Hi everyone - It looks as though the Chinese internet censors aren't a
big fan of Blogger, so I'm switching back over to my old blog at
http://sek8586.livejournal.com (don't ask why they like Livejournal
better - I don't). But keep reading and please please tell me what
you're all up to back at home!!
Zaijian!
s.

Bound Feet, Baijiu, and Other Dining Adventures

I just got back from a weekend in Tonghai for orientation, which is a small-ish city where we had orientation. (answer to the weather question: it's actually really hot here, probably in the mid-80's or low 90's even. I hope it cools off, because I didn't bring many really light pants.)
So I don't actually know much about Kunming, our home base, but I can tell you about all the adventures we've had so far!

On Saturday, we saw an amazing performance by nine or so 80-year-old women with bound feet doing tai chi, and then tai chi with a sword. (The taiji form they did was almost exactly the same as the one we did in class in the spring, which was pretty exciting!) It was absolutely astounding to me that they could move so gracefully - but then I could also understand why bound feet were so prized, because the women with the very smallest feet seemed to have a sort of dignity about it when they walked that made them really beautiful to watch. Though it was also kind of painful to watch them, and especially bad to hear the official who brought us there talk about how foot-binding isn't as bad as people think, because it's the mens' job to leave the house and the womens' job to take care of domestic affairs. Then (and this might have been the best part) we all got in a circle and they put on music and showed us their version of disco dancing, which involved (understandably) very little foot movement... and really wasn't like our disco at all... but was really fun. Also the woman next to me was about 4 1/2 feet tall and her feet were at least half the size of mine. Pretty crazy.

Yesterday, we explored a mountainside with a bunch of old temples that were really beautiful and peaceful and really made me think about trying to spend my Independent Study period at a monastery.

Then in the evening was the real adventure. Because SIT doesn't want to seem rude, we had a big dinner with the Tonghai officials, where more or less all of them came around to our tables (separately) to sing a toast. (Their toast is in song form - I really want to learn it, because it's loud and fun and pretty amazing coming from drunk people.) And toasts were not just sips, they were mini-shots of baijiu, which translates to white liquor but is really like a very strong ouzo-type beverage - it isn't bad, especially after the eighth local official to come toast you.

The local officials totally drank us under the table, but it was worth it because we were treated to an impromptu rendition of Beijing opera, featuring a totally wasted lanky man with sideburns in the part of the woman (and his falsetto was mind-blowing). So it was a cultural experience not to be beat, and only one of us was even particularly hung over in the morning. So good times all around.

(P.S. I totally tried to drunk-dial you guys, but for whatever reason my phone wasn't working in Tonghai. So consider yourselves drunk-dialled in spirit.)

Today we went to see some more temples, which was nice, and went to a Mongolian village to have some pretty crazy lunch. Meaning, among 15 dishes on our table (all our meals so far have been an incredible amount of food) was eel. Not like the eel in sushi places. Like thin, maybe 10 inches long, curled up whole cooked eels of varying girth. They all have their mouths open, which I thought was pretty cool. To eat them first you have to pull off their heads, and then you peel away the spine (which has meat on it and is soft so you can eat it too), and then you have to pull out the intestinal tract, which is the only part you can't eat, and then you can eat the belly. The sauce was pretty spicy, so I can't really say if the eel itself was good, but the sauce was great and they were really fun to eat so I enjoyed it.

Also, they served us whole duck, including the head with the beak and everything, so for the entire meal we had a duck looking at us.

I will try to think of more things we've done, but so far these have been the highlights. My only complaint so far is that everywhere (except maybe Kunming, around the university area) smells like shit. Literally - their plumbing is really bad, so you can't flush toilet paper, so the dorm bathroom has a lingering bad smell, but worse than that, all the streets in Tonghai and all the little villages we've stopped at smell like human waste. Also, little kids walk around with butt-less pants, so there is often actual human waste in the street. It's pretty disconcerting, because everything else around here is surprisingly clean and well-maintained. There are also pit toilets more or less everywhere except the dorms and the hotel in Tonghai. They flush... but they're still kind of an adventure.

Another interesting thing is the way everyone stares at us when we walk down the street. It's like we're local heroes, only we also came from another planet and have really fascinating horns or tails or tentacles. And children often flee when we say hi. (They are usually curious come back, though - or at least look back at us, laugh, and run away.)

