Yunnan

"Am I making a mistake?" I thought to myself as I looked out the window of the plane on my flight
from Guilin to Kunming, the capital of the mountainous Yunnan province. It wasn't my destination
or my method of travel that was giving me pause, it was the timing. Yunnan is a place that has been on my to-do list ever since I arrived in China; but It was Chinese New Year and, as I've mentioned before, many places would be closed in order to observe the holiday. I had also just gotten back from a great trip to Vietnam and I was beginning to wonder if I was forcing it a little bit and trying to do too much. Sure I like traveling; seeing faraway places, experiencing faraway cultures, and being able to begin sentences with "That reminds me of the time I was in ______." has always been fun for me. But at the same time, I hate waiting in lines, I hate being dirty, I hate being in places overrun by tourists, and I've noticed that flying has recently become more and more of a frightening ordeal for me (When did I become such a pansy?). Unfortunately, These are all pretty essential tenets to wandering about. For every picture someone takes drinking some fruity drink on a beach on the other side of the world, you can be assured that there was some unpleasantness that they had to go through in order to get there. The question for me was how much of that unpleasantness could I handle? Patience is not a virtue of mine so I was anxious to see how 4 plane flights, 4 train rides (3 overnight), 2 border crossings, 3 hotels, 5 hostels, 2 long distance buses, 2 nearly day long layovers, and countless taxi drivers trying to rip me off over the short span of 4 weeks (this includes the Vietnam trip) would affect my enthusiasm for this kind of activity.

The length of the trip was also of a concern to me, 10 days is a long time to be alone. I do have a certain degree of introversion but I don't think I've ever spent that amount of time in nearly complete isolation. How was that going to affect my behavior? Would I start babbling to myself indiscriminately in order to break the silence? Would I become the stereotypical brash American tourist and start back-slapping and high-fiving strangers? Or would I go full on General Kurtz and develop "unsound methods" while assembling a tribe of willing natives to serve as my own personal army? Each seemed equally plausible.

Also, what would I do if I arrived at my destination(s) just to find out everything I wanted to see was closed? That would suck.

With all of these doubts swirling through my head the plane arrives at the Kunming airport....Well, lets do this.

I had no idea what to expect from Kunming. Some stories I had heard told of a beautiful, clean city with fresh air and fantastic food, while others described it as a soulless shithole where any human vice is fair game. Some stories tell of rampant hooking in the streets and even a midget colony (the latter of which turns out to be true). How could one place have both of those descriptions?

Kunming foliage

There weren't any specific attractions that I had in mind during my stay in Kunming (midget colonies are more of a summer activity for me) so I decided to spend a day walking around aimlessly. In my prior research on the place I discovered that Kunming's sister city is Denver, Colorado (fun fact: Guilin's is Orlando) and with an enormous blue sky, mountains, and fresh air it was easy to see the similarity (This wouldn't be the only similarity between Yunnan and Colorado see "Reason Why I Like This Place" for more). Although I was glad to have a chance to see the city I knew that this was only the appetizer before the main course (Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, and Dali). Verdict at the end of the day: fantastic weather, good food, didn't see any prostitutes, not a whole lot to do, but the the place had some gooood vibes dooood.  My train left in the evening of that day bound for my second destination: Lijiang.

Aside: The security at the Kunming train station was much tighter than in other train stations I had been to throughout China. No doubt a reaction to last year's terrorist attack. There were military officers doing demonstrations nearby and some were even holding guns...a rarity in China.

Just one of the many local Naxi babes

But, since I had no plans of launching into a spontaneous machete attack I passed through security without incident and soon found myself on the overnight train to Lijiang. Lijiang and the surrounding areas are the traditional home of the Naxi ethnic minority group. While Lijiang is a popular tourist destination throughout China, I still found it to be a good place to get a culture fix once I waded through all the bullshit. It was while I was in Lijiang that the actual New Year would come to pass. I found the early predictions that the place would be a ghost town this time of year with everything closed to be unfounded. As day turned to night, the old Naxi ladies selling trinkets on the side of the road were replaced by aggressive club promoters causing the vibe to go from quaint and rustic to excessive and seedy (yin and yang right?). I was tired at that point from my train ride but it was the new year, and the year of the goat no less (my year, no excuses Jay) so I sucked it up, followed the music and the lights, hit the juice with some fellow revelers, posed for some dumb pictures, and that, as they say, was that.

 After two days of doing travely stuff in Lijiang it was time to head to my next stop, Tiger Leaping Gorge. One of the deepest gorges in the world, this was a landmark I've had circled for awhile, so I figured to make this the main event of my trip. My journey, however, got off to an inauspicious start as I was double checking my hostel booking and discovered that there had been several complaints of a rat infestation. What was perhaps even more surprising/shocking to me was seeing that the people who mentioned the rats still gave the guesthouse an 80% rating on Hostelworld. It was as if the presence of rats was a minor inconvenience such as "towels not provided" or "no hot water." This really underscored for me the notion that, for all of the chest thumping I do about overcoming obstacles and dealing with inconveniences, there are some people out there who are simply cut from a tougher cloth than I. If I ever saw a rat at a place I was staying that would automatically make it the worst lodging experience of my entire life and something I would never be able just to block out. Plus I see enough of those furry bastards in Guilin, I didn't need them invading my vacation as well. I quickly switched reservations and set off.

My last minute audible turned out to be a great decision as my new hostel was quiet, clean, and conveniently located in the middle of the gorge. The cliffs above me rose so high that the sun wouldn't come over the edge until after 10 AM, leaving most of the morning pleasantly cool. I don't think that it's overly dramatic for me to say that Tiger Leaping Gorge had restored some of the faith I had lost in China. It wasn't simply what the gorge had (beautiful views, comfortable temperatures, starry night skies, friendly and accommodating locals) that made it special it was also what it didn't have (pollution, trash on the ground, loud/obnoxious tour groups, KTVs). Perhaps because there were no paved pathways, or elevators providing short cuts that this place is able to weed out the pretenders and selfie seekers; there actually seemed to be more goats than humans. It is simply a place for people who want to enjoy the outdoors. I spent the first day and half walking alone through the upper reaches of the gorge and feeling about as happy and awestruck as the double rainbow guy.

By late afternoon on the second day, I had finished most of the upper section of the gorge and found that I still had time before nightfall to check out the lower section near the river responsible for carving this monstrosity. The path going down was pretty steep and was more crowded than the other areas. After walking for about 20 minutes I reached a fork in the road where a group of people were gathered. To the right the path continued in a roundabout fashion designed to minimize the steep grade. The left side was a more direct route to the bottom but it also happened to be a rickety ladder, about 50 feet long, bolted into the side of a cliff. I don't feel ashamed in saying that, if I were alone at that point, I would most likely have gone right; however, there was a group of people looking at me and some old, Naxi woman who kept saying "Try, try!" (I understand that this woman's English was limited but I still was not a fan of her word choice. The word "try" suggests that there is more than a small chance of failure, which in this case would have meant serious injury or worse). Due to the herd mentality and my desire to look like a tough American badass I soon found myself stepping over the precipice and beginning my descent.

Everything was going fine until I felt a tug on the ladder. I looked down in time to see a young man preparing to climb up. I whistled to let him know that I was already on the way down. He looked up, made eye contact with me, and, to my utter amazement, began climbing up anyway. We eventually met around the center where I asked him some Mandarin version of "What's your plan here pal?" He responded by saying that it was his intent on climbing to the top. I then asked him how he planned on doing that with me in the way and watched as it slowly began to dawn on him that he was in fact on the side of a cliff and not in some supermarket or train station where he could just push his way past people. I went on to inform him that I was on the ladder first and that I had no plans on moving for him. He eventually relented, climbed back down, and allowed me to pass. I won this particular round of cliff-side chicken but I wasn't happy that I had to play in the first place. I got to the bottom, saw what I saw, then went back to my hotel.

