammy, ala), we'll figure something out.
Sorry I don't have anything ground breaking to share with you, been spending a lot of time staring at a book or a computer (apparently I have to do real school work). The weather has been a little nicer (aka, cooler) the last two days, and I had chicken tongue for dinner the other night.
Mark your calenders.
-AL
Sunday, May 10, 2009
HOT
Happy Mothers Day to all the mama's out there, I remembered and wished both my Meiguo mama (aka Gail) and Zhongguo mama (aka host mom) a happy day.
The cold and rainy weather that I wrote about to not too long ago is just a distant memory at this point as the temperature and humidity here continue to rise. It's 7pm here right now and my computer says it's 81 degrees with 45% humidity, numbers that I'm not really accustomed to. Of course my house is equipped with A/C but we never use it, also it has become painfully apparent to me that there are no cold meals in this country, everything is served piping hot, not helping to relive the heat.
Whats funny to me now is that even though it hasn't rained in quite some time you can still find plenty of umbrellas, its just this time they're to keep the sun off. I think this probably has less to do with it being very warm and more to do with avoiding a tan, the pastier you are in this country the prettier. This also means that people (mostly women) wear an outrageous amounts of clothing. The other day we had a BBQ, courtesy of our program, and all of the host moms came wearing either pants or a long skirt, long sleeves, jacket, hats, gloves (I'm not kidding) and holding an umbrella; it was probably close to 90 degrees.
Just about three weeks till I fly home, starting to get excited about seeing everybody and eating lots of American food.
-AL
The cold and rainy weather that I wrote about to not too long ago is just a distant memory at this point as the temperature and humidity here continue to rise. It's 7pm here right now and my computer says it's 81 degrees with 45% humidity, numbers that I'm not really accustomed to. Of course my house is equipped with A/C but we never use it, also it has become painfully apparent to me that there are no cold meals in this country, everything is served piping hot, not helping to relive the heat.
Whats funny to me now is that even though it hasn't rained in quite some time you can still find plenty of umbrellas, its just this time they're to keep the sun off. I think this probably has less to do with it being very warm and more to do with avoiding a tan, the pastier you are in this country the prettier. This also means that people (mostly women) wear an outrageous amounts of clothing. The other day we had a BBQ, courtesy of our program, and all of the host moms came wearing either pants or a long skirt, long sleeves, jacket, hats, gloves (I'm not kidding) and holding an umbrella; it was probably close to 90 degrees.
Just about three weeks till I fly home, starting to get excited about seeing everybody and eating lots of American food.
-AL
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Forgot something...
Meant to mention this in my last blog. I was out the other night wearing my "Rendezvous" t-shirt (thanks Grammy), and this guy came up to me and asked me if I was from Memphis. This of course led to the whole story about how I'm not but I have lots of people near Memphis and how we both loved Rendezvous and yadayadayada. I thought it was a good example of how small of a world it is.
Oh.... another similar story that is even closer to home. There's a girl in the program from Madawaska. And I thought I was from a small town. She's the only other Mainer I've found over here.
Anyways, I thought it was kind of funny.
-AL
Oh.... another similar story that is even closer to home. There's a girl in the program from Madawaska. And I thought I was from a small town. She's the only other Mainer I've found over here.
Anyways, I thought it was kind of funny.
-AL
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Back to Work
Hello all, sorry I've been neglecting my blogging duties, been spending a lot of time on Chinese and paper writing. In case you hadn't heard, I'm back in Shanghai (have been for a few days), and I'm back to the usual grind. Just to recap my trip for you briefly, spent time a few days in Chengdu which is in Sichuan province (also where the earthquake was last year) and then five days in Kunming in Yunnan province. Overall we had a great trip met some really cool people along the way, most of whom were passing through as they spent a few months traveling the world.
Really glad that I decided to go where we did just because it's so different from the big cities of Shanghai and Beijing. It was kind of fun to be the only white people and we certainly got lots of Chinese practice (I was actually complemented a lot on my Chinese) as very few people spoke any English. The way of life in both of these relatively "small" cities is also very different, people in Chengdu seem very content to sit and drink their tea as the day rolls by and in Kunming I've never seen so many people playing Marjiang, a game sort of resembling domino's.
Overall it was a great trip, had a lot of fun but glad to be back in Shanghai with my Zhongguo Jia (Chinese Family). Hard to believe that I'll be flying home in less than a month now!
Hope you're all doing well.
-AL
Really glad that I decided to go where we did just because it's so different from the big cities of Shanghai and Beijing. It was kind of fun to be the only white people and we certainly got lots of Chinese practice (I was actually complemented a lot on my Chinese) as very few people spoke any English. The way of life in both of these relatively "small" cities is also very different, people in Chengdu seem very content to sit and drink their tea as the day rolls by and in Kunming I've never seen so many people playing Marjiang, a game sort of resembling domino's.
Overall it was a great trip, had a lot of fun but glad to be back in Shanghai with my Zhongguo Jia (Chinese Family). Hard to believe that I'll be flying home in less than a month now!
Hope you're all doing well.
-AL
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
still going
Hello all, so we never went to Dali, just stayed in Kunming the whole time which has been fine. Went and saw this giant lake from some cliffs that over look it, went to a temple, and also stopped by an ethnic village but didn't go in because it looked more like epcot than a legitmate village.
