Beijing, Huangshan, and Xi'an with Emily!

On one of Xi'an's first sunny, nice days, I went to a BBQ my friends were having on a rooftop of a Xi'an bar. As the BBQ was being held by Europeans, I wasn't quite sure what we were going to eat. Of course, your typical American BBQ would have hot dogs and hamburgers, but since the rest of the world always makes fun of our great national food,  I assumed we'd be grilling something else. But I was wrong- we had delicious hamburgers and burritos! None of the Europeans and the Chinese knew how to eat a hamburger properly and were even more baffled by the concept of rolling up a burrito. But don't worry Fulbright, I showed them how to do it! #spreadingAmericanculture 

The italian failing at eating a burger

Giulia and I on the rooftop, with a view of the Xi'an city wall behind us!

A little over two weeks, I headed to Beijing for some meetings before my oldest friend (as in friends for the longest time- 14 years!), Emily, came to China to visit me! My meetings in Beijing were really great. I actually understood and communicate everything I wanted to say in Chinese, woo! And I got some great materials from the NGOs that I met with. Unfortunately, all the NGOs I met with confirmed that they are not working on any political participation projects, which leaves me to continue to search for orgs currently doing this kind of work...

On Friday, Emily arrived in Beijing looking surprisingly good after the long flight. After some relaxation time at Zan and Kate's (our lovely hosts!) house, we ventured out for dinner to "Roast Leg of Lamb" Restaurant. (yes, that's really the name) The speciality is, of course, roast lamb on a spit that you carve yourself. Zan and Shu were our expert carvers:

From there, we headed to KTV, which was epic as always.

The next day, Emily and I headed to DinTaiFeng, my favorite dumpling place in the world. Emily loved it too! Then we went to Silk Street, where Emily picked up a few souvenirs. After we were worn out shopping, we met up with Kate at Great Leap Brewing, my favorite brewery in Beijing, where I enjoyed a glass of their delicious "Honey Ma Gold", a beer flavored with the numbing Sichuan peppercorn spice. We tried to explore Nanluoguxiang, a cute shopping hutong, but it was too packed with people so instead we grabbed a bubble tea at Cocos and escaped the crowds. Saturday night, Emily and I went to Haidilao, my favorite hot pot restaurant, where Emily was dazzled by all the free services, including manicures and shoe shines: 

Unfortunately, Emily wasn't used to the 麻辣, the Sichuan numbing peppercorn, so she didn't feel too hot afterwards. From there, we headed to my friend, Peter's, house, where we forced
白酒, China's grain liquor, on Emily. Fortunately, it was infused with figs and goji berries so it wasn't as bad as the regular stuff. And as always, we went dancing!

Sunday, Emily and I got up early and went to the Lama Temple, Beijing's largest active Buddhist temple. I hadn't been before so it was cool for me to see too. Then we had a delicious brunch with Shu, Kate, and Zan at Vine Leaf, a cute little cafe/restaurant near their house in the hutongs. Once we had stuffed our faces full of delicious western brunch food, Emily and I walked around Tiananmen Square. Then we did a tour of the Forbidden City through Newman Tours, which was awesome! I HIGHLY recommend them. I've always found the Forbidden City to be kind of boring since it's just a collection of rooms with little furniture, and no signage. Thus having a tour guide gave made it much more exciting. He told us about all the scandalous and crazy stories from the days of the Emperors. Also, John Kerry was totally touring the Forbidden City at the same time! (Well, that's what we think since he was in town to discuss the crazies in North Korea, and half the Forbidden City was temporarily blocked off by police guards). Totally exhausted by walking for 3 hours, Emily and I met up with Zan for afternoon tea/cocktails at Capital M in Qianmen, an old walking street that has been remodeled and invaded by major western chain stores. For dinner, we met Rebecca for Beijing Duck at Made in China, the best Peking Duck in my opinion. 

