China? China!

I can’t believe I have less than three weeks left in China. I leave China on the 13th of December and after that I’m going to Japan for a week (We have yet to figure out where we’re going, but it should be a pretty awesome trip!)

Anyway I’m trying not to think of the limited amount of time I have left here and all the things I’m going to miss (getting three delicious oranges every day for 1.6 kuai, or around 25 cents US, oversized bike ponchos that people put on when it rains, hearing chinese guys spit giant lugeys on the sidewalk) - but I’ll post all that stuff another time.

A few weeks ago a bunch of us went to Hainan Island, which is a tropical island in the south. We left on a Thursday night since we didn’t have class that Friday and got in really late. We spent our first night in Haikou, the town we flew into, and the next morning we took a four hour cab ride to Sanya (we found out that it would have been much better to fly into Sanya but the guy helping us plan our trip and get our plane tickets didn’t really help us out there. oh well.). Sanya is where the gorgeous beaches are - these beaches were pure and clean with wonderful blue water and surrounded by green mountains. There were people parasailing and jetskiing and just plain swimming in the beautiful water. We were able to find plenty of empty sections of beach, though - none of it was too overcrowded. It was fantastic.

Our hostel was fantastic, too. They had a lot of organized trips you could participate in, and on our first beach day a group of us went for a scuba diving lesson. The guy who drove us to the beach from the hostel was named Peter and he gave us our short “lesson”, which basically just consisted of telling us how to breathe through the scuba diving apparatus. For the rest of the actual scuba diving, we were each paired with a Chinese diver. We all made awkward Chinese conversation with our divers while they were helping us with our tanks. Once we were underwater they handed us shells and pointed out fish and showed us neat underwater things to look at. The actual reef wasn’t breathtaking, but it was still a fun experience.

There were lots of Russian tourists in Sanya, and all the Chinese people trying to sell us things would ask if we were Russian. I thought it was really funny when fruit peddlers or guys trying to sell illegal cab rides would see some of us walking in the street and wouldn’t be sure what language to speak to us in. They would just gesture to your product and try and get you to come over, or try English and then Russian.

The second day we were there we went to the Sanya Nantian Hot Spring through another deal with our hostel. The hot spring was pretty similar to the one I went to on the high school trip I took to Costa Rica. It was a huge outdoor spa where they give you tea and fresh towels and you walk around on paved paths to find different pools to relax in. Some pools are hotter, some are colder, and most of them have funny names. We enjoyed the “coffee pool” which had brown water that smelled like coffee, the “fragrant liquor pool” which was pretty fragrant, and the “fish therapy” pool where tiny fish nibble off your dead skin cells. There were also more poetic names, all displayed in English as well as Chinese and sort-of mistranslated, having to do with the moon and dragons and lovers or whatever.

Since we were on an island we decided we had to have seafood for dinner, so we ordered some tasty clams. We also ordered starfish, which I thought was disgusting. Like chewing on rubber bands. The other night we were there we went to this excellent pub restaurant, where the guys were satisfied with being able to watch widescreen sports and we were all satisfied with the huge menu of foreign foods. We ordered cheeseburgers, pasta, pizza, and nachos and ate a ton. The cheeseburger I ate rivaled ones I’ve eaten in the US, no joke. Tasty stuff.

Last weekend a few of us took a trip to Huang Shan (Mount Huang). We’d been planning to do that one for a while, but the weather hadn’t been very good for why we were going: to hike for a few days and watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain, which is supposed to be one of the particularly scenic tourist things to do in China. It was pretty cold when we went but the hiking warmed us up - we took the “more difficult path” which was supposed to be a 6 hour hike. There were a bunch of different peaks to explore - we couldn’t get to Jade peak because it was closed due to weather, which was unfortunate because that is supposed to be one of the better ones. So we just spent the weekend hiking up and down the steep steep stairs (China doesn’t have natural mountain paths, it has touristy granite stairs that are rough going if they’re steep and you’re climbing for hours at a time).

