上海，第一天

Well I made it to Shanghai. China's New York, Paris, London, Istanbul, and Tokyo all rolled into one, smog-filled package, complete with history (both modern and ancient), food (Chicken McNuggets and live chickens in the street), buildings (Shanty's and the Pearl Orient - that giant, tacky, weird alien looking thing you see on all the pictures of Shanghai), transportation (bicycles and Ferraris), and people (Chinese and Foreigners). If there is any place that I think captures the confusion and contradictions that Modern China seems to possess, it's Shanghai, in all it's gold-and-soot-encrusted glory.

Chessin and I arrived yesterday afternoon, and are staying in a hostel near the People's Square (which, ironically, is neither square-shaped, or catered specifically to normal people - unless normal is incredibly beautiful and wealthy). Our parents are arriving on Sunday afternoon (tomorrow), and we'll then take them to Suzhou, Nanjing, and back to Shanghai. Yesterday and today we've just been exploring the city - it's my first time but Chessin's been here before; he's the "expert."

The "expert," as I think he would appreciate me calling him, took us today on a walk to the Bund, the area on the river near the Pearl Orient and where all the Europeans used to live and work - a very historic district.

"Shouldn't we go left?" I said.

"You're an idiot." He smartly retorted.

And so, seven hours later, we arrived at the bund. And you think I'm kidding. We actually walked around for seven hours. The Bund was cool, but actually the most fun was where we walked - through a bunch of markets, residential areas, and, basically, the Sarah Palin "real" Shanghai. It was sweet. Chickens, ducks, eels, frogs, turtles, all live, of course - It's funny, I saw a dead duck and was like "what the hell?" Only to realize you've been in china for far too long when you're surprised by the sight of already slaughtered poultry. We had an amazing lunch at this little hole-in-the-wall where we could choose the veggies and meats we wanted from a plethora of laid out choices, and they wok fried it right there and served it on rice. People were selling everything a modern, real Chinese person might need - shoelaces, grains, counterfeit (illegal) porn, DVDs, pajamas, and everything in between. Also, it's funny that Shanghai, so full to the brim with foreigners in the ritzy, Starbucks-laden sections, has areas where when foreigners like Chessin and myself walk down the street we're still met with calls of "hallo!" and gawking stares. Another thing about Shanghai (and China in general) I've noticed is that construction sites aren't really separated from people. Chessin and I ended up sort of in the boonies on our long walk, and they were doing massive construction, but there was no temporary sidewalk constructed, so we had to simply walk through open ditches, and on newly laid asphalt.

Anyways, I just blew my nose and found black soot in the tissue when I was done. Needless to say, the air here is not great. We're about to go to dinner; hopefully it'll top last night's Vietnamese food, which was great. As we walked in, they asked us if we wanted smoking or non-smoking, and Chessin said he almost cried. This is the first time there has been a non-smoking section in a restaurant since I've been here. A downside to this westernization was that Shanghai is also on "real money" - meaning dinner at a nice restaurant didn't cost the normal $10 for two people, it cost $30. All right, I should go out and get some food, although my legs are tired from walking. I'll leave you with this thought, which I will clarify later - I'm not sure whether Shanghai is a diamond-encrusted mud pie, or a mud encrusted diamond. (deep right? I'm not sure how original it is...) - there are arguments in both directions, and after I spend time here I shall expound philosophically which I think it is...

再见

zai jian!

The News

I’ve been slowly saying goodbye to Nanjing for about a week now, and I have about a week to go before I’ll abandon the comfortable and routine life this city, school and teaching has provided. Nothing has been too difficult, because I know even after I leave I’ll be back in the next couple of months – but I’m starting to feel the mortality of favorite little food carts, parks, and streets, and it’s strange and kind of depressing when the goodbyes with friends you’ve made last almost as long as the hellos.