I've caught a little bug in the last day here which isn't ideal but better now than when I'm back in Shanghai trying to get ready for finals. We fly out tomorrow, I'll supply greater details when I'm back home.
The weathers been perfect, hope all is well.
-AL
I've caught a little bug in the last day here which isn't ideal but better now than when I'm back in Shanghai trying to get ready for finals. We fly out tomorrow, I'll supply greater details when I'm back home.
The weathers been perfect, hope all is well.
-AL
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Travels
S'up, in Kunming right now in Yunnan province. Left Chengdu Sunday morning after seeing both pandas and the worlds largest Buddha (it's pretty big), spent the day walking around this sleepy little town of just over a million. Not sure what we doing today, but I think tomorrow we're going to try and jump on a train to Dali, which wasn't part of the original plan but turns out that Tiger Leaping Gorge is about 9 hours away, which is a little further than we thought.
Good trip so far (no ones cried), having fun, update you when I can.
-AL
Good trip so far (no ones cried), having fun, update you when I can.
-AL
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Chengdu
I made it. Got into Chengdu at abou midnight last night, found our hostel no problem (it's really nice, not what I expected at all). Think we might go see pandas today.
-AL
-AL
Monday, April 20, 2009
Migrant School
Taking this opportunity to be productive while procrastinating from studying for my Chinese test tomorrow.
Last week was my first week of going to the migrant school to teach English. I believe I wrote on this way back when I first found out that I was going to be able to do this, but I'll refresh your memories briefly. So the students who attend the migrant school are children of migrant workers, or persons from outside of Shanghai, these are the people who do the lowest level work as street cleaners, street vendors and other work. For them Shanghai, and other cities that have benefited from the economic reforms of the seventies, is an opportunity to find work. However, wages here are not quite what we're accustomed to back home and they make very, very little. Normally these parents would have to spend an incredible amount to send their kids to school, even more than for a Shanghai person (it's messed up). And of course education is a means to a better end.
This is where the migrant school comes in, I can't remember if the students don't pay anything or pay very little, but it's much better than if they had to go to another Shanghai school. The school itself is unimpressive, a cement building with a few levels that holds about 700 kids grades k-8 (I think). They have desks, a blackboard, chalk and textbooks... that's about it.
I'm teaching sixth graders with one other kid who speaks much better Chinese than I do, but he's never done any teaching and I've at least taken an education class, so I guess we're a good pair. There's probably at least 30 kids in our class, maybe closer to 40, all sitting two by two in neat little rows. It's one of two sixth grade classes, apparently ours is the more well behaved one while the other fails to cooperate frequently.
So basically we kind of just threw ourselves into it, they have textbooks (we each have a copy also), so we picked up where they last left off and started practicing words for that lesson. The words they are learning are not exactly practical, but in theory they've been learning English since the first grade, so they should have a decent grasp on the language. We started off writing the words on the board, words like "whale," "quarter," "crop" (they kept pronouncing it as "crap," it was pretty funny), and about a dozen more. So it would go I would say the word and they would repeat, then we go back over the words that they didn't pronounce quite right. Then we played hangman, which seems to be pretty popular.
All the kids are kind of like a small army, whenever we wanted them to say a word they would shout it, closer to scream in many cases. Also whenever we called on them to pick a letter for hangman they would first stand up and then tell us... a little different from my memories of the sixth grade.
Going to give them all English names next week, I think they'll enjoy that.
-AL
Last week was my first week of going to the migrant school to teach English. I believe I wrote on this way back when I first found out that I was going to be able to do this, but I'll refresh your memories briefly. So the students who attend the migrant school are children of migrant workers, or persons from outside of Shanghai, these are the people who do the lowest level work as street cleaners, street vendors and other work. For them Shanghai, and other cities that have benefited from the economic reforms of the seventies, is an opportunity to find work. However, wages here are not quite what we're accustomed to back home and they make very, very little. Normally these parents would have to spend an incredible amount to send their kids to school, even more than for a Shanghai person (it's messed up). And of course education is a means to a better end.
This is where the migrant school comes in, I can't remember if the students don't pay anything or pay very little, but it's much better than if they had to go to another Shanghai school. The school itself is unimpressive, a cement building with a few levels that holds about 700 kids grades k-8 (I think). They have desks, a blackboard, chalk and textbooks... that's about it.
I'm teaching sixth graders with one other kid who speaks much better Chinese than I do, but he's never done any teaching and I've at least taken an education class, so I guess we're a good pair. There's probably at least 30 kids in our class, maybe closer to 40, all sitting two by two in neat little rows. It's one of two sixth grade classes, apparently ours is the more well behaved one while the other fails to cooperate frequently.
So basically we kind of just threw ourselves into it, they have textbooks (we each have a copy also), so we picked up where they last left off and started practicing words for that lesson. The words they are learning are not exactly practical, but in theory they've been learning English since the first grade, so they should have a decent grasp on the language. We started off writing the words on the board, words like "whale," "quarter," "crop" (they kept pronouncing it as "crap," it was pretty funny), and about a dozen more. So it would go I would say the word and they would repeat, then we go back over the words that they didn't pronounce quite right. Then we played hangman, which seems to be pretty popular.