That night we watched (or tried to watch) the sunset at the top of the mountain. We played shuangkou, the Chinese card game our teacher taught us, while we waited to see if the clouds would pass over us so we could see the sunset. The clouds were all really fast-moving but we didn’t exactly see the sun go down. But that was okay.

After checking the weather for the next morning we decided to stay at a (really dingy and gross) hotel at the top in a room full of bunk beds of Chinese tourists, and we got up at 6am (well, 5am everyone in China is an early riser and they all woke us up) to watch the sunrise. It was completely cloudy, but the clouds moved quickly because of the wind (did I mention it was cold? and I was improperly dressed?) and we still saw some gorgeous pink light from the sun coming up. We hiked down early and were off the mountain by around 8:30.

After that we weren’t sure what to do since our bus was at 3:30 PM and there wasn’t an earlier one. We took a cab back to the hotel we stayed in at the town base of the mountain that catered to tourists. When we had first arrived there, a man named Mr. Hu who spoke decent english showed us the hotel we should stay in and then tried to convince us to eat at his restaurant, which we decided to decline and go somewhere else. So when we went back we decided to go to Mr. Hu’s restaurant to see if it was really as good as he said it was. And it was! we ate scrambled eggs, toast, pork, and homemade hash browns while he suggested to us that we go to the park where they filmed part of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. So we did, and spent part of the day climbing on boulders in the river (it was much more interesting than taking the tourist path). And then Will cut his foot while he was (stupidly!) climbing a sharp rock wall barefoot, and we had to take him to a Chinese one-room clinic in a tiny town to get stitches. (The medical treatment cost him 60 kuai - about $10 US - no drugs to numb the pain, just cleaning, antiseptic and good old-fashioned sewing. He got antibiotics from the school doctor while he was here, though, just in case he got an infection.)

We go to Beijing on Thursday - it’s our last group trip, and probably our last trip outside of Hangzhou before we go back to America. Like i said, i’m trying not to think about leaving.

On Monday Olivia and I had to give our Peasant Studies presentation on village elections. We ran a mock peasant election and made everyone draw notecards with names of American political candidates, and I wrote their Chinese names (courtesy of Chinese Wikipedia) and peasant-ified descriptions of each candidate on each card.

John McCain: Yao Han Ma Kai En 約翰·麥凱恩
Barack Obama: Bei La Ke Ao Ba Ma 巴拉克·奥巴马

(Ron Paul won our mock election.)

Because of the 13 hour time difference we all had to wait until today (Wednesday) to find out the election results, and even then we had to wait until about noon here to get the final word (I hear it was called by 11?) Once we heard Barack won Ohio we knew it was pretty much over. Someone turned on the Chinese news and we got to see McCain’s concession speech, which was luckily in English with Chinese subtitles! We waited and waited to see if they would show Obama’s speech, but when they did finally show it (after it was over in America) it was translated into Chinese and they didn’t play the English version. Lame!!

We’re all super happy over here, although kind of disappointed we can’t be in the country to take part in the craziness that’s surely going on in every major city. I can’t even describe how excited I am for the inauguration, Obama’s presidency, everything! I read that he’s getting his daughters a black lab puppy! I adore this man and his family and to me there couldn’t be anyone better in the White House for the next four years. and I can’t wait to see who he appoints to his staff and how he handles all the big sprawling problems. I trust him, I don’t think he’s all talk and no action.

I was tearing up just watching little clips of his speech on CNN and looking at blogged pictures of the rally in Grant Park. I (finally!) have new respect for my country (I was losing it, there) and I’m so so glad to be an American right now. Seriously. I don’t think I’ve really ever been exceptionally glad to be an American before. I won’t even mind coming home from China (well, I guess). And even though chances are nothing will really change right off, there’s gonna be a intelligent, peaceful, eloquent and all-around respectable guy leading the country I live in, and that’s pretty awesome.