Monday, Emily and I woke up bright and early for our Great Wall adventure. First we had to take a bus from the confusing DongZhiMen station. Luckily, a nice old lady who worked at the station led us, literally by the hand, to the bus she thought we should take, which turned out to be different from our original plan, but it worked out anyways. When we got off the bus an hr later, we hired a great driver, who turned out to be friends with the bus lady. It was about 200rmb round trip from the bus stop, including the waiting time while we climbed. So if anyone wants to hike 经山岭长城 (JingShanLing), call 贺强(He Qiang) at 13366020714. This was my 3rd great wall trip, but I've gone to a different part of the wall each time so it was still quite fun. 

We rushed home from the Great Wall to catch our flight that night to Huangshan, Anhui Province. Due to our late arrival, we had to take a cab, who of course WAY over charged us, but we didn't have much choice. Then in the middle of our 1 hr drive to the town at the base of the mountain, he stopped on the highway and made us get in his friend's car behind us. Very weird. The 2nd driver really wanted to talk to me, but he had that "marbles-in-your-mouth" kind of Chinese accent so I didn't really know what he was saying. I did however understand some of his racist comments: 

Driver: "Why is your president's skin so dark?"

Me: "He's from Africa so he's black."

Driver: "So he's not American?!"

Me: "No, in America we have many immigrants from all over the way. You don't have to be white to be an American."

Driver: "Oh really? Wow. And what about his wife? She has dark skin too, right?"

Me: "Yes, she's also black."

Driver: "Uh, so ugly! I hate black skin. They should really stay out of the sun."

I tried my best to explain skin pigmentation to him, but I don't think I really got anywhere...

The next morning, Emily and I hoped on a bus for our overnight adventure on Huangshan! There are 3 different ways to get up the mountain: 1) the Cable Car, for whimps; 2) the Eastern stairs- "short, hard way" (Lonely Planet); and 3) Western stairs- "longer, harder way". Emily and I were feeling hard core and fit so we originally wanted to do the western stairs. However since it was raining the day we were hiking up, we were advised by many people not to do the western stairs because it's too dangerous. So instead we hiked the eastern stairs, which proved to be plenty hard core for me. Emily didn't have much trouble with the hiking (or should I say, the stair master), but I was dying from about 45 minutes in. It took us about 4 hours to hike up to the first peak. Meanwhile hiking alongside us were laborers carrying food, water, drinks, and other supplies up the mountain on poles balanced on their shoulders. It was pretty hard to watch them, as it was clearly not a humane job. The poor men had to stop every 20 feet or so to take a break, despite being clearly conditioned and ripped from doing this every day. Also while hiking, we had many people stop to shake our hands, and take our sweaty gross pictures. It got pretty irritating after awhile.

Views along the way up

Victory! We made it to the first peak!

 Once we reached the first peak, we began another adventure to explore some of the other peaks, but got too tired so we finally collapsed at our mountaintop hotel around 3pm (we started hiking around 9am). 

The food on Huangshan was overpriced and disappointing. Poor Emily, still weirded out by Chinese snacks and some of the "undetermined, weird China flavors", was fueled on our trip almost entirely by snickers bars. I mostly ate peanuts, freeze-dried tofu, and "weird" China bread. Due to the rain, there was no sunset or sunrise. We got up for the sunrise anyways though:

Then we began the 6 hour hike down the Western stairs, which was absolutely beautiful!!!

After we made the 6 hr descent down the mountain, we took a bus over to 西递 Xidi Village, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was really adorable. And we stayed at the cutest place ever, the Pig Inn. It used to be a pig sty, but was renovated by a couple from Shanghai, and is now an inn! The "restaurant" at the Inn is all home-cooked food by the owner of the Inn, who uses all local ingredients! On Thursday, we explored the town, where there were tons of students doing painting and photography. 

Sunset from the 3rd floor courtyard of the Inn

Xidi Poolhall, the craziest place in Xidi on a Wednesday night

City guide, protected from destruction during the Cultural Revolution because it was covered in Pro-Mao slogans

Winding alleyway

That evening, we returned to good old Xi'an. Friday, Emily went to the Terracotta Warriors while I caught up on some work and emails from traveling. Unfortunately, the rain and the lack of her translator (aka me) caused Emily's terracotta experience to be cold and frustrating. After we reunited, we got massages and dinner with Allie. 

