July 31, 2007

Beijing (CHINA)

Saying Goodbye to Beijing and More Train Adventures

At midnight I boarded a train for Shenzhen, the Chinese city bordering Hong Kong, and said goodbye to the group of Singaporean friends with whom I have stayed in Beijing over the past couple of days. As can be seen from the picture to the right, the Beijing train station was packed to the brim with people, and there was a touch of irony when Wai San stepped in gum (gum is strictly outlawed in Singapore to prevent just this kind of thing)!

This incident reminded me of the time I was waiting for a train in Shanghai, and a 10 year old girl pulled up her dress and squatted in the middle of the waiting aisle. "Kids will be kids," I thought, but when the mother stopped at helping the girl clean herself afterward I knew trouble was on the horizon. Sure enough, 20 minutes later the train began boarding and an entire train's worth of passengers walked unknowingly through the puddle of urine on the floor. Even though I was aware of this particular danger, I am sure there have been scores of incidents where I was the helpless victim. But it is best to take the good with the bad in China, and then it is easy to love every second!

July 28, 2007

Dalian (CHINA)

Closing a Chapter in Dalian

Today I began the process of closing out the life I spent two months carving in Dalian in preparation for Sunday's morning flight to Beijing. Other than compressing my entire life into luggage - a skill I am becoming quite proficient at - the other item at the top of my agenda was saying goodbye to the other REU students.

Knowing I would not be going back with the group was easily one the biggest downers over the past couple of weeks. Listening to the other REU students talk about all the things they cannot wait to do back in America was somewhat frustrating because they are things I would also like to be doing. It isn't like I would ever trade positions with them - backpacking across southeast Asia is a dream come true - but it was tough nonetheless. It isn't like I can go on and on about all the amazing things I am about to embark upon because if there is one thing I have learned from traveling it is that many people often don't enjoy listening to things they cannot do.

Also, it is beginning to get frustrating saying goodbye to friends just as quickly as they come into my life. I have kept in touch with everyone since arriving in Asia, but I still have a difficult time committing to strong friendships when I know in a few months I will move on to somewhere new.

My biggest fear is that: "First we make our habits, then our habits make us."

Maybe it is a good sign that these things get to me because it means I am not completely lost out here in Asia.

July 27, 2007

Beijing (CHINA)

Wrapping up my Summer Research

With the completion of my presentation this morning, my summer research is at last a thing of the past! It was a whirlwind finish if ever there was one, and I am in dire need of rest. I have been hammering out my research presentation and working through revisions of my paper for quite some time, so to finally finish was a huge burden off my back. I wasn't exactly stressed out by the whole thing - I knew I would get it all done - but it is nice to focus my attention on the next big chapter in my life: a 50 day backpacking trip across southeast Asia!

More information to come in the next few days.

July 25, 2007

Dalian (CHINA)

Clubbing VIP Style

This was my last week in Dalian, and I don't think it could have gone much better. My mornings were spent exercising with the hope that my body will be ready for the trials of life on the road, and my workdays have actually kept me occupied while I finish my 21 page research paper and corresponding presentation. The fact that research is keeping me occupied is no small feat as sitting at a desk working out engineering matters is hardly my ideal way to spend a day.

Every other day for the past couple of weeks I have been meeting two brothers from Guinea, Eddie and Schuster, and a Russianf named Alexei for pick-up football games. Over the course of playing and taking the piss after matches we have built a good friendship, and they talked me into coming out to sample Dalian's nightlife. I was somewhat apprehensive about coming along because clubs have never been my scene, but they told me not to worry because "Eddie and Schuster have a brother who is VIP."

That sold me.

We went out on Wednesday evening - ladies night - and started at the Shanri-La hotel's exclusive F1 club. I arrived before them, so I waited inside the million dollar lobby with live music, separate shops for Prada and Gucci, and enough money walking by to start a federal reserve. I didn't have to wait long as Alexei, Schuster, and a couple girls soon arrived. We were waived past security and went into the basement bar/club that featured a live Philippine band. There were three main performers - a short, chubby, gay guy and two stunningly attractive and scarcely dressed women - who were doing all singing and dancing on stage. Drinks were brought over on the house, and a constant stream of girls came over to say hello. Many of the girls were Russian, and despite Alexei introducing me to damn near all of them, they hardly gave me a glance or a hello. Alexei also took note of this and said many Russian girls are still childish in trying to act superior, and he only doubled his efforts in introducing me to people.