Hi!
I posted a TON ton ton of photos on Flickr this week. A lot of them are from our trip to Wulingyuan Nature Reserve in Zhangjiajie province last weekend.
Our trip to Wulingyuan (there were four of us for this one- me, Katie, Pete, and Phaedra) started on Thursday before our three day weekend. We hopped on a train and sat for a fabulous luxurious 16 hours (!) on hard seats. No sleepers for us. It’s cheaper and we’re hardcore. Unfortunately I slept for about 2 of those 16 hours - I blame being in the middle seat of the three. The window seat is the best because you can lean on it and sleep that way, and the table between the two opposite-facing seats is also there to rest your head on. Also Chinese people on trains are very loud at most hours of the night and so are their babies. Ooh boy.
There was one point on the train where we were all exhausted and the train was stopped at one of the many stops it made, and all the Chinese people around us had bought chicken legs from the guy yelling outside, and it seemed like everyone was eating them and staring at us. It was one of those strange crazy “we’re in China!” moments. I’m sure those chicken parts were delicious.
So I watched the sun rise on this super long train ride to Zhangjiajie, an okay city in Hunan only remarkable for being near Wulingyuan nature reserve. We decided to go directly from the train station to Wulingyuan (about 9 AM) and we checked our bags at a nearby hotel and spent the first day of our two-day passes exploring trails around the park. Lots and lots of stairs, and lots and lots of friendly Chinese people who want to take pictures with the strange foreigners. Not a lot of other foreigners there, either. Everyone who asked seemed to think we were Russians. Sometimes we’d tell them we were American and sometimes we’d get cheeky and say we were French.
The park had amazing views and so many different areas to explore - There was a pagoda at the top of one more crowded area, but the best part was the emptier area near the top of one of the trails, where you could hear birds and see amazing views of these huge rock pillars covered with trees. It was like the Chinese Grand Canyon, minus the river. Except there were rivers! Everything was lush and green, it was absolutely one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.
Near the end of the day we were climbing the stairs back down to leave the park and we ended up going the wrong way on one path - and ran into a monkey! There was a rhesus monkey just walking along the path towards us. It wasn’t scared or anything, and we took pictures of it and had to step out of its way as it passed us. Along this one particular empty path we saw tons and tons of monkeys in the trees, swinging around and making noise. It was so neat and unexpected.
The next day we went back and climbed more trails (STAIRS STAIRS STAIRS), ate one-and-a-half foot cucumbers they sold on the mountain (tasty!), met more Chinese people, got lost, thought about doing the “river rafting” excursion (lame and too expensive), walked through the town to a lake where there was supposed to be a free boat ride (wasn’t free with Wulingyuan admission) and then back to the park for more hiking (STAIRS!).
Near the end of the day we were at the top of one of the mountains and decided to watch the sunset, which was phenomenal. Unfortunately that meant it was dark and we were still on top of the mountain. We ended up continuing the hike up trying to find the shuttle station and finally ending up having to buy gondola tickets for 50 kuai with a couple groups of tourists, which was a pitch black ride down the mountain to another shuttle station, where we talked to some Canadian tourists on a holiday. As the shuttles were arriving we ended up on a bus with a group of elderly Chinese tourists, who asked us about our adventures in China and sang for us and made us sing for them in return. That’s right.
There were no legal taxis outside the park to get us back to the hostel, and the guy driving the illegal van taxi wanted 120 kuai to get us back to Zhangjiajie. After a lot of hesitation we took a ride from the guy who offered us a ride on his huge motorcycle for 80 kuai. It was freezing! and dangerous! and illegal! but it was cheaper! And it was the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I RODE A MOTORCYCLE IN CHINA. The stars were out, and as we were leaving the park there were random fireworks in the sky (on lots of nights China has fireworks. I’m sure people just set them off when they have nothing better to do). It was ridiculously cold. but it was a motorcycle. in China. it was so awesome.
some of my Wulingyuan photos are here.