A lot of this going on in TLG

I crossed the halfway point of my trip while in the gorge so I had to begin to make my way back towards Kunming in order to catch my flight home. The next stop on my trip was the town of Dali. Despite continued beautiful weather and it's location next to a picturesque lake, Dali had the misfortune of being the destination after the gorge. Coming from a place with more goats than people to a place where there are so many people clustered together they actually remind you of a pack of wild goats will always feel like a letdown, no matter the circumstances.

This phenomenon made itself apparent shortly after I arrived. After checking into my (final) hostel I went down to the front desk to inquire about about activities to do in the area. The woman at the reception suggested that I go hike the nearby mountain which offered an amazing panoramic view of the surrounding landscape. Thinking that this was an activity I could get behind, I made my way over to the base of the mountain. What was originally excitement over what I was about to do quickly subsided upon arrival as I surveyed the scene. Instead of a peaceful environment I soon found myself in the middle of a mass of humanity complete with cars, buses, solicitors, women wearing high heels trying to hike the mountain, men smoking cigarettes and wearing cowboy hats (because...western style!!) pushing people out of the way to get to the front of the ticket line, and tour groups expressing appreciation for China's beautiful and unique scenery by covering everything in garbage. All I could do at that point was shake my head, laugh to myself, and decide that that would be the day to knock out all of my shopping needs.

My last day in Dali was essentially my last day of the trip, as the next day in Kunming would only involve me waiting around to catch a plane (My bank account was also sending me messages that I couldn't continue to ignore so it was probably a good thing that this adventure was reaching its conclusion). Looking to end on a high note I did what has unintentionally become a tradition of sorts whenever I'm traveling: I rented a scooter. This is an activity that I have now been fortunate enough to do in the San Juan Islands, Costa Rica, Guangxi, Vietnam, and now Yunnan; and it has been a highlight of all of those trips. This particular excursion wasn't on the same level as some of the trips through the back country of Guangxi (few trips are) but, for all of the whining I've done about the place being too touristy, Dali is a popular destination for a reason. Riding down a flat, empty road with a clear sky, a lake on my right, and mountains on my left allowed me to achieve a peace of mind which had proven to be elusive up until that point. One of the traps that I've seen myself, and other people fall into, is that I always seem to exert most of my effort in getting to a certain place or crossing a particular item off my wishlist and I don't take enough time to simply sit back and enjoy the moment. By trying to go to as many places and cram in as many activities as possible, I sometimes can be guilty of missing the somewhat greater point which is that I'm in a unique and exciting part of the world during a unique and exciting period of my life. This short scooter trip allowed me to reflect on that truth and for that I was grateful.

"Try, try!"

Despite the high volume of people, I left Dali on a high; it was a good thing too because I still had a bit of awkwardness to endure before I made it back to Guilin. Awkwardness meaning that my train was scheduled to arrive in Kunming at 4 AM and my flight didn't leave until 6 PM. This was the first time in my life where I had hoped for my train to be delayed. Alas, it wasn't and I soon found myself standing on a deserted street in the middle of Kunming. Tired, dirty, having gone nearly two weeks without a shave, and with nothing but my passport, phone, wallet, and the clothes on my back I wandered around the city looking very much like a homeless person.

People who have never been to China may view it as a place that is constantly jam packed with people who are always on the go. In many places this is true but, unlike the popular New York slogan, the cities in China definitely sleep. Excluding only the very largest of cities, if you put yourself anywhere in China between the hours of 1 AM to 7 AM you will likely feel that you are in a ghost town. This is no exaggeration and Kunming was no different. At that moment I could've laid down in the middle of the street and taken a nap without worrying about a car coming.

Even though I had seen both the day and nighttime versions of China, I had never witnessed the transition before. I decided to head to the city center in order to observe Kunming transform from the eerie, post-apocalyptic feel of night to the nonstop scramble of day. It felt odd to be sitting in a deserted area knowing that in a matter of hours it would resemble the trading room floor of the NYSE. Just before sunrise a group of old women showed up in order to do some preliminary sweeping of the ground which would undoubtedly be covered in garbage by the day's end. Next empty public buses started making their rounds, followed by commuters heading to work. Soon policemen began appearing at intersections and, finally, the regular pedestrians began flooding the sidewalks as the world continued to spin.

I made it back to Guilin that evening feeling both worn out and refreshed. 





"Going Native" Experience of the Week

One aspect of life here that continues to make itself apparent is how quickly things can change and the ability to adapt to things on the fly is essential. One minute you can be walking along without a care in the world and minutes later you find yourself in a shitstorm of aggravation and confusion wondering what the hell happened.


For example......

This evening started off with me making a phone call to my friend Johnny to see if he would like to meet up for dinner. We agreed on a time and a place and I set out  to meet him. Upon arriving at the rally point I receive another call from Johnny and he informs me that he locked his keys in his apartment. Coincidentally I had done the same thing a couple weeks prior. In my previous experience it was surprisingly easy to find a locksmith (maybe a little too easy...sketchy) and what I had anticipated to be a long, drawn out ordeal was solved in about 45 minutes. I naively (I feel like I use that word a lot in my posts) believed that Johnny's situation would be solved as easily as mine was. He was nearly at the restaurant when he realized his mistake, so I suggested that we go ahead and eat and that I would go with him afterwards to find help.

We finish eating and head over to the front gate of Johnny's apartment complex and inform the security guards of his predicament. They tell us that the landlord has a spare key but she will be out of town for the next few days; we then inquire about a locksmith and they said they will send somebody. Twenty minutes later a young man arrives with his satchel of tools and we set off to show him the door. Upon arriving at Johnny's front door the man takes one look and declares that he is unable to open it and that we would need to call a professional. He then turns around and leaves us standing there in stunned/confused silence. Immediately questions begin rushing into my head: If that guy wasn't a professional then what was he? A hobbyist? Is it normal for people in Guilin to walk around with tools designed to open up locked doors? What does one need to do to become a "professional" locksmith? Are there certifications involved? Schooling? Apprenticeship? How does one become interested in the business of opening locked doors? Are locksmiths convicted burglars who have figured a way to harness their illicit abilities into something that helps people a la Dexter Morgan? And, most importantly, what the hell do we do now?

We return to the front gate and tell the guards that apparently their guy wasn't credentialed enough to open Johnny's door and that we would need to call in the big guns. They found another service and tell us that the guy will be over in an hour (busy night). With time to kill and steam that was in need of blowing off, we decided to make the best of the situation and grab a couple beers from the store while we waited for our guy. As we sat in the stairwell laughing and drinking and talking about how silly this all is, my phone rings. This time it's my girlfriend who tells me that she has also locked her key inside her apartment. What on earth was going on?? She said she had nowhere else to go and was wondering if she could meet up with us then we would drive her scooter back to my house after we get Johnny's door open. I give her directions to his place and she says she'll be over in 20 minutes.

After I hang up the "professional" arrives. We breathe a sigh of relief as we show him to the door. The man examines the lock then opens up his bag and pulls out...a coat hanger, a piece of string, and a roll of masking tape. "Those are your tools??????" I thought to myself, "How the hell are you going to open the door using those?" The man then uses a screwdriver to knock out Johnny's peephole, he then flattens the coat hanger, attaches a piece of tape to the end, ties a string around it, feeds it through the small hole and begins swinging it hoping the tape will catch the handle. Johnny and I exchanged concerned looks as it begins to dawn on us that his door may remained locked for a lot longer than we had anticipated.

Then my girlfriend calls me back and tells me that she is lost and that both the battery on her phone and battery in her electric scooter are about to die....good lord. I explain to her again where Johnny's house is and tell her that I'll meet her outside. I excuse myself from the lock situation to go and deal with a new problem. I then walked down to the street; shaking my head at what a night this was turning out to be. As I reached the intersection I hear a loud bang coming from the street. I look over and see a van that had come to a complete stop and two guys laying in the street among shards of what ten seconds prior was a scooter. "Are you kidding me?" I said audibly as I tilted my head skywards and did the universal "how could this day get any worse" pose. I then walk over to the scene to see if the guys were alright. Once it became clear they they were both fine and were just doing the playing dead routine in order to get more money from the person who hit them I quickly moved to a safe distance to observe the ensuing argument. It was important to make it absolutely clear that I played no part in this accident. Unfortunately it isn't uncommon in China for westerners to get extorted in these situations. For the next 15 minutes I sat and watched as the driver of the van and one of the guys on the scooter shouted loudly at each other while the other scooter guy continued to lay on the ground playing dead (I knew he was faking because he would sporadically look up to see if people were looking at him before closing his eyes again and not moving.) Eventually my girlfriend arrives with an out-of-battery electric scooter. It was almost midnight at that point and it was about a 45 minute walk to my apartment so I suggested that we get started.

