Day 20: Descending Huang Shan, Leaving Anhui

Monday, May 26

Photo 1: The twisted railing that was unsettlingly close to the edge of the stairs wherever we went

Photo 2: Going to a lookout point via a narrow pathway

Photo 3: Group photo of the morning hikers

Photo 4: Dong Laoshi looking good with her unrivaled stamina

Photo 5: Part of the extremely long descent to the bottom of Huang Shan

Photo 6: A cute baby monkey that distracted visitors as the rest of the monkey family swarmed for food

Bonus Photo: A bunch of us being able to use our legs before we went to Huang Shan

I woke up this morning only to find myself unable to do anything besides blinking. The soreness of yesterday's hikes finally caught up to me as I found myself unable to leave the top bunk until Dong Laoshi, who slept in the bed underneath, rose up. I had to pathetically slither down the bed because my legs refused to move properly. Seeing the weather conditions outside, Dong Laoshi made the morning hike optional. For the person writing the blog though, optional activities are clearly mandatory and the sheer willpower to write a good blog was the only thing that kept me going strong enough to wobble out to the hotel lobby. A tasty and slightly satisfying breakfast of Orion Chocolate pies may have also helped me regain my energy for the long hike ahead.

It was only a small group that set off this morning (Tyler, Tim, Jimmy, Luther, Jon, Alex, and Dong Laoshi) and I'm not surprised that the only girls on this hike happened to be the two girls (Me and Mika) that shared the room with Dong Laoshi. We were headed to Xihai Grand Canyon…which is a really strange name because I don't think it's anything like the Grand Canyon in the States. But eh, what do I know, I'm just a city girl.

Our time in China has taught me to never trust weather reports as we all looked silly with coats and yellow rain ponchos for the first few minutes of the hike before realizing that the rain was simply morning mist. I'm just glad that there is a lot less fog compared to yesterday as we were able to see past five feet of what was ahead of us. I finally got to see peaks and mountain ridges without the annoyance of rain sticking onto my glasses. Honestly, words will not do Huang Shan justice so I'll just let the pictures do the talking. 

Huang Shan may not have been an actual mountain hiking experience but without the aid of bridges and stairs, we would have never been able to take some crazy photos on some pretty crazy rock formations. The fences here seem sturdy enough to hold onto but then again, they were made in China…

Around noon, we came back to the hotel to gather everyone up for the descent. Huang Shan, it was nice sightseeing but it was time to get off this mountain. At first I was really confused when we had to climb up stairs to start descending but we eventually reached the steep set of stairs that would bring us seven kilometers down to the bottom. Normally, going down is way more desirable than climbing up but when you're descending wet, uneven, and small stairs with no railing to save you from slipping, going down becomes a formidable challenge. I had to repeatedly chant "mountain goat" to get into a zone because it was not fun going down sore. We did see some awesome views on the way down, including a scene where a family of monkeys terrorized a Chinese family for their food. Tyler even recorded one stealing cucumbers out of their bags, heh heh.

I'm glad to say that everyone made it down the mountain without copping out for the cable car. We all deserved our group lunch, which happened to be the first time we had actual food since our last meal in the village. The coach bus ride to Nanjing lulled many of us to sleep, while others stayed up writing journals and blogs and whatnot. I think it's safe to assume that many of us were happy to return to civilization. Well, except for the chance of getting hit by a Nanjing cycler the moment I stepped off the bus. I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that!

- Bobo

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Day 19: Hiking

Sunday, May 25

Photo 1: Chickens on a motorcycle

Photo 2: Out of the village, into the hills

Photo 3: Me, Bobo, and our favorite teacher

Photo 4: Hochiang, Jonny, Tyler, and Luther being majestic on Brightness Summit.

Photo 5: What it looked like the next day

For my first blog, I thought I had to be more professional and informative instead of writing whatever I felt like. But now I'm feeling more liberal, so there will be none of that this time.