All the kids are kind of like a small army, whenever we wanted them to say a word they would shout it, closer to scream in many cases. Also whenever we called on them to pick a letter for hangman they would first stand up and then tell us... a little different from my memories of the sixth grade.
Going to give them all English names next week, I think they'll enjoy that.
-AL
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Spring Break to Chengdu and Yunnan
Here it is, the long awaited plans for my get away. On Thursday evening April 24th I'll get on a plane in Shanghai and head to Chengdu in Sichuan province. Sichuan has most recently been in the news last year where it was hit with those devastating Earth quakes (hoping that doesn't happen while I'm there), but It's also famous for being the home of the Panda Bear, and having melt-your-face-off spicy food. So for two nights we'll be staying in Chengdu which is the capital of Sichuan where we will go see Pandas, eat spicy food and explore.
Sunday morning we fly from Chengdu to Kunming in Yunnan Province in SSW China. Yunnan borders all of the south-east Asian countries of Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), Laos and I think Thailand too so were pretty far south (should be warm ala). We spend Sunday just exploring and then first thing Monday we're on a bus headed to Lijiang, about four hours away from the capital of Chengdu. The main attraction in Lijiang: Tiger Leaping Gorge, looks beautiful, supposed to be some great hiking too. We're staying at an Eco-lodge overlooking the gorge for two nights (it's our most expensive accommodations at $7 a night). So that puts us at Wednesday when we drive back to Kunming for the remainder of our trip. Not sure what we're going to do in that time, it's apparently a pretty cool town. Then on Friday we fly from Kunming back to Shanghai with a few days left over to sleep and do the homework that we'll be neglecting while we're gone.
It's not Tibet, but I think it's going to be a great trip. Really excited for Tiger Leaping Gorge, and seeing some "natury stuff."
Hot and sticky in Shanghai this week.
-AL
Sunday morning we fly from Chengdu to Kunming in Yunnan Province in SSW China. Yunnan borders all of the south-east Asian countries of Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), Laos and I think Thailand too so were pretty far south (should be warm ala). We spend Sunday just exploring and then first thing Monday we're on a bus headed to Lijiang, about four hours away from the capital of Chengdu. The main attraction in Lijiang: Tiger Leaping Gorge, looks beautiful, supposed to be some great hiking too. We're staying at an Eco-lodge overlooking the gorge for two nights (it's our most expensive accommodations at $7 a night). So that puts us at Wednesday when we drive back to Kunming for the remainder of our trip. Not sure what we're going to do in that time, it's apparently a pretty cool town. Then on Friday we fly from Kunming back to Shanghai with a few days left over to sleep and do the homework that we'll be neglecting while we're gone.
It's not Tibet, but I think it's going to be a great trip. Really excited for Tiger Leaping Gorge, and seeing some "natury stuff."
Hot and sticky in Shanghai this week.
-AL
Monday, April 13, 2009
Easter in Shanghai
I think probably one of my misconceptions about China before coming here was that Christianity was not a significant faith for Chinese people. While I do not have exact statistics, I can tell you that there are a number of Churches in Shanghai that on Easter Sunday were packed with Chinese and Expats alike. I was one of the Expats who went to worship on Easter. Following the direction of one of my friends, we were going to go to a Catholic mass where we thought the service was in English. It quickly became apparent that this was not the case as we were the only foreigners in the church. Using a English telephone service called Shanghai Help, we quickly found a service that did offer an English translation, grabbed a cab and made it in time for the 10 O'clock service.
The church we ended up at was Shanghai Community Church, I'm not sure what denomination it is, but definitely a protestant branch as there were two women celebrants. The church was packed with people standing outside near the windows trying to look in. We sat in the balcony where they supplied headphones and had someone translating. The church itself is bigger than St. Saviour's but smaller than Trinity Church in Boston. The service itself was 90 minutes, including a 40 minute sermon that I cannot describe any other way than very 'Chinese.' During the course of the service four different choirs performed, singing songs all with tunes that I recognized, but very different words or course.
After the service we decided that Easter wouldn't be complete without some hot cakes, so we took off to a meiguo fandian (American restaurant) called City Diner, which is probably serves the most authentic western food in Shanghai.
Following a few hour break which involved going back to the fabric market for a Chinese project (ended up buying corduroy jacket while I was there), met up again with the SLU crew (all the kids from my school aka SLUzers) plus a few for Easter dinner. Since were all on budgets we didn't go to any of the more expensive Easter options that various restaurants were offering, but rather to Yao Ming's very own "Yeeha" restaurant, featuring Texas BBQ. It was pretty surreal feeling, felt like I could have been anywhere in the US (it was kind of nice), TVs with NBA games and the Masters being broadcast, the walls lined with NBA jerseys and cowhides and to top it off a mechanical bull in the corner. We all indulged in our western food then called it a night, completing what was actually my second Easter abroad (I was in Costa Rica two years ago while I was a senior in HS).
Happy (belated) Easter!
-AL
PS. Booked my spring break trip tonight, going to Sichuan and then Yunnan provinces, will provide details later.