I think, though, the only real “goodbye” I’ve made was to the elementary school for migrant workers’ children where I teach English on Wednesdays. I’m not sure if I ever described it in this blog, but this school is probably the closest to “real China” I’ve come in my so far slightly sheltered existence as a foreign student in a wealthy, metropolitan city. It’s about a half hour outside of the city center by bus, next to the big “Purple Gold Mountain.” The school itself is situated outside of a little housing complex, and the building and playground is nice enough. Apparently it is one of the nicer “Migrant Children Schools” around. There is a track outside with a green area for the kids to play in, and the building has two courtyards and is 4 stories high, with a couple of ping pong tables, a little school store, and plenty of red Chinese lettering on the walls espousing both educational and party principles. The children all wear little blue jump suits and a red scarf around their neck, and are, as a whole, absolutely adorable. I’ll put some pictures I took a few weeks ago up after the post. The guy who set up this teaching position for me, Ben, was telling me that because of the mass peasant exodus to the cities to find work, the government doesn’t want to provide these migrant workers with the living permits necessary to send their children to the public schools, so they instead have to send their children to these substandard, poor migrant schools that they actually have to pay for. The school I work at, according to one of the teachers, has about 1,000 Children and about 40 employees, including janitors, administration, and teachers. That’s a ratio of 25 students to 1 employee, but the classes have upwards of 40 students in them. Because of this, I’ve noticed, kids who aren’t doing their work or aren’t paying attention really just get left behind, and often times the only way the teacher knows how to, or can, keep the troublemakers from disrupting the rest of the class is by hitting them with a ruler. When I teach, I always try to give everyone a chance to speak, and say encouraging things even to the kids that can barely say a word; I get the feeling the kids are baffled and a little amused at this crazy white person who let’s them go to the bathroom whenever they ask and says good job even when it was only so-so…

Anyways. Last Wednesday was my last day teaching. Ben told me in the morning that there was going to be some sort of “multimedia presentation” to say thank you, and to be prepared. So I went together with the five other teachers that taught on separate days of the week, and arrived at the school ready to teach a class. We were met by the principal, three men in suits I’d never seen before who said they were from the “Nanjing Charity Foundation,” and a News Crew. They were going to film us teaching a class, they said. So, Ben, another teacher, and I were to teach the 3rd graders (the kids I’d been teaching), and the other three teachers were going to teach the 6th graders. We got into the class, and taught the song “head, shoulders, knees, and toes,” some useful weather vocab, and other body parts/sentences to go with them, all while being filmed (which is kind of creepy…). Then, while we were in the middle of teaching, one of the guys in suits came up and said it was time to stop teaching and something else I didn’t understand. But, we were lined up in front of the class and the cameras, and three adorable little girls came up and said a long, choreographed, and adorable thank you to us for teaching them, and then tied the little red bows around our necks, and saluted us. I was the only one who saluted back, although I’m not sure if was supposed to… After that, we were showered with gifts from every single student. Some drew pictures, and wrote really sweet letters, as well as made folded paper things. I got about 10 little paper boats and 3 paper dogs. Anyways, after that all the teachers were congregated back into an empty classroom and interviewed by the Anchor. She asked us a lot of questions, and since my Chinese was one of the worst out of the teachers, I was sheepish to answer questions. Although when she started talking to me, I got a surge of confidence and answered all of her questions in the best Chinese I’ve spoken. I’m told I misunderstood almost everything she said and looked like an idiot, like the time I nodded when she said “a lot of people say these students are slow learners” because I thought she said “good learners,” and one of the other teachers had to step in and tell me how I misunderstood… anyways I’m supposed to be on the TV in a couple of days, and I might get a copy of the program, which would be exciting. After the interview, the news van drove us all home (no news chopper today), and on the way I had a long, civilized, and interesting talk with one of the other teachers, who is Mormon, about gay marriage equality. All in all, it was a good day.

I had my last class in which I’m a student on Friday, and my finals are on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then I’m off to Shanghai, Suzhou, and then the Southwest of China (I hope the Mexican food is as good as it’s supposed to be…).

Zai Jian!

P.S. Here are some pictures. They are slightly out of order, and I apologize, but I still haven’t mastered “the internet”:

A student during class:

Some kids during a break:

The class I teach being taught by another teacher:

Kids after class; some of them get out of their uniforms as quickly as they possibly can:

During a lesson:

Learning about Thanksgiving, and what we Americans do during it:

Ben, another teacher, teaching some basic phrases:

A Child up on the third floor; view from the courtyard:

Some kids playing ping pong and buying junk food after school:

More Thanksgiving Pics:

Ben with the class after the thanksgiving lesson:

Beijing Photos 2

Chessin inside the Water CubeMe outside the bird's nest me outside the water cube

Beijing Photos

Me in the Forbidden City Views from the Great Wall hike The night food-market in Beijing Chessin at QuanJuDe Beijing Duck Restaurant. This is the second picture with this pose we took, because in the first one his "posture wasn't acceptable". Scorpions, crickets, and beatles on a stick. They all taste like salt, oil, and pepper - the stuff they smother them in. Me with my scorpion. Me and Mao in front of the Forbidden City Chessin and Me in Tiananmen Square.