After a few hours at Shangri-La we decided to move on to a popular expat place called Dave's Bar. One of my American buddies, Gage, was camped out at the bar while his girlfriend (a bartender) spent more time hovering over him than she did handing out drinks. We didn't stay long as the bar scene wasn't up to their "standards", and after a few drinks we moved on to a sketchier night club that was overflowing with people, smoke, alcohol, and dance music. And as always, the group I was with knew everyone there.

My luck improved drastically at this club as people took the hint and involved me in everything. It wasn't long before Alexei found me a couple pretty Russian girls who were up for dancing and having a great time. We were all throwing down Jack and Cokes and Tsingtao beers on our "special tab". Life was great.

I met Alexei outside the club at 4am, and the girls I was with had to get back for their 8am Chinese lessons. Alexei promised I would have "better luck" next time (it wasn't hard to imagine what that meant), and he took me along with his girlfriend for meat on a stick. We each picked 15 different kinds and squatted atop 6 inch stools on the street while our food was cooked. It was a good way to sober up for the night, but God only knows what kind of meat I was actually eating.

By the time I reached my apartment the sun was already coming up, and I was passed out before I even took my shoes off. Being a couple hours late to "work" couldn't have been more worth it.

July 22, 2007

Dalian (CHINA)

A Singaporean Friend Visits Dalian for the Weekend

With only one week to go before "meltdown" (the submission of all my summer research), a Singaporean friend, Wai San, came to visit me in Dalian. Wai San was my next-door neighbor in Singapore, and after he and his brother saw how much I love traveling they both did the unthinkable - for a Singaporean - and took a summer off to backpack across Europe. This was the first time I have seen him since his return. I guess the whole "seeing new things" experience rubbed off on him because he is now interning for an American MNC (Multi-National Company) in Beijing.

I ended up showing him all the usual sights around Dalian, and doing so only re-iterated what a beautiful city this is. It is strange because I had never heard of Dalian before this summer, but amongst Chinese it is really quite famous.

In my mind,, the real highlights of the weekend had nothing to do with all the "touristy" stuff, but came from the kind of experiences that can never be captured in a tour itinerary. For example, on Saturday afternoon Ryan and I took Wai San out to play pick-up football at the brand-new fields near campus. The match was basically foreigners (America, Singapore, Guinea, Russia, Argentina, Nepal, and South Korea) versus local Chinese. I know "soccer" isn't very popular in the States, but it is the international sport, and the easiest way to make friends and earn other people's respect.

We decided to follow up the match with a Sichuan dinner, so Ryan and I treated Wai San and a group of Chinese friends at a local restaurant. As I have mentioned before, Sichuan food is my favorite style of Chinese cooking, and our dishes for the evening included: rabbit meat with dried chilis, tofu soup with vegetables, braised eggplant, a mixed dish of pig stomach, heart, and tongue with a spicy chili sauce, green beans, and diced chicken served with peanuts and peppercorns.

Eating all that hot food right after playing football was not the best idea, and my stomach has yet to stop complaining about it.

Wai San caught a night bus back to Beijing on Sunday evening, and he is doing me a huge favor by booking my train ticket for the 25 hour ride from Beijing to Hong Kong on August 31^st. So far, this train ticket is the entire extent of my travel preparations. It is somewhat reminiscent of when I embarked on my first backpacking trip - Shanghai to Delhi - on year ago to the day. Hopefully the experience will be every bit as rewarding because my willingness to plan certainly hasn't improved.

July 16, 2007

Dalian (CHINA)

A New Look, and Rules of Chinese Etiquette

I suppose you will have noticed the webpage has a new look to it, and as is mentioned above I apologize for any inconveniences while I have it laid out on the operating table for all the world to see. I am working on creating a better database whereby journal postings are sorted by month - hopefully this will make reading easier than the current method of clicking from page to page. Additionally, I am doing my best to create a comments section, but bear with me on this one because it is trickier than I anticipated.