The church we ended up at was Shanghai Community Church, I'm not sure what denomination it is, but definitely a protestant branch as there were two women celebrants. The church was packed with people standing outside near the windows trying to look in. We sat in the balcony where they supplied headphones and had someone translating. The church itself is bigger than St. Saviour's but smaller than Trinity Church in Boston. The service itself was 90 minutes, including a 40 minute sermon that I cannot describe any other way than very 'Chinese.' During the course of the service four different choirs performed, singing songs all with tunes that I recognized, but very different words or course.
After the service we decided that Easter wouldn't be complete without some hot cakes, so we took off to a meiguo fandian (American restaurant) called City Diner, which is probably serves the most authentic western food in Shanghai.
Following a few hour break which involved going back to the fabric market for a Chinese project (ended up buying corduroy jacket while I was there), met up again with the SLU crew (all the kids from my school aka SLUzers) plus a few for Easter dinner. Since were all on budgets we didn't go to any of the more expensive Easter options that various restaurants were offering, but rather to Yao Ming's very own "Yeeha" restaurant, featuring Texas BBQ. It was pretty surreal feeling, felt like I could have been anywhere in the US (it was kind of nice), TVs with NBA games and the Masters being broadcast, the walls lined with NBA jerseys and cowhides and to top it off a mechanical bull in the corner. We all indulged in our western food then called it a night, completing what was actually my second Easter abroad (I was in Costa Rica two years ago while I was a senior in HS).
Happy (belated) Easter!
-AL
PS. Booked my spring break trip tonight, going to Sichuan and then Yunnan provinces, will provide details later.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Chinese Opera
Yesterday evening I got to go to the Chinese opera for one of my classes. The opera is called "Dream in the Red Chamber" or it's also referred to as "The Story of the Stone." It's based on a book which is, as my teacher puts it, is the Chinese equivalent of all of the great western novels that you read in high school combined into one. We read the extremely abridged version, but the actual book is in five volumes and a few thousand pages. The book itself is part love story and part religious transcendence, but the opera only did the love story part of it.
Getting to the play alone was a bit of a nightmare, fighting the swarms of people in the metro heading home from work, but it was not nearly as bad as the opera itself. Nightmarish is the first word that comes to mind, it wouldn't have been so bad except what I thought was a two hour show, was more than three hours (no intermission either). Three hours of Chinese music and singing, which isn't particularly pleasing to the western ear.
I eventually couldn't stand it any longer, the seats were so close together that my legs were starting to cramp up and when I looked over and saw what looked like my professor being asleep I decided it was time to leave. Overall it was not a pleasant experience. Fortunately the school bought the tickets (which were fairly expensive), and I guess if there's one good thing, it was a really cool looking theater.
So, moral of the story, if your ever in China and someone suggests you go to the opera, DON'T.
-AL
Getting to the play alone was a bit of a nightmare, fighting the swarms of people in the metro heading home from work, but it was not nearly as bad as the opera itself. Nightmarish is the first word that comes to mind, it wouldn't have been so bad except what I thought was a two hour show, was more than three hours (no intermission either). Three hours of Chinese music and singing, which isn't particularly pleasing to the western ear.
I eventually couldn't stand it any longer, the seats were so close together that my legs were starting to cramp up and when I looked over and saw what looked like my professor being asleep I decided it was time to leave. Overall it was not a pleasant experience. Fortunately the school bought the tickets (which were fairly expensive), and I guess if there's one good thing, it was a really cool looking theater.
So, moral of the story, if your ever in China and someone suggests you go to the opera, DON'T.
-AL
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Small Problem
你好我的朋友们！(hello friends!) Finshed my midterms today, think they went pretty well.
So I've had my first problem since I've been here occur the other day. Stopping at the ATM on my way to class I pulled out my wallet only to find that my debit card was not where it should've been. Of course I searched my wallet before relizing the fact that my card was not on my person, leaving me to think that somebody who's not supposed to have it does, and has probably spent every dime to my name. Fortunately, thanks to technology I was able to check my account on line and find that no money had been withdrawn since I last used my card. So my card was either stolen by a bad thief who has yet to spend any of my money, or more likely I lost it somewhere (still don't know how I could've lost it).
Did a thourough search of all my clothes and room but to no avail. However I do have a second card that I normally use when I'm at SLU, so I still have funds availible to me. I figure for being here nearly two months if thats the worst thing thats happened, things are going pretty well.
-AL
So I've had my first problem since I've been here occur the other day. Stopping at the ATM on my way to class I pulled out my wallet only to find that my debit card was not where it should've been. Of course I searched my wallet before relizing the fact that my card was not on my person, leaving me to think that somebody who's not supposed to have it does, and has probably spent every dime to my name. Fortunately, thanks to technology I was able to check my account on line and find that no money had been withdrawn since I last used my card. So my card was either stolen by a bad thief who has yet to spend any of my money, or more likely I lost it somewhere (still don't know how I could've lost it).
Did a thourough search of all my clothes and room but to no avail. However I do have a second card that I normally use when I'm at SLU, so I still have funds availible to me. I figure for being here nearly two months if thats the worst thing thats happened, things are going pretty well.
-AL
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Change of plans
Ni Hao, taking a break from writing my IR paper to let you all know that my Tibet plans fell through. Guess I wasted all that blog space for nothing. In the end instead of the 8-10 kids we thought we had interested, we had 5. Combined with the fact that if we were going to be able to get back to school on time we'd have to fly at least one way, the costs and time constriants were just too great.
