Life of Luxury in Beijing with Mom & Dad!

Wow, so sorry it's been almost a month since I last posted! Ahhh I'm awful! Here it goes...

So my parents arrived around Thanksgiving in Beijing. After my parents late night arrival on Friday, I sped out to their hotel (the Aman, it's fabulous, if a bit quiet and far removed from Beijing) on Saturday morning, where we had a lovely breakfast of pancakes (MY FAV!). Then we relaxed for a big and planned out our 2.5 weeks together! In the afternoon, we did a freezing cold tour of the Summer Palace, which was beautiful. My parents enjoyed their first trip outside their hotel and were of course, immediately stared at by all the Chinese tourists at the Summer Palace.

The Marble Boat

 

Afterwards, I worked out at the amazingly nice gym there and soaked in the sauna w/ my momma. For dinner we had hot pot at the hotel. Obviously it did not compare with Haidilao, my fav, but my parents enjoyed it.

Sunday we took a tour of a rural village about 2 hours outside of Beijing. It was really amazing to see this "preserved tourist" village, and see people who were still living in it. We had lunch at the village leader's house, who spoke to us about his family's history in the village and their experiences living there. They seemed grateful to have us, as I think tourism is their main income now since all the farmland has been destroyed by over-farming. The village still has lots of communist slogans on the walls from the Cultural Revolution so I of course loved that.

Mom and I eating lunch at the Village Elder's home

Village Elder's Home

The Village, nestled in the valley of the mountains!

That afternoon, Zan came out to the Aman resort and participated in a brief dumpling making class. I now finally have a recipe for dumplings!

I know, cool hats.

That night we had a yummy French-Japanese fusion dinner, and then watched Miracle on 34th Street in the Aman movie theater, complete with popcorn! It was very cute. AND the popcorn wasn't that stupid kettle corn you get most places in China so I was very content.

Monday morning my parents and I hiked part of the Great Wall. I had only done this once, on my very first trip to China so I enjoyed doing this again. Plus we went to a different part of the wall so the scenery was different. And at the end, you get to slide down this huge slide to the bottom- so fun! My mom was terrified though...

the slide!

Then I unfortunately had to return to school. My parents moved hotels on Tuesday to the Raffles at WangFuJing so they'd be more central to the heart of Beijing. That night we went to DinTaiFeng, the best dumplings in China (in my opinion), and my parents got to meet a bunch of my friends!

Wednesday, my parents went to 798 and I did work.

Thursday afternoon my parents came to WuDaoKou and saw my horrendous apartment. They even said, "This is worse we thought!". Great. After as brief a visit at the apt as they could bear, we walked over to Tsinghua to so they could see the campus. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to explore because we were going to a lecture at the Brookings Institute at Tsinghua on US-Sino relations under Obama-Xi. It was a great lecture with two speakers, an American and a Chinese, who presented very different opinions. Afterwards, we went to dinner with some of my friends at 麻辣诱惑, a delicious Sichuan style restaurant in the neighborhood. That night I went to see Nova Heart, a great Chinese electro pop group (I think I've written about them before)- similar to Class Actress if anybody knows her. Very fun.

Friday afternoon I caught up on some work while my parents toured Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City with Zan and a tour guide. That evening, I met up with my parents for drinks with a business friend and dinner, or so I thought! Actually, they led me to a surprise party Zan and my amazing Beijing friends had organized! They rented out an adorable venue from Hias Gourmet (a great group, totally recommend them!) complete with a huge table, and a well-stocked kitchen with ovens! woah! They made fried chicken, mac & cheese (another Julia favorite), pizza, carrot cake, cookies w/ hershey kisses in the middle, cole slaw, tomato & mozzarella salad, pumpkin bread, and more! It was soooo delicious! And Jake made his special Ginger Whiskey cocktails, which were great. In keeping with my birthday traditions, the party was Christmas themed, complete with a Santa (Wayne, I love you) and a tree! And best of all, all my new amazing friends I've made this fall were there to celebrate with me. It all astonishes me how many amazing new friends I meet all over the world on my adventures- love you guys!

Besties!!!

 

Saturday, I went shopping at the Silk Market with my parents, and got a business suit custom made. What a disaster. You really have to bring in a style that you want. DO NOT let them propose or "design" things for you. It shouldn't be that hard, but I've been to the place 4 times now trying to get them to tailor it right, because they just ignored my warnings to them about different issues I have with buying suits. I JUST 20 minutes ago received a final delivery of the last two items that hopefully fit. I don't have a full length mirror so I have to wait until my roommate or someone comes home to take a pic of me in my clothes to see what they look like. (I know, ghetto). Anyways, we also that day saw Life of Pi. AMAZING!!!!! OMG the cinematopgraphy was soooo good. I read the book, which I enjoyed a moderate amount, but did not expect much from the movie. I was so suprised and wowed. a MUST SEE of the year for sure. That night we went to "Made In China" for Beijing Duck, which my parents loved! It was the best duck I've had in Beijing yet. Afterwards, I met up with some friends for a Paul Van Dyk concert at Tango. It was AMAZING!

Sunday, I headed back to the Silk Market with my parents and Zan to get my suit fitted (the 1st time), buy prescription glasses (my dad got some awesome ones as always!), fake handbags, etc. Very fun. Then we all went to Lost Heaven, one of my favorite restaurants in Beijing.

Monday, I caught up on HW while my parents went out with a business friend, Vivien.

