Friday January 28th 2011

Today is January the 28^th. When we got to class to take our weekly proficiency test, the teachers wanted us to sign this document that disclosed the locale where we would likely pass the Spring Festival. At the end of said document, the teachers wanted us to date our signature, but they wanted us to sign with yesterday’s date. I decided it would be simpler not to say anything.

Thus, I took the test. It was a fine test, with numerous pitfalls attempting to entangle us in their many traps. However, I prevailed over my foe, and emerged victorious. I will save you the foreshadowing and the suspense; I made a 92.1. It’ll do, I guess. Then, I went back up to the room to contact the Western world yet again.

After making contact and verifying my existence, I went over to the restaurant where my classmates were eating lunch with the professors. The teachers treated us to a New Year’s meal of roast lamb, Beijing Duck, dumplings, Chinese yams, tree fungus, salad, sweet and sour pork, beef and peppers, soup, fried duck bones, Coke, Sprite, flower tea, and a host of other dishes that It don’t remember. We had all kinds of stuff left over, and I took three containers of take-out back to the dorm to keep in the mini fridge.

After returning to the dorm, I prepared for my afternoon interview trip. My advisor knows a former ACC teacher who is moving to Nigeria within the week to work for a company doing contract work on Nigerian ports. I wrote a set of interview questions, translated them, grabbed my gift and coat, and hopped on the subway about 3:55. It took me right at an hour to make it to the stop. Despite the unreal amount of people that were trying to take the subway – and being crammed into a subway car well beyond its intended capacity, I traveled 19 lengths of track and made two transfer stations in that time. While I can’t say I would want to do that everyday, it was fun to do for once.

The interview was great, and the guy – although he didn’t admit it himself – was pretty knowledgeable about the Chinese presence in Africa. I won’t tell you exactly what I learned just yet (that would be cheating, since I’ve not finished the thesis yet) I will say this: if the China-Africa relationship is just now starting to generate media attention and such, we are way behind on the game. China has been in Africa for over 50 years, and they have made a major impact on the continent, especially on African politics.

Then, I met Shazeda and Lee at a subway station north of the Forbidden City. I say that I met them there, but what really happened was that I waited at the station for about 45 minutes for them to arrive… Then the three of us set out to find this venue hosting a DJ from New York on the 26^th of February. They wanted to buy tickets, and considering how cheap the ticket was I decided to tag along.

After that, we set about finding ourselves somewhere to eat dinner. We decided upon a restaurant specializing in spicy food from the western provinces, and we ordered hot and spicy tree fungus, fried rice, kung pow chicken, and home-style tofu. When the fungus arrived, it came with some dipping sauce that appeared to be soy sauce. I – not expecting that the sauce could be anything other than soy sauce – dunked the fungus with alacrity. Upon placing the morsel into my mouth, however, I discovered that the sauce was not soy sauce, but some other type of incredibly spicy mixture that Shazeda would term “liquid wasabi.” Other than that, the meal was good, but for some reason it didn’t sit too well with my stomach.

Then, we began to determine the best way to return to campus. I am a proponent of the subway: it is cheap and moderately fast. My two counterparts, on the other hand, wanted to take a cab. This would have been fine if there were any cabs available for use. We were facing a number of obstacles. The first of these was the fact that it was 8:30 on a Friday night. Every taxi in this city was taking couples and business groups to and from restaurants and clubs. The second was that the Spring Festival is in 4 days. This holiday can best be described as Christmas and New Year’s rolled into one giant festival. It is a delightful festival if you are in China. Everyone is buying gifts for their families, taking friends out to eat, and generally acting very Chinese-ly. However, everything closes down for the holiday, and I don’t exactly know what we are going to do for food for the next week. Another thing about the Spring Festival season is this: it is the single largest migration of humanoids on the planet. At least half of the population of this country will be traveling somewhere to visit family this spring, and the majority will travel by train. More fortunate ones will travel by plane (should tickets be available), and less fortunate souls will steal and swindle their way to scrounge up enough money to pay off a truck driver or stow away in the back of a transfer truck.

These factors combined caused us to run around like morons for over an hour, trying to find a cab to take us back. According to my calculations, we could have made it to the school and back in that amount of time if we'd taken the subway!

A large group of people was preparing to go out for the evening, traveling to the Chao Yang districts many clubs. My stomach still did not like me for making it digest my Chinese dinner, and I decided to stay behind and guard the dorm from assailants. Lee also stayed at the dorm, and we did the only sensible thing to do at a time like this. We played poker, 10-Yuan buy-ins ($1.50). We played for about 2 ½ hours, but the others were nowhere to be found when I retired.

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Thursday January 27th, 2011

Today, I’m sad to report that there is precious little to report. I woke up and went to class, and was done with my first three classes at 11. I didn’t have another class until 1:40 in the afternoon, so I went over to Bally and got my workout on. Then I went back to class, where I met with my independent project advisor. We discussed an article that she printed off for me about Chinese investment in Africa, and we talked over a few of the new vocabulary words that the text presented. The information that I’m learning on this topic is so different than what I’ve seen in the States – but I’ll save discussion of that until tomorrow.

I took lunch after my one-on-one class at a Muslin restaurant at the West Gate. I’d forgotten two things about Muslim restaurants from the last time I was here. 1- They serve knife noodles, which is a delicious noodle dish with huge wheat noodles. If you were to put six or seven spaghetti noodles together, you would probably have the equivalent of one knife noodle. 2- Muslim restaurants serve you a lot of food. Thus, I had a moment of joy in the restaurants when I saw knife noodles on the menu, and I ordered the large bowl of noodles. In the end, I may have eaten half of the numerous noodles.

