Doing the Chinese People a Disservice

   A couple days ago, Garett, Seth, and I went for a run to the lake and it was BEAUTIFUL. First off, we ran through a part of the city that I hadn’t seen before so it was fun to see all that and I can’t wait to go back. People kept on staring at us while we ran and it was so funny. When we ran past these police officers they started cheering and were like “Yi Er Yi Er” like “left right left right”. It was pretty great. But as soon as we got to the park area around the lake you could tell there was a significant difference in the air. It is so hard to breathe here sometimes. We all get colds and stuff from the pollution. Gross.

         We walked through the gate that is outside the lake and the park is so pretty. The lake is huge and there are these little islands that have a bunch of different stuff on them. But you could see the skyline of the city which was fantastic. And then there were these huge lily pads that are all over China. There was a big rock garden thing that we climbed on and this little Chinese woman asked us to go talk to her. She asked us who we were and we said we were American. She was so surprised. She was like “Your eyes are too small and you are too pretty to be Americans!” it was awesome. And she kept on squishing her cheeks and being like “your cheeks are so red”. She was a delight.  This sounds so vain…haha but I mean these Chinese people are just hyping up my self confidence. The other day I actually said the words “I feel bad when I put my hair up because I feel like I’m doing the Chinese people a disservice.” That actually came out of my mouth.

         We started exploring the park a little more and found this little building where all the surrounding trees were covered in red ribbons. Apparently during New Years everyone writes down their wishes and ties them on the trees. Or at least that’s what we gathered from the random man we asked who didn’t seem to want to talk to us at all.

         People kept on taking pictures of us, but we’ve found that if we stop everything and pose for them they either feel guilty and walk away or they laugh and we can talk to them a little which is always fun. (The other day a guy walked right up to me and said "Yi Er San" [one two three] and took a picture. It all happened so fast I didn't know what was going on). But wherever we are we feel like we’re really the tourist attractions because people will either stand far away and just stare or come right up beside you and stare at you and not say anything. Super creepy. But regardless of their obsessions over us, the people here are some of the best people I have ever met. They are so genuine and kind. Sure there are some weirdos, but for the most part everyone I have met has been incredibly helpful and kind-hearted.

        When we got back from our run we went to the red carpet restaurant, which is my favorite place I’ve eaten at. I had a Sprite and then really had to burp. I tried to hold it in, but it just came out right as the store owner walked up to me. I burped directly into his face. Which in Chinese culture isn’t too big of a deal, but I started apologizing and feeling super bad which I think scared him because he walked away paralyzed in fear and staring at me in horror. Slightly entirely awkward.

         Then we walked over to the pirated DVD store to see if they had anything good. I’m going to have to drop some serious money there because they have everything! And each movie is only 10RMB!! Which is like maybe $1.5 so that’s amazing. For some reason Garett bought Maleficent and we all decided to go watch it back at my place. 

         A brief movie review by Mackenzie Wilson: Maleficent sucks.

Madness in SiZhou

        This last Friday we had a class trip to SiZhou. We went on one of those high speed trains and it was so cool! Those things go like 270 km/hr. Madness.

         So we got there and went to the SiZhou museum, which I am sure is a really cool museum for a certain target audience that I am apparently not apart of.  So that sucked, but then we went and met with the other guys and Dr. Riep and his family. We all went over to this super big pagoda, which was really cool and really tall. And then we went over to the Silk Museum, which was just as cool if not less cool as the SiZhou museum.

         The best part of the trip came next. We went to the Humble Administrator’s Garden. Apparently SiZhou was a very wealthy city way back when during Silk Road times and they used their abundance of wealth to make all of these gardens. This place was easily the coolest place we’ve been in China. It was gorgeous!! But everyone was just standing around so Hannah and I went off and explored cause they were being lame. It was huge and spectacular. Best $7 I’ve ever spent.

         Then we just kind of wandered around. We hung out in a park and saw an obscene amount of cats. Then we went and got some GREAT guotie (pot stickers). Then we walked around and then went back to the train station.

         When we got on the train, my spot was in the middle and there was only the lady in the aisle sitting there. I told her that I think I had the seat next to her and she stood up to let me sit down. But then instead of sitting back down she just stayed standing…for and hour and a half instead of sitting back down by me. She just stood there with her friend and they were both smiling and laughing at me and then I felt uncomfortable so I was laughing at the awkwardness and we all just looked at each other and laughed at their obvious racism.

         View from the pagoda: 

              Gotcha.

       
          The spectacular garden:

          Classic China:

A Crazy Taxi Ride

         Okay so yesterday Sammy and I committed to staying in bed all day, but Garett made us be physically active. So Garett, Sammy, Seth, Eban, and I ended up leaving to go hike Purple Mountain.

         Sammy, Garett, and I got in this taxi and it was the craziest experience of my life. For the first ten minutes the driver just flat out stared at me (I was in the front seat). Then he finally started talking to us and asking us where we were from and where we were studying. Then we all started joking around and he was probably the funniest person I’ve met in China. It was so fun. 

         At one point we drove through a tunnel and the three of us started holding our breath. He looked at me like I was crazy and kept on asking me why I wasn’t speaking and what was going on, but I couldn’t respond because I had to keep holding my breath. He kept on laughing at me until we got out of the tunnel. He asked us what just happened and we explained that in America, when you go under a tunnel you have to hold your breath. He then asked what happens when the tunnel is long. I responded that you die. He started laughing and then asked why we did that. None of us had any answer for him. Then he started laughing and asked if he could turn around and drive us through the tunnel again to see if we could hold our breath, but we said no because he was already going the long way to spend more time with us. He kept on asking us if he could hang out with us afterwards and climb the mountain with us. Tempting offer, but we said no because it felt a little creepy.