I want to give a quick word of praise to Arsenal for defeating Barnet 2-0 in the first game of pre-season. I was desperate to have my fix of Arsenal, so I paid 8 bucks to register with Arsenal.com and receive a live stream of all pre-season matches. Although it seemed like a worthwhile investment at the time, the 90 match consisted of 3 seconds of actual football followed immediately by 20 seconds of laborious buffering. Making matters worse, I watched the match at a nearby internet cafe alongside hundreds of Chinese who were engulfed in either Warcraft or a computerized version of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR).

Yesterday afternoon I went out with my roommate, Ryan, and a couple Chinese graduate students to shoot pool. We played cut-throat for two hours, and despite being the best player I only won the first game. I should have followed the Chinese axiom that says, "a master never wins the first game."

Afterward, I met the other REU students and we took 20 of our Chinese graduate mentors out to dinner at a famous Sichuan restaurant that features a face-changing performance. This would have been my fourth time watching the show, so I instead opted to watch China battle out a 2-2 draw against a far superior Iran.

As for the dinner, I felt quite embarrassed because several rules of etiquette were clearly broken (I did not take part in the organization of this event). In case anyone is hosting a dinner for Chinese, please remember the following general rules to avoid appearing ignorant and losing face:

1) The menu should be passed around the table allowing each of the guests to order a dish of their liking. This is polite when the dinner is intended to honor those who are attending. The host should then review the selections and ensure the number of dishes ordered roughly equals the number of people attending, and it should usually be an even number.

2) Do not allow bottles of beer to go empty. Chinese enjoy drinking, and if beer is going to be served it is best to keep it coming. Additionally, a "ganbei" (equivalent of "cheers!") entails downing your glass when with friends, or sipping appropriately when in a formal environment. As tables can be quite large, touching glasses is impractical, and everyone should tap the table with their glass before drinking.

3) The host should order rice toward the end of dinner (unless it was ordered earlier), and ask everyone at the table who would like some. This ensures everyone gets enough food. Unlike in Western society, there should always be food left over at the end of dinner.

4) When eating at a restaurant that features a special variety of food (in our case, food from the Sichuan Province), it is paramount that the the specialty dish is ordered (in our case, a type of fish).

5) As for payment, the host will always pay for everything and refuse assistance from others. When going out with friends in an informal environment, one person will take care of the bill (and next time some one else will take care of the bill).

July 14, 2007

Dalian (CHINA)

Sushi and Keeping Abreast of Sports Stories

In preparation for life in Japan, I have been making it a point to eat sushi on a near-daily basis. Thankfully, it is not nearly as expensive an indulgence as it is in the United States where a meal will cost upwards of USD$25. In the past you wouldn't find me within 15 feet of a sushi bar because - barring salmon - I always believed fish tastes far better when it is cooked and properly seasoned. I don't know what has changed - perhaps it is an health factor or perhaps it is an ever-growing taste for the "real deal" - but I am now hooked on sushi bars and jars of warm sake. Now, if I can only find geishas for entertainment and hot springs for relaxation my "pre-season training" will be complete.

A few sports updates...

Arsenal Football Club play their first pre-season game against Barnet this evening, and it will be a welcome reprieve from the never-ending doom-mongering after Thierry Henry recently completed a USD$30MM transfer to Barcelona. It will be tricky finding a broadcast of the fixture, but I will put all my resources into scouring the internet, and if it is there to be found I will find surely it. Any thoughts on the new away jerseys, shown to the right?

In other news, possibly the world's biggest sports icon, David Beckham, was recently unveiled by the Los Angeles Galaxy as the marketing campaign to make US "soccer" as popular as it is everywhere else in the world. Funnily enough, his first comments were that the second most important thing in his life (after family) "is the foot - [**agent nudges him "You're with Yankees now, Becks!**] - is the soccer." It is a good thing he stopped at the second most important thing because the third was surely the USD$250MM he will receive over the duration of his five year contract. Either way, I will be going to as many games as I can when I get back, and I think it is terrific for the "beautiful game."