Then, I spent a lazy rest of the afternoon checking my emails and preparing my resumé for another round of businesses. A recent Croft graduate is going to help me find an internship through some of his contacts here in China. I thought that my calligraphy class started at 4 that afternoon, but it actually began at 3:00. Imagine that. I’m batting .300 for the after class activities this week.

So I retired to my room once again. Around 7:30, some of us decided to make a trip to the faithful ChengDu Roast Fish Restaurant. To my disappointment, our usual waitress wasn’t there, and I had to be satisfied with a boring waitress from the countryside. We made a meal of dumplings, eggplant, 1000-year-old eggs, spring rolls, and rice. Then, we all trudged back to the dorm in the freezing weather and studied for the rest of the night. I went over the review sheet, determined that I knew the lesson, and went to bed pretty early.

That is it. I haven’t had any great Chinese cultural revelations today. In fact, it’s been a fairly normal day – whatever normal is in this crazy country.

I’ll write soon!

Jamey

Wednesday January 16th, 2011

I woke up at 6:45 today, ready to eat some breakfast and read over the text again before walking through the 20o weather to my class. I demolished my first two classes, if I do say so myself. I have taken to writing new words that I’m learning, along with new grammar patterns, into a Moleskine notebook; it’s become quite useful. My third class of the day – debate class – was more interesting than usual. We were talking about cultural, political, and social aspects of America that China should seek to replicate. There is one girl in my class – keep in mind that there are but 3 of us in this class – who talks the entire time. And when I happened to say something about possible electoral systems that China could emulate (should this place ever democratize), the girl went into a 20-minute rant about how I didn't know anything about Chinese culture. It got so excessive that the teacher even tried to direct the conversation away from this fiery demon that now occupies the space where our classmate used to sit. And I might add that Chinese people have a HUGE threshold for things bothering them. I tried my best not to say anything directly to this girl for the rest of the class… Then I got some lunch at MaLan with Wesley and Vinod. I need to start getting the spicy fragrant noodles instead of my usual beef noodles. I was quite envious of their delectably spicy and fragrant noodles for the rest of the meal. I went to my one-on-one class with the lady who will serve as my independent project advisor for the rest of the semester. She was really great to talk to, and seems to know a good bit about the topic. I do think the project is going to be fun to work on. Then, I went back to the room to prepare for the next day’s lesson. I had to finish my homework early, as I was going to meet Richard Whitehouse (a recent graduate from Croft, and a member of the 2006 Flagship cohort) for the evening meal. At 4, I attended the Chinese Chess activity, and played a game of Chinese Chess that lasted entirely too long. Chinese Chess is designed to be a rather fast game, much faster than International Chess. This game lasted for over an hour. Then, I hopped on the subway towards where Richard is staying – not too far from Tian’An Men Square. Today has really not been my day; I took the wrong subway and ended up having to walk about 30 minutes to find Richard’s stop. We found a simple little restaurant not far from the Square, and we chatted for about 2 hours before it was all said and done. He’s been in China for 4 months already, and still has another 5 in front of him. I can tell that he’s been here a while, haha. He has developed the habit of chewing his food with his mouth open and smacking – which is entirely socially acceptable here, just a little weird for me. I have to give Kudos to Richard though; he really does try to fit in here. And I’d say he’s doing a pretty good job at it. I walked him back to his hotel, which is back in a Hu Tong, in the middle of nowhere. He lent me two books from his bounty of literature in his room. He would have given me more, but I don’t have the room to ship them back, along with the fact that most of them are written in inscrutable Chinese. I bid him goodnight around 8:30, and began the trek back to the dorm. I walked into my room around 9:15, did some homework, and talked to Shazeda and Joy for a little while before I hit the sack. Shazeda and I have made a trade: I traded her a bunch of bananas and some chocolate I brought from home for temporary ownership of her tub of coco butter. My entire body is morphing into a crocodile, and something had to be done, lest my skin is to fall off in sheets. This is something that I’ve forgotten to mention in my other journals: The other day, I got a message from Dr Gispen (the director of Croft), saying that I was eligible for some sort of mysterious scholarship from a reclusive donor. Well, he was exaggerating a little there. I’m eligible for the Taylor Medal, the highest academic honor that you can receive at Ole Miss as a graduating senior. I hope that me saying this doesn’t change my fate for this scholarship. We’ll just have to see what happens… Other than that, the Internet at the dorm is getting less and less reliable. I don’t know when I’ll be able to send this to the world, but I hope it’s soon! Love, Jamey

Tuesday January 25th, 2011

Today was not a good day for waking up. In fact, it was a horrible day for waking up, especially when faced with a lack of food in my room. I cursed myself for not going to sleep earlier the night before, but these things cannot be brought back once Pandora’s box is opened. I went to class, did my quiz, turned in my essay, and tried to soak up some more knowledge of the Chinese language.

For lunch, I went with some of the third year students to a jiao zi and noodle restaurant. Wesley, Chris, Leora (whose name I was formerly misspelling as Lauren), and I ordered 3 fers of jiao zi, and each fer had 27 jiao zi apiece. That gave us a total of 81 jiao zi – 20 apiece. It was a great meal, but the best part was that we only paid $ .92 for the meal, which I find incredible. We haven’t been sticking to the language pledge to rigorously, which I think is beneficial to my sanity. Nevertheless, I’m still learning an incredible amount of Chinse.