So Tibet didn't work out, but on the plus side I have a great excuse to come back...
Have new plans in the working, but I think I'll wait till I've bought my train ticket before I give you my itinerary.
-AL
So Tibet didn't work out, but on the plus side I have a great excuse to come back...
Have new plans in the working, but I think I'll wait till I've bought my train ticket before I give you my itinerary.
-AL
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Spring Break
This week for me is midterms (aka: no fun week), and while that stinks it does mean that spring break is just around the corner at the end of April. I have ten days to go just about anywhere in Asia that I want to (although they encourage us to stay in Mainland China). Some people are going to Thailand, a lot are going to Hainan, the Hawaii of China with lots of beaches, but I am going to Tibet.
Now if you don't know why going to Tibet is so significant, just google it and I'm sure you'll find plenty. The idea of going to Tibet arose when I first found out that we were going to have a free week to travel and it sounded awesome, but It's also about as far away from Shanghai as you can get (50 hour train ride one way), you need all sorts of special permits, you have to go with a tour group and it's expensive.
In fact when some of my friends talked to me about going they had found a tour that was reasonably priced, but it was also only for four days and we spent a total of 24 hours driving from one spot to the next, not what I wanted to do. I actually talked two of the three who were committed to going to Tibet into going to Sichuan instead which is where the earthquake was last year and also the home of the Panda. We were all settled on this idea, go do some earthquake relief, see pandas, eat really spicy food etc.... and then I told our other friend who REALLY wants to go to Tibet about this change of plans, and she, being much, much smarter and craftier than I talked me back into going. She made the valid argument that I've already come this far and that I shouldn't let $200 come between me and this opportunity. She also used three words: Everest Base Camp. I don't know the details of our trip but I do know that we spend one night at Mount Everest base camp, I don't care what we do before or after that is what I'm most looking forward to.
So we spent all day yesterday figuring out 1) what was the cheapest way to get there, 2) what was the fastest way to get there and 3) what we wanted to do when we got there. This process lasted for quite some time and involved dragging in Chinese students because apparently you can get better airfare deals if you book in Chinese as opposed to English. Turns out to fly from Shanghai to Lhasa (Tibet) was going to cost an arm and a leg, but we didn't want to waste four days traveling, so we were going to fly from Shanghai to Xi'an and then take a train for like 30 hours to Tibet and repeat on the way home which would've saved us about a day and was within everyones price range.
Turns out this was moot point because the best way to plan a trip to Tibet is to have someone else do it for you. So going with the recommendation of a travel agency a few kids who are doing a whole year used last semester we started getting quotes for what it would cost for four of us to go to Tibet including getting there, back and everything in between. With only four of us it was going to cost too much and it seemed that hope for Tibet was fading fast, and then we started recruiting.
With only four people it was going to cost a fortune, but with seven or eight people it only costs a small fortune. So what started out at four people quickly ballooned into as many as ten (not sure what the final count is).
So yeah, going to Tibet, pretty excited about it and I'll let you know more when we get closer and finalize everything.
-AL
Now if you don't know why going to Tibet is so significant, just google it and I'm sure you'll find plenty. The idea of going to Tibet arose when I first found out that we were going to have a free week to travel and it sounded awesome, but It's also about as far away from Shanghai as you can get (50 hour train ride one way), you need all sorts of special permits, you have to go with a tour group and it's expensive.
In fact when some of my friends talked to me about going they had found a tour that was reasonably priced, but it was also only for four days and we spent a total of 24 hours driving from one spot to the next, not what I wanted to do. I actually talked two of the three who were committed to going to Tibet into going to Sichuan instead which is where the earthquake was last year and also the home of the Panda. We were all settled on this idea, go do some earthquake relief, see pandas, eat really spicy food etc.... and then I told our other friend who REALLY wants to go to Tibet about this change of plans, and she, being much, much smarter and craftier than I talked me back into going. She made the valid argument that I've already come this far and that I shouldn't let $200 come between me and this opportunity. She also used three words: Everest Base Camp. I don't know the details of our trip but I do know that we spend one night at Mount Everest base camp, I don't care what we do before or after that is what I'm most looking forward to.
So we spent all day yesterday figuring out 1) what was the cheapest way to get there, 2) what was the fastest way to get there and 3) what we wanted to do when we got there. This process lasted for quite some time and involved dragging in Chinese students because apparently you can get better airfare deals if you book in Chinese as opposed to English. Turns out to fly from Shanghai to Lhasa (Tibet) was going to cost an arm and a leg, but we didn't want to waste four days traveling, so we were going to fly from Shanghai to Xi'an and then take a train for like 30 hours to Tibet and repeat on the way home which would've saved us about a day and was within everyones price range.
Turns out this was moot point because the best way to plan a trip to Tibet is to have someone else do it for you. So going with the recommendation of a travel agency a few kids who are doing a whole year used last semester we started getting quotes for what it would cost for four of us to go to Tibet including getting there, back and everything in between. With only four of us it was going to cost too much and it seemed that hope for Tibet was fading fast, and then we started recruiting.
With only four people it was going to cost a fortune, but with seven or eight people it only costs a small fortune. So what started out at four people quickly ballooned into as many as ten (not sure what the final count is).
So yeah, going to Tibet, pretty excited about it and I'll let you know more when we get closer and finalize everything.