Tuesday (the 4th= MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!), I met up with my parents in the afternoon for some shopping in Nanluoguxiang, a great  (and most touristy) Hutong. I bought a new puffy coat to deal with this crazy freezing Beijing winter! (Seriously, my teachers even said this is uncharacteristically cold. They're wearing their "Chinese New Year" time-of-the-year clothes right now! It's often less than 20F when I bike to school, crazy!) I also got an awesome modern Chinese paper cutting landscape piece, and some great postcards. That evening we went to Haidilao for dinner with some friends. It was delicious as always. For my birthday, they carved little animals into a fruit plate and put a candle in it. They also gave me one of those scented sachés that you put into your lingerie or sock drawer to make it smell nice. Random, but I'll take it! Then Kate, Zan, and I watched the first part of Holiday Inn, and it was great.

Dinner at HaiDiLao!

Wednesday, my parents went out to a Cosmetic Brush Factory that their friend in Atlanta owns, and I caught up on hw. Thursday afternoon I took my midterm early while my parents were at day 1 of the Chinese Association of Women Entrepenuers (CAWE) Conference on Innovation and Corporate Culture. That evening I relaxed at home with Zanipoo and planned out our weekend with friends as it was Zan's last weekend! :(

Friday, I went to the CAWE Conference too, and met a lot of awesome people. And most importantly, my mommy spoke too! Her speech was really awesome and interesting, AND stayed on topic & w/n the time limits! A first at a Chinese conference! Everyone wanted to meet her afterwards and she was a total celebrity and it was great.

Then we left in the afternoon when the conference ended, and relaxed a bit at their hotel. For dinner, we went to another Beijing Duck restaurant, Duck de Chine, because my parents loved Made in China so much. However Duck de Chine was a total disappoint to me. It was a beautiful restaurant that I'm sure is lovely in the summer. It's an old-style courtyard house that's big and drafty so it was freezing when we were there. Plus the duck just wasn't as good! Afterwards I met up with some friends for Zan's last KTV of the year (she's actually coming back to Beijing next January so it's not here last time EVER in Beijing, just for now).

Saturday, My parents and I went back to the Silk Market AGAIN because my clothes weren't right. I picked up a few more things I needed there, and then we just chilled. In the evening, we went to another of my favorite restaurants in Beijing, called DaGui. It's Guizhou style food, which means they have this awesome rub/topping they put on everything that's simply delicious! My parents at first were like, "Why are we at this tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant? Is this really that special?" And of course it was and they loved it. After dinner, I met up with Zan, Annie, and Zan's friend, Chantal, for massages and a classy night out. The massages were so nice, and not even that expensive (238rmb for 60 min at a really nice place). It's called Oriental Taipan. I'd highly recommend it. After that, we went to Apothecary, some of the best (and maybe most expensive) cocktails in all of Beijing! They even had winter/Christmas drink specials that were delicious.

Sunday, Zan left to go back to the US. :(((( so sad! But I got a new roomie named John, a friend of Jon Kaiman's (a vassar friend who lives in Beijing). John is a reported for the LA Times. This was also my parents last day in Beijing, and of course we AGAIN had to go to the Silk Market to get my suit fixed. Then we got massages at the Park Hyatt Spa (Tian Spa). After that, we had a truly AMAZING dinner at The China Grill, on the 68th floor of the Park Hyatt building. We started with a fresh mozzarella & tomato salad, which was to die for. The mozzarella was sooo fresh. Then I had a steak for my entree and it was maybe the best steak I've had in a whole yr (of course, it was like 300rmb, but still...I'd pay that in the US too actually for this quality). And then we had a delicious chocolate fondant for dessert, yum!!! And to top it all, the views at this restaurant were great. And mean, Beijing doesn't have a skyline like Shanghai, but it was pretty to see the whole city at night with all the light up traffic-filled avenues, etc. Then I went back to my parents hotel and gathered up all my stuff and said goodbye. My poor mom was sad because we haven't figured out exactly when I'll see them again (could be as soon as February or as late as July). I was of course sad to see them go as well. They left Monday (the 10th).

Last week I spent basically every day working out, sleeping, and catching up on hw. I tried to go to a lecture on Women's leadership held by the Tsinghua Women's Empowerment club, but when I arrived there was barely even standing room! It also snowed last week like 3 times! It brought a nice hush over Beijing, ya know, like snow does. It was really pretty while it was snowing too.

Of course afterwards it got kinda gross. Friday I got a massage at a local place (I know, I'm really into massages right now), which was awful, not relaxing, and they talked about us the whole time! Awkward! Afterwards, I got a great manicure in the WuDaoKou basement (the fancy one with glass windows), they even did gel, all for 120rmb! I'm def going back there. That night, we went to Cafe de la Poste for dinner, and had a great time! I would not recommend the steak, however my steak tartare was delicious, as were all the drinks, and the chocolate fondant (I know, I'm really into Chocolate Fondant these days). And they gifted us a bunch of drinks so that's always fun too!

Saturday, we went to The Hutong Christmas Fayre, which was so cute! I guess this is a thing in Europe. In December, they have tons of Christmas Fayres (yes, it's really spelled like that, I'm not that dumb) where people come and drink mulled wine, and hot toddies, and hot chocolate. Lots of vendors come and sell arts and crafts, handmade items, and lots of the proceeds go to charity! so nice! I bought a tshirt from my fav beer brewery called Great Leap, and they were selling growlers of one of their seasonal beers (they constantly have new beers coming out for limited time only, it's so fun!) called Hava Nagila. Naturally I had to buy some. I also got a lotion bar, some vinegar & soy sauce, and a cupcake! That afternoon I did some yoga at home, and it was really nice. I shut all the doors in my front entry way (this is the only place big enough in my apt for mat, so sad) and turned off the lights and lit candles and it was sooo nice. Then that night, my friends had a chanukah party! They made a menorah themselves out of beer bottles and candles, very creative.