Beijing, Beijing!

It finally came. My first chance to see a China outside of Nanjing, the southern capitol (南京 literally means "southern capitol"). Where did I go, you may ask? to the northern capitol of course! Beijing (北京）

My journey, or pilgrimage, started about 3 weeks ago, when I decided to tell Steven that I would need the 21st through 24th off to go to Beijing. Being the control freak he is, he asked me if I could go another time. "How about right now?" I said, "but in that case I wouldn't be coming back." (unfortunately I didn't actually say that, however badly I wanted to.) Anyways, long story short of it, last thursday at 5PM I was packing for Beijing. Before we went though, Chessin and I decided to stop off for a quick bite at our favorite xinjiang restaurant. The owner, whom we're friends with, really wanted us to stay and have some baijiu - the hard liquor of choice all throughout china - with him and his Uyghur friends arriving from xinjiang. We had our drinks in the same time it took the owner's friend to knock back three cups of this paint-thinning fire juice, and were then on our way to the train station.

The Nanjing train station is a giant, spaceship-looking thing by the edge of the big lake in Nanjing. They check your tickets at the door, and then you wait in this giant room reminiscent of a refugee camp for your train. Finally they let the people through the gate, and you walk in a giant herd towards the platform, and onto the train. As we were walking to our car, we passed by windows of other cars - they had semi-private rooms of four bunks with a TV on the wall, and a fruit basket near the beds. Not so bad. However, we weren't in these "soft sleepers". We were in the hard sleepers, which have no rooms, only rows of bunks in a train with three bunks on top of each other. We were also on the very top, with about 15 inches of space between the tips of our noses and the ceiling of the train. Although, I have to say, it was surprisingly comfortable. The gentle rocking of the train made it relatively easy to relax, even if we were 8 feet in the air. Also, being on top made me less self-conscious about stripping down in order to sleep, because the only person that might have been able to spy me up there is Kevin Garnett, and chances were he wasn't on this train. However, before we got to sleep, we were befriended by a group of little kids (ages 8-12) that were traveling from nanjing to beijing for a dance competition. They went to a school devoted to ballroom dancing, and were absolutely hilarious. There must have been about 10 of them, all crowded around my bunk disturbing everyone around me, teaching me little games, and touching my hair telling me how beautiful it was. They also loved chessin's beard and the hair on his stomach - that was also "beautiful". I think the best part about them, though, was that they did whatever we said. So, when we were starting to get a little tired of the kids, and wanted to read a little bit, chessin told them that it's important to sleep before a competition and they booked it to their beds and went right to sleep. It was amazing.

So, we arrived in Beijing at about 9 AM, after being awoken by the hordes of small dancing children at about 5:30 wanting to play more games with us. From the train station, we walked to Tiananmen Square. We walked around the whole square, and then went into the Mao Memorial hall, where Mao's body is on display. I have now seen the bodies of Mao and Lenon... I can die a happy man. The chairman is illuminated in a glass case surrounded by a few guards, and you can then buy many Mao knick-knacks as you leave - I'm sure just what he had in mind. After Mao, we got some awesome dumplings at a little restaurant; the jiaozi and baozi are different in the North, and i think a little bit better. After that, we walked around for quite a while trying to find our hostel, because I sort of forgot to write down the adress... but eventually we found it, put our stuff down, and took some greatly needed showers. The hostel was actually really awesome. It was in a little beijing Hutong (the little alleys that used to make up beijing), and was a courtyard with pretty flowers and plants and chinese architecture, with the rooms opening up onto it.