We arrive at my house and quickly fall asleep...until about 3 AM when I receive a phone call from Johnny...the professional's attempts had been unsuccessful and the effort had been abandoned. He had no other place to stay so I tell him he's welcome to crash on my couch. After waiting up for him I head back to my room and try unsuccessfully to fall back asleep.

So what did I learn from all of this? Not a damn thing.   


Mandarin Improvement Sign

After almost a year and a half I've finally figured out how to contort jaw in such a way as to effectively pronounce the word re 热 (the word for "hot"). It was a difficult and lengthy process and I often found myself questioning what I was doing or what this was all about; but I persevered and nothing can stop me now. 


Funny Sign of the Week

 "What the Fuck" is right, this girl is in 2nd grade.

Reason Why I Like This Place (Yunnan)

During my last night in TLG I found myself in the kitchen of my guesthouse ordering food when I saw a bag next to the sink containing a familiar looking green herb. "What is this?" I asked my host. "Da Ma." (Marijuana) he replied. Now I'm not a weed smoker so I wasn't about to buy some off of him, head back to my room, throw on some Grateful Dead, and chiiiiiiillll out; but the presence of this substance signified something much greater to me. Given just how illegal drugs are in China, seeing marijuana so nonchalantly out in the open like that really underlined how much these people are left to their own devices. I then reflected on my entire experience up to that point and determined that it was probably no coincidence that the prettiest, cleanest, and most welcoming place I had been to in China is run by a native population with minimal interference from outside entities. These are people who are invested in preserving the future of the area as opposed to making fast money. This spirit has been spotlighted recently in a successful effort to prevent the construction of a dam in the area. Yunnan is the first place in China where I truly felt like a guest (not just to the people, but to the land as well) instead of "King Tourist," and like any polite guest, you never want to feel like you're imposing.      



Random Tangent


Boy I sure hope that this doesn't happen:

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/what-if-the-new-star-wars-sucks-too-1737539377

'Nam

One of the great perks of being a teacher, which I'm sure a lot of fellow teachers will tell you, is the lengthy amount of vacation time; however, one of the drawbacks is the money (or lack thereof) that you make. I find that, since I've been here, these two facts often combine to create an almost Tantalusian reality for me. This was the position I was in last summer; two months of free time and no money with which to take advantage of it. Since then I have taken on several outside jobs in addition to my regular one so that when my next lengthy break rolled around I would be able to Carpe the proverbial Diem. For me, this break came in the month of February. February is the month when Chinese New Year is typically observed (Chinese New Year is determined by the lunar calendar so there is no standardized beginning date). Although the new year celebration is a roughly two week event, people tend to use the entire month to prepare for the festivities. As people shut down their respective businesses and head home to see their family, Guilin transforms into what feels like a post-apocalyptic ghost town. Outside is eerily quiet (except for the occasional bursts of firecrackers) and many stores and restaurants shut down; leaving outsiders like myself to wander the streets like stray dogs in search of food. Given these circumstances (and the fact that I hadn't been outside of the People's Republic in over a year) I decided that this would be a good time to to travel to another country. Destination: Vietnam.

This trip would have an added bonus: my parents were joining me. Aside from a short two day excursion to Hong Kong to see my dad, it had been a year since I had seen either of them. After a happy reunion and three days of me showing them around Guilin as they pretended like they didn't feel like zombies from jet lag, we set out on our trip. Our first stop would be the capital, Hanoi. Hanoi is actually relatively close to Guilin and is able to be reached via overland vehicles. But, because Guilin would not be considered a transportation hub there would have to be stops and connections along the way.

The first leg took us from Guilin to Nanning, the capital of Guangxi. For this section we were fortunate enough to book seats on the snazzy high speed train (for those of you unfamiliar, it's the shit). This train makes the Amtrak look like a medieval horse carriage. But, as is often the case with luxury travel, the experience passes too quickly. Within two and a half hours we then found ourselves in Nanning sitting in a dirty bus station. The next leg of our trip would take us 4 hours to the Vietnam border where we would then go through customs before hopping on another 4 hour bus to Hanoi. In a short amount of time we had gone from the pinnacle of Chinese mass transit to something that was much more difficult to get excited about. In all fairness, I had been on worse buses in China before...at least this one had enough seats for everybody.

Once everybody got situated, the TV at the front of the bus came on and began playing a safety instructional video; except this was unlike any video I had seen before. In order to demonstrate the perils of not wearing a seat belt, this video showed a montage of real life footage of humans being ejected through windows, buses falling off bridges and exploding (not sure how much a seat belt would help in those circumstances), and crash test dummies being crushed under buses that had tipped over; giving us the feeling that we were in a large death trap on wheels. We spent the first ten minutes alternating between sharing nervous bouts of laughter and giving each other horrified looks, it was out of our hands at this point. We eventually did settle in and arrived at the border without incident.

No matter where you are in the world going through customs sucks, if you think otherwise you are either a serial killer, a terrorist, or work for the IRS; however, being at a border shared by two countries who are not on the best of terms made it a little bit more interesting. The only other international border I've been to is the one between the U.S. and Canada which is pretty forgetful (eh?). Although the China-Vietnam border is certainly nowhere near the intensity of the pissing contest occurring on the 38th parallel or watching some Pakistani and Indian soldiers glare at each other while holding a finger over the nuke button in Kashmir, there was a palpable sense of tension in the air that made this customs experience more memorable than others. After waiting in the necessary lines and getting the necessary stamps we then got on another bus to complete our third and final leg of the journey to Hanoi.

Hanoi traffic

I had heard from numerous friends in China that if I was to go to Vietnam I should look to travel as far south in the country as I could go. The reason being is that because of North Vietnam's proximity to China the cultures tend to mix and give a lot of the areas in the north a more Chinese feel, something I've had my fair share of already. I arrived in Hanoi with low expectations and the assumption that this would be a warm up before moving on to more interesting places...I was wrong. Sure there were a decent amount of Chinese tourists but I definitely did not feel like I was in China. The absence of Chinese characters plastered all over everything and hearing people speak a language I didn't understand certainly went a long way towards setting the scene, but there were also many more differences. We stayed in a hotel in the Old Quarter which is seen as a hip, cultural, and, let's be honest, touristy hub of the city. The narrow streets, noises, smells, and the crazy driving (I think it's even crazier than in China) all combined to create a really cool and vibrant atmosphere; however, I think the most unique characteristic of the city was that, despite it being undoubtedly Asian, there is a very tangible European vibe as well, a testament to 'Nam's time spent as a French colony. I found the atmosphere to be quite stimulating which led me to a realization: If your country absolutely must suffer a hostile takeover from marauding western imperialists who seek to steal your resources and enslave your population, you could do a lot worse than having those people be French. At least they bring with them coffee culture and al fresco dining.

After getting the lay of the land we decided to head to our first sightseeing destination: Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. This is the sight where the preserved body of the father of modern Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh is located. The mausoleum is a large square-shaped building with guards located throughout. Voyeurs are herded into rigid lines and asked to walk single file through the room (no pictures allowed) where Ho's resting body is displayed. The effort to preserve the body has led to my man Ho looking a little glowy and wax museum-y these days but goddamnit he's still there...and he ain't movin' any time soon. Total time observing: about 10 seconds. In a city where the line between the road and the sidewalk isn't always so clear, the traffic is chaotic to put it mildly, and vendors and stores can pop up anywhere it was an interesting experience going to a place so tightly controlled. I couldn't decide whether that was a testament to the citizens' respect for the man or a governmental insistence upon the man's greatness (similar to China with Mao). Probably a little bit of both.

rest easy Ho.