My alarm went off at 6:30, and I managed to shut it off within a couple seconds, thereby beating Hochiang to it. It made me feel better about having him and Jonny make me look like I have no reflexes to speak of while playing Egyptian Ratscrew. Dong Laoshi said she couldn't get to sleep last night because of our banging on the table. 对不起。

We had no water in the hotel this morning, which I only learned after trying to flush the toilet. Luckily it wasn't a heavy load. Please appreciate my euphemism. I don't know why I'm telling you this.

I met up with Alex and Bobo outside to do our early morning hike, then we set out when Dong Laoshi arrived. We crossed over some farmland and over the 500 year old bridge that we'd already been on several times. This time we bore left off the bridge up a paved road and walked through a village. We saw a couple of chickens on a motorcycle, and passed by the man Dong Laoshi met yesterday, who runs a shop from his bed because he suffered an injury 5 years ago and can't move. It's an unfortunate situation, but I admire how he's still able to make a bit of a living on his own. 

Soon we broke out of the village and into the hills. All of the paths were generally only wide enough for one person, used by farmers to access their crops. And a lot of the time we had to make our own way to get around, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After about an hour we reached our highest point, and could see the outline of even taller hills in the mist and the farm plots below. Alex told us, "When you guys remember China I want you to think of this, not Beijing, Nanjing, or any of the big cities." That quote might not be word for word but it's the best I can remember. I think he said that because this is what China is really like in most places, and the cities are more like hotspots. We could only take pictures with 3 of us in them, and Alex told me to use a picture with my favorite teacher. So here's a picture with Dong Laoshi (and Bobo and me). 

Our journey back down was certainly more entertaining, mostly thanks to Bobo slipping and falling. It's funny because no one got hurt. One of those times, Bobo said both her feet came off the ground and she grabbed on to some bamboo to save herself. Alex saw it, and he was dying. Since I didn't see it, I'm going to imagine that after she slipped she swung full circle around the tree, launched off with a backflip or two, and landed gracefully. And that's what really happened, actually. I also fell a couple times, and Alex nearly fell into the stream. 好玩。I've never done this kind of hiking before, and it was really fun. I wish I could find a more creative way to describe it.

Jumping through the next few hours now, we returned to the hotel, ate breakfast, packed to leave for Huangshan, and took a bus to a place to store unneeded luggage. Tyler bought a walking stick that would turn out to be his best purchase in the 24 hours I'm writing about. I could argue that's it's the best purchase of his entire life, but I shan't.

We took another bus on a winding road up the mountain. Throughout today there was a fairly thick white mist that limited vision in any direction. It made me feel like being on an island in the clouds. After the bus, we took cable cars further up. It was very wet, so many of us donned our freshly purchased ponchos. I ripped mine almost instantly. I feel like 'hiking' doesn't describe this well, since it was all on manmade stairs and paths of stone, and that's not my idea of hiking. But for the rest of this blog, hiking = climbing up and down stairs and falling up and down stairs… So we hiked around for 20-30 minutes to the Beihai hotel. I sat in front of a fan in the lobby to dry off a bit. 

Then we went hiking some more. Dong Laoshi took some people on a short walk around, and Alex led the rest of us on a long route to Brightness Summit, the highest accessible/second highest peak on Huangshan. On the way, we spotted a wild fire hydrant. Tyler boasted that he would touch it, but didn't actually go near it. I was very disappointed. Bobo eventually slipped again, and Alex missed a step. I probably did too but I don't remember. Our coordination is 非常好。

We had an enlightening group discussion during the evening. Details, however, are confidential. But honestly I just want to finish up this blog.

After the discussion, we played mafia. To those reading who don't know what that it: I'm sorry, I can't help you. I think Tyler was the best storyteller. Also, when Kim was god her Texas accent seemed more prominent. It was all very entertaining.