After taking showers and such, we went back out for some more touring of the city. We went to Wangfujing - the big commercial area, walked around, saw some little markets and the likes. Then we went to quanjude beijing duck restaurant - the most famous (and overpriced) duck restaurant in beijing, and had a massive meal of the fattiest, most delicious duck EVER. Afterwards we walked around some more, and ended up at this nightmarket with all sorts of foods being sold on sticks - snake, scorpion, sea cucumber, star fish, - and other delicious looking dumplings and the like. Although, I got the feeling the snake and scorpion was targeted more at tourists than at regular people - i don't think beijing people just eat scorpions for fun, although it was pretty good. Anyways, we made our way back to the hostel, and on the way managed to not get scammed a couple of times by the people who come up to you in the street and say "hello, you speaka english. can I buy you a drink?". Eventually we just tell them we don't speak english, and walk away. Back at the hostel we had some pomello and went to sleep.

The next day we woke up at around 6:30, and headed out to the Dongzhimen long distance bus station to get out to the great wall. We took a 1.5 hour bus out north of the city, and at this little town hired a local guy to drive us to the Jinshanling section of the wall and drop us off, and then pick us up 4.5 hours later at the Simatai section. The hike along the great wall was freaking awesome. Although we did get ripped off a little bit by some locals who wanted to sell us great wall posters, there were barely any people hiking with us, and the wall itself is, at most parts (except the tourist secions) authentic and beautiful. The landscape was also amazing - just rolling mountains and hills remeniscent of what I imagined an ancient mongolian landscape to look like. The wall is ungodly steep at points as it winds and outlines the mountains in this area, and there are no "handrails" and caution signs to prevent you from suing if you fall and hurt yourself. It is just there, with gaping holes and unconnected stairs you have to jump between to get anywhere. After reaching the end of our hike, we went out for a quick bite in a small 家常菜 （"home taste dish") restaurant, and then headed back to beijing. We then relaxed a little bit, and headed out to a tibetan restaurant for dinner - which was delicious yak and cheese and yogurt - twas awesome.

The next day, sunday, we visited Panjiayuan - one of the bigger open air markets in the city. It was packed with people yelling and screaming about the prices of vegetables, and also had some really good food stalls to pick and choose from. We also went to liulichang, the antique street, although most of the antiques were fake so it was underwhelming. I did, however, purchase some genuine Mao buttons. I can't wait to show them off at work! After antiquing, we made our way to the forbidden city - the ancient palace complex in the middle of Beijing, which is really cool and beautiful, but was very touristy and crowded and unimaginably huge. after like 2 hours there we started to get bored of giant stone pots and beautiful roofs, and had to leave before they locked the gates and we were stuck there in this giant palace complex for the night. After the forbidden city we got some more 家常菜, and then headed for the Beijing opera which was actually pretty cool (minus the incredibly rude woman sitting behind us laughing through the whole thing). The BJ opera doesn't use stage scenery, and so a lot of it is portrayed through mime, which is also pretty difficult to understand when you can't really understand what they're saying. Luckily there were some translations, but they were so bad it somehow made it even harder to understand...

Anyway, the next day, monday, our last day, we made our way to the olympic sports venues, saw the birdsnest and water cube (both of which, i'm sad to say, were a little disappointing), and then made our way to the beijing trainstation to catch our train out, but not before running into our dancing friends in the subway station. Turns out we were on the same train back! one car down! YAY!!!! When we finally got to the station, we bought tons of fresh fruit so that it would not be necessary to eat train food in china (although, i did learn the lesson not to eat a lot of ruffage on a 15 hour trainride in china... If a normal toilet in china is less inviting than a train toilet in America... well you get the idea...). Anyways, the trainride home was fine, noneventful, and we got to spend some quality time with our little dancing friends, who are adorable. We got in at about 7 this morning, had some dumplings, and then went home and slept slept slept. That's about it. Beijing is awesome. I really like the attitude up north - it's some how more relaxed, a little more zen than it is down here in the south. Although, the south is cool too...

i'll post some pictures soon.

zai jian!

Halloween, China Style

Yesterday, October 27th, was Halloween in Nanjing. Don’t ask me why, it just was. I should be more specific. No one really celebrates Halloween in China – almost no one I should say – their image of it is limited, I think, to the few Halloween-themed cartoons and movies that get imported over here. Understandably, too, because it really has nothing to do with Chinese culture or history. But, at the “English Language Center” where I’ve been teaching, there was gonna be a Halloween party, goddamnit! And they were gonna have a real-live American there to talk about Halloween, and run the show. So, Steven, my boss (aptly described by the bizarre, 50 year old Australian Ex-pat who also teaches there as a F***-Wit) organized a Halloween party with spooky music, a brief explanation of Halloween provided by the resident American, and four games: “Eating apples from the water, Horrible Touching Game (?), Making Mummies by Napkins, and Carving Pumpkin Lights.” Horrible Touching Game, it turns out, is not the same game that put my friend’s step-uncle in prison, but instead that game where you have blindfolded people reach into pasta and tell them it’s intestines and shtuff like that….