(Quick aside: I've now seen the dead, preserved carcasses of Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh. All I need now is to plan a trip to Moscow in order to complete the Communist trifecta. Lenin I'm coming for you!)

After the mausoleum we moved on to our next stop: Hoa Lo prison. (In)famously known as the "Hanoi Hilton" to many Americans, it has ceased operations as a human animal cage and is now the sight of a cool museum. Before it was used by the north Vietnamese during the War of American Aggression (as it is known there), the prison was used by the French to hold Vietnamese inmates. Understandably so, the majority of the exhibits are dedicated the the Vietnamese citizens' internment rather than the American soldiers'. I feel strange using adjectives such as "cool" and "fun" when describing a tour through a series of torture chambers and prison cells but then again "interesting" is such a cop out. When I got to the section dedicated to the use of Hoa Lo as an American POW prison,

Front gate of the prison

I was greeted with dozens of pictures of American soldiers smiling, recreating, relaxing, and shaking hands with their captors as a video was played on repeat about the humane treatment given to them. One look at John McCain's mangled arms would suggest a different story so I found this to be a funny example of revisionist history. But I wasn't there so what do I know. All I'll say is that one should be suspicious when someone aggressively seeks to answer a question that hasn't been asked yet. My professional analysis after leaving the museum: being an inmate there didn't look like much fun. On to the next stop.

I've always had some degree of interest in military history, possibly because both of my grandfathers had military careers, but, before going to Vietnam, I don't think I had ever been a war tourist before. As an American, you don't hear much about Vietnam outside of how it relates to a turbulent time in our modern history (although I think that the recent rise in the popularity of Vietnamese food is finally starting to change that). Seeing the effects of that war in the place where it was actually fought was fascinating to me. As my mom accurately pointed out, it is rare to see a man over the age of 60, due to the staggering number of casualties suffered by the Vietnamese almost an entire generation was lost. I didn't get to see any of this but I know that there are still parts of the countryside still bombed out and destroyed from all the carnage. But, in addition to all of this negativity, you also see many tourist experiences based around this event; people looking to learn more about what happened come to Vietnam and quickly realize that there's many other redeeming qualities about the place. I found it fascinating to see that an event that so thoroughly decimated the country is now also playing an active role in building it back up again.

We spent our remaining time in Hanoi doing a lot of walking, a lot of eating, and A LOT of coffee drinking. I'm sure whoever is reading this has done those things before so I don't believe they require any further deconstruction. Next stop: Da Nang. Da Nang is a popular city located in the middle of the country on the coast. In order to get there we took the always reliable VietJet airlines. A hot towel, a cookie, and a cup of water later we touched down in Da Nang. After experiencing the bustle of Hanoi one thing immediately stood out to me about Da Nang: the quiet. Being far removed from both the capital in the north and the bustling Ho Chi Minh city in the south I expected that the pace of life would be a bit slower, but there was also another reason for the quiet: there just wasn't much to do there. The lack of activities certainly didn't have anything to do with poor location or weather. On the contrary I found Da Nang to be a quite beautiful place. It was a clean city with a nice river running through the middle and a coastline with a beach whose views would fit well in any travel guide book. It has all of the potential to be a popular tourist destination but it just isn't there yet. However, after leaving the bustle of Hanoi the change of pace was nice for us. We spent a lazy afternoon and evening walking around, checking out the beach, having drinks on open air patios, and just generally "getting our vacation on." Da Nang did hold a special significance for us because it was

Da Nang beach

where my grandfather was stationed during his time in the war. It felt strange to me that now three separate generations of my family have stepped foot on the same ground in a seemingly random place on the complete opposite side of the world.

We departed Da Nang the next day (my dad and I agreeing that this would be a place with a lot of future potential and worth keeping our eyes on) to head for Hoi An. A 45 minute drive away, Hoi An is a place that I have never heard anybody speak poorly of. Although it is a popular tourist destination and many of its features are geared towards that industry, I don't feel that Hoi An's small town, traditional Vietnamese culture has been compromised. The architecture feels genuine, the food authentic, and locals are out and about heading to work, taking leisurely walks, or taking enormous bong rips of tobacco on the side of the road. We were even fortunate enough to see a traditional Vietnamese funeral (I realize the word fortunate is an odd choice for this sentence). It reminded me of an Asian version of a New Orleans funeral (less horns, more gongs). Hoi An was where we spent the majority of our stay in Vietnam. It certainly lived up to its good reputation as we spent nearly 3 days doing more walking, more eating, and more coffee drinking with a daylong motor scooter trip through the countryside for good measure (This is when it really became apparent to me how unbelievably green the countryside was).

Hoi An lanterns

After our time expired we then made the trip back to Hanoi in order to catch a train to Nanning. We had a little less than a day to kill in Hanoi before our train left so we decided that would be our time to knock out our shopping list. I was focused on trying to buy things that I couldn't find in China (high quality coffee, Vietnamese snake wine, etc.) when I came across a store that I most certainly would not find outside of Vietnam: a war propaganda poster store. Because so much of my thinking during this trip was geared towards that event I knew I had to check it out. Inside were thousands of propaganda posters roughly divided between pro-Vietnam/Communism and anti-American categories. Obviously I was more interested in the latter. Posters ranged from Nixon with blood shot eyes and devil horns to American soldiers with cartoonish faces stealing babies from mothers. I was very entertained and decided to buy a poster depicting American fighter jets being shot out of the sky. The store owner then asked if I wanted to another one in some kind of two for one deal. I smiled and told him that one Anti-American posted was enough for me. He then inquired as to where I was from and when I told him I was from the source he laughed and cocked his head to the side and gave me the "well aren't you a strange person" look. I thanked the man and went on my way.

As an American who travels I have become somewhat accustomed to running into people who feel the need to go out of their way to criticize my country and government. These people usually fall in one of two categories: the know-it-all hipster who looks at me as some kind of ignorant simpleton who could never possibly understand the world as well as they do, or the slightly more confrontational activist who wants me to know that America is just one giant, international bully that is the source of all the negativity in the world. In my experience I've found that most of these people don't have much real life experience with which to base these opinions on, outside of movies or social media so it's hard to take them seriously; but the Vietnamese....I think they have something to gripe about. Before arriving in Vietnam I had prepared myself for the possibility that our presence my not be well-received by everybody. The country is small enough to where if someone wasn't directly affected by our military's presence then they probably know somebody who was. Knowing this I felt that I may have to walk on eggshells around the native population as I attempted to explore their country without offending anybody; however what I found was not what I expected. While there is certainly a movement to memorialize and remember what happened I also got the sense that there was an even stronger movement towards moving forward and reinventing themselves. I found the Vietnamese to not only be exceedingly outgoing, friendly and helpful, but also invariably hard working, determined, and dynamic. It's a country with a very young population and I got the distinct sense that it is heading in a positive direction.

BUT no excursion would be complete without the obligatory shitty return trip. This experience would end up being no different. In order to get to Nanning in time to catch our train back to Guilin our only option was to take an overnight train from Hanoi. We were fortunate enough to book a room on the soft sleeper section of the train and we were each given a bed to sleep on. We were glad to be afforded our own personal space and quickly got comfortable...until about 3 in the morning. Customs...shit. Half asleep we were then herded into a small waiting room with the rest of the passengers. Now customs sucks but it's usually pretty straightforward...not this time. once in the room the customs officers and soldiers, instead of asking everyone to line up, collected everybody's passport at once and brought them to another room for processing or whatever it is they do. It quickly

Damn customs

became apparent to us that once all of the passports were done that we were going to have a big problem on our hands...how were the officers supposed to know whose was whose? Two hours went by before they reemerged with the completed documents. Sure enough there was a mad dash to rush and crowd these officers further exacerbating the situation. The inability to form a line is an ancient art perfected over millennia in this part of the world so there was no chance that this was going to go easily. There were 3 or 4 officers and over 100 passengers making the task too big for them (that was also meant to be a pun because the officers happened to be very short, with comically large uniforms). We were the lucky ones because our passports were much easier to differentiate from the Chinese and Vietnamese ones. We fought and elbowed our way through the crowd until we were back on the train. As we staid up and laughed to ourselves quickly thinking of about 100 ways that could've gone better the train stopped again...customs round 2...China style. We were relieved to see that the Chinese section was much more organized and actually did employ the use of a line system, which we naively thought would make this round go by much quicker. We maneuvered our way to the front section of the line and got through the gates quickly, only to find out that, for reasons unknown, we must wait for every other passenger to go through before we were allowed back on the train. What followed was an agonizing hour and a half that sucked all the humor out of us as we watched each passenger one by one go through while being held in one section of the complex monitored by two guards. After the last passenger went through and official stood up and paced back and forth in front of the crowd for a minute before telling us that it was time to get back on the train. Thanks buddy we would've had no idea what to do without you. The message: "We're in control here, welcome to China bitches."

"Going Native" Experience of the Week

I'm sure most of you have heard the stereotype about black people being loud in movie theaters; well, I'm here to tell you that there is another ethnic group gunning for that distinction: the Chinese. I've never been a big fan of going to the movies here. When you buy your tickets you have to preselect which seat you're going sit in and never deviate from it, (even if the rest of the theater is mostly empty and there are better seats available). The popcorn has an odd sweet taste to it instead of being salty and buttery. The government also censors the crap out of western movies to where many of them can't even be shown in Chinese theaters and the ones that do make it will typically have entire scenes removed which are deemed too explicit for whatever reason. The end result is a choppy, disjointed movie that doesn't always make complete sense. The only kind of movies that typically fit all of the appropriate criteria are super/action hero films where the handsome male protagonist spends two hours beating up bad guys before saving the world and getting the girl in the end; which I find to be boring, unoriginal, and it generally doesn't jive with my judgmental nature. But the most egregious foul of the whole experience is the behavior of the audience.

In a country this big and with this many people there are instances where politeness is not a smart or sustainable strategy (eg: driving, grocery shopping, etc). While I don't feel that that is an ideal way to go through life I do understand why sometimes things are that way; however, there are certain activities, such as going to a movie theater, where an enjoyable experience is in large part predicated on the assumption that each person in the group is mindful that they're not the only ones there and respect for others must be exercised (Have I done enough self-righteous, moral grandstanding yet?........nah, I'll keep going). Falling short of these basic standards can potentially defeat the entire purpose of engaging in the activity in the first place. Such was my frustration when I went to go see Kingsmen last week with my girlfriend.

In retrospect, I should've known what was in store for me before the movie even started. During the previews everyone was reminded to please power off their cell phones (a reasonable request that really should not be met with any defiance). I quickly did so which prompted my girlfriend to ask the following: "Why are you turning your phone off? Nobody else is going to."

"So if everybody else is being inconsiderate assholes then that means I also have to be one?" I shot back.

She said she understood my point and proceeded to turn her phone off.

Jay: 1 China: 0.

The movie starts and the protagonist is introduced. A murmur arises from the female members of the audience about how handsome (shuai) he is. Phones are produced and pictures (some with flash) are taken of the screen showing the shuai actor. Several of them then proceed to upload those pictures, along with the mandatory selfie, to their WeChat accounts (essentially the Chinese form of Facebook) so that their friends all will know that they are currently watching a movie in a theater and the main actor is shuai. They would periodically check there phones throughout the duration of the movie presumably to monitor their "Like" and "Comment" count.

Jay: 1 China: 1


After the phone nonsense was over I noticed that one person continued to hold up their camera to the movie screen. I eventually realized that they weren't taking a picture of the screen...they were bootlegging the movie. The light from their device remained in my field of vision for the entire duration. I was constantly going back and forth from wanting to kick the back of their seat to being impressed that they could hold their hands above their head for so long.

Jay: 1 China: 2

About 20 minutes later a phone belonging to the man sitting next to me begins loudly ringing. The man takes it out of his pocket.....and answers it. Without even entertaining the idea of stepping outside he launches into a loud and noisy conversation. I turn to him, we make eye contact, I raise my arms and turn my palms up to the ceiling and give him the "What the hell are you doing?" gesture. My passive-aggressiveness was lost on him and he continued the conversation for another minute or so. I turn to my girlfriend who is giving me the smug "I told you so" look. I then survey the crowd and come to the realization that I am the only person who is outraged at the guy speaking on his phone.

Game over: China wins (again)

So there I am sitting in a movie theater where girls all around me are taking pictures of the screen and updating their respective social media accounts, a person in front of me is very clearly taping the movie, the man next to me is talking on his phone, I'm eating bad popcorn, the movie I'm watching is censored into submission, and it's hot...and I'm sweating. I survey the situation and say to myself "Holy shit, this really sucks." As I contemplate what else would need to happen to push me into Opposite George territory the movie mercifully ends. I leave the theater with a broken psyche and head home with my tail between my legs.



Mandarin Improvement Sign

Going to a country where Mandarin isn't spoken gave me a great idea of how far I've come as far as language is concerned. The bus ride into Hanoi was where I was first exposed to the Vietnamese language. Although I didn't understand a single word they were saying the sound was fascinating. It reminded me of the rapid staccato of the chickens who used to wake me up outside of my old apartment. I came to the realization that not too long ago this was how I felt when hearing Chinese. Reentering into the country and understanding a language that still wasn't English was a rewarding feeling and felt to me like a solid indicator of my progress. 

Funny Sign of the Week

This is written on a table cloth at at popular western restaurant in my neighborhood.



Reason Why I Like This Place (Vietnam)

When it comes to my eating habits I would describe myself as less of a "foodie" and more of a garbage disposal that consumes pretty much anything put in front of me. It's because of this lack of pickiness that I would not consider myself to be the most reliable food critic so take what I say here with a grain of salt. Disclaimer aside, I found Vietnamese food to be quite enjoyable. The only traditional Vietnamese dish that I had heard of before visiting was Pho. Before arriving I always just assumed that Pho was something that white girls ordered at restaurants or made at home so that they could snapchat some not-so-witty puns about how Pho-nominal or how Pho-ucking good it was. I enjoyed Pho but it tasted a lot like the rice noodles that are so common in Guilin so I was eager to explore other dishes. Vietnamese food is unique because it is most definitely Asian food but there is also a very distinctive French element to their dishes. It's the combination of these cuisines that creates another popular street food: Banh Mi. This was something that was recommended to me by friends who traveled to Vietnam before and it didn't disappoint. If Pho was a good but familiar taste for me, then the Hoi An Cao Lau noodles were a goddamn revelation. Good stuff Hoi An, good stuff.

Random Tangent 

I'm very excited about this.

1 Year

February 1, 2015 marked my one year anniversary in Guilin. It still doesn't feel like I've been here
that long, but joining the double digit month club has caused me to become more reflective of my time here than I have been in recent weeks. When I first decided to write this blog, I figured that it would be easy to bust out one each week; and when I first arrived I kept up with that pace. But now, writing my 11th post in 12 months would suggest that I have since fallen behind my original goal. In many ways that is natural; when you first step off the plane here as a foreigner you are immediately met with sensory overload. My first weeks here I was constantly updating my blog notes with sentences like "Just saw a young child taking a dump on the sidewalk," "The woman working at that noodle shop must have been born in the Qing dynasty," "Are Chinese pears really just funky looking apples?" I naively felt that I would always have an endless supply of material, but then, the things that were crazy to me at first became part of my everyday life. So does that mean that I've changed? It doesn't feel like I have. I still enjoy watching the same TV shows and listening to the same music, I still hold the same political views, I still think that Chinese music is a bunch of tacky, over-the-top, recycled crap, I still treat myself to a cheeseburger when I have a rough week, and I'm still sarcastic and cynical beyond my years. I've done some cool things since I've been here but I find that it's very easy to point at an 18 hour motorcycle trip or a weekend journey deep into the interior of China to see some cool landforms and say "Look at me I've changed! I've gotten outside of my comfort zone!" But those kinds of experiences aren't normal, even for here. The way to measure true change is to examine how one approaches the mundane or what one defines as mundane. Case in point: the other day I was walking down the street and I came across a scene where I saw a long trail of skid marks leading from the road to the sidewalk where there was a fallen tree, a road sign bent in half, and what was previously a brick wall was rubble strewn across the ground. If I saw that during my first few months here I may have been able to write 1000 words about it. But what did I do this time? I simply stepped over the tree and kept walking, my instinctual reaction said "Yea people here drive like maniacs, what else is new?" It didn't register with me until a couple minutes later that I had just stepped through the scene of an extremely violent and possibly fatal car crash. My nonchalant attitude to this scene jarred me and has caused me to examine my current state of affairs and how I go about dealing with them compared to my "previous life." I discovered that it's not just how I react to the environment around me that I need to examine, but also the conversations I have with people; I even caught myself texting a smiley face emoticon last week...WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME?!

There is no doubt that my life is drastically different now from a year ago but the question I find myself asking is what has driven that transition? Is it a fundamental change in who I am as a person or simply a natural instinct for survival in a foreign place? I don't know the answer to that question so I gave myself an assignment to try to document a normal week of my life. This is what people more professional than myself would call "getting back to their roots." Let's see how it went:

My job teaching has been great for me insofar that it has given me a routine to adhere to, but it is this routine that has caused me to begin to gloss over some major talking points that I could expound upon.  One of those points being my school's morning exercises. My week begins on Monday morning at 9:30 when I arrive at school to see the entire student body arranged in orderly lines by class in the middle of the school courtyard running through their morning exercises which are choreographed through a 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 cadence. Watching 1000 young children in orderly lines making the same movement more or less in sync was a shock to me that still hasn't worn off. After their exercises the popular Chinese song "Xiao Pingguo" (Little Apple) blares on the loudspeakers (WARNING: if you are on drugs while reading this, I do not recommend clicking on the link, you've been warned). This song is basically this year's "Gangnam Style," and watching a bunch of happy young kids dancing to it would bring a smile to my face if I wasn't so tired of hearing it. To me, doing this dance in the morning is equivalent to American children dancing to Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A." before then heading to morning classes.

After the song is over the attention turns to me. I am then given a microphone to get on stage and say the morning English sentence for the student body to repeat back to me. This week's sentence was "Turn on the light/Turn off the light." I initially recite the sentence a few times then it is returned back

Morning exercises

to me. Next, I ask the grades individually to repeat the sentence. After hearing it recited back to me from the high pitched voices of the first grades to the significantly lower voices of the 6th graders we all break for class. This week the subject of my lesson was musical instruments. In all of my lessons I start with the basic words and get progressively harder and have an extra hard "bonus" word at the end. After going through the usual instruments (guitar, drums, piano, etc.) I get to the bonus word: "xylophone". When I clicked to this slide one of my students' hand immediately shot up. "Really?" I said "You know this word?" He nods and says "I think so...is it a tree piano?" I can't help but laugh at his answer but the fact that he used words that he had previously learned to try to figure out a word he didn't know showed creativity and an ability to think outside the box that is rare among Chinese students of all levels. I gave him a piece of candy for the effort and explained to the class that even though he was wrong that his was the kind of thinking I would like to see more of. Candy has become the great equalizer in all of my classes. Kids here are so obsessed with getting candy that even the rowdiest of students will calm down if I flash a bag of skittles. But, while candy has proven to be an effective control tool, it also has a tendency to turn little kids into savages. For the last 10 minutes of all of my classes I try to play a game in order to review all of the material I introduced during the day. The winner of these games gets a piece of candy while the loser goes back to their desk empty handed...harsh world. While 99% of the time these games go by without problems but every once in awhile, a contentious decision by the referee (me) can lead to spirited disagreement from the loser which can come in the form of name calling, swearing, or even sometimes the dreaded middle finger. These small acts of insubordination are usually dealt with on a case by case basis, but with such high stakes, who can blame the students for occasionally losing their cool. It's also important as a teacher to be thick-skinned and not allow 9 year old children to hurt your feelings.

My day at school typically ends around 5 PM after which I go home to decompress. One thing I've noticed about being here is that every week I will usually have one task to complete that is a little unorthodox and always makes me think "Only in China would something like this happen." Past examples of these tasks include: escorting a man on a bicycle towing a western toilet down the street to my apartment, riding in a carriage attached to a motor scooter to the wholesale market to buy a rug, or robbing and beating up homeless men so I can get money to go grocery shopping (OK fine one of those isn't true). This week's task was to transport a fresh water dispenser (like the ones you typically see in offices in the U.S.) from my friend's apartment to mine. I head over to his house, pick up the item and head home. As I was about to walk out of the front gate to his apartment complex I am confronted by two security guards. They ask me why I'm carrying a water dispenser, I tell them that I'm bringing it to my apartment. They ask where I got it and I tell them that my friend gave it to me. They ask me to write my phone number down and tell me if anybody reports a stolen water dispenser to expect a phone call from them. I found this request odd. If someone is in the business of breaking into houses and stealing shit I imagine a water dispenser would be far down the list of coveted items. But, in a country this polluted and with a population this large, maybe water is more of a desired commodity than I'm used to. I write down a fake number and continue on my way. As I walk down the street in the interior of mainland China holding a water dispenser I begin to reflect on how strange things have gotten for me...but strange in a good way of course. I arrive home, install that sonofabitch, and hit the sack.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are always early mornings for me because these are the days when I have Chinese class. Because my motorcycle is out of commish I will need to make about a 25 minute walk to my class.

This guy is making popcorn

 I don't mind walking early in the morning, it helps me wake up and helps me really take in the the three S's (sights, sounds, smells) of this place. This is a time where you can see the insanity of the driving or the bewilderment of the locals to see someone like me or watch some old woman busting her ass working a noodle stand that she most likely has been running for half a century. It's a rich experience and every once in awhile you're able to witness something truly special. This week's special occurrence was a doozy. As I walked down the street, I happened upon a man who was switching out a hose attached to a septic tank behind a public bathroom (If watching someone do a job like that doesn't inspire you to stay in school I'm not sure what will). The hose was long and as the man pulled it out part of it slid out into the street. Almost immediately a man riding a scooter ran over the hose, yanking it out of the man's hand, causing human waste to flow from the hose out onto the sidewalk. Instead of rushing to pick the hose up, the man turns and runs out into the street to yell at the guy on the scooter for I guess having the nerve to drive where he is technically supposed to be driving. As this argument went on a whole mess of human feces, urine, and puke was accumulating on the sidewalk. I found this exchange to be fascinating; it was like watching the discovery channel. I eventually arrive at my class where I sit for two hours and try to make sense of the caveman drawings they call characters. Afterwards, with my mind a mixed jumble of English and Chinese sentences, I head to school to shape the minds of China's future generation.

Justin is a boss

Tuesday and Thursday nights are also special for me because I have a side job as a tutor for a 4 year old Chinese boy who has been given the English name of Justin (after Justin Beiber of course). Justin's family is yet another local family who has been very good to me. When I arrive at their house they treat me to dinner, which allows me to try various dishes of the local cuisine as I try to make sense of the local Guilin dialect of Chinese that is spoken at their table. After dinner, Justin and I kick it for about and hour and a half as I teach him things like primary colors, please and thank yous, etc. It's sometimes a little difficult teaching English to a student who is so young he hasn't even fully grasped his native tongue yet. But this is another case where candy and games come in handy. Watching his progress over the past few months is one of the most rewarding feelings I experience during the week. Even though I am technically there to provide a service for Justin's family, I believe they also provide me with a valuable experience. Observing the home life of a native Chinese family has given me great insight into the culture here, helped my language skills improve, and reinforced the notion that I am still light years away from having the ability to raise a child on my own.

This particular week went by more or less the same as all the others go. Twenty classes at Sunny School, two Chinese classes, two tutoring sessions with Justin, dinner and bars on Friday and Saturday, and expat soccer on Sunday (I still got it baby!). Upon closer reflection I've realized that sticking to a basic routine in a place where the pace of life is ever changing and unpredictable has given me the perfect balance of normalcy combined with variation. Even though I have the same weekly tasks I rarely find myself being bored and my eyes are always open; which leads me to an epiphany on what about me has changed the most: since I've been here I have made more of an effort to stop and smell life's proverbial roses...or life's proverbial shit; both seem to occur with equal frequency.


"Going Native" Experience of the Week

It's going to be difficult to top this one, and I'm not sure I even want to try. A couple weeks ago one of the teachers at my school invited me and a couple others to her family's home in a small village outside of Guilin.The plan was to go down and stay Friday night then, Saturday afternoon, the family would slaughter a pig and we would all have a big meal before heading back to Guilin. I was excited to go; since my motorcycle broke down it had been awhile since I had been outside of the city and I was beginning to go a little stir-crazy. Also, being invited to something like this made me feel like I was becoming part of the tribe.

So there I was, getting ready to leave with my bags packed and my phone charged so that I could document the next two days and thinking about what a wholesome and relaxing experience this would be when my friend walks over and the following exchange was had (In Chinese):

Him: Have you ever been to one of these events before?
Me: Had dinner with a Chinese family? Yea I do that, twice a week before my tutoring class.
Him: No, a pig feast.
Me: Oh, a pig feast, yea we do that sometimes back in the U.S. for special occasions.
Him: Really? How do you guys kill the pig?
Me: We don't, it's delivered to us already dead.
Him: So you don't watch them kill the pig?
Me: No, never...wait do we have to watch them kill the pig tomorrow?
Him: Of course!

I am an unabashed consumer of pork but this would be a first for me. As my friend walked away I had one more question for him:

Me: How is the pig usually killed?
Him: With a machete...
Me:.........Oh.....

We then piled into the car to leave for what I was told would be a two hour trip...little did I know that those two hours would just be the amount of time that we would be on a paved road. We spent another two hours on a road that I would classify as a half step above a hiking trail. There were 8 or 9 of us crammed in a van with very poor suspension, which made going over all of the bumps quite uncomfortable. People in the back were complaining of being car sick and one girl was even crying and sticking her head out the window in case she needed to puke. Finally around 11 PM we arrived.

Poor Fido

Upon arrival we were greeted with a warm meal of chicken soup, rice, cabbage....and dog meat. Yes, after avoiding it for so long I finally took the plunge. The taste was pretty forgettable. They added a bunch of spices to the meat which ended up taking over as the sole flavor. The texture was similar to beef but a bit chewier. It didn't taste bad but it's not something I would actively seek out again. After dinner one of the guys brings a gas can into the living room full of fluid I assumed was gasoline. "Are we making a fire?" I asked. He looked at me then poured the can's contents into a small cup and handed the cup to me...oh...this is the alcohol we would be drinking that night. The stuff was rice liquor which really didn't taste as bad as it looked (and it looked pretty toxic). The Ganbei-s came early and often as me and my newly found mates ended up drinking the entire gas can (definitely the first time I've been able to string those words together in a sentence) and the night became hazy after that.

drink of choice

I awoke the next morning with a splitting headache to the sound of squeals...oh shit...the pig. Someone then came in my room and told me to hurry up and get outside, otherwise I would miss it. Having a headache and feeling nauseous from the night before had me thinking that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I missed seeing a pig get butchered. But I didn't want to be a pansy, so I said I would be out in a second. I got up and walked to the balcony in time to witness the largest pig I have ever seen get dragged over to a wooden chopping block where man plunged a machete into its neck. The whole scene was definitely one of the loudest and bloodiest events I have ever witnessed, but finally the pig breathed its last and the struggle was over.

Post-mortem

Afterwards, I decided to go for a walk to literally and figuratively clear my head. I also wanted to walk through the village to get an authentic feel for rural life in China (as if the experience wasn't authentic enough already), until that point I had only driven through villages like these on a loud motorcycle. I appreciated the the beauty of the place but the best part of this village was how quiet it was...definitely not an adjective I would use to describe Guilin. I became aware of the stares that I was getting from the locals but by this point I'm used to it. Eventually one brave soul had to guts to confront the alien (me) and declared that I was the second foreigner to have been to their little mountain hovel. I'm thinking to myself "The second????? Who the hell was the first? Ghenghis Khan?" I guess I'm not the intrepid traveler that I thought I was. I returned to the house and ate some pig before packing up and heading back to "civilization." I had vegetables for dinner that evening. 

Mandarin Improvement Sign

My Chinese has seemed to have picked up a bit of a southern twang. The reason being is that, although I take classes where I learn the "neutral" tone on how to say words, most of the speaking I do outside of the classroom is with people native to Guilin who speak in their own dialect. One of the characteristics of the Guilin dialect of speaking is that they don't pronounce their H's. This usually comes into play when I'm  negotiating a price with a cab driver or a motorcycle taxi. Oftentimes I don't know if they are saying fourteen kuai (shi si) or forty kuai (si shi) because the H isn't pronounced so they both sound like si si. Sometimes I have brought these bad habits into the classroom much to the amusement of my teachers.


Funny Sign of the Week

This was on the fence around my friend's apartment complex.

Reason Why I Like This Place

 I recently had the unique opportunity to attend an impromptu gathering of a local Guilin choir group. This group consisted of various high up party officials who work in Guilin. Before attending this performance, I had always viewed Chinese government officials as these rigid, unemotional cyborgs whose personalities were surgically removed at birth (I still think many of them are this way), but it was really cool for me to see these public figures simply enjoying one of their favorite hobbies on a sleepy Sunday afternoon.

Random Tangent

 I just got back from a trip with my parents to Vietnam (more on that later), and while we were there we noticed a very interesting and entertaining phenomenon: The Travel Douche. The Travel Douche is easy to spot, they're somebody who is clearly a tourist who, in some misguided attempt to shake themselves of that title, tries to blend in by wearing aggressively native garb.

Did you just get back from a long day in the rice fields buddy?

After we first noticed this tendency we started seeing it everywhere. Numerous guys, who I guarantee had only been in 'Nam for two weeks at the very most, were walking down the street wearing sarongs or other skimpy cloth pants making them look like a gay Tarzan. The more I thought about it the more I realized how systemic this phenomenon is in the west. Apparently its become mandatory for college study abroad students who spend a week in Paris to all start wearing berets and drinking espresso out of a small coffee mug, or for fat white rednecks to get their hair braided on the beach in Jamaica as they drink their 25th strawberry daiquiri of the day through a crazy straw. The examples are all around us. So what's the problem? Do we feel insecure when we leave the comfortable confines of our borders and feel the need to alter our appearance? Are we so naive that we genuinely feel that wearing this stuff helps us blend in? I'm not sure. My travel uniform is pretty similar to my everyday attire: khakis, T-Shirt, and baseball hat which gives off the unmistakeable vibe of "stiff, boring, uptight white guy," which isn't the answer either. There is a fine line between being an uptight foreigner who is afraid to try new things and Travel Douche but I guess my point is that that line is out there, and needs to be observed.

Road Trippin'

I'm so cool

For anybody who has been keeping tabs on my recent social media activity you may have seen that I bought myself a motorcycle. It was definitely one of my more interesting impulse buys and has led to some memorable experiences. Before I came here I had never driven one of those bad boys, so to say that I was faced with a learning curve in a place where traffic laws are virtually nonexistent, is an understatement. I was able to learn how to operate the bike fairly quickly but the real challenge is navigating the unpredictable traffic. Having a healthy respect for your vehicle and how fast it can go, for me, is the most important element of the experience. I'm sure I've given my parents some sleepless nights after informing them of my purchase, so the very least I can do is exercise caution. One lesson that I consistently get beaten over the head with here is that overconfidence is dangerous, and that becomes even more apparent when operating a motor vehicle. Just when I think I've completely mastered riding that thing, I'll see some tiny scooter with a family of four and a dog sitting on it run a red light and almost get into an accident and start yelling at the vehicle who clearly had the right of way as if it's their fault. So it's important to expect the unexpected.

With that being said...riding a motorcycle is BAD. ASS. I had driven scooters before but this is some next level shit. Before I didn't mind having to walk everywhere because I think it's a really good way to get a feel for your surroundings and become accustomed to your 'hood; but having the ability to transport myself not just around the city but also outside of it at high rate of speed is incredibly liberating. Armed with my new found freedom, I began taking rides to the areas outside the city that would last about an hour or so. The scenery around here is spectacular, I've posted a few pictures on Facebook but, when I look back at them, I feel that something gets lost in translation. One needs to observe these places with the naked eye to truly comprehend what these places have to offer. The more that I saw, the farther I wanted to go. I became interested in taking longer trips but I didn't know where to begin or where to go. Fortunately, through mutual friends, I was introduced to a couple of other expats (one Dutch the other Scottish)  who have lived here for awhile, have a good knowledge of the area, and are motorcycle enthusiasts.  I expressed interest in joining them on their next trip and they told me that I was welcome to come along, but they warned me that these trips would be long affairs. A typical trip for these dudes begins around 5 AM and lasts late into the

evening, usually covering 500+ kilometers (yea, I use the metric system now). The length of the trip seemed a bit excessive but I agreed to come along to see if it was for me. Since meeting those guys I have gone on two trips with them; the first one went by without a single problem and the second one was an unmitigated disaster, let's go deeper:

Trip 1: I could tell you each of the specific towns we went through but I doubt that'll mean anything to most of you, so I'll very generally say that this trip took us south. To give some scope on the trip, the farthest south of Guilin I had been previously is the town of Yangshuo; which we passed after the first hour, so this was truly uncharted territory for me. Our destination was the ancient town of Huangyao. After passing Yangshuo we continued through some incredibly remote country roads. This is the China that foreigners don't often see and I felt incredibly lucky to be able to take it in. When promoting China as a tourist destination foreigners are often given pictures portraying the fabulous wealth and development of places like Beijing or Shanghai much in the same way that the U.S. tends to direct outsiders towards places like New York or LA. I've been here for a little while now but this trip was the first time that I felt like I got a real taste of the area. Many of the places that are advertised as "authentic cultural destinations" often feel very contrived and you get the sense that the people working there are trying to play it up so that the visitors spend more money. But in these tiny villages out in the boonies of Guangxi province, these people didn't give a shit whether I stayed or went; they were too busy slingin' rice and other things of that nature. We were able to draw small crowds of people in the places where we stopped for water, most of them kids asking us where we were from. I started having fun with it and telling people I was from China and acting offended when they didn't believe me. What was shocking to me was that my friend was actually able to convince some people that we were from a faraway region of China. The tide of modernization certainly hadn't made it to these parts yet. I've heard stories of other white people

Boonies

going through villages like these and being asked if they were Japanese; because of their skin they certainly weren't from China so the only other answer must have been Japan. I can only imagine what it must be like for people living in these places their whole lives without seeing many visitors to one day witness a group of strange-looking people speaking a strange language show up to their town. But, even with extreme poverty and limited resources, you still get the sense that things in China are changing. It felt like every 30 minutes I had to switch lanes to get around a vehicle laying down blacktop in order to pave a road. There also seemed to be a heavy amount of construction going on in most places we drove by. There is a real tangible sense of development in this country, some places are just taking a little bit longer. The rest of the trip went by without any problems; we made it to Huangyao, took some pictures, then headed back taking a different route. We got back to Guilin at 10 that evening, a solid 17-hour day. I was obviously pretty tired afterward but I was galvanized by the experience and I couldn't wait to take another trip. We made plans to go again the next Saturday.

Trip 2: Even before the trip began it seemed pretty ambitious to me. The route would take us through the mountainous northern region of Guangxi and into the neighboring province of Hunan before looping around and heading back to Guilin, nearly 600 kilometers. But at that point in time I thought I was a badass and could handle anything so I was all-in on the idea. We met again at 5:30 AM and off we went. About an hour into the trip I realized that I had the sniffles; this condition would go on to manifest itself into a full-blown fever (complete with a sinus infection, full-body aches, and dehydration) by the end of the trip. Later on, we made a stop to take a picture of a cool-looking mountain ridge when my bike unexpectedly fell on its side, shattering my right rear-view mirror. This was something that I needed to fix as soon as possible; driving in China is unpredictable enough even when you have all the necessary devices. The problem was, at that point, we were pretty far away from civilization so I would have to wait a little while before I would be able to get it fixed. Then, shortly after we crossed into Hunan, I nearly ended an old man's life who decided to pedal his creaky-ass bike right in front of me at the moment I was passing him, even though he could clearly see me coming 100 yards away. We both came to a stop and he began yelling at me in some rough dialect of Chinese while I yelled and cursed back at him in English. We both soon realized that this nuanced discussion on proper traffic etiquette wasn't getting us anywhere so we exchanged a couple more "fuck yous" and racial slurs before going our separate ways. Eventually, we found a place where I could get a new mirror. After I got my bike fixed, a sense of optimism came over me and I felt that, despite my illness, it would be uphill from there...naive thinking. The return trip would take us through the Longsheng rice terraces with some of the most spectacular scenery in the area so I was excited to see that. A few hours went by without a problem until all of the sudden my bike broke down. We were about 200 kilometers outside of Guilin at that point and only had about an hour of sunlight left. I was so frustrated with the trip by that point that I even considered ditching my bike on the side of the road and riding on the back of one other persons' the rest of the way. One guy in the group had a tool kit with him and did some surgery and was able to get it started after about 30 minutes of effort. I knew that I wouldn't be able to stop until I got back to Guilin because it was unlikely that it would start up again. I braced myself for a sketchy ride back. It was completely dark by that point and the road home was windy and mountainous. To make matters worse, the wear and tear of the trip was causing my brakes to become less responsive; oh yea, and I had a full-blown fever...this really sucked. It was unfortunate that my situation and mental state were preventing me from appreciating my surroundings. On the way back, a monkey ran out in front of me before jumping on and scaling a rock face on the side of the road...and I didn't even care, I just wanted to be home. Eventually I made it but by that point I was in so much pain that I must've looked like Jordan Belfort on 'ludes as I climbed the stairs to my apartment.

So, apart from don't buy a second-hand motorcycle in China (especially when you know next to nothing about how they operate) and 18 hour bike trips make you feel like you dropped the soap in a prison shower, what did I learn from all of this? The answer may surprise you. I learned that, when it comes to travelling, bad experiences make good memories (provided that you are able to get through them unscathed). Since I've been here I've had numerous bad experiences: spending nights on dirty, smelly, crowded overnight trains, being stuck in the Shenzhen airport for an entire night as all hell broke loose in front of me, getting locked in a cab by a crooked driver trying to extort me, having to use a wooden board as a mattress in an apartment with no central heating or functional toilet, the list goes on. But I'm still standing, and my circumstances have improved dramatically; furthermore, when I think back on those times some thing weird happens: I smile and laugh. My second trip was a nightmare and that's why it will always be a fond memory of mine.

"Going Native" Experience of the Week

Opening up another bank account and seeing the woman behind the counter using an abacus.

Mandarin Improvement Sign

Being able to sit through an entire movie in Chinese without being totally lost on what was going on (was still a little lost though).

Funny Sign of the Week

This shirt being worn by a first grader at my school:

Now I'm not sure if the message on the shirt is indicating whether the wearer is the "juror" or the "murderer" in the scenario it describes, but this young tot appears to be happy either way. The amount of people I see walking around wearing shirts with words where they clearly have no idea what it says or means is enough to where it may be worthy of it's own blog post (Hmmm).

Reason Why I Like This Place

High quality massages are cheap (cue the happy ending jokes). But seriously! Getting a massage in the U.S. is usually viewed as a luxury service. Here it's like going to get a haircut. I have often asked my Chinese friends what they thought would be their toughest adjustment if they moved to the U.S. (besides the language barrier) and many of them said they would have a tough time without having access to regular, affordable massages. Massages here play a large medicinal role as well. Although some of the treatments seem pretty funky to someone with a western sensibility like myself:

Bamboo cups+fire=medicine?

Random Tangent