- Jimmy

Day 18: Tofu and Tea

Saturday, May 24

 

Photo 1: Instamodel Molly

Photo 2: Tofu-making

Photo 3: Homemade Tofu

Photo 4: Outside our hotel, Chengkan Village

Photo 5: Going to pick tea

Photo 6: In the pond

Photo 7: Lunch

Photo 8: Picking Tea

 

Today was our first real day of Anhui after arriving really late yesterday evening. The hotel we are staying at is especially beautiful and super cool. But then Steven and Tim discovered spiders, so Conley and I (roommates once again) freaked out. We were so scared we slept in the same bed, and forced Luther to sleep in the other bed. Well actually his bed had bed bugs so he didn’t really have a choice and he probably wouldn’t willingly choose to be around the freaked out Kim and Conley. So today I got the privilege of waking up to Conley’s face and a coffee-mug-sized-demon spider looking at me from the ceiling. It was super fantastic y’all. Even thinking about the spider gives me the pee-pee-shivers. Conley and I probably overreacted but at the same time we don’t plan on changing our sleeping arrangements.

           

We met everyone else at 5:30 (a.m. y’all) and went to go see how tofu was made by scratch (the tofu factory). While walking there I realized the beauty of the area we are in. It was really nice ^.^ I took a bajillion pictures and Molly became my instamodel for approximately a minute before I decided she wasn’t worthy. JK y’all, Molly is fabulous.

 

The man making the tofu makes tofu by hand rather than how most people nowadays who use a machine. The equipment he uses was passed down for generations and generations and it was very interesting to see how he didn’t waste anything in the tofu making process. After that we ate a bunch of tofu (that was very good). Dong Laoshi apparently mentioned tofu can have a laxative effect (as Conley told me) but I didn’t really take it too seriously. Things got crazy later and I can confirm that at least this tofu has some sort of this effect. Conley and I did a survey to confirm it y’all cause we are super scientific. The tofu effect is real.

Next was breakfast (what a happy time) before picking tea leaves. We had to climb up this hill thing that was pretty muddy and our shoes got a little crazy. It was fun to pick the tea leaves but people kept trying to give me bugs as presents. That was no bueno. Also Alvin said he wanted to marry a ladybug. I wasn’t sure how to take that. Afterwards we went back to the house of the lady helping us pick tea and we watched her prepare the tea.

           

After tea picking we went back to eat lunch. It was so delicious. We had a short break (during which I attempted to clean my shoes) before we went to talk to Mr. Luo, a man whose ancestors had lived in Anhui for 33 generations I believe. He talked to us about Anhui I think and his family. It was a bit hard to follow what he was saying although he was a very enthusiastic man.

 

Later that night after dinner, Dong Laoshi and Alex told us to go wait by the bridge for a surprise. It turned out the surprise was fireworks. It was a pretty good ending to a pretty good day.

- Kimberly 

Day 17: To Anhui

Friday, May 23

Photo 1: Cards on the train
Photos 2 & 3: Out the train window

Our week got a lot more interesting this Friday, as we got to break free from our typical routine to venture out into the rural lands of China.

But that would have to wait until the afternoon. So once again, we woke up for our 8:00am classes to continue our studies, anxiously waiting for our adventure. Luckily, my class had a nice surprise; since there was a confusion between teachers, one teacher never came to class and we only had a half day. WHOO! It brought me back to the middle/high school days when we could enjoy a nice afternoon, but for us, it was filled with studying for our quiz in a few hours…

After our class, our student teacher, mid-twenties, took us out to a jiao zi fan guan (dumpling restaurant). While I do love my Muslim noodle place, it was refreshing to try some new dishes and this dumpling haven will definitely become a new favorite among my classmates. It is probably best to go with someone who knows the area because they really know the best food places in the city. She took us down a street to a dumpling store way at the end; I would’ve never even thought to go down this street in the first place! We all agreed that these were the best dumplings we ever had and for about $3.00 per person…there is no beating that.

It was finally time for us to leave our comfortable, Western hotel and journey off to Anhui for our mini-vacation. But first we had to get to the train station… We were carrying our backpacks and other luggage for the weekend in humid, 90 degree weather to first walk to the nearest subway station. Luckily it is under a mile away but still we worked up a good sweat and tried to find any cool air in the subway. Of course though, we were only met with more and more people on the subway and at Nanjing Railway Station, so we continued sweating. We were, though, lucky enough to wait for our train in a special section designated for military members, pregnant women, and families with small kids, but I guess it applies for wai guo ren (foreigners) too.