-AL
Thursday, April 2, 2009
School
While I am abroad in a really cool place, I'm here not just to eat, sight see and have fun. I do take classes at East China Normal University in Shanghai through an abroad program called CIEE. I have classes Monday through Thursday (all Fridays off!) and take four classes.
Monday- 10-12 Modern Chinese History with Andrew Field, a Boston guy who first visited China in '88 and has been living in China on and off for about 6 or 7 years, speaks fluent Chinese (jealous). He did his undergraduate at Dartmouth and graduate work at Columbia (smart guy).
1-3 Chinese: Beginning 1 with Shao Laoshi, (Shao is her last name and Laoshi means teacher, this how we address all of the language teachers and some others as well.) Shao Laoshi is very young (24) but has been teaching Chinese as a second language for two years with CIEE. Shao Laoshi is orginally from Xinjiang province which is in the upper left hand coner all the way on the other side of China, where the Islamic ethnic minority Uyghurs live, Xinjiang is also known for their hand made noodles.
3-6 Cultural Currencies- A literature class where we compare western and Chinese texts with Amy Goldman. Amy did her undergrad at Princeton and graduate work at UC Davis (smart gal). She's lived in not only China but France and also frequents India. She has a lot of energy. She also comes from a renowned movie making family apparently.
Tuesday- Chinese 1-3
Wednesday- 10-11 Modern Chinese History
1-3 Chinese
Thursday- 1-3 Chinese 3-6 International Relations with professor Teijun. He is my only Chinese professor who doesn't teach Chinese. While he is Chinese he studied in Stockholm and seems to be as well traveled as any Chinese person (it's difficult to get a passport to leave the country). Speaks good English but his teaching style is very different from what happens in our other classes and from the US (good and bad differences).
So that's my class schedule, combined with Chinese homework, stuff for my other classes and lifting I don't see much outside of 'my' little corner of Shanghai Monday thru Thursday. But we do have long weekends so I try to take advantage of that and go explore the city.
-AL
Monday- 10-12 Modern Chinese History with Andrew Field, a Boston guy who first visited China in '88 and has been living in China on and off for about 6 or 7 years, speaks fluent Chinese (jealous). He did his undergraduate at Dartmouth and graduate work at Columbia (smart guy).
1-3 Chinese: Beginning 1 with Shao Laoshi, (Shao is her last name and Laoshi means teacher, this how we address all of the language teachers and some others as well.) Shao Laoshi is very young (24) but has been teaching Chinese as a second language for two years with CIEE. Shao Laoshi is orginally from Xinjiang province which is in the upper left hand coner all the way on the other side of China, where the Islamic ethnic minority Uyghurs live, Xinjiang is also known for their hand made noodles.
3-6 Cultural Currencies- A literature class where we compare western and Chinese texts with Amy Goldman. Amy did her undergrad at Princeton and graduate work at UC Davis (smart gal). She's lived in not only China but France and also frequents India. She has a lot of energy. She also comes from a renowned movie making family apparently.
Tuesday- Chinese 1-3
Wednesday- 10-11 Modern Chinese History
1-3 Chinese
Thursday- 1-3 Chinese 3-6 International Relations with professor Teijun. He is my only Chinese professor who doesn't teach Chinese. While he is Chinese he studied in Stockholm and seems to be as well traveled as any Chinese person (it's difficult to get a passport to leave the country). Speaks good English but his teaching style is very different from what happens in our other classes and from the US (good and bad differences).
So that's my class schedule, combined with Chinese homework, stuff for my other classes and lifting I don't see much outside of 'my' little corner of Shanghai Monday thru Thursday. But we do have long weekends so I try to take advantage of that and go explore the city.
-AL
Monday, March 30, 2009
Top Ten: China Edition
Here's my top ten things that I like about China so far.
10. It's acceptable to burp at the dinner table.
- Not to say that I do it, but I think it's really funny when my host mom and sister belch them out while we eat.
9. Cheap, cheap, cheap.
-- I told my mom the other day that we should forget about going to Bermuda for family vacation, lets go to China! Once you get here everything is cheap, food, hotel rooms, travel within China, everything (excludes Hong Kong).
8. You're a celebrity.
-- Anyone who knows any English automatically is interested in talking to you, if you have blond hair and blue eyes, they'll ask you to pose for pictures and hold their children.
7. Spitting is socially acceptable.
- everybody hauks lugies (spelling?) all the time. From middle aged men to college girls, there is no problem with spitting anywhere (inside in some circumstances is also acceptable).
6. Infinite cell phone service.
-- Good thing about communism, if they say they're putting a cell tower up, it goes up, ASAP.
5. You can get anywhere from anywhere via train.
-- It might take 52 hours to get there, but I can sit on a train and be in Tibet in a few short days, all at the fraction of the price that you would spend to fly a relative distance in the US (probably even cheaper than driving).
4. You never know what you'll see.
-- Just the things people carry on mopeds surprises me everyday, from oxygen tanks to barrels of water. I don't think there's a day that goes by where I can't say "never seen that before."
3. You can have a full sit down meal for less than five dollars.
2. You can have a filling meal on the street for about 50 cents.
1. Everyday is an adventure with new things to see with seemingly infinite places to go and explore.
-AL
10. It's acceptable to burp at the dinner table.
- Not to say that I do it, but I think it's really funny when my host mom and sister belch them out while we eat.