This weekend I went to an 80’s dance party, hung out at a local bar (Maya, which also has ridiculously good burritos), and went to a strange art concert/party in a remote part of Hangzhou that was held in a deserted European-style apartment complex near a large replica of the Eiffel tower.
Next week we plan to go to Shanghai for Will’s birthday.

I haven’t written in a really long time but I have a good excuse! I got really sick about two weeks ago. It started as a cold that morphed into a fever and then back to a cold and then to a stomach illness complete with vomiting. Now I just sort of have a slight cough but I’m much much better. I have no idea where that illness came from (other than from other people in the dorm)… but the travelling I did during those two weeks probably didn’t help any.

The week before Chinese National Day, we had a full 7-day week of classes before a full week off for the holiday. Phaedra and I took a one-night trip to Shanghai and planned to shop, eat, and visit the Museum of Contemporary art and then meet up with our friends in Suzhou the next day. We got to Shanghai pretty late because of the crowded train station and a lack of tickets but we still managed to have a hell of a time. We got the delicious amazing dumplings (包子, baozi) that we ate last time and some other great street food. the dumpling place is a tiny little stall-type restaurant with a little bit of sitting room inside, and the line for the place goes down the street. when you get close to the front of the line you can see them rolling out dough into balls, stuffing them with pork filling and rolling them up neatly. and then you get to eat them and they’re hot and juicy and delicious, and if you don’t wait a few minutes (and you don’t want to) then you burn your tongue on them.

That night we went to a club we read about in a magazine, called Bonbon. it was waiguo central - tons of foreigners packed the place and crowded the open bar. It was a little expensive - when we got there and found out the price (150 kuai) we almost backed out and decided not to go - but it was worth it.

The next day we overslept, until the hostel cleaning ladies came in to make the beds. Oops. At noon i woke up, swore, and woke Phaedra and we stumbled hungover through Shanghai. We got more dumplings (they’re that good) and talked to some guy and his girlfriend in the street who said hello to us. They invited us to go celebrate National day at a teahouse with them, but we decided we didn’t have the time and did some power shopping instead. We found some great stores with clothes and bags - I bought three bags at a store called “The Thing” - and another store had shirts that said funny things in English like “Punk Drunk Love Fuck.” The tag on one of the shirts said “I must always be dipped in the freshest gear.” We bought a shirt that says “Post-Punk” for our friend who’ll appreciate it.

After that we went to Suzhou by train which only cost 7 kuai! And we had seats! We spoke with a very nice girl on the way there, us speaking in Chinese and her speaking a little English. I don’t remember much of the conversation now but we asked her about what she studied and where and places we should go visit and stuff.

Suzhou was gorgeous. We went to Tiger Hill, a big outdoor park with a bonsai garden and spent the day walking around and exploring. That night we went to a gaudily decorated bar that was Tibet-themed. For breakfast we got iced milk teas and shouzhuabing from a stand - it’s a Korean kind of oily pancake thing and you could get an egg on it, or bacon, or other stuff. They advertised one with a banana, but the guy at the stand didn’t have any bananas so a few of us bought bananas at a fruit stand and brought them back. It was like an oily banana pancake - delicious!

A day after we got back from Suzhou we were off again on one of our organized class trips with Jay. This was supposed to be the week we went to Yunan but because of the earthquake the plans had to be changed. So instead he arranged to take us to the seaside, which was supposed to be a 3 to 4 hour bus ride. Unfortunately the traffic on National Day week wasn’t accounted for in that estimate and we ended up waiting in traffic for the ferry. In all we were on the bus for 13 hours - we left at 1 PM and arrived at our hotel at 2:00 AM. Yep. While we were waiting for the ferry we were allowed to get off the bus and walk around, and all these enterprising people brought their carts of fruit and sugarcane and egg cakes and weird breads and sold things to angry drivers and passengers. So we ate street food for dinner and kept walking towards the wharf until we found convenience stores, where some of us bought alcohol and then passed the last 5 hours drunk on the bus playing games and taking turns reading aloud from a book of Joseph Conrad stories.