Our train ride was a lot more comfortable and enjoyable than our one from Beijing to Nanjing. This time we actually got seats! As soon as the train took off, people started playing cards, doing magic tricks, and getting some work down (which all of us probably should’ve done…). Train rides, especially in China, are great because you get to see what life might be like outside of the hustle and bustle of Chinese cities. The sky starts to clear up, the land becomes flatter and more open, and you see beautiful landscape. It is interesting to see how the Chinese use their land; from what I can tell, the land is either a big city or it is being used for farming, and there are infrastructure projects everywhere. The Chinese really utilize all usable land for farming outside of the cities; it is actually really beautiful to see an open landscape with lush green farms. It also weird though to see all of this farming and then industrial parks or high rise construction projects right next door. It really shows that China may still be a heavily agrarian society, but it is on a fast track to development.

Our train was a quick five hours but weren’t done yet. We then had to catch a bus for some amount of time (I fell asleep as soon as I got on) before we could reach our destination. We arrived in a pitch dark area but our “hostel” was much nicer than any of us expected. It had a traditional open court yard and very classic looking architecture. But things can only be so nice; most rooms had some “big friends” (very large spiders) in them so we had to get over our fear of spiders if we wanted to get some rest before our exciting weekend ahead!

-Jon Laks

Day 16: A Day in the Life

Thursday, May 22

Photo: Grabbed a late afternoon bite with our language partners! Across from me is my fudao (tutor).

It was the final question of Jeopardy, with one question that needed to be answered… in Chinese. I was on the verge to being set for life. I mumbled some gibberish Chinese, using words I had just learned in class, and somehow I managed to score the jackpot. Hooray! My friends and family ran up to me cheering for my victory, and we all took pictures holding up peace signs afterwards.

In the midst of all that cheering is the faint sound of an alarm growing louder and louder, and that’s when I realize it is just a dream and that I have to wake up to finish my essay and prepare for my presentation. 7:00 AM. My eyes are droopy, I only slept for around five hours because I stayed up studying and writing my essay, but I manage to muster up the strength to get up and get to work. Through the aggravatingly sluggish internet I manage to email the essay to my professor five minutes before class begins.

The clock ticks to 8 o’clock. That’s the sign for not only the start of class, but also the start of our language pledge today that lasts until 6 PM. It hasn’t really been a big deal since the first day though, after all, I am in the advanced Chinese class… -end sarcasm-. I still communicate perfectly fine (I get by somehow with a mix of body language) but I feel pretty immersed with China as a result of speaking Chinese so often, more often than I speak in English even. Yeah, it’s gotten to the point where I even dream in Chinese half the time.

Anyways, in my class of five students we start off by presenting what we wrote in our essays. The first two hour block of classes is led by Bao Laoshi, a graduate student who is our student-teacher. In the 10 minute break my class got in the middle of her class, we spend the entirety of the break talking to the teacher and even asking her personal questions, like her relationship status. I think it’s really cute how the Chinese females here get embarrassed so easily whenever you bring up the topic of romance. The dating culture here feels much more innocent than it does in America.

At the end of Bao Laoshi’s classes, we get a twenty minute break. My classmates and I spend the time available grabbing breakfast at Skyway Bakery, a German-owned and operated bakery in China. I go on what’s considered a splurged in Nanjing: 17 RMB for a chocolate croissant and a mini chocolate chip cookie. That’s enough for two huge bowls of chao mian (fried noodles)… but I am in a hurry to grab some easy breakfast. On the way back to class I stop by the convenience store and got a bag of chips too. Ever since coming to China I’ve been eating junk food all day long…

Back to class, this time with Yu Laoshi leading, I’m extremely tired but my magical bag of chips manages to get me through the day. Listening to the professor speak Chinese already required adequate effort to process everything in my head, and then it became a little harder with the sounds of the chips crunching…. It was worth it though.

