Will was kind enough to pass along the journal entries of his first six days in China, May 24 – 29th. It would be a shame to skip this post- Will’s curiosity has afforded him experiences that are insightful and wonderfully humourous. Check it out, and don’t forget to check out the Flickr album (link is in the previous post!)
Sunday May 24th
My internal clock is still a little off. I am operating on pretty inconsistent sleep, but, I’m still fairly wired, mostly out of the novelty of the whole experience. Dude, I’m in China. I’m fairly certain I got swindled within the first 4 hours of my arrival. 15 Yuan for a game of pool–no way! I consider this a positive though. I taught me two things I’ll need to work on right out of the gate, getting around the language barrier (bu=no!), and raising my overall awareness. They will kill you with kindness and hospitality here if you are not careful and nothing is free.
Woke up at 5:30am here. Walked around the hotel and found the place to be dead. I had my first meal at the breakfast buffet today. It was a surprisingly rounded meal with eggs, sausage, some kind of Salami I have yet to identify, what I think are hardboiled pigeon eggs (still working on this one), some neat little cakes, and awesome fried rice which is completely different then American fried rice. This was a nice shot of energy. I’m ready to go for today.
That means it is time to explore! John, Jeff, Nick, and I set sail from our hotel around 8am to go explore. First thing I notice is the sun. It is going to be difficult to tell time for a couple days here. It’s 8am and the sun is directly overhead. I feel like it is noon right now and it’s still early morning. This is kinda throwing me off. So, we start walking towards the water. We can see the docks from a distance in our hotel room, we figured it would be a neat place to check out.
On the way we encounter our first flirtation with traffic here. The drivers here are insane. Pedestrians are even worse. The traffic circles have cars shooting off in all directions at 60kmph. We watch the first pedestrians cross the streets to see if there are any tricks involved. From what we gather the rule of thumb is to go balls out. If you are going to cross the street, then cross the street. If you hesitate, any oncoming traffic will take it as a sign of weakness; that they can blow past you without remorse. Another thing, it is common practice to stand in the middle of the road and wait for the opposite direction of traffic to pass. I’ve never seen anyone look so comfortable as a 1500 pound car passes 8 inches from their waist. The traffic circles are a maze of lane dividers and “pedestrian areas.” You have to walk out between the traffic and then stand in 3 ft. wide islands amongst a sea of cars, busses, and weird three-wheeled “trikes“. Needless to say, it is a nerve wracking experience. Oh, one final thing, in America you blow your car horn when someone does something stupid. Here, they treat car horns like some odd form of Morse Code. They use it to warn pedestrians they’re coming, to blow at the guy who just ran the red light, to say hi to their buddy, to order food, to curse the bus that just jumped 2 lanes, or to signal the car that is driving against the traffic they are coming. Drivers here do not care.
Monday, May 25th
Was walking around the city today when I saw something odd. I tend to glance into shops as I walk by them just to see what they are offering and if I may be interested. I had been searching for a watch to keep track of time, as my cell phone was on the fritz. Well, I glanced into the back of what I assumed was a pharmacy and saw an odd looking entrance in the back. Being the naturally curious person that I am, I slipped in and went into the back expecting to see a storeroom or maybe a back alley. I guessed wrong. Behind this pharmacy façade was a 5 story marketplace filled with every conceivable ware that one could want. Pots, pans, clothes, glassware, trinkets, kids toys, shoes, day cares, foods, jewelry, hats, statues, chopsticks, fabrics, were amongst this markets vast assortment of knockoff goods.