Then we showed Emily Xi'an amazing (ha) nightlife. Saturday, Emily and I explored 书院门, a cute art street, the muslim quarter, and the Great Mosque. 

A pavilion at The Great Mosque

Sunday, Emily's last day in Xi'an, we went to the Shaanxi Provincial History Museum, written up as one of China's best museums. I found the museum to be totally overrated. Mostly, there were displays of pottery, ancient tools, and jewelry  but there was so little signage that nothing really meant anything to us. So basically, it was your typical Chinese museum. From there, we visited Xi'an's city wall and chilled there for awhile. 

Monday morning Emily left me!! :( We had a great trip together overall! It's SO fun to show people who's never been to China around, especially after they've been hearing me talk about it for 5 years. It's also a nice way to rediscover all the amazing things you love about China that you've started to take for granted. I can't wait for my next visitor, Jillian, in June! Miss you EM!!!

Easter, Tomb-Sweeping Festival, Cherry Blossoms, and more

Since returning to Xi'an from my almost 3 weeks of travel in the beginning of March, I have been crazy busy (hence the lack of posting) networking for my research. I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with my research and it's so nice. Next week in Beijing I have some really exciting meetings set up!

But what have I been up to in Xi'an for the last 2 weeks? Well...

Easter

While I'm not particularly religious, I'm really into holidays, including religious ones. Just like many jewish people say they are "culturally jewish," I feel that I am "culturally christian". So when Easter rolled around, I wanted to do something special. Last year, my friends Hilary, Rachel, and Michelle hosted a wonderful Easter feast at their house, complete with an Easter egg hunt! Growing up, a tradition in my family was to make a "bunny cake", with my grandmother's Rabbit cake mold. Unfortunately I did not have a bunny cake or a delicious easter feast this year. Instead, Allie, Sean (a friend Scottish friend), and I went to Xi'an only church, which claimed to be Catholic. The service was entirely in Chinese. I saw 1 other foreigner there, but the vast majority were Chinese. Religion in China can be controversial. There are only 5 recognized religions in China: Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, and Catholicism. All other religions are technically banned (Confucianism doesn't count as a "religion" in this context. It's usually considered a philosophy or cultural belief). China does try to control the institutions that are engaged in these religions by requiring them to be registered with the government so they can keep their eye on them. There are also some underground religious movements, such as the Falun Gong. The church I went to was legal, as far as I know, and certainly was not trying to be secretive. The chapel was totally full, with probably 200 people there. They sang songs, which sounded like traditional songs that had been translated into Chinese. I learned a lot of great new vocabulary  including 复活(resurrection),迷糊 (muddle-headed; dazed), and 门人 (disciple). Both of the pastors were women surprisingly. After a lot of singing (my favorite part), the pastor delivered a sermon about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. In typical Chinese fashion, she delivered the speech by listing all the 方面 (aspects) of the sermon before beginning. The way she spoke, using a lot of 4-word idioms, was very similar to the way that government officials make speeches about policy. It was very interesting. The entire service was about 1.5 hrs.

Glad to see they still have their Christmas decorations up...

After the sermon, we met up with Mei and went for Korean food, the obvious choice for a traditional Easter meal. Then Allie and I went for blind massages, which normally I enjoy. I think really firm massages so Chinese style massages are great usually. This time though, I really thought my masseuse was going to break my neck or squeeze my head into popping or something. It was really bad, and I hurt the rest of the week!

Post-massage hair

Apparently Easter in China is also "Ten thousand people buy cars holiday" or 万人购车节, which was celebrated near my house with a bridal fashion show amongst tons of new cars...