SO! It was off to the party. But before the big night, Steven asked me, “What are you to be tonight?” “I don’t know,” I said, “maybe a professional badminton player? I have a bunch of badminton clothes…” “No,” Steven said, “you will be a vampire.”

I got to the school around 6:30, put on the costume they provided me, and then Steven told me I should talk for 20 minutes about Halloween. Surprisingly I could do it – You’d be surprised by how much you know about a cultural phenomenon like Halloween – I could have talked for an hour. So after my spiel, we played eating apples from water game. It was pretty entertaining, especially since the Halloween music Steven chose was “Dancing Queen,” and the kids were instructed to eat the apples, not just pick them up. After that, we played horrible touching game – but instead of a bowl of pasta, there was just one noodle, and a carrot… kind of lame. Making mummies by napkins was actually really fun, because each group used like 4 rolls of toilet paper, and made some pretty good mummies. Finally it was time for carving pumpkin lights, or “jack-o-lanterns” as I told an incredulous bunch of Chinese people. “What a funny name,” said a group of people who call a faucet a “water dragon head.” The pumpkins Steven bought were those tiny, un-carvable pumpkins that you get at Halloween to offset the huge ones that you can carve, but goshdarnit we were gonna carve these too. Given incredibly small, dangerous knives, candles, and matches, a group of adolescents embarked on probably the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen. By the end of it, 2 people cut themselves pretty badly, and one pumpkin had caught on fire. The fire-pumpkin was also made worse by the boy who thought it would be a good idea to put out the fire with the toilet paper left over from the mummy game… Luckily, everyone carries thermoses so they all put out the huge fire with their left over tea from the day. By the end, though, there were some respectable jack-o-lanterns there, and the Halloween party turned out to be a success. At least I had a good time; I’m not so sure about Steven, who kind of freaked out at the mess we made. But that’s what Halloween’s about doggonit!

Zai jian!

Mack-A-Low-Ba

A quick story:

So this evening (about 20 minutes ago), I got tired of studying and a little antsy. Every day on my way home from school, I pass this big building that says "massage" on the front. It looks pretty nice, and pretty clean. Anyways around 5:30 I decided I was going to go down-stairs and get a massage - I've been running every day and playing Squash and Badminton and I'm pretty sore and tired, and I heard you can get a good massage for cheap. So I went downstairs and across the street, and walked in to the Massage parlor. I know what you're thinking... The massage parlor is also a brothel, big deal. Well, why don't you not make assumptions and read on... Anyways, I was greeted by a professional looking guy with a white button-down shirt and black trousers. Here's how the conversation went.

(me) "你好”(hello)

(him) "你好”(hello)

(me)“一个小时多少钱？”(What do you charge by the hour?)

(him)“你要什么?”(What do you want?)

(me)“我要按磨”(A massage)

(him)“你要 mack-a-low-ba?" (Do you want a "mack-a-low-ba")

(me) “一个什么？你可以说中文。”(a what? you can speak chinese)

(him) “一个mack-a-loba! mack-a-lo-ba!! MACK-A-LOW-BA! 听得懂了吗？”（A mack-a-low-ba! mack-a-low-ba!! MACK-A-LOW-BA! Do you know what I'm saying?)

(me) “我还不听懂了”(I still don't understand)

At this point, he leaned in with a glimmer in his eye, and wispered in my ear something I couldn't understand in chinese. It was then that I noticed the three pretty, experienced looking girls in the corner of the room in short skirts.

(me)“现在听得懂了”(now I understand)

(him) “挤眼”(wink)

(me) “这个不是我要的。 我要按磨”(that's not what I want. I want a massage)

(him) “我们这儿没有”(we don't have that here)

(me) “好的。 再不要”(alright, thanks anyways)

(him) “慢慢走！”(have a good one!)

(scantily-clad ladies) “再见！”(see you soon!)

(me) "Probably not..." (probably not...)