9. Cheap, cheap, cheap.
-- I told my mom the other day that we should forget about going to Bermuda for family vacation, lets go to China! Once you get here everything is cheap, food, hotel rooms, travel within China, everything (excludes Hong Kong).
8. You're a celebrity.
-- Anyone who knows any English automatically is interested in talking to you, if you have blond hair and blue eyes, they'll ask you to pose for pictures and hold their children.
7. Spitting is socially acceptable.
- everybody hauks lugies (spelling?) all the time. From middle aged men to college girls, there is no problem with spitting anywhere (inside in some circumstances is also acceptable).
6. Infinite cell phone service.
-- Good thing about communism, if they say they're putting a cell tower up, it goes up, ASAP.
5. You can get anywhere from anywhere via train.
-- It might take 52 hours to get there, but I can sit on a train and be in Tibet in a few short days, all at the fraction of the price that you would spend to fly a relative distance in the US (probably even cheaper than driving).
4. You never know what you'll see.
-- Just the things people carry on mopeds surprises me everyday, from oxygen tanks to barrels of water. I don't think there's a day that goes by where I can't say "never seen that before."
3. You can have a full sit down meal for less than five dollars.
2. You can have a filling meal on the street for about 50 cents.
1. Everyday is an adventure with new things to see with seemingly infinite places to go and explore.
-AL
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Beijing Parts three, four and five.
Sorry I've been neglecting my blogging duties, I'm always really tired when I get a chance to do so that I sleep rather than type, but my batteries are charged right now so I'm going to try and recap the last three days of my life for you in about 500 words or less.
So Tuesday morning was the big day, we were going to visit the Great Wall. Got on the bus at 8am and drove about an hour and a half through some small towns surrounding Beijing up into the mountains and to a very small section of the Great Wall. I say small section for two reasons; firstly the Great Wall isn't just one Great Wall, it's many Great Walls, that is to say they're not all connected, so it's impossible to just walk continuously on the wall without having to get off at some point. Secondly, the Great Wall is 2,000 miles long, we might of covered two of them.
I think I might have mentioned in an early post that this was the part of the Beijing trip that I was most looking forward to, and it did not disappoint. Where we were there were a few small villages, but no remnants of the vast city of 16 million people that we had just left, lots of beautiful mountains and other "natury" stuff (that's for you mom). Can't decide if it's more impressive that water carved the Grand Canyon or that man created the Great Wall. Very cool.
From there we drove through the country side for about an hour and visited the Ming Tombs where 13 of the 16 Ming emperors are buried, not that cool.
Wednesday we visited the Olympic Village, also very cool. We were able to tour both the water cube and the Birds nest (Birds nest is a lot bigger in person and water cube much smaller). We actually got down to the floor of the birds nest where we could sprawl out under a perfect sunny day. Kind of a surreal feeling being there after so many great athletes competed while I was half way around the world watching on TV.
Thursday we visited the Beijing urban planning museum which wasn't that cool but it did have an awesome model of the whole city. From the museum we went and checked out some old Hutong neighborhoods which date back to the Qing dynasty (200 years). We toured a guy's house, rode on rickshaws and visited the Drum and Bell tours which were how they use to communicate time back in the day before clocks.
Going to go check out some street markets today then we're back to Shanghai via train later tonight, it's been a great visit that has gone really fast. Hope all is well.
-AL
So Tuesday morning was the big day, we were going to visit the Great Wall. Got on the bus at 8am and drove about an hour and a half through some small towns surrounding Beijing up into the mountains and to a very small section of the Great Wall. I say small section for two reasons; firstly the Great Wall isn't just one Great Wall, it's many Great Walls, that is to say they're not all connected, so it's impossible to just walk continuously on the wall without having to get off at some point. Secondly, the Great Wall is 2,000 miles long, we might of covered two of them.
I think I might have mentioned in an early post that this was the part of the Beijing trip that I was most looking forward to, and it did not disappoint. Where we were there were a few small villages, but no remnants of the vast city of 16 million people that we had just left, lots of beautiful mountains and other "natury" stuff (that's for you mom). Can't decide if it's more impressive that water carved the Grand Canyon or that man created the Great Wall. Very cool.
From there we drove through the country side for about an hour and visited the Ming Tombs where 13 of the 16 Ming emperors are buried, not that cool.
Wednesday we visited the Olympic Village, also very cool. We were able to tour both the water cube and the Birds nest (Birds nest is a lot bigger in person and water cube much smaller). We actually got down to the floor of the birds nest where we could sprawl out under a perfect sunny day. Kind of a surreal feeling being there after so many great athletes competed while I was half way around the world watching on TV.
Thursday we visited the Beijing urban planning museum which wasn't that cool but it did have an awesome model of the whole city. From the museum we went and checked out some old Hutong neighborhoods which date back to the Qing dynasty (200 years). We toured a guy's house, rode on rickshaws and visited the Drum and Bell tours which were how they use to communicate time back in the day before clocks.
Going to go check out some street markets today then we're back to Shanghai via train later tonight, it's been a great visit that has gone really fast. Hope all is well.