I went back to my individual class, where I was tutored by the only teacher in the program who grates on my nerves. She is a real stickler about tones, and I swear that she will correct my tones, even why I know I’m saying them right… But enough about that.

I headed over to Bally with Shazeda, and on the way, she wanted to look in a store that sells handmade dresses. She planned on making a purchase on the way back. I did my exercises, and headed back to campus to take a pronunciation class. I, however, like to translate the Chinese directly and call it my “speak out loud class.” When I arrived to the classroom, I found that I'd looked at the sheet wrong, and that my “speak out loud class.” Started a half hour before I got there. Imagine that.

So, I called Shazeda back, as she had mentioned making a trip to Carrefour – and I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. We started towards the grocery after I’d spent approximately an hour studying the text for the next day. We arrived at the store no later than 5:15, to a scene of total pandemonium. I have no idea how many people were in that grocery store on that day, but I do know this: I was about to have a freak out (as Amelia would say) by the time I was done. Cailin wanted to go with us but couldn’t. Thus, she asked us to get her some groceries and such. That was no easy task, as I had but 100 Yuan on my person and Shazeda 200 Yuan. Shazeda was like a kid in a candy store at Carrefour, but I can’t blame her. I was the same way when I discovered the wonders of the French grocery store. We walked nearly every square inch of the store, and she got a little of everything.

We checked out, and began to make our way back to the dorm. In the arduous process of checking out (I had to run back to the produce section and weigh all of the fruit, as we had forgotten to do so), our groceries were all mixed up, and we had to sort them out back in the dorm. By the way, I don’t think Shazeda has stopped eating the fruit and snacks since we got back. I do have good news: I have food and drink in my room now. Another update: the fish is dead.

For supper, Shazeda, Lee and I went to The Little Bean and got take out. I had to hurry back to the room and slurp them up before 8:20. I had an appointment with the teachers then, and our homework was a to do a little speaking activity with them. They recorded our voices, and I’m sure that these recordings will be scrutinized for tones and grammar in the days to come.

After this “homework,” I came back to the room and tried to stay awake until an appropriate time to fall asleep. 10:15 was appropriate enough for me…

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Monday January 24th, 2011

Class in the morning; oh bore! I do have some good news: my debate and one-on-one teacher is the balling Teacher Zhu. Being in her class made my day. After getting out of class, I called Morgan on skype and prepared to begin my afternoon. Cailin, Lee, and I were going to try once more to purchase the cell phones at the same market.

We were not going to make the same mistake as before. We took a cab straight there. I showed them around the market, and it was fun to see their expressions. I think this was their first experience in a real Chinese market. I was quite baffled on my first visit to one, as well. We made our rounds at the cell phone area of the market, and after muchdeliberation, they both found suitable phones. Both phones are essentially the same thing as mine: bar phones with a touch screen and keypad. Lee’s phone is pretty funny: every time you unlock the phone, it makes a sound like a sword being pulled from its sheath. Epic.

We also walked around some other parts of the market, and I amazed the Chinese vendors with my haggling skills. I’m no newbie. After one purchase that I negotiated for Cailin – a Happy Kitty wallet, not Hello Kitty – the people in the stall literally looked at me dumbfounded. I’d played their own game, and well. I have to thank my teachers at Ole Miss and the higher-level students for showing me how to haggle like a Chinese person.

Then, we took another cab to the school, and I headed over to Bally to work out. When I got done, I found that my host mother had called me, and she wanted me to meet her in her office on campus. She had a gift for me! She had bought both of her “children” indoor water plants, complete with goldfish to swim beneath. I had a momentary panic attack, wondering how I was going to keep the fish alive with no food, cleaning solution, or anything. She’d also brought a 12-pack of Qingdao for me (and as a matter of fact I’m drinking one now). I thanked her profusely for the gifts, and then carried my study materials down to Cailin’s blissfully warm room.

I spent the next two hours procrastinating writing my essay, and instead wrote some journals. After I could wait no longer, I began to write my essay. I finally finished, handwriting and all, around 1 AM. I wanted to collapse, and I did just that around 1:30.

I’ll write soon…

Love,

Jamey

Sunday January 23rd, 2011

Today I woke up without my alarm, which is good because I had it set to the wrong time. I asked Wesley and Hannah if they wanted to go to church with me in the morning, and they all agreed. I’d talked to Wesley the night before, as I lay in my bed falling asleep, and I wasn’t sure if I’d told him the particulars of the morning. I went and knocked on his door at 8:30 (as we planned to leave at 9), but no one answered. I tried to call his phone, and I returned to knock on the door again, to no avail. I had finally decided that he was dead asleep, and at that point, even if I woke him up, I don’t think we could have walked out the door at 9.

I met Bing Bing, one of Jesse’s good friends, who also goes to Jesse’s fellowship. Bing Bing is a senior this year, with a major in computer engineering and something to do with science. I don’t really understand all of that magic, so I won’t bother trying to define the ins and outs of her degree. After she graduates in June, she is going to the University of Massachusetts to get a Master’s in computer engineering. After that, she plans on living in China, which I find interesting. I would assume that Christians living in a place like China would love to get out. However, she feels compelled to stay here and minister while working. Her decision really took me by surprise and gave me a new perspective on the ministry. But, like all Chinese graduates right now, she is ready to go wherever her job opportunities lead her on the mainland.