Class ends at 12 PM and I go back to my dorm to take a quick nap and study a bit. The rest of my classmates as well as a few others on the trip decide to venture to McDonalds for some odd reason… Later on, according to them, it tastes practically the same as it does back in America. But now that they think about it, what reason was there for them to go to McDonalds when there is this plethora of delicious, shiny, and equally oily Chinese food in the nearby streets?

At 2 PM it’s time to meet with our Chinese language partners. My language partner is this really nice girl who’s going to be studying at Wisconsin for graduate school. I sit down and she surprises with me with pastries (dianxin) from a bakery!!! I am practically in love with her at this point… I told her yesterday I’ve been eating dianxin twice a day ever since coming to China (seriously) so I guess she wanted to do something nice… oh man I feel like Chinese people have been so good to me ever since coming here. Anyways, she helps me with my homework for the next two hours, and then we go to a café afterwards with the rest of the classmates and language partners. We have a good time and talk about random stuff.  My language partner and I are already pretty close after a week and we’ve been talking a variety of things: differences in culture between America and China, plans for the future, how we spent our lives in the past, favorite television shows, etc. Yes, all in Chinese! I think that my colloquial skills have improved quite a bit. And to think that coming into China, I thought I would say “Wo bu hui shuo zhongwen” (I don’t speak Chinese) half the time. 

My classmates and I ordered a bunch of food at the café thinking we were treating our tutors. When it was time for the tutors to go, my classmates and I decided to stay there to do our homework. Five minutes later, the tutors pop out of nowhere and say that our bill has been taken care of… and then they go. I think we all forgot about how slick the Chinese are when it comes to paying for the bill. We feel a little bad, but hopefully next time we will win the battle for the bill. I come up with plans in preparation for the future battles, like saying that I need to use the restroom… -evil laugh-.

We do our homework and then at 7 PM we have a speaker presentation by a lawyer that works for an NGO. He advocates freedom of speech and talks about issues his organization is working on solving, like food safety, anti-discrimination, and public interest law. It was interesting hearing from him and he gave me more insight on predominant issues in China. After this presentation, I go back to work on that pile of homework and I also study for a dictation tomorrow. I don’t think I am going to get much sleep tonight either, but tomorrow we will be embarking on a trip to Anhui, so there’s something to look forward to!

 

Day 15: Gruel, Calligraphy, Coconuts

May 21, 2014

Photo 1: Kim, Conley, Steven, me, Hochiang at Sculpting In Time Café for lunch!

Photo 2: Johnny working his calligraphy J

Photo 3: Steven, Conley, Molly, Luther, Jimmy, Kim at the Korean Restaurant for dinner!

Photo 4: Post-dinner hangout: ripping apart coconuts!

This morning when I came down to the lobby of Xiyuan, I was sad to see that there was no one sitting at Momentum before class. It was such a popular spot for us the first week of class. Oh well L. After buying water and banana chips (my new favorite snack for class), I had a cup of rice gruel for 1 块 from the Xiyuan cafeteria. I love having this for breakfast because it helps clean out my system, but it doesn’t quite fill me up. Next thing you know, Bobo comes in with two cups of rice gruel in her hand. She probably loves it more than I do.

Today marks the midpoint of taking classes here at Nanjing University. One of the classes I had was 汉语口语 (han yu kou yu), in which each lesson is broken into four sections; today we were doing a 讨论 (tao lun) about illnesses. My professor made a funny observation: there are always fewer students when it came time for the discussions for each lesson. Nevertheless, my class of eleven students had a discussion about our personal experiences with sicknesses and treatment, as well as, SARS and 禽流感 (qin liu gan, “bird flu”), two illnesses that greatly affected China in the past.

For lunch, some of us headed to Sculpting In Time Café (pictured), the same place we had ended our scavenger hunt, Mystery Nanjing, this past Saturday. I’m not quite sure how others felt about their food, but I ordered a club sandwich and it tasted so yummy. It was expensive compared to our usual lunches for less than 10 块, but I thought it was worth it for 40 块 (roughly $6.50)! Steven and Conley also ordered Coke floats, which looked amazing!