So, it was a massage parlor is a brothel story. I kinda expected it too. But let me tell you the funny part (all funny stories need someone to tell you the funny part.). I find it funny that they don't even pretend to offer massages. Maybe I don't have that "chinese police officer" look, but still! He was so happy to tell me they don't have massages. A little discretion would be nice; the only pretense was that it said "massage" when you walk in, and on the sign outside. Anyways, that's my story.

Zai Jian!

P.S. The real reason I walked out was because their prices were too high! I mean 100 kuai an hour?? C'MON.

P.P.S. The previous "p.s." was a joke.

P.P.P.S. Or was it?

P.P.P.P.S. Yes.

Getting a Residency permit (featuring: the quarenteen bureau), School (on the weekend), and teaching English

First of all, I apologize for my recent laziness in writing my blog. Since school started, I've had a bunch of studying to do, a bunch of bureaucratic lines to wait in, and some gastrointestinal noodle-shop-based illnesses. I'm back on my feet, however, ready to use my words to communicate all that has happened in blog form...

So, getting a residency permit was not as easy as I assumed it would be. After first going to the visa bureau, and waiting in line for about 1.5 hours to find out I had all the wrong forms, I had to do about three things - all exceedingly difficult and time consuming before they would even consider giving me a permit. The only good part about waiting in that line was that I got to wait with one of the pretty Korean girls in my class and bond about how long the line was... KaChing... Anyways, from there I was on a wild goose chase to get some forms from the university saying I'm a student, some copies of my passport (that was easy - I won't delve into the details), and getting a "certificate of health" from the quarantine bureau. One thing about Chinese forms that I've learned since I've been here is that if it ain't got a stamp on it, it doesn't mean ANYTHING. You could have a letter from the president with his signature, official stationery, and one of his hairs with a DNA analysis stapled to it, and if it didn't have a red stamp on it and something scribbled in illegible Chinese handwriting, no one would accept it. I tried using some health forms from the states that didn't have a red stamp on it, and no one would believe they were real. So, after getting the forms from the school (which took a really long time - you'd think they know what one of the students who keeps saying "I go to the visa bureau. I need forms" needs, but you'd think wrong) I had to go to the quarantine place to get a certificate saying I'm healthy. So, on a Monday morning at 8:30 (I had been the friday before, waited for 30 minutes only to be told they don't do them on friday), I embarked on probably the most memorable experience of my time here in china.

The Quarantine Bureau has it's own full service health center where they test foreigners and Chinese alike to make sure they are OK to stay in the city. Let me give you a run down of what they test/what they test for. I had to get the following done: An EKG, a dental exam, an ear exam, a nose exam, an eye exam, a spleen exam (no joke), a chest x-ray, an ultrasound, and blood work - each terrifying in their own way.

The EKG was probably just a normal EKG, but I've never had one before. what made everything kind of unnerving was that the door was always open, and there was always about 5 people with their heads in the door watching the lao wai (Chinese term for foreigner - sometimes derogatory) getting tested. Upon entering the EKG room, I was asked to take my shirt off and lie on a doctor table. She then placed about 10 metal suction cups around my left nipple, and then a scary metal clamp on each ankle and my right arm. Everything had a wire connecting to a shiny light placed above my head. All of a sudden the machine started humming and my heart's every activity was written by a big iron-lung-looking thing to my left. "relax," she told me.

Next, the dental exam. I sat down in a dental chair, and the dentist (who was really nice), said "open up." I did. "That is all" he said.

The eye, ear, and nose exam was fine and short too. Although, for the nose exam they tested my smell by shoving iodine near my nose and asking me if i smelled it. I did I said, so they then took this giant medieval nose separating device and looked up my nasal passage. That same device was used on the next victim, and I'm sure the victim before me, which was kind of gross, but at least they didn't have any pretenses about it...

The spleen exam (which was done with the door open) involved a chinese doctor lying me down on a table and feeling my spleen. kind of unnerving, but uneventful.

The blood work was nice, and the lady (who had been to Las Vegas and New York - and liked to talk about it.) took my blood gently. However - what they tested for kind of surprised me. They tested for reasonable stuff - AIDS, syphilis, etc., but they also tested for scarlet fever and, no joke, Plague. Luckily, all I have is scarlet fever, and a tiny bit of syphilis. They also ask if you have any history of psychosis or mental confusion. I wrote no... luckily they have to take my word.

Finally, the ultrasound. I lay down on a table, and had a bunch of goo rubbed all over my stomach. Keep in mind, the door is wide open, and there are about 7 people watching. It was at that point that they lady began to image my stomach and organs, and then, to get a better look at my organs, pulled down my pants. Don't worry, not to my knees, only to my upper thighs. People weren't even embarrassed to keep looking, so I just went with it. It was an interesting experience...

Anyways, after all of this, I got my certificate claiming I am a healthy lao wai, and was on my way to the visa office. There, I waited in some more lines, and am now waiting anxiously for my passport back and my residency permit. Done and done... hopefully.

One of the reasons I have to wait for my permit is that this week is a holiday week in China. Chinese national day is on Wednesday, and there is no class this week. However, because NOTHING IS HOLY TO THESE PEOPLE we had class on Saturday and Sunday... that's seven straight days of classes, and also they told us like a week before - apparently only a couple of days after they made the decision to have class those days. It wasn't that bad though, because I was one of five people to show up on Sunday, so we just chatted with out teacher about Nanjing and China, and ended up learning more than usual.

My final note will be this: I am running out of money, and have discovered that you can be paid 100 RMB/hr (about $16) teaching english, and 120 RMB if your mention that you are, have been, or will be a Harvard student. Ahhh... branding.... Anyways, I applied for a part time job teaching English, and had an interview today with "Steven," the Chinese English education director for a firm called Web international language. He said he wanted to chat, so I showed up at the office, which was much more upscale than I thought it would be, in a sweater, corduroys, and slip-on loafers. I had a nice interview with him, and he invited me to teach a trial class on Saturday. Although, as I was leaving he said to me, "When you come back, please pay attention to what you wear. Also, please don't wear slippers." I think that means business casual...

As two final note, I met my neighbor today, who I noticed was a particularly kind, well spoken woman. Then she told us she's a newscaster in Nanjing - kind of cool. Also, I'm watching a show on TV right now where all the Chinese minorities sing and dance in a very cartoonish way. It's sweet.

Here's a video I took of it:

Zai Jian!

The Pictures

So! The pictures...

the first one is at this park Chessin and I went to - it's an ancient archway from the Ming dynasty - scholars think it led either to a bathroom or some place where concubines were kept. wacky...

The second one is a man at another park we went to who spent his saturday afternoon in a hammock with his hat hanging on a tree. As Chessin put it, "badass".

The third - Sun Yat Sen - China's George Washington. Nanjing has his mausoleum, as well as this statue commemorating him.

The fourth picture is me in the Nanjing Botanical Garden's tropical section. Let's just say I was excited.

The fifth picture is a plaque at the Ming Tomb (a main attraction in Nanjing). It just talks about the exhibit there at the tomb - which is really cool.

The sixth picture is a view of Nanjing from this mountain in the middle of Nanjing Chessin and I climbed. The "purple-gold" mountain is where most of the city's tourist attractions are, and it has a winding, easily climbed cobbled path up it, along with a bunch of much harder, very steep slopes to climb. We chose the steep slope in the middle of the blazing heat and bamboo. Needless to say, we sweat through our shirts. When we finally arrived at the summit observatory, we were the only westerners, and the only people completely drenched in sweat. As if we weren't conspicuous enough already...

The seventh and either pictures are of the food we've been eating at this XinJiang restaurant near our apartment. the first is a spiced lamb "pizza" on nan-bread, along with this tomato and onion salad that is just ridiculously good. The second is some chili-stewed chicken (it makes your mouth completely numb, with a pepper the chinese call "ma"), and some XinJiang rice. This is one of 7 meals that I've won from chessin in the last couple of weeks playing badminton, which is good because this food, by chinese standards, isn't cheap (still about $7 a meal).

The 9th and 10th are from a little park in the city we went (the white horse park), which has some pretty areas, and a very creepy, deserted carnival.

The 11th and 12th are from the observatory on top of the purple-gold mountain.

the 13th is a sign near the nanjing observatory's major telescope (the first major telescope in the east)

the 14th is a cool door - don't really know what else to say about it...

the 15th is an amazing view of the city from the top of the mountain.

the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th are all from our apartment - chessin's room, my room, the view from my room, and the kitchen, respectively.

the 2oth is me eating bamboo. I don't know how the panda's do it!

Some Pictures -- Explanations to Come