We walked over to the subway station, and as we were boarding the train, I got a call from Wesley, saying that they were eating breakfast when I’d called. They still wanted to come along, which I thought was awesome. So we chilled on a bench in the station, waiting on them to arrive. With all members present, we hopped on the train and headed north to the ZhongGuan Cun station. The station opens into a giant fake electronics mall, where you can buy an assortment of Windows 7 operating systems for 10 Yuan (that's $1.50!), Apple Company iPhones, and anything else that your heart desires.

From the station, we walked over to the HaiDian Christian Church. The church is a monolith of a white granite building, sitting four feet tall (which I think is big for a church). Bing Bing says that the church was built to look like Noah’s Ark (Chinese pronunciation: NoYa’s Boat. I had quite the time figuring that one out), but I don’t see the resemblance. At the same time, Bing Bing says that the church is designed to look like a Bible when you open it. I also don’t see that.

When we walk up, there is a crowd of almost 500 people waiting in lines outside the building. This whole experience with the Chinese people amazed me. For one, none of these people were pushing each other to try to beat each other to the door (a common occurrence), and everyone was quietly waiting to file into the church. They were almostreverent when they walked in, which is an adjective that I rarely associate with these people. When we got inside the church, I found that the church could easily fit 1,000 people. Nearly every seat was full.

The Chinese service started at 10, and it proceeded in a fashion similar to the traditional Methodist service. There was a hymn, the greeting by a pastor (there were 2 – one man and one woman), a scripture reading from Psalms, and we recited what I took to be the Apostle’s Creed in Chinese. We sung a few more hymns, and then we listened to a sermon given by the woman pastor. I was a little surprised by a woman giving the sermon, mainly because I associate China with other conservative societies, and given my cultural lens, conservative services means no women in the pulpit. However, I had to remind myself of the impact that the Cultural Revolution and the legacy of Mao has had on this country. I would be hard pressed to find any good repercussions from this era, excepting Mao’s unyielding commitment to androgyny, which has lead this country to have one of the most equal male-female ratios in the workplace (in both persons and salary).

I was surprised by the reverence of the Chinese people during the service. I don’t know if you have ever been to an event with Chinese people, but they are the noisiest, most interrupting people in the world, with the shortest collective attention span when at group functions. This, however, was not the case today. The service continued, and the pastor gave a sermon on having a Biblical focus in the New Year, not merely having personal, financial, or health goals in the year to come. I thought it was a very good message. The service ended with a song, and the attendees filed out.

Then, we waited for the next service to start, as many of the people attending Jesse’s fellowship also help out at this church on Sunday. I saw David helping set up the stage, and I waved to him across the room. I was a little skeptical of this service, given my last experience in an English-lead church service. I was in Qingdao, where two foreigners gave a theologically unfounded message on the nature of heaven. I was most pleasantly surprised. The service was lead by a guest pastor who spoke excellent English; he’d spent the last 7 years studying in England. It was quite comical to hear a Chinese guy with an English accent. He gave a message that apparently almost exactly mirrored a Numa video about faith. The crux of the message is this: don’t give up on China, as the Father is doing great things through Followers here. And if this morning is any indication of that, I do believe that the pastor was spot on. It is amazing to be here and see this happening firsthand. And at one point, he asked the members of the congregation to hold up their hands according to how long they’d been Christian: over one year – about 40%; less than one year – 55%; and not Christian – the rest. That is insane! Over half of their church is people that have been Christians for less than a year!

Then, we walked over to a cafeteria in the basement of this building, where a lot of the churchgoers were getting lunch. Bing Bing bought us lunch at a school-cafeteria-style restaurant. The meal was great, and I was very thankful, but I ate warily, remembering my past experiences with la du zi and cafeteria food. There, we met another member of their fellowship, named Cancan (pronounced tsan-tsan). There, Bing Bing told us more about the church. It was founded less than a decade ago, and the numbers of churchgoers has only increased as the years have passed. As of current, there are 6 services a day, and each of those services has about 1,000 attendees.

We headed back to the school, and parted ways with Bing Bing on the subway. I bid her a happy New Year’s, with promises to make contact with the fellowship (of the rings) when they came back from vacation. Around three, I got busy on my homework, which was quite bountiful. About an hour into my studying, I received a knock on the door. It was Cailin and Lee; they asked me if I would take them to buy a cell phone at the place I went on Friday. I heartily agreed, eager to procrastinate in any way possible. I said that we could take off around 5, which would give me a little over two hours of studying.

At five, I met Cailin and we shoved off. Lee couldn’t come, as she was meeting her host family for the evening meal. This is where is gets interesting. For some reason, the entire city decided to go driving at this point in time. The roads were packed, and it took us nearly an hour and fifteen minutes to travel three miles by bus. I was about to go insane. Note to self: never attempt this feat again. We got to the market around 6:30, and the scene didn’t look good. We were greeted by a lovely guard who informed us the market closed at 6:30 today, and we’d better try again. I was so happy.

I was also about to eat a Chinese person due to my hunger, and we gave in at the first KFC we encountered. We dined on spicy chicken sandwiches, and strutted back to the dorm where we began the toilsome evening. I have an essay due on Tuesday, which is 750 characters handwritten. I do not want to write this essay with every fiber of my being, but had no choice. I finally crashed at 11. Done.