Making Latkas!

We even sang songs!

Well, that's all I got for now! Moving to Xi'an in 17 days! Crazy!!!!

Paparazzi and Turkey (or Duck)

Hello everyone,

So sorry I haven't updated in awhile. As soon as I got back from the US, classes got super hard so I've had no time to do anything! Last week, we started new classes for our 2nd module (mini-semester). I was supposed to just move up a level into a new comprehensive class, and a new listening/speaking class, but since I'm only here one semester, I really wanted to do a “材料课”, which is what IUP calls their independent self-designed courses. So instead of the regular classes, I condescended two sessions of one class into one, and added my independent class. In my independent class, I read articles (in Chinese of course) about my Fulbright research topic- women and NGOs and politics in China. It's been really interesting so far, although the content itself of the articles is nothing exciting. It's hard to briefly scan articles written in Chinese to see if they're worth reading so you just have to dive in. I've definitely learned a lot of great vocab already though. So I am now in 3 classes and have the coursework of a regular semester, PLUS my independent class= BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY. Other than classes, some other highlights form my last two weeks:

-The first Sunday night I was home, my friend Thomas invited me to  Spark, the coolest club in Beijing at the moment, for an Olay "Winter Sunscreen" product launch party. (One of his friends works for Olay so that was our "in"). It was pretty awesome. It also happened to be "Singles Day" in China because it was 11/11 (all "1"s, which is like a single person, just "1"). It's mostly a shopping day (a bit like our black Friday, which is currently happening as I write!). It's also a day for various singles parties and mixers, and this was one of them...When we arrived, we showed them a random 6 digit number Thoma's friend had given us, and apparently that was enough for the entrance. Then we got the first set of party favors: a sparkly pink mask, a pink feather hair clip, or a blue sequin mini top-hat hair clip. I chose the pink mask. The whole night, drinks were free as long as you ordered from their pre-set list, which consisted of "fun", "fearless", and "female" cocktails (those were the drink names). As the party was sponsored by Cosmopolitan Magazine and Olay, they had cakes with their names on them:

 

People kept accidentally bumping them and breaking the icing, oops! I don't think they ever actually ate the cakes, at least not while I was there. Once everyone had a few drinks, the singles games started. There was a dance instructor who kept taking people up onto the stage (the stage was surrounded with small plastic strings that guided water down from the top of the stage to the bottom of the stage, creating a wall of water around the stage. Kinda cool...) to dance. Most of the poor chosen ones were awful dancers, but it was fun to watch:

the dance instructor

After the dance lessons, the dating games started. I don't really know what was going on, but I think there was a host, a single lady, and a single man, all chosen in advance to participate. The dance instructor would teach them a dance, and then they're ask them a few questions. Dancing shows like this in China are huge. One of the most famous incidents occured when a female contestant said she's "rather be crying in the back of a mercedes, than laughing on the back of bike", indicating her preference for money over happiness. This incident set off a huge controversy over the values of young people in China today, which lit up the Chinese blogosphere for weeks. Anyways, nothing that exciting happened at our party...

The host is in the middle. Notice the big hair piece on the female contestant- these were all the rage that night.

After the dating show part ended, they took down the water barriers, and opened up the stage for dancing. As some point in the end, my friend Sophie and I ended up dancing gangnam style on the stage with a chinese guy, while the entire rest of the club watched us. It was pretty embarrassing, given that I don't really know the dance. But we were literally the ONLY foreigners at the party so the paparazzi were all over us. There were a lot of photographers there because of the sponsors, Olay and Cosmo. My friend Thomas and I decided to be extremely animated everytime the paparazzi came over so they loveddddd us. It was pretty hilarious. Who knows, maybe I'll be in the next chinese Cosmo? 

Last Friday we went to our favorite beer brewery, which just put up their winter heat lamps and such for the winter. It was pretty nice, and I got to hear inside scoop from my reporter friends about covering the 18th Party Congress last week. Summary (also a real summary here): No one knows ANYTHING about ANYTHING or ANYONE in the Chinese government, despite these politicians being over 50 years old. The government closely hides most information about their leaders, and only tells the press what they want so they have to be skeptical of everything. No surprises came out of the party congress. The reduced the Standing Committee from 9 to 7 people, presumably to be more efficient since they work on a consensus basis. 5 of the 7 people chosen were picks of Jiang Zemin (China's president in the 90s), indicating he still maintains a great deal of power in the party. Xi Jinping is the new president, starting March I believe. No women on the standing committee, duh. :( And Hu Jintao stepped down as chair of the Central Military Commission, which his predecessor Jiang did not do for 2 years in Hu's presidency. This means Xi Jinping can take up that post immediately, thus controlling all 3 of the most important aspects of Chinese governance: Party, Military, and State. 

Also this week, I had 3 great "culture sharing" discussions with some Chinese people (fulfulling my Fulbright mission of "sharing mutual respect and understanding"):

1. This week I had a great discussion with some Chinese 20-something women. Our conversation that started out as part of a homework assignment to interview 3 Chinese people about “早恋” (puppy love, or young love) turned into a 2 hr discussion on religion, abortion, Planned Parenthood, US Politics, and more! It was super interesting. For example, I said that abortions are very controversial in the US, and they were flabbergasted! "But the US is so open and progressive," they said. I then explained the influence of Christianity on many Americans, and the socially conservative nature of the Church. They thought it was all very strange.