We spent the next day on the beach.There was a sand sculpture contest and the results were HUGE giant sand sculptures that were the first thing we saw when we got there. The beach was really crowded, but hardly anyone was sitting down or lying out on the sand. Everyone seemed to be walking or standing or playing in the water, lots of people wearing pants (nobody sweats here) or shoes (I saw many girls in heels) and beach-inappropriate clothing. And all the swimsuits that girls wear, when they do wear swimsuits, are really conservative and have little ruffly skirts on them.

Jay changed our itinerary many times because of the traffic and crowds of National Day and we ended up going to Ningbo. The best part of Ningbo was the ’snack alley’, an alley lined with tons of stalls and food vendors with all kinds of food on sticks and sweets and jidanbing, the crepe/omelette thing that I love so much.

This weekend we have Friday off, so we’re skipping class tomorrow and going to Wulingyuan nature reserve in Zhangjiajie Hunan province. It’s supposed to have amazing scenery and I plan to hike until my knees collapse. It’s going to rock.

This weekend was the last weekend of orientation, and the last weekend before our real classes started.

Sunday was Zhong Qiu Jie - the Mid-Autumn festival - where everyone travels and eats moon cake (yuebing), and today we all had off for travelling (I guess the rest of China did, too).

Last Thursday morning we took our placement test (which was mispronounced by our teachers as ‘replacement test’) and in the afternoon we went on our last official orientation trip. We were supposed to go to Yunnan for the long weekend, but there was an earthquake there extremely recently so travelling there isn’t really something we should do. This means we won’t get to go to Yunnan this semester, but we’ve got plenty of other trips in mind: Hainan Island (the “Chinese Hawaii”), Suzhou, possibly Guilin, and a few of us are trying to figure out when and how we could get to Tibet for a long weekend. Also some people are talking about going to Japan after the semester is over, and if I can tag along I definitely will.

Instead of Yunnan we went to Qian Dao Lake and spent the night on a boat that was pretty much a floating hotel. Except it stayed docked all night. We ate at a restaurant across from the dock where Jay ordered us an expensive dish: snake. It was only exciting because we got to see the snake before they killed it. it was lively. and large.
Qian Dao Lake was basically a big tourist thing where you walk around on these islands. I guess they used to be mountain tops until they created the lake, which is mildly interesting, but the whole thing was pretty touristy and lame. Definitely my least favorite trip so far.

But then the next day we had all planned trips on our own- to Shanghai. A group of us spent 2 nights in a sweet little hostel in the city. We did a lot of walking around and exploring the city, which was great even though it was rainy. We ate dinner on this one street that had a dumpling shop with a sign that said “Yang’ Sfry dumplings” - you could tell it was good because the line went way down the street.

We ate lunch on another market-like street that was in the back of the Old City tourist area. That area was not touristy in the slightest. It was a narrow alley of carts selling different types of rice, dumplings, noodles, things on sticks, vegetables, you name it. Oh, and scattered among the food carts were carts selling pirate DVDs. go figure. It started to rain as we were leaving the street and all the carts that didn’t already have their umbrellas up put up their umbrellas and awnings. It’s so fascinating to me how much is done outside here - people cook outside, sell things outside, clean outside, hang their laundry outside. I mean, that must sound silly, but it’s just so unique to me to be able to walk down a street, almost any street in certain areas, and see so many people doing their daily activities, all outdoors. It makes sense though, because spaces inside are tiny, and who the heck wants to stay inside anyway?

Shanghai was great. I couldn’t compare the amount of people around to what it would be normally, since it was a holiday weekend, but the train stations were absolutely packed.
At night on Sunday we walked around the Bund area of the city, through shopping areas and along the river on a promenade filled with people. Everyone was constantly trying to sell you things, like fake watches or bags or some cheap toy or light-up devil horns. We took a boat tour on the Huangpu river and admired the gorgeous skyline. You couldn’t see the top of the tallest building because of the fog, but the TV Tower, which stands out because of its two giant orbs, was completely visible and looked crazy and futuristic with a ton of flashing lights in the orbs.

One night we ate a great dinner with Phoenix’s relatives, and then today before we returned to Hangzhou we met with Andrew’s father in a hotel lobby and talked about China and travelling and the election and stuff. If any of my relatives happen to be reading this right now - if you feel like coming to China to visit me… it’s a good idea. you should do it.

Tomorrow morning real classes start - I got ‘replaced’ into the level I was supposed to, luckily. I’m in a class with three other Tufts kids, a bunch of Koreans, a Russian girl and some others (I only know this from looking at the class list, I haven’t actually been to the class yet). I’m going to learn Chinese- in Chinese. Uh oh.

More on Xi’an:
One night we went to a night market, this one even louder and more crowded than any previous one. I didn’t take advantage of the mass amounts of street food-on-a-stick being sold everywhere, but my stomach probably is thanking me for that anyway. At the night market I bought a big red goldfish kite, a cheesy Mao wind-up alarm clock (Mao waves his hand when it ticks!) and two cheap-but-nice prints that now grace the walls of my dorm room.
Olivia and I were bargaining buddies - she’s got the language skills and I… am white and can be easily taken advantage of. Yep. She bought a fake Dolce & Gabbana bag (it’s made of fake suede but the D&G nameplate says “Real Denim”) and while bargaining one of us would interject something like “but we’re poor college students! we need our money to buy food!” I made a big show of lending her money, counting out one coin at a time. We had to lend each other small change- we couldn’t pay for a cheap purchase with large bills ’cause that means we could have paid more.

Back in Hangzhou, we went to a crazy play last night that displayed the history of Hangzhou by means of lots of elaborate and sparkly costumes and dramatic over-acting. From watching that and from TV shows we’ve watched in the hotel rooms we’ve stayed in, I’m getting the idea that Chinese acting focuses more on really intense over-acting rather than subtlety and, um, skills.

Tomorrow AM we have our placement exam, which I’m supposed to be studying for right this instant. Oops.
We were supposed to have our last group trip, to Yunnan province tomorrow afternoon, but since there was an earthquake there that trip had to be cancelled, so unfortunately I’ll probably never get there. Instead, we’re spending a night on a boat called “Duke.” I think it has the potential to be either really awesome or really lame. Either way, the joke possibilities are pretty much endless.
I think I’m going to Shanghai on Saturday. Classes - real classes! - start on Tuesday. Monday is the Mid Autumn festival, which will probably be celebrated with mooncakes and alcohol. This country is going to ravage my liver.

Over the weekend (our weekends are long because we don’t usually have orientation classes on Thursdays) we went to Xi’an. We flew via China Airlines from the Hangzhou airport, a 2 hour flight with about 2 hours of total bus rides to and from airports. Our hotel was called the City Hotel Xi’an, and rightly so because it was directly in the middle of the city.

Xi’an is gorgeous! It has a ton of lights and lit-up signs at night, which lots of people compared to New York. There were tons of people everywhere- Not an unusual thing here, but it seemed different somehow because there was so much more sidewalk and road space in this city. There were tons of KFC restaurants, too - they’re extremely popular here. There were a lot more foreigners in Xi’an too, so we got stared at a lot less. There were tons of street vendors selling food, and I had the most delicious omelette/crepe type thing for breakfast one day.

All weekend we had been preparing for our trip to Hua Shan (Mount Hua) - Jay had told us that it was going to be a tough climb and we would be exhausted afterwards, but I was in no way prepared for the hundreds of unbelievably steep stone steps leading us up the mountain! Lots of the stairs were crooked, and many of the stair sections were so steep that you needed to use the chains and posts on each side of the mountain to climb up them. There was a cable car going up and down the mountain that Jay took up to the top and met us there, and we rode down, since going down those stairs seemed to be so much more dangerous than climbing up.