-AL
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Part Three Beijing: Summer Palace
So yesterday (Monday) got up and went to this cool little cafe/library called the bookworm where we have all of our talks in the morning. Talking to us was one of my professors friends who is an American born Chinese but lives in Beijing today. His name is Kaiser and was and is a big part of the Chinese rock n'roll movement, he certainly looks the part also, long hair, blue jeans and a leather jacket he certainly looked like a rocker. So the first half of his talk was all about his story and the evolution of rock/pop/metal in China, then in the second half he changed hats and started talking about his life as an Internet guru and how the Internet has shaped China (especially the young people of China) today.
Following Kaiser's talk we headed out to the Summer Palace which is like the summer home for the emperor. It's pretty impressive to say the least. There's a great big man made lake that a few of my pengyous (friends) and I cruised around on in a paddle boat. There's also a huge stone ship that was built at the end of one of the Dynasty's (can't remember if it was the Ming or Qing) anyways it was built by the emperor's concubine who is basically blamed for the down fall of the dynasty.
Overall had a great day. Forgot to mention that for lunch in between Kaiser's talk and the summer palace we went to a western restaurant right by the bookworm where they had 1 quai wings. Anyways if you ate 40 wings you got a free t-shirt. A couple of my buddies and I couldn't turn down a challenge, only problem was we needed to eat the last twenty in like 15 minutes so we could catch the bus to the summer palace. It was a challenge, but we got it done.
-AL
Following Kaiser's talk we headed out to the Summer Palace which is like the summer home for the emperor. It's pretty impressive to say the least. There's a great big man made lake that a few of my pengyous (friends) and I cruised around on in a paddle boat. There's also a huge stone ship that was built at the end of one of the Dynasty's (can't remember if it was the Ming or Qing) anyways it was built by the emperor's concubine who is basically blamed for the down fall of the dynasty.
Overall had a great day. Forgot to mention that for lunch in between Kaiser's talk and the summer palace we went to a western restaurant right by the bookworm where they had 1 quai wings. Anyways if you ate 40 wings you got a free t-shirt. A couple of my buddies and I couldn't turn down a challenge, only problem was we needed to eat the last twenty in like 15 minutes so we could catch the bus to the summer palace. It was a challenge, but we got it done.
-AL
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Part Two: Tiananmen Square/ Forbidden City
So after getting off the train we met our tour guide for the week, Robert (he's Chinese but a lot of Chinese people have English names also), from there we got onto our bus and went and checked into our hotel (that's another blog) and had breakfast. This was all to be done in an hour and then be back on the bus to go to this little cafe/ library where we are going to be having guest lectures all week. Lecturing us yesterday was one of our professors friends who is an American but has been living in Beijing for the last twenty years working as a journalist for United Press International (UPI). He was actually at Tinanmen Square in 1989 when the Chinese army rolled in (I'll explain below for those not familiar with this incident). He was giving us a talk on the last 600 years of Beijing history and the different phases its gone through. It was a really good talk, but it would of been a lot better if the only thing on everybody's mind hadn't been trying to stay awake.
So after we broke we went to lunch (pizza, first time while in China), and then thanks to the begging and pleading of our class our professors agreed to let us go back to the hotel to take an hour long nap (a bit of a tease, but much needed). Following the hour to nap/shower/whatever, we were back on the bus headed to Tiananmen Square.
Tiananmen Square is most famous for the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, a lot of you probably remember this, but for a while there had been protests happening at the square when the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) rolled in and turned their guns on their own people, kind of a big deal. So the square is directly in front of the Forbidden city where all of the emperors lived since the Ming Dynasty (a long time ago).
Extravagant is one word that immediately comes to mind when describing the Forbidden City, huge is the other. It is 72 hectales (not entirely sure what a hectale is), something like 900m by 600+ m, with 8,004 rooms. You get in there and you just keep walking through these huge doors and it keeps leading to more and more city, it looks like it's never going to end. Of course all of the rooms are painted with unbelievable detail, stone carvings, everything fit for an emperor.
Finally, after climbing this hill overlooking the whole city, we climbed on the bus and headed back, shower, dinner, bed. Headed to an art district today, supposed to be pretty cool, I'll let you know how it goes.
-AL
So after we broke we went to lunch (pizza, first time while in China), and then thanks to the begging and pleading of our class our professors agreed to let us go back to the hotel to take an hour long nap (a bit of a tease, but much needed). Following the hour to nap/shower/whatever, we were back on the bus headed to Tiananmen Square.
Tiananmen Square is most famous for the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, a lot of you probably remember this, but for a while there had been protests happening at the square when the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) rolled in and turned their guns on their own people, kind of a big deal. So the square is directly in front of the Forbidden city where all of the emperors lived since the Ming Dynasty (a long time ago).
Extravagant is one word that immediately comes to mind when describing the Forbidden City, huge is the other. It is 72 hectales (not entirely sure what a hectale is), something like 900m by 600+ m, with 8,004 rooms. You get in there and you just keep walking through these huge doors and it keeps leading to more and more city, it looks like it's never going to end. Of course all of the rooms are painted with unbelievable detail, stone carvings, everything fit for an emperor.
Finally, after climbing this hill overlooking the whole city, we climbed on the bus and headed back, shower, dinner, bed. Headed to an art district today, supposed to be pretty cool, I'll let you know how it goes.
-AL
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