Then I found it. Along one of the path ways was a watch vendor. So, I ventured up and started looking at the wares in the glass case. Next thing I know an old lady creeps up to my side and the older man working behind the counter pulls up a suitcase loaded with, at first glance, look like rolex’s and other high end timekeepers. Next thing I know the old lady is yanking watches from the case and slapping them on my wrist. As she violates my arm I spy a nice looking “Patek Philippe,” I have no idea what this brand is but the watch looks cool. Time to bust out some negotiating skills. I examine the watch in attempt to show like I knew something at all about what I was looking at and then ask her “Doushou?” Upon asking her how much this thing costs she pulls out her trusty calculator and types in 450 yuan, about $66. I look at the watch further then drop the well-rehearsed “Tie-Qui-La” on her. This was way too expensive. So, I take the calculator and type in 40*6.8 and get 272 Yuan and show her this back. She quickly counter back with a 400 Yuan offer. Not wanting to push my luck, I agree, and so ended my first Chinese haggling experience, probably over paying for a knock-off Patek watch, that, as I found out later, did not respond well to humidity.
Tuesday, May 26th
So, this was my first time using traveler’s checks. Yeah, definitely should have reconsidered this. Evidently, if they are signed in front of someone who after-words reneges on their agreement, they become ill-liquid. Not even Bank of Construction, the bank in China that has direct ties to Bank of America, the same Bank of America where I bought the things from, will accept them now. Blower.
Oh yeah, I ate a fish’s eyeball and a chickens heart today. Allison just kind of poked the fish’s eye and the thing popped right out. The eye ball was surprisingly hard. Kind of like chewing on a ball with a soft outside with a thick rubber interior. It kind of got stuck in my throat cause you couldn’t chew it. It took a couple of swallows to get down. Otherwise, I’ve had worse. After this I ate the chicken heart that had been dug up from the mixed pot of chicken parts that we were served. Not surprisingly, it tasted like a piece of chicken. A very gamey, muscle-y piece of chicken that felt like it was beating every time you bit down on it. Eventually, I got through the though the outer part and tasted some roasted artery before I swallowed. Overall, I’d give it a 3 out of 5 though. It really wasn’t that bad, I’ve had worse.
Wednesday, May 27th
Went to the Dalian Forest Zoo today. The place was gigantic. The zoo was the size of small town. You needed to climb up a mountain on one side. If you wanted to get to the other side you had to ride cable cars over top of a mountain and down to the other side. This created an absolutely gorgeous view of Dalian.
So, I got the impression lots of things went on in this zoo that would cause people in America heads to explode. After we passed the birds that were chained to their sticks, but otherwise were just sitting out in the open (and not small birds, I’m talking about predators with some nice talons), we came across a tiger. This tiger was not in a cage. It was sitting on a table leashed to a 150lb. Chinese man who had two others in tow with him. The tiger was obviously young but was still sizable, probably around 250 lbs. worth of cat. This cat was pretty obviously stoned out of its mind in order to keep it docile. As we approached we found out that you could pay 10 yuan to take a picture standing next to the damned thing! Name me a place in America where you can stand next to a freakin’ tiger, I’m talking about petting the thing close. So, in order to make the thing look fearsome for a photo these 3 (or maybe 4) guys would sit the thing up and then hop behind a camera. One guy would wave a red pad in front of the thing and another would open and close an umbrella in order to mess up the tigers buzz. Dude, what the hell. I’m pretty torn about this one. My inner hippie was not happy.
Thursday, May 28th
Played my first game of basketball with some students today! It was easier to pop in a pick-up game here than it is in America and I can’t even speak the language. I just walked up and pantomimed a jumper and I was in. It doesn’t seem like the students here have played against bigger guys. We had a couple laughs about that. All-in-all the games were very friendly and everyone had a blast. The guys are some spark plugs, I didn’t see much quit in them. Overall, I was very impressed.
Friday, May 29th
Ate dogs blood today when Caouri and Eric took us out to a hot pot. It tasted a lot like good tofu. Probably one of the most nutritious things I have ever eaten. The whole meal was delicious. You would take pieces of raw meat and veggies and drop them in a small boiling pot of water and spices that was being heated by a small burner placed in front of you. It was very novel. We got a case of 22’s called Snow and made a party of it. I’m noticing that a lot of places are big on having customers cook their own foods. That sounds like a hell of a business model. People pay you to cook their own food.
