White Rice: 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!