清明节 Tomb Sweeping Festival 

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this week is Tomb Sweeping Festival in China. This holiday is mostly about ancestor respect in worship. Chinese people are supposed to visit their ancestors graves, and clean them over. Another popular tradition is burning fake money to send to their ancestors in the after-life. People go out into the streets and draw white circles with chalk on the ground (I don't know what this stands for...) and place the money in the center to burn. Now the streets are covered by small piles of ash, and the air is a bit more polluted from all the smoke. Luckily it rained yesterday so hopefully that'll clear things up a bit.

Money-burning

And other random things:

• My friend Jeremy started making delicious cocktails at the Belgian Bar every Thursday and Saturday nights. It's really hard to find good drinks in China so this has been really fun. 
• I bought a bike! I absolutely love it! It's usually much faster than taking the bus, and I get more exercise. I had a minor crisis the other night after the gym when I thought my bike had been stolen. Instead the management had just moved it to the back of the building. Bike theft is a big problem in China so you have to be really careful. My gym is located in the center of the city off one of the biggest intersections in Xi'an, and yes, I ride my bike through it. Don't worry, I'm careful!

of course my bike is pink. And it has a basket and a bell!

• A new tex mex restaurant, Peter's, just opened up in Xi'an that is pretty delicious for China! Allie, Mei, and I went last week and will probably go again soon! 
• I had a great meeting with my professor who seemed really impressed with how my research has been going/my research plan for the future. That was really exciting because up until now, I didn't really feel like I had much to show for my work. And this week I also attended a research meeting where all of my professors students (all 4 of us) met to talk about their work. Yang Ting, her 2nd year grad student, presented her thesis to us, which is on the one-child policy and how it impacts gender preference. After she finished the presentation, my professor tore her apart in front of all of us. This is pretty common for China, but I was terrified. Next meeting, I have to present on my research, but I think they mostly want to hear about education in the US and my experiences, rather than a real presentation on my research. 
• I also recently toured around my campus with Yang Ting, who showed me all the cherry blossoms! so pretty! 

• I also joined a gym! I first went to 2 other gyms to do trial workouts before finally settling on MegaFitness, the biggest and fanciest gym in Xi'an. It's also quite expensive. But the first gym I went to, Yates, was pretty bad. I got on a treadmill that overlooks a soccer field because I thought it'd be fun to watch while running. After a few minutes, the smell of the bathroom nearby became too much to bear so I had to get off and switch to a father away one...Then I went to use the weight machines and there weren't any pins to hold the weights! I finally found 1 machine with a pin, which I just took with me to other machines. I was the only foreigner there so all the old men kept watching me and talking to me while I was working out, which was annoying. Gyms in China are a very funny place in general. It's full of older men who were really tight shorts, and women in 1980s style sweatsuits or jeans. The men also love to pose for themselves in the mirror. After finishing a set, during which they probably made lots of loud grunting noises so that you look at them and see how strong they are, they stand in front of the mirror and inspect their muscles. Then they hit themselves repeatedly to loosen up the muscle or bring more blood flow to the area- I don't know. All the ladies go to the gym to "work out", which generally means they talk on their phone while walking on the treadmill or lazily bike or do a chinese dance class. Sometimes people don't even change for the gym and just wear their regular clothes- so weird! And finally, my new favorite thing that I've seen is in the locker room- the ladies don't bring towels so after they shower, they just head over to the hair dryers and blow dry their ENTIRE bodies. It's the weirdest (and most awkward) thing I've ever seen...anyways, so I joined Megafitness and it's been great. I even ran a 5K this week, which I've never done in my life! I also tried the "LA Dance" class, hoping it would be like Zumba. Instead it was a hip hop class taught by a young chinese guy. All the people in the class were middle-aged Chinese women who had no control over their hip movements, and looked hilarious. And of course in the back, all the Chinese men stopped to watch us dance. I probably won't go to that one again, but it was fun!
• My Colombian neighbors have a pet tarantula (don't worry, it's not poisonous), and I held it! It was gross and scary!

•  I also hosted two couch surfers this week, both from Germany. It was nice to meet some new people, and show off Xi'an and China to them! 

Overall I've spent this time getting caught up from my travels, and hanging out with friends!

Giulia and I! 

Girl's Weekend in Shanghai!!

After week-long travel in Taiwan with Fulbrighters, I fly to Shanghai via Beijing to meet Zan and Kate for a girls weekend! We arrived late night on Friday.

Saturday morning, we got up and walked down Nanjing Lu, Shanghai's biggest and most touristy walking street.

Kate and I on Nanjing Lu

Then we headed to Egghead Bagels for a delicious brunch. I had a lattee, fresh squeezed juice, and a classic bagels w/ lox and cream cheese (Kate, our adorable Aussie bffls, didn't know what lox were!)

After that, we went to the French Concession, and, with the help of an awesome Time Out Shanghai article, we discovered tons of adorable little shops and cafes.

Besties forever!!!!

secret garden

Zan lounging

Zan thinks my future house should include this doorframe. I'm not that tacky! 

Then we stumbled on the Shanghai Propoganda Poster Museum, which is possibly the coolest museum in the world (at least for China nerds like me).

Mao Character Cult Worship

"Brotherly love" between the Soviets and the Chinese

The Museum itself looked a bit like a Middle School Art project. The posters were lamented and backed on black foam board, with printer paper descriptions next to them. 

An example of the "Shanghai Lady Poster", which were used during the 1920s and 30s to promote western products in China by romanticizing and orientalizing Chinese women. 

A photograph of the 大字报 (Big Character Posters), which were used during the Cultural Revolution to condemn others and show your support for the enduring communist revolution and Mao. It was illegal to take them down so the streets ended up looking like this. 

The posters spanned from the 20s to the 80s, when propoganda posters were phased out by Deng Xiaoping. Most of the posters hate on America, and the west in general, with slogans like "Down with the Western Imperialists!". It was a fascinating insight into the Mao era.

After that, we headed to Tianzifang, an adorable section of Shanghai most similar to Beijing's Hutongs. It's a series of small alleyways that still have a lot of Shanghai's old-stlye Shikumen houses. Like the hutongs, it's turned into a bunch of cute shops and restaurants. Of course, Zan was freaking out and loved it. She even got interviewed by some students for a fashion magazine! Zan, fashionable?! Kate and I were loving it, hahaha.

They had fro-yo. I was so happy!

Kate, Zan, and I were Zan's fashion interviewer

Zan loving Tianzifang

Then it started to rain so we headed back to the hotel to change for the evening. We met up with Sam, one of Rebecca's friends from High School who lives in Beijing and was traveling the same weekend to Shanghai. We all had dinner at a traditional Shanghai restaurant, then headed to the Bund for a view of Pudong at night! Unfortunately it was still rainy and a bit foggy so the view wasn't great.

Next we went to Vue Bar at the Hyatt on the Bund, but sadly the weather wasn't good so we couldn't see much. Afterwards we went dancing!

Sunday morning we went to a delicious (and boozey) brunch at Maya, a mexican restaurant. They had bottomless margaritas and sangria, which we of course had to sample! It was super fun. Despite the continuing rain, we headed to Yu Yuan gardens, traditional old-style Shanghai gardens. Afterwards Zan and Kate had to head to the airport to get back for work on Monday. I stayed on in Shanghai until Tuesday for a Vassar Networking meeting. That night I went and got a mani-pedi and a massage! It was a wonderful end to the weekend.

On Monday, I went shopping and got a ton of DVDs, a scarf, and a new purse! That evening I attended the Vassar in China Shanghai networking event, where our president, Cappy, and some other Vassar admins spoke! Most of the event actually seemed geared towards convincing Chinese prospies to come to Vassar, but it was still fun. Zan and I are going to try to organize more informal get togethers in Beijing with the help of a lovely Vassar development women I met there. I also ran into Caryn, another Vassar '12 graduate who is working at an education consulting firm in Shanghai. After the event ended, we went and got burgers and beer. It was great to catch up!

Tuesday morning I headed back to Shanghai after almost 3 weeks of travel!

Photos courtesy of Zan Schmidt