2. As a sign of my appreciation for all the hard work my teachers from last semester put in (generally above and beyond the standard), I brought my 4 teachers special gifts from the US. The first item, Ghiradelli Peppermint Bark, was well received. My second gift sparked more controversy: a hanky panky thong from my parent's lingerie store, Intimacy. Giving lingerie to anyone might seem pretty weird, but I've been doing it since I was a little girl (I usually gave PJs back then since I refused to admit to anyone until high school that my parents owned lingerie, not PJ & swimwear, stores for fear of harassment and severe embarrassment). As hanky pankys are extremely popular in the US and are usually received as a great gift, I didn't think anything of it when my mom suggested in. It wasn't until I got back to Beijing that I realized that many people, and almost all Chinese people, don't wear thongs. Maybe I've been desensitized to them over the years as almost all of my friends and I exclusively wear thongs. And from my perspective, they're a fairly normal clothing item that don't need to be reserved solely for special occasions or anything. But again, maybe I just like in my own little pro-lingerie bubble and have no idea what's going on in the rest of America. (I was surprised when one of my best Australian girlfriends here in Beijing said that most young Australians girls don't wear them because they're uncomfortable. Thongs aren't popular there...) So anyways, I give my teachers these thongs and chocolate bars. Two of the teachers wrote me emails thanking me for the gifts and mentioned they'd already tried and loved the chocolate (NO mention of the thongs). My other two younger and generally more progressive teachers came up to me in the hallway after class, giggling and whispering like 12 year old girls. They thanked me for the gifts, and sheepishly asked "Are they really comfortable?" I explained to them that they may take some getting used to, but are really comfortable and especially useful if you're wearing tight clothes. They giggled and said they were really sexy- another thought I've never had about hanky pankys (I guess lace thongs are fairly sexy, but I've been spoiled to the point that hanky pankys are a basic to me). Then my teacher confided in me that "One time, I bought a g-string [a thong with literally just a string in the back]" but she hated it (naturally, those actually do suck). The idea that "this one time I bought a thong" was so funny to me. The next day, my teacher came up to me in the hall, looks around to check no one is nearby, and goes "I tried them!" She thought they weren't too comfortable but assured me she's going to work at it until she can wear them because they're so pretty. I loved this whole interaction so much because going into the situation, it hadn't even occurred to me that there was this big cultural divide about lingerie. I thought I was just giving a normal "American made" gift that had a personal touch since they'd all heard about my parents' store already. But even better, my gift came with a cultural lesson! 

3. In my independent research materials class, I read a passage about "a controversial" investment an NGO made for public welfare. I asked my teacher, "why is this controversial? It's an investment in public welfare by an NGO." She explained: From a young age in school, Chinese students are taught about the greatness of their nation and their government. Then they get out into the real world and realize it was all lies. Their trust in so-called "fact" is totally shattered. In China, "facts", "statistics", and "evidence" are all easily fabricated or manipulated (Take China's unemployement rate for example). This then led to the most honest discussion I've ever had with a Chinese person about the true power of the Chinese people to change their government or to influence politics. Needless to say, she was very pessimistic and said she's thought about leaving China and moving to the US for a long time. I won't put the details of our discussion here just in case I'm being watched (haha, but seriously...), but it was basically a live, engaged discussion about my college thesis- SO COOL. OMG NERD FREAK OUT. 

Also this week was Thanksgiving of course! This year, I've been lucky enough to celebrate Thanksgiving 4 times! The first occured when I was at home in the US. My darling, sweet mtoher cooked a 20 lb Turkey ("go big or go home" as they say...) for 7 people, along with all the typical American Thanksgiving dishes. My second dinner was Wednesday night, hosted by the US Embassy for China Fulbrighters at the Renaissance Hotel in Beijing. They had a buffet complete with Turkey, Beijing Duck, Sushi, Indian curries, Hamburgers, congee, fried rice, steamed buns, and more! My favorite dish was definitely the AMAZING chocolate cake. I also got to meet a current Fulbright who's living in Xi'an right now so he gave me some info about life there and now I have a friend in Xi'an! That makes 2 friends so far. haha. Last night on actual Thanksgiving, my friends and I went to a 北京烤鸭 (Peking Duck) restaurant. As my friend Nick described it, "What did the Pilgrims do when they went to the US? They ate the local food. What should we do on Thanksgiving in China? Eat Peking Duck!" Excellent reasoning. It was delicious as always. Tonight we're having our final celebration, an IUP Thanksgiving Potluck party. I don't think anyone is making turkey, but I brought Stove Top Stuffing all the way from the US so I'm bringing that. I'm also DJing the party with my outstanding Christmas music playlist! Let the holiday season begin! 

Tonight, my parents arrive in Beijing! WOO! They will be here for the next 2.5 weeks so expect my next post to be full of stories from the luxury life in Beijing! (and hopefully nice quality photos if my parents bring my finally fixed-camera!)

A week in the land of uncensored internet, cheese, and dryers

Hello everyone!

I have just spent the last week in the wonderful US of A. The week prior to that I had my final exam, which I personally felt went very well, but only received a measly "不错“ or "not bad" from my teachers. Oh well. You can't please everyone...So that week did not warrant a blog update since my days consisted of hard core studying and coffee drinking, with a small exception of some Halloween night festivities.

After our exams ended on Friday, the 2nd, a large (35+) group of IUPers gathered at a delicious GuiZhou restaurant organized by the wonderful Chris. Post-stuffing our faces on enormous amounts of delectable food, we headed to our friend Peter's house for a house-warming party. I was delighted by his choice to served hot mulled wine, a traditional European Christmas beverage. Anyone who knows me obviously understands my excitement about the introduction of a Christmas tradition in early November. :) The party was rudely ended by some neighbors literally throwing bricks onto the thick glass rooftop patio of Peter's apartment, and then followed by a brief police visit. Fortunately the glass did not break, no one was hit with a flying brick, and the police let us all go without incident.