Saturday Pictures

Lee, Lauren, and Joy pose with the statues

Amazing Chinese Graffiti

The Main Hall of 798, with the Maoist slogans still on the walls

The group poses with a Decepticon

Saturday January 22nd, 2011

I rolled out of bed at 10:00, and forced myself to head over to Bally for a long run. I ran for an hour, at the end of which I was exhausted. I have not seriously trained for over 9 months since I came here. I have not been entirely negligent of my health during this time, but the majority of my exercise involved riding my bike. I finished exercising, and went to take a shower in the locker rooms. The showers were right next to the saunas, which although I have not seen in use, still emit a gratuitous amount of heat. The vicinity of the showers hovers around 90^o F, and I nearly lost my stomach after drying off, due to the heat of the room and my own body heat.

I returned to the dorm to find that I was one of two people that was already awake. The other was Joy, and we decided to round up the masses and make a trip to the 798 Art District. I ate some moon cakes, yogurt, and the last of my chocolate balls for lunch. I spent an hour waiting on everyone to prepare themselves, and even that wasn’t enough. We – Lee, Joy, Wesley, Lauren, Marianna, I – didn’t leave until around 2, which was very disappointing. We took the subway there, then bus. We finally made it to the district around three, after three people gave us wrong directions. We looked at the art for about 2 ½ hours, and I was newly amazed at the size of the 798 Art District. I didn’t see anything from my last trip, except for the Transformers and rebar lewd statues, which was a planned revisit.

Then, we took a bus back to the subway station, and took us literally 45 minutes to travel not more than 3 miles. I was bulging with impatience and hunger, but had to swallow my chi and wait. Then, we took the subway to DongZhiMen, and Lillian met us at the exit. We ate Hot Pot for supper, at the same place as last time. Joy, who incidentally has her own hot pot cooker at her house, ordered for us. We made a meal of lamb, beef, mushrooms, tofu, bean sprouts, cabbage, spinach, pumpkins and more.

After the spicy and fulfilling supper, the group began to disintegrate. Three of the girls in the group wanted to find a McDonalds, and use an international restroom there. And if I may echo Lee’s sentiments, if you did not, in fact, see a McDonalds or other international establishment on the way to your destination, chances are that there will not be one of those establishments on your route back. When we got to the subway station, Wesley and Lillian parted ways with Lee and I. They wanted to head back to the dorms, but I had a date with destiny. Lee and I headed towards Houhai, towards the most awkward and strange experience that I’ve had thus far in Beijing.

Define: (Chinese) bar – [n] While the generic term “bar” is used to describe establishments of similar function in China, these places have little in common with their western counterparts. Most bars in China resemble a western coffee shop, where one could order an entire meal, and listen to a band while relaxing at a table. Chinese bars are typically cleaner than Western bars, and considerably less noisy. You also do not have to worry about contracting a deadly virus from a Chinese bar. You might take your whole family to a “bar,” or your business acquaintances, in order to strike up a deal on an upcoming project. With that said, many Chinese bars present an innocent front in order to hide less legal – and possibly more seditious and licentious goings-on in the back rooms.

I found myself in one of these bars. When I went in, I met the owner of the bars, and he took me to meet the members of a band there. They seemed like very cool people, and initially seemed nice. I, however, couldn’t figure out what they wanted me to do while I was there. They kept asking me about songs that I knew, and I finally realized that there were trying to determine if I knew any of their band’s songs. Then, they asked me to walk onstage with them, and wanted me to play as their guitar player. I didn’t know any of their songs, when I got up there, and it was so awkward (keep in mind that I’m in front of about 100 Chinese people at this bar). Then, they wanted me to play my own songs. Playing with their band was fun, but their style was not at all like US music in general, or like any group of people that I’ve played with in my entire life. After two songs, I gladly relinquished the guitar to the Chinese guitarist.

It at this point that I realized they were looking to see if I could take the place of the guitarist in their band for the semester, which was entirely impossible. This feat was even more impractical when evaluating the make of the guitar that they asked my to use while I was on stage. In short, the guitar was horrible, and it was designed for a midget. The body was no bigger than a salad plate, and the whole thing looked like a child’s play toy. No self-respecting man should ever play a guitar like that.

To add insult to injury, one of the singers in the band introduced Lee and me to Michael, the craziest person that I’ve met thus far. This is how our conversation began:

“Hey, I’m Jamey. What’s your name?”

“Michael [indistinguishable last name]. I’m a Grammy nominated piano player.”

Oh really? That is patently stupendous! And he was so humble too. Thus, I tried another avenue:

“So where are you from?”

“China. I originally came to Japan to write the music for Hello Kitty, and then I came to China. I make guitars and manage this band here.”

Let’s break this down. First sentence is an obvious lie. Michael is a pudgy, middle-aged American, and he is one of the whitest guys that I have ever met. Secondly, I don’t think that there is any music for Hello Kitty. Thirdly, he tells us that his “company” makes all kinds of guitars, and that he won first place at NAMM (The National Association of Music Merchants, which is this huge convention for independent musical instrument producers). I know that this also must be a lie because he then proceeds to tell me that the midget guitar that I just used was made by his company.

We bounced as soon as we could, and headed back to the subway station, only to find that the last subway train had just run. Imagine that. We took a cab back to the dorm, as we had no other choice. By this time it was after 12, and Lee and I recorded a video chronicling the insanity of this day. You’ll have to watch it sometime.

Fell asleep dead.