Hochiang and I left to attend our 1:30pm HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) 5 Comprehension class, but once again it was cancelled. Last week it was because there was a competition, but this time it was because the professor wanted to give the students a break since they had just taken the HSK. I usually never take naps, but I decided to because I caught onto 帅哥’s (shuai ge, a.k.a. Steven) mild sickness from the previous week.

I woke up just in time to attend my 3:40pm HSK 5 Listening class and I even had enough time to purchase an ice cream cone from the convenience store! J It was Hochiang, me, and one other student in class. Again, the professor gave us the option to cancel class because it was just the three of us. However, we decided to take the class and do some practice listening, which was very helpful to me since I’m contemplating taking the HSK when I return to the States.

Bobo, Hochiang, Luther, Molly, and I played some Frisbee and soccer for a while before the optional calligraphy class at 7pm. The calligraphy teacher taught us one major technique of writing, which consisted of rounded corners with the same width of the strokes. We practiced on brown paper and when we felt we were ready, we wrote our characters on rice paper. I wrote the characters 玉兰 (yu lan), which is “magnolia” in English. The magnolia flower is symbolic of some valuable memories I have had during my past two years at Northeastern. Jimmy and Rebecca were especially good with their techniques and Molly was quite creative with the characters she wrote.

 

Some of us went for a short run on the track and for dinner, we decided to try the Korean restaurant in an alley that Alex had recommended the previous night. It was authentic in a way that we got to sit on the floor to eat, but the food itself wasn’t exactly authentic. The kimchi pancakes tasted like heaven though. Molly and Conley decided to purchase coconuts at the fruit stand around the restaurant. Molly’s coconut tasted bland, but Conley’s tasted sweet. After telling the fruit stand owner that her coconut wasn’t sweet for a few minutes, Molly received a free coconut! They had a great time trying to tear apart the coconut for the inside.

 

Have a good night J
- Judy

Day 14: Reflection

20 May 2014
 
To me, it does not even feel like we have been in China for the past three weeks. Every day, we have something to occupy our time – at least getting our money's worth! Even if there is nothing scheduled in the course for our group, we always have something – we’re in Nanjing! Therefore, it seems as if we have been here for much longer than reality. Even more so, we still have another three weeks to go…Mind blown! One reason in particular the time elapses so slowly though: no television station choices for down time! There is plenty to do, plenty to see, plenty of news reports, plenty to learn, but I am feeling nostalgic for my Americano still (no “dunks” either).

Tuesday – unlike most days – was very lax, and I have the pleasure of recording the accounts – what little they may be. Compared to other days, Tuesday was rather boring for me. We attended class, 8:00 – 12:00, and then visited with our language partners from 14:00 – 16:00. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Later in the evening I mostly studied, did homework, prepared for Friday’s presentation, and…oh yeah…wrote this blog entry. Not having explored too much of the city just yet, we will however be making our way to Anhui this weekend. After our return from Anhui though, I must explore as much of Nanjing as possible before our departure.

Due to censorship and possible lack of better cable opportunities, the only television programs we have to watch are Chinese CCTV regulated news, reality, drama, etc., shows. Oh, and of course my favourite, BBC World News channel. However, television is not the only source of entertainment in the world. So in a way always having the same channel options persuades us to go out into Nanjing. But, if you need know anything or help catching up on any news, no need to worry! I can fill you in, in a jiffy! Although everything seems wonderful here in Nanjing, watching all the news and reading it on my cell phone’s BBC app and New York Times app, places such as Ukraine are still in turmoil and continuing to rise. Whereas Thailand has now undergone martial law, and just released from the Times it was a coup.

Although our access to most social media is limited (although there are ways, i.e. obtaining a VPN), it is nice to have the ability not to be surrounded by the social networking. I am a bit ready to go back to America because of my luxury goods I miss, but even more so I love being in China. Not having many online options encourages self-reflection, outdoor participation, and socializing with other students here. Being here provides a more fulfilling sense of ancient China growing in a modern community.

-Tim