Anyway - we start getting ready for classes (getting textbooks, meeting our Chinese language buddies) tomorrow, even though they don't start until next Monday, so I'll have more news then. We also have a phone number where you can reach us in the dorms, if you feel like calling an international number and factoring in a 12-ish hour time difference (depending on where you're calling from). I forgot to write it down, though, so next time I come I'll try and remember to post it.

Arrived!

OK, the short version is: I'm safe in Kunming and my group is nice and things are all good. Lucky for you guys, I kept a little journal throughout my entire flight(s). So you get to read the unedited saga of my journey, beginning on August 30, 6:30 PM NY time:

6:30 pm
After not checking for liquids at all (why didn't I fill my water bottle?) we board for the 7 PM flight to LA.

7:30 pm Eastern
We've been on the runway for half an hour when the pilot announces that there are 30 planes ahead of us and bad weather to our southwest, so he's shutting off the engines and we'll be waiting for at least another half hour. No panic yet: we scheduled to get into LA at 10:30 pm (LA time), but the flight to Hong Kong doesn't leave til 2 AM. There's time.

In other news, A.J. Jacobs' "The Know-It-All," a book about how he tries to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica cover-to-cover is really amusing, and I'm about to eat a really delicious turkey-tomato-avocado sandwich.

8:00 Eastern
Damn that sandwich was good. As was the episode of Frasier I just watched. Still no news on flight status, though - I'm a bit concerned.

8:30 pm Eastern
We're cruising in the air, I won't be too late to meet my group, and I've got a quote from "The Know-It-All" that pretty much sums up this semester. It's by, of all people, Ian Fleming: "Never say 'no' to adventures. Always say 'yes,' otherwise
you'll lead a very dull life."

Also, if my life were organized alphabetically, it would be so convenient. The M for midlife crisis is even in the right spot!

9:30 pm in NY, 6:30 in LA
I got up to I for identity and realized I'd been reading too long to be very excited about wrapping my mind around such a vast subject, especially when the entry immediately following it is "illusion."

So I took a break to read the letters my parents wrote with the express instructions not to open them at leass than 30,000 feet. I was kind of hoping for deep dark family secrets but I wasn't getting my hopes up; what I really expected was more like the fairly ridiculous but not very surprising (or annoying) cheesiness of the way they stood outside security and waves their arms until I was all the way through the checkpoint and out of sight (they could be still waving their arms as I write, but I suspect they got tired.)

Well I can't say I was totally wrong about the letters - no dark secrets, your fairly artery-clogging dose of cheese - but they also made me happy in the way that only parents can really pull off, in the realization that after 20 years, they still haven't run out of new ways to say they love me.

So, thanks, guys - love you, too.

(Now if only that love really COULD sure jetlag or travellers' diarrhea...)

9:45 NY time
The first moment of boredom/neck soreness from reading on the plane has set in. Maybe I'll plow through the I's after all.

10:45 NY / 7:45 LA
Apparently Horace Mann's last speech included the following quote: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." Too bad my lovely high school of the same name operated more along the lines of, "be proud of your rich private education because the few of you who have gleaned some sense of social consciousness from this mess of Ivy-league college prep might eventually win a victory for humanity by donating some of your hard-earned corporate lawyer wages to Planned
Parenthood and spending Sunday mornings reading NY Times articles about genocide in Sudan."
Nah, no bitterness there.

P.S. The entry on Madonna? Way less fun than I had hoped.

10:55 NY
When Jacobs starts talking about monkey poop in the "manure" section and I'm totally unamused, I decide it's time to take a break from sitting in the same posture and watch some of the inflight movie.

11:00 NY
We pass over a brightly-lit metropolis. I pretend it's Minneapolis even though it probably isn't. Also, the woman next to me is watching the movie with no headphones. At first I want to offer to lend her mine, but then I remember the broken English she used to ask me the time, and I realize she's not listening because she can't understand anything they're saying anyway. I feel bad for her. Then I think: welcome to the next 4 months of my life.

1:00 NY / 10:00 LA
Hopefully not too much longer. I'm getting sleepy. Hopefully by the time we get onto the plane to Hong Kong this will translate into complete fatigue and I can get some sleep. My back hurts from this chair. Maybe they have free massages in the LA airport... well a girl can dream.

1:35 AM NY
Going down! I really hope the misty haze over LA is a cloud, but it really looks like a second atmosphere of smog.

4:55 AM NY / 1:55 AM LA / 4:55 PM Hong Kong
Aborad the plane and ready to go! The rest of the group seems nice and the seat next to mine is empty, so (fingers crossed) there may be sleep!

11:15 AM . 8:15 AM / 11:15 PM
I took a Lunesta and officially got 5 hours of sleep on a plane! It was glorious. Maybe I can squeeze in a few more after some reading. I feel like the world of sleeping on planes has been unlocked to me. (cue cheesy: "Thanks, Lunesta!")
Also, I got a cookie from the all-night snack stand and then I looked at the little screen and saw where the plane was. Through some strategic pacing of bites, I now have another statistically improbable thing:
- have eaten same cookie on both sides of the International Date Line.
Good cookie, too.

9:45 AM Hong Kong
Well, we're here - we've been sitting around for a while. Here are some trip highlights so far:
- sleeping on the plane. A definite first.
- Really tasty noodle soup in the airport.
- impressing views of a starry night sky, the mountains around Taiwan, and even the surroundings of Hong Kong: I'm excited to be back in December and be able to explore.

12:00 PM HK
Dragonair planes have multi-colored seats and you can see the mist from the air conditioning as it pours into the cabin.
In other news: I feel very non-Asian.

1:25 PM
Some more observations:
I knew what the man in front of me said when he asked for red wine. So at least I can get by in a bar... :)
There seems to be very little inhibiton about slurping noodles. This is good, 'cause the ones they gave us were damn slippery.
I'm almost done with my book. This seems suitable, since in my mind 32 volumes of encyclopedia is almost equal to 30+ hours of travel.
Maybe it's because I know I'm almost there, but this flight is awesome.

1:55 PM
Finished the book. Beginning our descent into Kunming.

Finally, I think, ready to be here.

------------------------

Now: Not too much to add except that Chinese food is amazing and they served us the hugest feast I have ever witnessed. Lazy Susan filled with plates. Overlapping each other in stacks.

More in a few days - we leave tomorrow for orientation in Tonghai, a nearby city.

cheers!
s.

Farewell, adieu, auf wiedersehen, goodbye, 再见 (zaijian)!

As promised, a last goodbye from this hemisphere! I love you all, and I can't wait to see you again in December/January - until then, I'd better hear about adventures. This keeping-in-touch thing isn't one-sided, guys.

And for everyone going abroad, travel safely! and when you're sitting on the plane wondering when your flight will ever end, just think of me and my 30-hour funfest. :)

Hopefully I'll be able to post semi-regularly from China - at the very least, to let you guys know that I've landed safely in Kunming - but if I can't, I'm sorry, and that will just mean even more stories to tell when I get back.

Departure for the airport in just a couple of hours... eeep! So I guess that's it. Have a wondeful fall! and stay in touch!

love,
s

Popping the Angst Bubble

OK, so you know how when you're overinflating a balloon, in the few breaths right before it pops you think it won't possibly expand any further, and then finally it explodes and all the air comes flying out?

Angst is totally like that.

Now I'm not one to go airing my relationship laundry all over a blog for everyone to see, so I will keep this short. There was a breakup, after a marvelous weekend which completely prohibits me from being angry or harboring any bad feelings (this in some ways makes breaking up even worse, but at least I will remember things well). It was more or less mutual (in that it wasn't my idea, but I agreed that it was the right thing) and based on the fear that I'd get back from China and we'd become one of those couples out of comfort and convenience (both of which were/are abundant) that don't have the relationship "stuff" and eventually fizzle out to a slow and painful death. So that's the short version.

Obviously the whole thing was totally awful and not fun and I was really unhappy, not to mention the fact that none of my friends were picking up their phones so I couldn't get any of that "he is so not good enough for you" stuff that always makes things better.

On the other hand, there has been this big bubble of fear and anxiety, all centered around going to China (but less really about going to China than about leaving home), that was finally pushed over the threshold by this new little angst fiesta and has now totally exploded. So yes, the breakup is still a downer, and I'm still a little perturbed by the fact that I don't know where I'm going to be sleeping my first night in Kunming, but all the pent-up ickiness has been let out into the ether for someone else to enjoy, and instead there is room in my little emotional space for excitement. Therefore:

I'm getting on a plane to China in less than 20 hours! This is going to be totally incredible!

And of course wonderfully, thrillingly, terrifying and angst-ridden. :)

I've got a whole day of laundry and packing to do tomorrow, so it's off to bed for me. One more post on this side of the Pacific!

Killing Time

It's gotten to the point where I've done pretty much everything I have to do, seen pretty much everyone I need to see, and have a rough idea of what I need to pack. And yet there are two whole days until I leave. I've also said goodbye to almost everyone I need to say goodbye to, so calling them up and doing the goodbye thing again, just because I'm bored, feels like beating a proverbially dead horse. This is the worst part of traveling, I think - the waiting around with nothing to do and no one to talk to before you go. So then I just sit around and think about the other people I still need to talk to one more time, and plan out when I'm going to fit them into my incredibly busy schedule, and miss them a lot in the meantime, which also is neither productive nor fun.

Things I have been doing to kill time until I go:
- look briefly at lists of Chinese characters and decide I should just review them on the plane, because what else am I going to do for 30 hours.
- look up hostel listings in Hong Kong and decide it's useless to do this now, when I won't even be in Hong Kong until mid-December.
- kick my parents' butt at Scrabble. Not as gratifying as it sounds, given that it's travel Scrabble and kind of ugly to look at.
- watch videos online, inluding (but not limited to) this amazing sneezing baby panda.
- read. I finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami in 3 days. It was really good, I give it top marks for readability, intriguing plot structure, and smartness.
- exercise. But time-killing exercise is so much less fun than, say, aikido. Aikido is tiring because you fly around the room. Running on the elliptical machine is tiring because there's nothing else to do, and there's only so much time you can watch the calorie counter slowly go up while distracting yourself with bad TV shows. And believe me, TV shows really prove how terrible they are when you're relying on them as a distraction from what is perhaps the most boring form of exercise ever. (There's a lot you can say about "Lost," but one thing is that it's really good for exercising to - lots of cuts, lots of cheap thrills and intrigue. "Pirates of the Caribbean," on the other hand, is not. The action sequences are too protracted.)

So I guess what I'm saying is, it is time to go. I can't even say I'm more than just fleetingly excited for this trip, because I'm so brain-dead from all this waiting around, but I am very twitchy to get going. Oh, and if you wanted to talk to me before I left, now's your chance to call (it will make me very happy).

And the moral of the story is:
You can try to kill time all you want, but in the end it
Just.
Won't.
Die.

10 statistically improbable things about me

Saw this on another blog, thought it was a cool idea (basically, things I've done that most other people haven't). Except that my life isn't particularly extraordinary, so digging things up is very challenging. Especially when I'm cutting out all the not-safe-for-parents things I could put up here (there goes Paris...) Uh, just kidding.

1. Been on reality TV. (Un-glamorously. It's not as cool as you'd think.)
2. Was in Alaska on the longest day of the year.
3. Climbed a mountain at 2 AM while it was still light out.
4. Saw a grizzly bear in the wild (same trip as #2 & 3).
5. Had dreadlocks for 2 1/2 years.
6. Have had meaningful relationships with 4 guys of the same name - this includes the guy who spent 3 weeks putting in my dreads and the 2-year-old I babysat this summer, but those are both pretty meaningful, in their own way :)
7. Came very close to getting tear gassed by a bunch of cops on horses.
8. Biked 110 miles in a day (and didn't regret it!)
9. Been compared to Claire Danes, the White Witch (of Narnia fame), and Sonic the Hedgehog.
10. Have an irrational fear of water. (Not like the shower. Like large unknown bodies of water.)

Now I feel so prepared for the "2 Truths and a Lie" that's inevitably going to come up on the flight to China. I just need to think up some good lies about myself!

Also, this is totally off-topic, but I was in the Museum of Natural History today, and overheard a funny little piece of conversation.
SCENE: In front of the polar bear diorama.
Enter mother and 4- or 5-year-old daughter.
Mother: Look, there's the polar bear!
Daughter (points to dead seal at the bear's feet, complete with realistically blood-spattered snow): ...and there's it's baby!

Imagine explaining that to your kid.