This is the end of this installment. Stay tuned! I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Friday's Photos

Lunch: 

Tree Ears

Green Beans and Beef

Spicy Pork with Cabbage

Traditional Chinese New Year's decorations

Joy and Lillian at the market

Walking on the ice, watching people speed skate

Some guy dangerously riding his bike on the ice

Cute little Chinese boy on the ice

Me kicking jianzi at Hou Hai

Friday January 21st, 2011

I woke up at 6:30 with the intention of setting out to grab a bite at the No 5 Café. To my horror, the No 5 Café had closed for Spring Festival. Alas, I could eat no breakfast this morning either, as I had not allotted myself sufficient time to venture out the East Gate to find a vendor. Instead, I made a meal of AC/DC, Muse, Led Zeppelin, and other artists so that I could psyche myself up for the test. We began the endless challenge known as the weekly test at 8. At 10:15, I turned the test in, confident in my work, as must feel the warrior having conquered foreign lands. I strutted back to the room, jamming on my iPod in celebration. I Skyped the homeland, and played guitar until 11. At this time, I ventured downstairs in anticipation for the Chinese Table that will become a Friday norm for us.

The Chinese Table consisted of us waiting in the lobby, while the teachers deliberated ceaselessly about something beyond both my comprehension and my desire to comprehend. Then, we wandered around the neighborhood, looking for a restaurant for us to eat. By the time we'd found one, it was already 12 o’clock. One must accustom oneself to doing nothing quickly except construction in this country. We ate at a traditional Beijing Fish restaurant, and the greatest part about the whole meal was that the program gave us 20 Yuan to eat. Rather, the mother and father paid for me to eat this meal; the school merely siphoned off some money that we might eat together. We ate like kings, if I may say. 20 Yuan for a meal is more than sufficient. I took some photos of this meal (see photos).

Then, our teachers took us to a market, where they told us to buy gifts for our host families. As I had already purchased gifts for my family, I was not particularly worried about this activity. I was along for the ride. The market to which they took us is quite the gem. It must occupy a space no less than 1 ½ football fields end to end, and the entirety of the building is back to back stalls, selling anything that you can imagine. I would like for you, reader, to take a moment and think of something that you’d like to purchase. Then, maybe ask some friends to do the same. All of those things can be found at this market, and it is a haggler’s paradise. Nothing cannot be haggled. You could buy the bricks from the walls if you paid enough.

Lillian, Joy and I united ourselves as one walking haggling super-force, and I was in for a long ride at the market. What can I say? Women be shopping. We toured the facility, although not in its entirety, as this would have been impossible. I found myself at a cell phone vendor, dubiously perusing a second-hand, touch-screen phone. I haggled and fought my way into buying a phone for 150 Yuan, which is my second largest purchase after the fiasco on the first day here. That’s a whopping 23 USD, and may be the best $23 that I have spent here. I officially have the cheapest phone in the program, and if I may say so myself, it is a pretty sweet phone. I am in control of my own destiny with my new cell phone/alarm clock/gateway to the universe/self-defense device. I must note that the phone is constructed of what feels to be cast iron, and I could probably slay a goat。

After that, Joy and I decided that since we had some free time before meeting our host families, we would travel over to the Houhai area. We jumped on the No 13 subway, which is no way is a subway. It is very much on the surface of the earth. We transferred in the giant XiZhiMen station, and finally made it to the Houhai stop. The two of us sauntered over to West Lake, and Joy was amazed to see the entire lake frozen over. I’m not the only one who has never seen these winter phenomena before. On West Lake, we saw people speed skating, flying kites, and a guy riding his bike on the frozen ice. Then, just because we could, we walked across the lake, in the direction of HouHai. It was patently exhilarating.

Then, we walked across Hou Hai, and watched a hockey game on the ice. When we reached Front Lake, we found a not-so-seedy looking bar, a difficult feat, where a guy was playing guitar. I took my father’s advice, and set out to find the owner of the bar to ask is he would like to have me come by on one afternoon or evening to play. Sounds like great fun, right? Every Chinese person would love you, based solely on the fact that you were foreign, and you could play whatever you liked. Joy and I left in high spirits, imaginations soaring, as the owner told me to drop by and have an “audition” on the morrow. I was destined to be the next star in a musically faltering China.

We took the scenic route back to a subway station, and upon Joy’s discovery of the wonders of the Beijing subway, mainly the TV screens that line the track, we accidentally stayed on the subway for one stop too long. We walked back to the school, which was not very difficult, as the dorm lies at a point almost equidistant from two subway stations. Then Joy, Christina, Alex, Shazeda, Kailin, and I got some noodles from MaLan, and we had to rush to consume them in time to meet our host families at 7:30.

I made a quick run to the room, grabbed my book and Maker’s Mark, and ran over to the meeting hall. I was assigned to a family with Sandra, a first generation American born to Grenadian immigrants. Then, I met my host families. They were extremely excited about the whiskey and the book. Surprisingly, the father, or someone he knows, is doing research on Alabama, and he knows about some of the bigger cities in our state. My Chinese “dad” is a professor (or a manager at a firm, I don’t really know), and my “mom” is a professor at the university here. I showed them the photo album, which they really liked. At nine, they had to bounce to see their son “at a performance.” They never explicitly mentioned they had a son in our conversation, but I deduced that this son must exist.

Then, I just hung out at the dorm. Around nine thirty, I noticed rather loud music coming from the adjacent room, and considering I couldn’t think with the noise, I decided to walk over and investigate. All of the students were there, breaking the language pledge! It was fun to talk to them after a staunch week of Chinese, and we listened to music. All of the guys sung Tribute together, to the astonishment and mild horror of the girls present. Then, Lee wanted to make a Baijiu run, and I tagged along. This was, in fact, a ploy to evade going to the bars with the remainder of the students. This week has been too rough, and I couldn’t take a crazy night. What started as a short run down the street became an hour-long taunt through the city in search of the horrid beverage that the Chinese call Baijiu.