Lastly, it is a bit of a downer knowing Barry Bonds will soon break Hank Aaron's long-standing home-run record. My earliest memory of Bonds - besides the old playing cards from the early 90s where he was skinny as a twig (shown to left) - was when he connected with the ball and stood at home plate watching what he thought was going to be a home run. Instead, the baseball bounced off the right-field wall and he was damn close to being thrown out at first base. He is simply that arrogant of a person. More importantly, everything relating to the Balco scandal is shady (including Bonds' personal trainers who are currently in prison), and it is shameful that everyone knows he is a cheat, but nothing has been done about it - remind anyone of the OJ Simpson situation?

July 13, 2007

Dalian (CHINA)

And I thought College Applications are Stressful in America

Well, **brushes the dirt off the keyboard** it feels good to be writing again! Now, if I can only figure out what to write about...

I went out to dinner last night for some northeastern dishes (东北菜) with a group of Dalian natives who are on summer break from their studies in Hong Kong. As has been the case for quite some time now, I wasn't sure what to expect because I only knew one of the six people coming, but experience always takes over in such situations. It is strange what a difference an ounce (granted, an inexhaustible ounce) of confidence will make in a person; I suppose this is the advantage of having been through so many novel situations.

Over dinner I learned an interesting fact that has somehow escaped my radar: when applying for universities, Chinese students can only apply to one top university. This is obviously in stark contrast to (dare I say all?) other countries where one can apply wherever they like so long as they pay the application fee. Imagine the stress students must be under when trying to balance choosing a great university and being practical about where they will be accepted.

The problem arose recently when Tsinghua University (China's top university) had 73 students who were accepted and subsequently opted out of attending (most went to Hong Kong, England, or Singapore). For a world-class school like Tsinghua, this is absolutely unheard of, and the Chinese government wants to make sure such a loss of face never happens again...

Thank goodness I never had this problem - I applied to Georgia Tech, was accepted with a full scholarship, and that was that.

July 12, 2007

Dalian (CHINA)

Re-Establishing a Forgotten Habit

Sorry for the dearth of posts recently, but I have been stuck in a bit of a rut and somewhere along the way I lost the habit of writing regularly. It is tiring work keeping a journal going, especially one everyone can read – I am constantly editing what is publishable and what is best kept private. For those who know me well, you know I am a very introverted person who does not like sharing my thoughts. Thus, when I don’t have stories to share the webpage will naturally slow down. Plus, I am not a machine and constantly changing homes (and lifestyles) will wear anyone down.

Fortunately, things will start picking up soon (although it is not like research in China is “taking it easy”). At the end of July I fly to Beijing where I will spend a couple days going out with friends. Then, I will catch a 25 hour train to Hong Kong where I will stay with more friends and collect visas for my backpacking trip.

The destinations are the following (as always, I have yet to plan how I will do it all):

Hong Kong, China, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. Over the next few weeks I will highlight what is so amazing about each of these countries in anticipation of the prolonged 45 day backpacking excursion.

All this without even taking into account Tokyo, which will become my new home starting this September.

Maybe all is not doom and gloom after all.

I will post more regularly from now on.

July 02, 2007

Dalian (CHINA)

Build up for July Fourth Celebrations

Am I the only one who cannot believe July 4th is only two days away? Perhaps it is because I am in China and have missed out on all the build-up, but goodness: only two more days!

I remember spending my last 4th of July in the capital of Inner-Mongolia. After a day of horse-back riding through the sea of Mongolian grasslands, I bought a bottle of red wine and sat at a restaurant/bar on the ground floor of the newly built Holiday Inn hotel in Huhehaote (呼和浩特). Although I should have known better, I was hoping to find other Americans with whom I could celebrate.

The following sums up the extent of those celebrations: on the morning of July 5th I took a taxi to the airport, and after grabbing my backpack out of the trunk, I took the taxi driver aside and gave him the previously mentioned (un-opened) bottle of red wine.

Depressing, huh? Some time I will get around to telling the story of my 21st birthday and you will really see how bland my life can be.