         Also forgot to mention that originally we wanted to go to Purple Mountain, but he told us that it’s no fun so he convinced us to go to another place. We went there and it was a huge tourist trap. Pretty lame. And by tourist I mean only Chinese people but still. We basically wasted two hours there and walked around for nothing but I guess it was okay. But it was all worth it for the taxi ride. 

         I have no pictures of the event so here are just some random pixelated things.

Fun fact: this food was over priced and awful.

Every Party Needs a Pedophile*

       Some of the cutest children I have ever seen in my lifetime are in China. These kids are darling. And every time you tell someone that their kid is cute they basically have a heart attack. It’s fantastic. Here are some pictures of my favorite child thus far.

*I want to make it abundantly clear that this is a joke.

    

Vanity is my Best Quality

        Today on the train back from church this lady came up to Garett, Seth, Sammy, and I and started saying how pretty I was. Then we started talking to her and literally every other sentence was like “you’re so pretty” or “you’re so beautiful”. Then she asked the guys if they were also American. She was confused because I was taller than them. Then Seth and Garett started making fun of me for being tall and the lady was like “It’s okay because he (Seth) is fatter than you”. Priceless.

I Woke Up Like This

SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014

         Our church is from 10AM-1PM so we left at about 9:15AM because the taxi ride is about a half hour. I looked friggen hot, but that’s beside the point.

         Church here is on the second level of a hotel in some conference room. Apparently last week there were only 11 people in the congregation, but today there were about 140. There are 100+ YSA who came in from our program, ILP (people from BYU who are teaching English), Flagship, and then some other group.

         After church a group of us (Sammy, Garett, Seth, Jordan, Taylor, Michael, and I) all needed to go to Walmart so we got on the subway to go there and everyone else got off at different stops to go home. The subway was PACKED. It hadn’t really hit me how populated China is, but on the subway you can totally tell. Everyone was so close to each other and it was crazy hot. Also some creep pulled up  my skirt so that was disgusting and frightening. (Side note: I’m thinking about starting a blog called Being Sexually Assaulted in China because it has become a habit of these people--more examples available upon request).

         We got off at our stop and landed in the downtown metropolis of Nanjing. It is the coolest downtown I have ever been to. So many stores. They have anything you would ever want. People kept on staring at me. First they’d look at my hair, then they would look at my shoes to see if I was wearing heels, then they’d just stand there and check me out.

         So Walmart here is in a huge sky scrapper. The first floor is all the food and then all the bedding and other stuff is on the second. People continued to stare and walk closely behind me and take my picture, but I mean who blames them. I woke up like this.

     When Sammy and I  were looking at shampoo and conditioner and stuff people were standing around and then I saw multiple people look at what I bought and then once I walked away they ran up and bought the same things for themselves. Then when we were looking at laundry detergent this lady who worked there came up to me and was like “you should buy this one it’s really good!” (in Chinese) so I was like sure whatever I don’t care. And once I grabbed it she ran over to her friend and was like “Oh my gosh the American girl bought my product!” and was freaking out. Classic China.

         We walked around and found all of our stuff. The place was packed and crazy, but had everything we needed so that was good. As soon as we got our stuff we went back downstairs to the check out. There are these escalator type things that go really slowly, but let you take your carts up and down. So all along the sides of the “escalator” there are a bunch of merchandise. But basically it was full of condoms. Literally, buckets upon buckets of condoms. And then the checkout lines had piles of condoms and pregnancy tests. We figure all of it is because of the One Child Policy, but still it was pretty funny. The checkout line maybe took an hour to get through because everyone and their dog are sitting around waiting to be served. For having a billion plus people in their country China does some things pretty inefficiently (don't even get me started on their awful airport security system). 

         Pictures of our room. Notice the one bed. That would be because I sleep on the floor. Also, there are bars on the window so people don't scale the side of the building and steal all of your personal possessions.

Plot Twist: I'm in China

FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 2014:

Today I landed in China!! We got to Beijing at about 4:45AM and the airport was beautiful. No garbage anywhere. I think I dropped an orange peel at one point and a small woman ran up and cleaned it in 3 seconds flat. It smelled like that super sanitary smell that you only find in Jamba Juice and they blasted classical music—pretty high class.

We got to Nanjing at about 10AM and figured out the bus we were supposed to take and what stop we wanted. The bus ride was gorgeous. This place is beautiful. After the bus ride we had to take a cab to our hotel. Our cab driver was really talkative, but I only understood about half of what he was saying. Apparently at one point he had mentioned that he’d like to go and live in America, but it’s too expensive and he has no money so he had to start driving cabs. Seeing as though I forgot to tip him; I felt pretty bad after Garett told me this information once we got out. But this is China and I’ll never see him again so whatever.

We got settled in our hotel and then went out apartment hunting. We found one we liked that fit all 8 of the girls on the trip and then went back to the realtor's office to figure out the rent with the landlord. 
After we left there everyone was hungry and the general consensus was to go to McDonald’s. Because that’s what I came to China for…McDonald’s. We ended up walking probably and extra mile to get there and I was exhausted after all the flying and running around and wasn’t even hungry. So we walked in and I walked to the bathroom. I have never wanted to be a man more than when I walked into a room full of squatting toilets. I quickly turned around and decided I could wait until I got back to the hotel. There will be a day when I will need to know how to use a squatting toilet, but today is not that day. 


The view from our apartment window. It's only this good because we're in a 7th story apartment with no elevator. Love my life.

         Each major road here has this hectic bike lane that is basically for pedestrians, bikers, motorcycles, and anyone with a death wish.