We made it back to the dorm, and Lee and I consumed a small amount of Baijiu while hanging out with Joy. Allow me to say that this beverage is stronger than I remembered and that I immediately regretted this action. And that is the end of that story.

One thing that I have noticed just tonight is that Chinese stores don’t stay open late. I find this very strange, especially considering that when we went to find a store, it was only around 10 PM. The only places that were still open were hotels.

Pictures from the Program Visit to Tian'An Men Square

Our teacher doing some form of Chinese exercise

Two of the program teachers

Catherine and Lauren

Joy and Wesley and JingShan Park

Me with the Venerable Chairman Mao!

Eating at the Muslin Restaurant (from left to right: Lee, Shazeda, Joy, Alex [above], Cailin, and Marianne)

RouLi Qiu, another Chinese exercise

Chinese people singing

Lee (left) and Cailin. This picture pretty accurately portrays their relationship.

Thursday January 20th, 2011

This morning was not a very exciting morning. It was class, and a hungry class at that. Yuki, the Chief Harbinger of the Alarm Clock, set it late again, and this phenomenon is making me want to purchase my own alarm clock. I’m able to pay a little more attention in class (haha), and in today’s classical Chinese class, Joy and I were together. I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous about being in the same class as her; she did spend the first eight years of here life living here, and her Chinese is amazing. Her Chinese inspires me to speak this language like a native. But surprisingly, Joy told me after class that she was nervous about taking class with me! She said that “every time that I answered a question, it was right, and the teacher ‘always corrected her answers’”. That is false.

I ate lunch at MaLan solo, and then came back to the dorm to change and head over to Bally Fitness. I ran and did some other exercises, showered, and came back to the dorm.

I had a date with Jesse and Levi at 4! I was quite excited about having them over to the room, and getting to know the two of them. I made some tea, cleaned the room, and in an afterthought, set out some of the dark chocolate that I’d brought from the states. It turns out that the chocolate was their favorite part of the afternoon. I think that Jesse ate four pieces in about 30 minutes, and I gave them more to take home. It was actually pretty funny when I told them they could have some chocolate; they said that they could buy Dove chocolate here in China. When I told them that it was dark chocolate, they totally changed their game plan, devouring the chocolate.

We hung in the room for about 2 ½ hours, and we played Christian music on our guitars, mostly stuff from Passion. They don’t really have a way to access any of the chords in China, and I was having trouble accessing the music on Ultimate Guitar, much less on CCLI or another site. So I taught them the chords to several songs, and wrote down the lyrics for them. I feel like I'm on the edge of something big. Jesse said that once she felt comfortable playing the songs, we would work on translating them into Chinese, which is amazing. The only downside to this is that the two of them are now on their New Year’s Holiday, and won’t be back to Beijing until the 21^st of February. So I’ll not have any updates on this news until the end of February; stay tuned!

Then, Jesse, Levi and a group of we students ate at the Legend of Spice restaurant. It was another great meal, and I will definitely have to make another trip back there when I have another chance. We ate fish sauce eggplant, Jesse’s favorite niblet corn fried in egg yolk, spicy stir-fry shrimp, rice, beef and peppers, and a few more dishes. Another great 15 Yuan meal.

Then, I bid Jesse and Levi a happy Chinese New Year, and thanked them for meeting me for the afternoon. Jesse is such a bold Follower, and she is so unashamed to share her convictions, even in this country. They both gave me a hug to say goodbye, which is quite the feat in China. The hug is usually reserved for the best of friends and family. Chinese people just don’t like the hug, especially with people that they’ve only recently met.

Then, I headed over to Joy and Shazeda’s room to study, so that I could evade my 62^o F room. It doesn’t sound that bad when you write it down (as I have recently done), but the temperature feels much colder when one is sitting lethargically in the room studying. Thus, I finished my test preparation at 12 o’clock, prepared to fall dead asleep. However, fate had other plans. Shazeda and I ended up talking out in the hall for about and hour and a half about everything from our lives back home, to literature (our love of which we both share), to life in the Deep South, and the insanity that is China. Cailin joined us at one point, and we finally retired around 1:30. I would like to note one thing about the people in the program: while not all of them are outgoing, and the vast majority of the guys participating in this program are inordinately bizarre (excluding a few), those of us to leave our own doors can all get along fairly well, and there is none of the catty-ness that one finds in the South.

Pictures from Wednesday

Shout out to Emmelle! 

Jesse and Levi

Eating at Beijing Duck Restaurant

Wednesday January 19th, 2011

This day has been so much better than the day before. Without further ado…

Got up with the intentions of having some spare time to go eat at the No 5 Café before going to class. I was going to eat some fried eggs,bao zi, and maybe some hot soybean drank. I was going to enjoy this meal. However, I suspect my roommate, Grand Harbinger of the Alarm Clock, of meddling with the alarm so that I cannot wake up as early as I plan. He says that the alarm went off at 7:10 this morning, but I got straight up, took a shower, and walked out the door only to find that it was already 7:45. Foiled again! I had to walk straight to class, and then do poorly on the daily little writing quiz. I do believe that they are pulling the words for this quiz from somewhere other than our textbook.