More later, as we have to go celebrate the first 21st birthday taking place in our group. This is extremely important.

1. The roads. Traffic and driving are absolutely out of control. The first thing we all noticed here is the MASSIVE amount of bikes, hundreds and hundreds, parked on sides of roads on campus, with wheel locks or locked to other bikes or posts. There are bike lanes along the sides of every road, on both sides of the roads. People ride motorcycles, and quieter electric (I think?) bikes, but mostly people just ride rusty rusty bicycles. We learned in class that it’s technically illegal to have someone sit on the back of your bicycle and ride with you, but everyone does it. It’s not uncommon to see whole families with 2 or more children crammed on one motorcycle.
People use their bikes to tow stuff, too - we saw a woman with 20 beach balls somehow attached to the back of her bike. We see people carrying giant loads of bags of rice, cardboard boxes, and basically anything.
I would never ever drive a car here, ever. Our buses have always driven super-fast on highways we’ve been on. Whenever they want to pass someone (which is VERY often) they just go into the oncoming traffic lane and speed up, even if there’s a car or motorcycle coming at them. It’s legal to drive in the bike lanes, too, which is frightening for anyone on a bike. Did I mention nobody wears helmets? I’m not sure about seat belts, but we don’t have them on our buses. I’d love to get some stats about fatal accidents here.

2. People are terrible at giving directions here, or are just very reluctant to do it. Asking for directions results in lots of general directions and vague pointing. Asking for clarification results in more generality and pointing.

The internet here is TERRIBLE and slow and has been down a lot recently, so I didn’t get to post about our calligraphy classes in Shaoxing right after we got back. While we were there we went to a boring rice wine museum (the only half-interesting part was sampling the rice wine) and a historical house thing. All of the historical house type sites are courtyard houses with a square courtyard in the middle and houses around them, and they all have the lovely carved roof that (i assume) is typical of Chinese architecture.

Nobody was absolutely floored by our calligraphy class, which we went to three times while we were at Shaoxing. We had lectures translated from the Chinese-speaking professor by Jay (which were extremely boring, even considering how interested I was in the subject). We practiced writing characters with real brushes and ink on rice paper, but one of the major complaints about the class was that we didn’t get a lot of feedback about how we were doing.

I found the whole thing very relaxing - it was kind of like painting, and it was kind of like being in preschool and painting large, thick lines.
Speaking of relaxing, Jay treated us all to massages the night before we started our calligraphy class. It was pretty unique - I had never had a massage before, but I’m sure it’s nothing like American massages. I was so glad I was in a room with three of the girls on the trip that I’m good friends with now, and we all had female masseuses. They chatted with us in Chinese, asking us stuff like “Do you have a boyfriend?” “what do you think of Chinese guys?” and such. We asked them the same kinds of questions right back, and luckily Katie and Olivia were both in the upper level Chinese class and could parse some of the responses we got. They could also better understand some of the insults we got from the masseuses - These girls were really straightforward: they were telling Olivia that her skin was nice but “too dark.” They also said that we should go running every day to “get thin.” I guess I could understand if they wanted to be up front about that, though, since at times in the massage they basically threw us around, grabbing us by the arms and bouncing us on their knees. Very strange.
I thought it was interesting for the experience but I don’t think I’d do it again. I really liked our giggly, gossipy conversations with the Chinese girls much better than the actual massage (and the very intense deep-ear-cleaning). The guys all loved it and they all went back for another one the next night (and some went the night after that, too). Some of the girls in other massage rooms got male masseuses though, so that was a little creepy for them.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Shaoxing for a long weekend trip. We are going to learn calligraphy.
We are going to go to a disco bar there. I am more excited for this than I have been for any event in my entire life.

Tonight, we went to the Reggae Bar, and then to a club called SOS.
That is all.