Instead of returning home and going straight to bed, I got ready to go to the airport for by 6:45am flight. I got to the airport very early since I left over 3 hours before my flight due to a fear of not getting a taxi or some kind of crazy China thing getting in my way and delaying me. Once I got on the plane, I was dismayed by the treatment of the Chinese passengers by the airline stewardesses. It appeared that only 1 stewardess spoke Chinese, and several other Asian-American stewardesses did not. However of course the poor Chinese passengers could not figure out who they could communicate with, and the non-Chinese speaking stewardesses preferred to yell at and chastise all the Chinese passengers who could not understand them. As a "cultural ambassador" in China, I was appalled by the terrible disregard on the part of Delta for the obvious communication barrier. Of course most of the Chinese passengers don't speak English. Talking to them like they're idiots won't help. Instead, I tried to help translate for the poor old Beijing man sitting next to me, who had serious hand tremors going on for the whole flight. We briefly chatted about American politics (more on this issue here) and I explained to him how to play Sudoku, but mostly I couldn't understand him through his thick Beijing accent. The rest of my flight was uneventful, didn't sleep much but oh well. Even got upgraded on my flight from Detroit to Atlanta, woo Gold Medallion status!

Saturday afternoon I caught up with the family, took my camera over to be fixed, and then got a mani/pedi with my sister! That night I enjoyed a lovely home cooked meal courtesy of my darling mother. Sunday I went shopping with my mom and sister, which counted as my birthday presents! Among my favorite purchases: a gold sequined small square going- out purse with a tortoise-shell clasp; a navy and white polka dot robe lined in fleece; and black matte rubber rain boots with a bow on the side that double as snow boots when lined with Hunter fleece socks. Very excited about my gifts!! :) Also went spinning Sunday morning with my sister and dad- a big step up from spinning in Beijing, where I basically just make up my own routine because I can't understand what they're saying.

Monday morning, I yoga-ed with my sis, and then spent the day doing emails and blogging and such. That night the family and I went to Restaurant Eugene, a very fancy southern gourmet restaurant, to celebrate Emily and I's upcoming birthdays. It was delicious!

Tuesday, I went and voted with my family. I was so lucky to be able to actually vote in person because many of my friends in Beijing never even received their absentee ballots, and had to vote via Emergency Ballot. Upon arriving at the polling station, there were several races and constitutional amendments that I didn't even know about. As someone who desperately tries to understand and research all the locals races, I was frustrated that I hadn't researched those votes. It's amazing that no matter how hard you try, it's almost impossible to be an educated voter for every thing you're voting on...Tuesday afternoon I went rock climbing with my dad at our favorite gym, and were unpleansantly surprised at how bad we were! I guess we've forgotten a lot of our technique as we haven't climbed in awhile. For dinner I went to my sister's house so that I could watch the votes roll in in a friendly environment

Wednesday I had a number of dr appts, and a hair appt at which I dyed my hair chocolate brown! Unfortunately my usual blonde highlights will not last a year in China without touch ups and I don't trust a Chinese hair salon with that, so Shawn (my lovely and trusted hair specialist) and I decided that brown would be easier to maintain as it's somewhat closer to (but definitely darker than) my natural hair color.  Wednesday night we had an early Thanksgiving at my house with my Aunt and Uncle. It was so yummy! I have seriously the best mom EVER.

Thursday I had a few more appts, got a makeover with my mom, and had a delicious french lunch. Thursday night I went out with some girl friends from high school and had a great time catching up! :)

Friday I did some gentle yoga with my mom in the morning, and then got ready to come back to Beijing! Flew out that afternoon, and arrived here Saturday night.

Today I'm just getting unpacked and used to being back in Beijing. So good to be home!

"Do all Americans hate China?"

Over the last two weeks since the 2nd presidential debate, I have been asked by many skeptical Chinese people, "Do you like China? Really?". Due to the serious china-bashing that occurred during the debate, many Chinese people think that America's leaders want nothing but to see the demise of the Chinese economy and prevent them from continual growth because the US sees China as a threat. Of course, this is not exactly what Romney and Obama said during the debates, but this is how many Chinese people have interpreted it. The following article provides a great overview of the way many Chinese view the two candidates:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2012/09/china-on-romney-and-obama.html

For example, last week on a trip to a local convenience store, I was approached by an older Chinese man who wanted to know where I was from. As this happens quite often, I responded "America" without hesitation. Upon hearing this, the Chinese man asked "Why do your leaders hate us? Do you hate us?" Of course, I tried to reassure him that most Americans do not hate China. "Obviously I love China, that's why I'm here," I told him. I then tried to explain that a lot of the rhetoric in the debate about China is just that, rhetoric, and most likely will not be implemented into real policy (at least, I hope not). He defiantly responded, "Well, you don't know. You can't speak for them. You can only speak for yourself." After awhile, I gave up. This debate between the old Chinese man and I was also complicated by his heavy Beijing accent, which adds an R to the end of many words making them almost indistinguishable to me. Upon seeing my frustration at the seemingly endless discussion, the shop keeper reminded me, "He only wants to talk to you because you're pretty." "Oh good," I thought, "Of course a woman, especially a foreign woman, couldn't possibly have any real intelligence to share." I began backing out of the store and escaped the conversation by just smiling and laughing, usually a very effective method for communicating when you have no idea what the other person is saying.

Similar debates rose up again this week while waiting at the airport to fly back to the US for a short vacation (more updates on this later!), and on the airplane flying to Detroit. It's very disheartening to me to hear Chinese people voicing these kinds of opinions about Americans because of several reasons. Obviously personally, as I will be living in China for at least the next year, I don't want Chinese people to hate me. But more importantly, I wish the candidates, Romney and Obama, would remember that the world is watching their campaigns. Foreign governments are shaping their policies towards the US with this kind of rhetoric in mind.

Furthermore, I believe the root of the problem lies in the upsetting fact that this kind of China bashing is what a lot of Americans actually do want to hear. Many Americans are both angry and afraid of China because of their growing economy, when in reality they should feel neither of those emotions. Do we really want to bring by low-level manufacturing jobs that China has "stolen" from us? Is that what we want our American economy to be based on. No, American's economic growth lies in innovation and development of new ideas for the future. It does not need to be supported by factories and low-quality manufacturing that most Americans do not really want to do anyways (that's why many of our more low-paying, low-skill jobs- such as farm laborers- are filled by immigrants who come to the US). And secondly, Americans should realize that they do indeed benefit by China's low cost production. If the US were to label China as a "currency manipulator", which they may very well be but I won't go into this issue now, this would impose a tariff on all goods imported from China. This would NOT be good for anyone. Let's look at the recent tariff on Chinese tires that Obama tried out a few years ago- After imposing a tax on Chinese tires, US consumers paid an extra $1.2 billion, according to the Peterson Institute as cited by the NY Times. Then in retaliation, China taxed US imports on Chicken, which cost US poultry producers $1 billion in lost sales. All of this only saved 1,200 American tire jobs. Because of its obvious failure, the Obama administration let this tire tariff expire this September.

Ok, I've rambled on long enough. In conclusion, China is watching the US election closely, and its already had real impacts on the way Chinese view the US and Americans in general. But don't worry America, you've got me (and a bunch of other wonderful China-loving Americans) over here in China to remind the Chinese that Americans still love them! US Government, don't let us down.

Zan's Birthday & Halloween & More!

The last week has been crazy busy! Here we go...

Last Tuesday I went to part of the final Presidential Debate watch party at Kro's Nest Pizza, but actually ended up not really watching the debate because my Fulbright friend, Allie who will be living in Xi'an with me next year, was there. Instead, we took the opportunity to catch up and talk about Xi'an. Yay future friends! And then I went to an IUP Alumni Happy Hour at Q Mex, and met some nice people. Afterwards, we went to hooters to celebrate my friend Rebecca's birthday. As this was my first trip to Hooters, I was totally horrified by the tiny outfits and the whole scene. But the wings were pretty good I guess. 

Wednesday after class, I met up with a woman from the Beijing Anti-Domestic Violence Network for an informational interview. She explained to me the DV situation in China, what their organization is doing to alleviate the issue, and the main challenges they face. She has explained a little bit about being an "NGO" in China and their relationship with the government, which she described as a "partnership". This was probably my first real-live, on-the-ground Fulbright research activity so it was really exciting! Even though my topic isn't about DV, it's still important to understand the issue because many of the women's rights issues in China (and most places) effect each other. We spoke mostly in English, but also a little bit of Chinese, which I felt pretty good about! I even used a lot of my vocab from my IUP classes! :) Then I headed to a cute cafe to do some homework before my evening event, a lecture totally in Chinese about gender-based discrimination in China. It was hosted by FSYE, an organization that promotes and mentors young social entrepreneurs in China (SO COOL). When we arrived, the organizers frantically asked my two Fulbright friends and I if we could understand Chinese and we reassured them that we'd manage through it. In fact, I think I understood about 70-80% of the actual presentation with the help of the picture-filled PPT (the discussion and Q&A was a bit harder to follow). I was even able to laugh at the jokes they made! The two lecturers were activists/scholars from Taiwan so they used traditional characters (I use simplified) in their PPT, and had Taiwanese accents. They lectured about a few major examples of gender-based discrimination and some of the activist movements that have come out of them: "Occupy" men's bathrooms movement (in order to achieve a more appropriate male-to-female bathroom stall ratio & gender neutral bathrooms) that has actually led to many Chinese cities enacting new legislation to meet those demands; Sexual Harrassement on Subways (a global issue); the gendering of children through color, names, toys, bedroom furniture, etc; school uniforms for girls vs. boys; and breast-feeding spaces in public places. Overall I came away from the day totally excited to begin my research in earnest in January, and feeling pretty confident about my Chinese (and I still have 8 more weeks of IUP!). NERD FREAK OUT DAY!!!!!!

Friday was my roomie and bestie, Zan's, 23rd birthday! To celebrate, we went to lunch at Grandma's Kitchen (more on this later, but DO NOT EVER GO THERE) and had a delicious lunch of pancakes, eggs, and sausage. Then we went to a Korean Spa, which was a very unique experience. I've been to several of these types of Spas before but it was new to Zan and Sophie. Basically, you go into the single sex locker rooms, get totally naked, and then go soak in a hot tub with lots of other naked women (or men if you're a guy). From there, we got a hard core body scrub- no of that lightly exfoliating your skin with "sea salts" or anything, this was scrub-as-much-skin-off-as-you-can style. Zan freaked out from all the scrubbing cuz it was tickling her and it was pretty hilarious. Afterwards, our skin felt amazingly soft. Once we had soaked our skin to recover a bit, we put on our pink silk PJs and weird oversized disposable underwear and ventured out into the unisex area of the Spa. Zan and I got 1 hr full body massages, which were actually pretty good and not like the normal painful Chinese kind. Next we visited the "ecological" saunas, which were different rooms made out of various minerals and stones that all supposedly had different benefits for your health, and were very hot or cold. After covering ourselves with some hot rocks in a random rock pit, we moved onto the all-you-can-eat buffet that was included in our spa entrance fee. I wasn't feeling too well so I skipped out on the food. It looked pretty weird in my opinion. Then we headed home. For Zan's birthday night, we decided to go out for drinks and dessert in Sanlitun. Unfortunately on the way, my food poisoning from lunch at Grandma's Kitchen hit me and I had to hastily exit the subway car halfway through our journey to vomit all over the floor of the subway station, very pleasant. I felt much better so we got  back on the subway, but had to get off again to throw up two more times. Eventually I made it home and was sick a few more times that night. Blah. Gross. Nobody likes eggs, sausage, and bread coming out of your nose. Ewww. 