I went to class, learned some, got corrected a lot, and spent some time talking with my classmate from the land of Yale. I did so well in class that day I treated myself to a lunch at KFC. For approximately $3.25, I ate my own weight in delicious chicken sandwiches, French fries, and lemon juice. Then, I swung back to the room, put on my workout shoes, and booked it over to Bally Fitness, the best fitness center this side of the Yellow River. I had to run around like a moron trying to find the place, after receiving bad directions from the guard outside the building. This is what happened:

“Excuse me, could you tell me where to find the Bally Fitness Center?”

“Fitness Center? Oh yeah, down the street, on the other side.”

“…Okay, thanks.”

The building that said Bally Fitness was behind the guard, and I went to ask someone else.

“I’m looking for Bally Fitness.”

“Yeah… Go to that door at the end of the building, with the red banner above it.”

Done. I walk into the building, into what looks like a 5-star hotel.

“I’m looking for Bally Fitness.” Where can I find it?”

“Go walk down to the door with the yellow banner above it, find the elevator, and take it to the third floor.”

Done. I walk into this section of the building, only to realize that I’m in the hotel restaurant and if I look to my left, I can see the people at the front desk that just gave me crappy directions. I walk through the restaurant and find a waitress walking around aimlessly. She finally gave me the right directions, and walked into another section of the building, found the secret elevator, scanned my thumb, and ascended.

When I got to the front desk, I gave them my information and proceeded to pay for my membership. My card won’t work there. Imagine that. So, I truck it back downstairs, find a bank of China, and finally manage to take a run on a treadmill there.

The fitness center is very nice. They have showers, a sauna, squat toilets, free sandals that you can wear to shower in, hair dryer, and 24-hour hot water (wow…). The exercise equipment is also very nice. All of the machines are in English, which is great for me. Sadly, the treadmills calculate distance in kilometers, and I can’t make the conversions too fast. Also, all of the weight equipment is funny because it’s designed with the little Chinese guy in mind. I topped out the back extension machine, which is a feat that I could never accomplish back in the States.

Then, I headed back to the room for an extremely cold shower. I got ready to head out for the evening. I had finally talked to Jesse, and I was going to meet her at 5 at her school! I took what looked like the most logical course to her school, which was about a 25-minute walk from my dorm. I found Jesse and her boyfriend Levi in the gymnasium, after getting some help from a pair of students there.

Jesse is a bundle of energy. She is so funny to talk to, and she is excited about everything. I really like her. Her boyfriend Levi is a lot more reserved, and they are both extremely smart. They thought that I was around 25 years old when we met due to the beard, and I would have sworn that they couldn’t have been more than freshmen. We were both surprised to learn that Jesse and Levi are a year older than I. Jesse is a senior and Levi a junior. There was confusion as to the nature of my name, and they were quite thrown off by my teacher’s choice for my name (it sounds like a girl’s).

Our plan for the evening was to meet some of their friends in a restaurant on the 5^th floor of the shopping mall of doom – it was enormous – and there we would all eat supper. I met BingBing, JiaoJiao, WeiDa, and David. They are all Christians and attend the same church service in the neighborhood. It was very encouraging to be in the room with these people. They give me great hope for this country.

Dinner was great. They insisted that I be their guest, and I reluctantly accepted. We consumed Beijing duck, niblet corn fried in egg batter, more fried bread, beef and peppers, eggplant (yahoo!), and cold beef things, all with voracity. And for the record, last night was a very humbling meal for me: I couldn’t understand half of what the dinner conversation was, with all of the hip new jive those kids are using.

After the meal, we took the elevator down to the basement of the monolith, where I learned we would not, in fact, be skiing, as my email from Jesse said, but rather ice-skating. I walked to the counter, said “give me your biggest size,” and hoped for the best. In a strange turn of events, this rink actually had skates that fit me! Once again, I think I was the only mildly competent ice skater in the group, which is very sad. I skated around and tried to help them learn the art of ice-skating, but there was not much I could do. David fell no less than 20 times over the course of the hour and a half skating party.

After skating, we parted ways and took a cab back to Jesse’s school. They showed me the secret East Gate of the university, and I finally realized where we were. We were in the shadow of Jesse’s dorm, which was literally not thirty yards from the congee restaurant. Allow me to elaborate: Beijing has a population of no less than 17 million people. Around 500,000 (if not more) of these people are college students. Haidian, my district, houses the majority of these schools, but the district is huge, enclosing approximately 30 square miles. Jesse, the girl who came to Passion Atlanta and spoke, who ran into Morgan and Caroline on the last day of Passion, lives in a dorm that is a 5 minute walk from my own. This is more than coincidence.

They walked me back to my dorm, and we played a few songs on the guitar before they left. Right before they left, Levi said, “Do you mind if I pray for us.” Not at all, not at all. So we prayed in my room, and I escorted them out of the building. It has been an amazing afternoon with the two of them.

Then, I proceeded to study the wrong text for class tomorrow, which I would only find out much later on into the night. I’m sitting in my room, studying away, blissfully, when I hear a knock on the door. It’s Joy. She says: I’ve just finished having this really long discussion about Christianity with my friend, do you mind if I ask you some questions? Of course, I say, and then I tell her that I’m going to break the language pledge for the remainder of the conversation (I’m not even about to try to begin to explain the Gospel in Chinese right now). We stay up until about 2 in the morning, talking about salvation. This too is more than coincidence.

I finally finish my homework around 2:30 in the morning, and I die on my pillow.

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey