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Tour of Dongbei (North East China)

// July 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // China, Dalian, Harbin, Travel

I just got back from a week of touring through some of the most famous parts of North Eastern China (the region known as “dongbei” or “东北”) so I thought I’d write down all I did in the past 7 days. Here it goes:

Friday, July 3, 2009
Friday night we all got on a night train to Dalian. Being the third time the whole group has traveled by train, I think we’re starting to get the hang of it. Things went smoothly and we had another night of singing songs and playing cards into the night at 140 km/hr.

Saturday, July 4, 2009
Saturday morning we arrived in Dalian. After breakfast at a Chinese fast food joint, we got on a bus to Jinshetan, which is about an hour northeast of Dalian.  So I was pretty bummed when I found out that we weren’t actually staying in Dalian, my old home town from last year. In Jinshetan, we went swimming at the beach, then in the afternoon everyone went to an amusement park. I still don’t really understand the decision to spend our time this way – both the beach and amusement park you can do in the States, and I felt it would have been a much better decision to actually stay in Dalian and see the city. Regardless, we had a good time at the beach, and then I took a train with a classmate back to Dalian to see my friends from the previous summer. We only got to hang out for a few hours, but it was great to see them again. That night we headed back to Jinshetan and celebrated the 4th of July with everyone. We had a huge fire and cooked hotdogs and smores on sticks. In the distance we saw a bunch of other fireworks going off, and it was comforting to know other Americans were in the town.

Sunday, July 5, 2009
We didn’t do a whole lot on Sunday. In the morning we took a bus out to a shipping port where we waited for about an hour to board our boat to Yantai. We spent the rest of the day riding the boat. It was a smooth ride and we got the VIP room with card tables, so it was a pretty sweet deal. In the afternoon I spent about 2 hours talking with some of our teachers in Chinese and had some wonderful conversations, taking notes all along the way.

Monday, July 6, 2009
We traveled to the Penglai Fortress the next morning where we learned about the Penglai mirage and about the Legends of the 8 Immortals. We took a motor boat ride in the afternoon and hiked the side of a small mountain to a temple. The weather was particularly hot that afternoon and a lot of people ended the day with red necks, myself included, but the view from the top was worth it.  That night we boarded another night train to Yanzhou.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Tuesday morning we woke up in Yanzhou then took a bus to Qufu and spent the morning touring Confucius’s home. In the afternoon we went to Mencius’s home, one of Confucius’s most famous students. I took a lot of photos of the two areas, both which were rather large sort of parks filled with trees and ancient Chinese buildings. I wish I knew more about the history of the places because after a while everything started to look the same, and I could not distinguish the significance of one temple over the other. That night we had a delicious dinner, complete with scorpions as a local delight.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The next morning we took a bus to the Ling Yan Buddhist Temple near Mount Tai. It is said that if you go to Mount Tai but you don’t go to the Ling Yan Temple, then you haven’t actually gone to Mount Tai. I wrote my name in English and Chinese in a book in one of the temples which is said to bring good fortune. The temple was gorgeous, but the weather didn’t necessarily agree. Just before lunch, the rain started to pour, and it didn’t let up for most of the day. That afternoon, we all put on ponchos and began the hike up the 1500 meter tall Mount Tai. We took a bus half way up then walked for about an hour literally inside a rain cloud up seemingly never-ending stairs. At the top, some people got lost because you couldn’t see more than 10 ft in front of yourself. We were supposed to get up the next morning around 4:00 to see the sunrise, but the fog was just too bad.

Thursday, July 9, 2009
The next morning we broke up into two groups. One hiked all the way back down the mountain. The other group, the one I went with, stayed at the top for the morning, and it turned out to be a good decision. Around 10:00 am, the fog dissipated and we found ourselves looking down at clouds and up at beautiful blue skies. The photos don’t even come close to capturing the awe of that morning. It turned out the bad weather the day before was a blessing because the cable car was not working and no Chinese tourists were able to come up. We ended up with the entire top of the mountain to ourselves. That afternoon, the cable cars began working again and we rode them down to the buses. After Mount Tai, we went to Larry’s home village (Larry was one of our guides). The small town had set up a huge celebration for us, and we were placed at tables in the center of about 400 Chinese villagers in front of a stage. For the rest of the day, we watched the local townspeople perform on stage, and we even got a chance to go on stage and sing a few songs. The warmth from that small town was perhaps the most incredible part of the whole trip.

Friday, July 10, 2009
We spent the night a very nice hotel and spa, then the next morning went to Pu Songling’s Liquan Spring where we saw his gravesite and visited a haunted house. Pu Songling was a famous Chinese writer, sort of like a Chinese Hemmingway. The haunted house was similar to most haunted houses in the States, with very fake looking stuff inside, but this house was a bit more graphic than ones I have been to before (for example, a naked man clenching to a glowing hot steel column as torture for his sins). That afternoon we headed to the airport where we found that our flight was delayed several hours. We finally left around 7:30 pm and arrived back in Harbin around 9:00 pm.

All in all, the week was a great experience and a nice break from classes. There were definitely some flaws in planning, and it seemed like we spent way too much of our time on a bus or a train or waiting, but I think the good outweighed the bad. Going to Mount Tai and Larry’s village alone were two amazing experiences I would probably never have the opportunity to do on my own. I posted a bunch of photos from the trip in 4 separate albums, so check them out it you’d like on my photos page or on my flickr account. Now I’m looking forward to only 4 weeks left here in Harbin. I can’t believe how quickly this program is going by, but it’s been awesome so far.

Familiar Places & Familiar Faces

// November 18th, 2008 // No Comments » // China, Dalian, Shanghai, Travel

This past weekend I flew up to Dalian to visit friends one last time before I go home in December. I figured I should say hi to everyone while I am still in the country because I really don’t know when I will get to see them all again. The weekend was great. Arriving in the airport late Friday night was major déjàvu. The plane taxied to the same gate that my summer began from back in May, and when I got off I immediately remembered how strange the place had seemed 6 months ago. I remember how lost and confused I felt not being able to understand anything or anyone around me. But this time it was different. I knew exactly where I was and where I wanted to go. I could read all the signs and I understood most of what people around me were saying. It honestly felt like I was coming home.

When I stepped outside the airport, I realized how much I missed Dalian. The city really is one of the most beautiful cities in China, and after spending 10 weeks in Shanghai the Dalian air seemed so fresh and clean. There were no loud buses and massive crowds. There were no foreigners on every block. It felt like China. It was nice. It’s strange to think about Dalian that way, because I remember thinking the city was dirty and crowded back in May, but that was a comparison to Blacksburg, where the population is less than 1% of Dalian’s. Compared to Shanghai, Dalian is a paradise.

Although I was only there for less than 48 hours, I had a great time just hanging out with friends. We basically did nothing, and it was perfect. We just ate good food and chilled at coffee shops. It is much colder in Dalian than Shanghai right now so staying inside was nice. Church on Sunday was the usual crowd, and it really did seem like I was only gone for a weekend instead of 3 months. It was so nice to just relax and do nothing together. Shanghai is such a busy city, and everyday here there is non-stop stuff to do. There is always work, swing dancing, tango lessons, and late conference calls that make the days fly by way too fast. I really haven’t had a chance to slow down since I got here. It has been really fun and exciting, but sometimes you just want to get away from it all. I’m going to miss China when I leave in December, but I think I will miss Dalian more than anything, and I hope I can come back someday.

Last Dalian Weekend

// August 2nd, 2008 // No Comments » // China, Dalian

Well, today is my last Saturday in Dalian, and I cannot believe that I have been here for almost 3 months!  I seriously feel like I just got here last weekend, except now I know where everything is in the city for some reason.  I’m pretty excited about getting back home and seeing friends, but in many ways I am really going to miss being here.  I’ve grown accustomed to living in Dalian now and I know that Shanghai is going to be very different.  I think most of all I am going to miss the people I’ve met here.  I have made some truly awesome friends here and I really wish I could spend more time with them.  Fortunately, I will be able to see a couple back in the States, but I don’t know when or if the whole group will get to meet up again.  For now I am just going to live with hope for the future.  There are many things happening right now in my life that I know will greatly affect my future decisions, ranging from college and careers to faith and family life.  I also know that so much is out of my hands and that all I can do about that is pray.  Anyway, that’s enough thinking for now.  It’s sunny out, so I’m going outside.  I’ll try and make one more post before I leave next weekend.  Bye!

Chinese 101

// July 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // China, Dalian

Since I’ve been studying Chinese for a little while now, I thought I’d give you a small example of what the language is like so you can get a taste of what it is like to study it.  First of all, there is no alphabet – only characters that each represent a word.  So for those of us who weren’t born a native speaker, we have to use a system called “pinyin” to pronounce new words.  Pinyin is a phonetic system that essentially uses English letters to spell the sound of words.  The biggest difference here is that Chinese is a tonal language with 5 tones: flat (1), rising (2), low (3), falling (4), and neutral (5).  This means that when pronouncing every word, you must raise or lower the pitch of your voice to indicate the meaning.  Tones are extremely important in determining the meaning of a word.  For example, the word for mother is “mā” (flat tone), while the word for horse is “mǎ” (low tone).  The characters for these two words are different as well:  mother is 妈 while horse is 马. 

The interesting thing in Chinese is that while at first the characters may all seem random, once you study for a while you begin to discover thousands of connections between them all.  Most of the time, characters are made up of smaller radicals that each have a certain meaning.  For example, the radical for “woman” or “female” is 女.  In the character for mother, you can see that this radical is present on the left: 妈. Notice also that it has the radical for horse: 马. This is in the word because the sound of “mother” is similar to “horse.”  In fact, for most words, some radicals indicate meaning while others often indicate the sound of the word.  Therefore, while there is no alphabet, you can often guess the sound or meaning of a word by looking at its radicals.  For example, the following words all sound like “ma” just with different tones: 马, 吗, 妈, 玛, and 码.  See the horses? 

Some of the most interesting words come from more abstract ideas.  For example, the word for “righteousness” actually has a Biblical reference.  The character for “me” is 我 and the character for lamb is 羊.  In the word righteousness, the “lamb” is placed above “me,” as Jesus was sacrificed for me: 義. Some words come from more ancient meanings.  For example, the word for “immediate” is 马上, which literally translates to “on horseback.”  If you think about it, until modern ages the fastest way to do anything was indeed on horseback. 

As you learn more and more words, the web of connections between them grows tremendously.  Actually, most languages work in the same way, including English.  Consider the English suffix “-ology.”  Any English speaker can quickly recite several different subjects of study that all end in “-ology.”  This suffix is a common link between those words that indicates the meaning “the study of…”

I hope that this helps you see why I am interested in learning Chinese.  Every new word is another link in the web and I find it incredibly intriguing.  The best part is when you actually start using it to talk with people, which is why I’m in China now! 

4th of July

// July 5th, 2008 // No Comments » // China, Dalian

Yesterday we celebrated Independence Day here in Dalian with all the Americans, and it rocked! It started on July 3rd when we spent about 3 hours searching the city for fireworks. A couple friends and I went all over the city and could not find any fireworks! I couldn’t believe it – I mean, we’re in China! Fireworks are what China does! Anyway, July 4th apparently is not a real big firework seller here in China, given that it’s all about American independence and whatnot. Eventually my friend made a phone call and got someone to pick us up some out in the countryside where they still had some left over from the Spring Festival. We kicked off last night with an original American classic – chilly cheese hotdogs and baked beans, and these were the real deal dogs unlike the wantabee Chinese hotdogs. After grilling it up, we broke out the marshmallows and made some smores with the left over coals. Besides all the weird looks we got from every Chinese person passing by (we were doing all this right out front of the apartment complex), we had a really great time together. After we finished with the smores, we promptly lit off a bunch of firecrackers and some of these really cool fireworks that shot up super loud balls that exploded in the air. It was about the most American experience I have had yet in China, and I am so glad I had good friends here who welcomed me in to share it with them. Now I’m off to Beijing – I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. Cheers!