By Saturday morning, I wasn't sick anymore, but still didn't feel great. After I spent the day recovering, we started getting dressed to go out for Halloween night and Zan & Rebecca's birthdays!!! I was dressed as a Zombie Bride (I'm terribly sorry, but I don't have any of my own photos from the night. Check Facebook now or in the near future once some people load them), and Zan was a flamingo (EPIC). We started the night with a Photo Shoot at Wayne's apartment, where he had prepared adorable rummy gummies, and jack-o-lantern jell-o shots. Then we moved on to my friends Gordon and Thomas's house party, and then ended the night at Element Club, which had some crazy Halloween performances going on. 

Yesterday and today were work days spent catching up. This friday is our 1st module final (not commulative from the whole 8 weeks, thank god), and then I'm off to the US for a week for vacation!!! :) That's right, I'll be back in the old 404 so you can text/call me whenever you want!!! My plan: EAT, EAT, EAT, EAT, Shop, Yoga, EAT, EAT, EAT, hang out with a few friends, EAT, EAT, EAT, EAT, and eat. 

Also exciting, just got my classes for next module, and they're exactly what I wanted! Monday, Wednesday, and Friday my first class isn't until 10am, which is luxurious compared to my 5 days-a-week 8am current schedule. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have an 8am individual class in which I will be reading articles I've found in Chinese relevant to my Fulbright research so I can start working on my vocab for my project! Because I'm doing the this independent material class, I am not able to take two of the other classes that I'm supposed to take at my level so instead I'm condensing it into 1 and doing it alone with a teacher. It's actually great because then I get to only study things that are most interesting to my from that class and I get more personal attention from the teacher. So excited to sleep in (or maybe even go to the gym!) 3 days a week! 

That's about it for now! My next post will probably be from the US! Woah!

A weekend in the "real" China

This weekend we had an IUP trip to 东北, Northeast China. Our trip began on Friday afternoon with a subway ride to the train station. Someone on the subway had a box labelled "dog meat" in Chinese- ahhh! So awful! Then after waiting around at the train station for awhile, we boarded the train and got settled in our nice "soft" seats. On Chinese trains, there are usually 5 kinds of tickets (ordered from most to least luxurious): soft sleeper, hard sleeper, soft seat, hard seat, and standing. During a regular weekend, I'm too busy going out with friends to do various things that I don't get to read, but this weekend I finally got back into my 2nd Game of Thrones. It was so nice to read for the whole 5 hour train ride! (And now I'm almost done with the 2nd book!) Then we arrived around 10pm in 盘锦 (Panjin), a small Chinese city of about 1.3 million people. It was pretty ugly, hugely industrial, and very polluted. After arriving at the hotel, Kate (my roommate for the weekend) and I just went straight to bed. Apparently some people tried to go out and get some food and a drink, but even finding a restaurant was hard.

The next morning, we had a surprisingly decent buffet breakfast at the hotel. Then we hopped on our bus for our first activity, visiting the Red Beaches of the Liaohe River Delta. On the way, we saw lots of wind mills, oil rigs, and agriculture. Our tour guide presumably gave us an introduction to the city, but I couldn't understand anything she was saying and was distracted by her fake eyelashes (she wore them everyday) and her enormous eyes (a lot of people wear these giant colored contacts that make their eyes look huge so they can look more like an anime character/be more attractive- it's funny how those two things are the same here, right? haha). Then we arrived at what we thought were the Red Beaches, but was actually just a stop along the way. I think the tour guides were buying tickets for us, but I'm still not totally sure. While waiting, we checked out the wedding that was about to happen in the parking lot of this buidling along a river. It was probably 50F with the wind chill so not really an ideal day for a wedding in my opinion, but apparently a lot of people consult various ancient Chinese calendars to pick the most "auspicious" day for marriage based on their astrology, so it's possible this couple didn' t really have a choice for the day, haha. Anyways, the entrance to wedding was graced with a beautiful blow up arch:

Yes, it actually say "WEDDING", in english. And has the names of the bride and grooms in the middle.

Apparently these are quite popular, as this was another blow-up wedding arch we saw outside our hotel on Sunday, complete with a picture of the happy couple.

Unfortunately because of the strong winds, everything set up for the wedding kept blowing over. In the midst of the wedding chaos, my friend Jake stole a rose and gave it to me, which prompted a series of photos taken by both my friends and the official wedding photographer (who was seriously LOVING the huge crowd of foreigners hanging out by the wedding venue). My friend Wayne and I (even though Jake gave me the flower) took a number of "proposal" and "we're so in love" photos together. Unfortunately I only got this one:

 

After the brief photo shoot, we explored the scenery nearby the wedding, which included a number of strange animal displays: 

I think this is a jellyfish?

Sheep

My personal favorite, the deer

45 minutes later, we re-boarded our bus to go to the real Red Beaches. Of course just as we left the wedding, the firecrackers started going off and the Bridge and Groom arrived, so we missed most of the actual wedding. To get to the Red Beaches, we could either take a car or a boat so obviously we chose the boat. The scenery wasn't spectacular, just cruising through a river delta surrounded by tall sea grass-like stuff. Pics from the boat ride:

 Then we got on car/train thing to go the last bit of the way to the Red Beach (it was soooo cold). The beaches are red because of the kind of seaweed that grows there. In the fall, the seaweed turns red with the seasons.

Kate and I, Roomies for the weekend!!! <3

Awesome chinglish translation: "Besides footprints and smile, not leaving anything here"

After that, we thought we were going to lunch, but we dismayed when our bus stopped at a random bird reserve. However this is what happens when you're on a mass tour with no control. The lunch was not delicious, again typical with a mass tour. Then we drove for a little over 3 hours to our next stop, Shenyang 沈阳, your typical 2nd tier Chinese city of 8 million. Driving through the city, we thought, "wow, it's a real city with subways, shopping malls, high-tech rainbow light-up high rises, even a Chanel store!" But of course our hotel was in the middle of nowwhere next to the biggest construction site ever. They were rebuilding the major street our hotel was on, which was a 4 to 6 lane avenue. The entire street was torn up for miles, leaving a 20 foot deep pit in the middle of the avenue. Charming really.

After checking into the hotel, we went out to dinner, which was hard to find because we were trapped in the maze of construction. Finally we ended up at a dumpling restaurant that was supposedly famous. I didn't think it was that good, plus it was smoky and the service was abysmal (it took us an hr to get food and there were only a few other tables). From there, my table of people went to a bar called 88, which was recommended to us by the concierge as "where all the foreigners go" in Shenyang. It was the definition of tacky, as most true Chinese clubs are, with almost no foreigners, which was actually preferred anyways. The waitresses were wearing pink fur dresses. The decor was industrial, but not in the typical New York/Berlin industrial way, more a movie set "industrial" with lots of gears, pipes, screws, wheels, etc. scattered throughout.

Live Performers

We made lots of Chinese friends, who insisted we mix our own drinks (thankfully I had a long island, already pretty mixed up as it is) with their own vodka-tea concoction that seems to be the standard bottle service drink. (My friend Kate's mojito was not improved by this new addition). We danced on the stage a few times, but were kicked off by some performers- 3 foreign girls and 1 foreign guy, all wearing skimpy clothes. Most of the songs in the earlier part of the night were performed live by various Chinese singers who worked at the club, but most of them really had trouble singing english lyrics such as Usher's "Scream", haha. Quite entertaining. The highlight of the night was definitely getting an aiyi (cleaning lady) to do the Gangam Style dance with us.** Also a great night because I went out with different people from IUP so I made new friends and danced for almost 4 hours straight!On the way home, Kate, Alex, and I got lost in the maze of construction at 3am in the freezing cold for about an hr, not such a fun end to the night. Thankfully our wonderful friends left the warmth of the hotel to come rescue us. 

The next morning we had a disappointly disgusting breakfast at the hotel, and then went to the 故宫 (Imperial Palace) of Shenyang, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. I actually think it is a lot cooler and more authentic than Beijing's Forbbiden City. In Beijing, the Forbbiden City has been "restored", which actually involved them rebuilding and changing a lot of it; whereas in Shenyang, they left things looking closer to how they actually were. Plus I thought of lot of it was much more ornate.

Throne

We also saw, outside the palace, a guy doing water calligraphy. They use a bring stick with a calligraphy brush shaped sponge on the end and they just draw on the ground with water. It's really pretty. 

Then we went to Marshal Zhang's Mansion. Marshal Zhang was a warlord who controlled most of Manchuria (Northeast China) post Qing Dynasty, pre-PRC founding (1911-1949 approxiametly). He partnered with the Communists during WWII to defeat the Japanese so he's kind of a national hero now, even though he fled to Taiwan with the Guomingdang (Nationalists) in 1949. His mansion was cool because it was a combination of European style and ancient Chinese architecture.

Then we hopped back on our bus and drove to the train station. However our tour guide didn't realize the train station was under construction (like everything else in Shenyang) so we almost missed our train because we had to wait for the buses to come back and take us to the correct entrace. But don't worry, we made it. Got some homework done on the train and almost finished my book, plus napped! Went out for a burger and a drink last night to unwind from the trip.

Today we didn't have school so that we could recover from the weekend so we went shopping for Halloween costume accessories (I'm being a Ghost/Zombie Bride- we have 2 nights to dress up for so I need two costumes). I bought a variety of tacky sparkly jewelery, tights, a veil, jeweled head piece, fake eyelashes, spider and cobb webb fake nails, etc. So good. The best part was that the market we went to was in the Russian district of Beijing (who knew that even existed?). When we first got there, I thought, "wow, everyone's Chinese here is really weird. There must be some strange regional dialect within Beijing". Then I realized they were speaking Russian. Frequently I am mistaken for Russian (like this weekend on our trip) so of course the salespeople's go-to language with us was Russian, which was hilarious for us.

Anyways, now I've seen Dongbei, and am all set for Halloween! Lots of exciting things happening this week so stay tuned!

**NOTE: If you've been living under a rock for the last month and don't know what Gangam Style is, first watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0 . Then watch this parody my friends made about life in China as a foreigner (it's gotten over 300,000 views!!!): http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDYwMTg3ODQ0.html