Saturday, December 13, 2008

PHO-nomenal!

Vietnam is amazing. I ate this bowl of soup called pho (pronounced "fuh," which, as one can imagine, provides endless possibilities of puns in the English language), and it was so good I cried. I'm not kidding. It's a rich broth with cilantro and lime and a hint of chilies, with slippery noodles and juicy shaved pork. *tear* I think I'll go get some when I'm done with this entry.

Hanoi is busy, noisy, beachy, dirty, and happy. People have big eyes and beautiful smiles. Lots of motorcycles! Palm trees are everywhere, but there's a displaced sunlight all the time because of fog/pollution. It makes the atmosphere sort of hazy and sleepy. There are about 4 Vietnamese boys staring over my shoulder while their friends play computer games next to me in this Internet cafe. I've been here for awhile so I should probably wrap it up, even though this probably won't cost me more than about 30 cents. Pho is about 75 cents. This place is crazy. I'm going exploring.

More later!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008






So the first picture is us with President Thomas (whom we affectionately refer to as Ron Thom¨) when he and his wife Mary met us in Fuzhou the other night! They arrived at the Shangri La Hotel (super ritzy...all the lounge waitresses were wearing Santa bathrobe outfits with fuzzy boots, which is undoubtedly the mark of a sophisticated establishment). But really, it was really great. There was a reception and we all got to chat in a big circle about how Pac Rim was going, and then we all got baseball hats!

The other two pictures are me with my new Chinese buddies. They really wanted to show me this church but it was late at night, so they got the guard lady to let us in because they said I wanted to compare Chinese churches with American churches (I didn´t have the heart to tell them I´ve never been to church in my life. I guess I HAVE been inside them, thought...). These guys, whose names are Rosemary, Michael, and Panda (he´s in the red) were really great. We talked about a lot of interesting stuff at dinner, like POLITICS!

I started telling them about the election in America, and how it was unprecedented because young people like ourselves turned out in droves to actively campaign and get people to vote. More young people voted in this election than in a really long time, I told them, and I told them about how good it felt to be part of something big. I am not kidding, their eyes were glowing and they were saying things like, ¨Yeah!¨ and ¨How great!¨ and I could tell they were genuinely excited about it, but as soon as I asked ¨Do you ever wish you could participate in an election like that here in China?¨ this sort of glazed, blank expression took over and they didn´t talk right away. It was so awkward!! They were like ¨No, not really...¨ and then Rosemary sort of laughed apologetically (she was the social one) and said, ¨The Chinese government has a lot of stability...we don´t need to change it.¨

Wow! Then yesterday morning I was sitting in on an English discussion class led by Dodie, an American ex-pat teaching English at Hwa Nan, and we got to talking about political protests and that sort of thing. When I asked if it was difficult to go against the norm, this one girl Lynn said ¨Yes. We are all inculcated to be obedient.¨ !!!!!

So you can imagine, this is like a gold mine for me in terms of finding stuff to write about in my research paper about the political attitude of Chinese students. Wowee.

The other photo is Alfred, the ewok-squirrel doggy, and the last one is a cute baby. (This baby was a 7.5 on the cuteness scale- Mongolian babies are 10s).

Tomorrow, VIETNAM!! 80 degrees....i can´t wait...

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Hu´s in China Now?

I´m sorry, that joke is so overdone. But yes, I am back in China! We are at our university´s sister school in Fuzhou, which is tucked away in a cute little neighborhood I would describe as Beverly Hills: Third World. I´d upload some pics but my batt´s dead in my camera, so I´ll do that soon. Basically the city is hilly with palm trees and alleyways of high concrete walls, twisted around in labyrinths and topped with shards of broken glass instead of barbed wire. See, I told you there was recycling in China!

Every day we go to class at the University, where Prof. Fields from UPS is teaching us a course on Nationalism. The balcony outside the classroom has a terrific view of the city, which is split down the middle by a huge river (Ming? Ying?) and looks remarkably like LA: blue sky, bright sun, and subtle layer of pollution. At night, the sun burns orange and bathes the sides of the skyscrapers in that fiery CO2 glow. I have to admit, it sorta feels like home...

We´ve got assigned buddies here with the Chinese university students, which is really terrific. My buddy´s name is Ivy and she is a real pistol, in the best sense. Absolute sweetheart, but not afraid to bargain down from four dollars for a pair of sunglasses (winking at me while doing so) or afraid to shove her way onto a bus when everyone is easily a foot taller than her. She talks fast, smiles big, and says things like ¨I´m so full but to leave food is waste, so eat eat eat!¨ We´re hiking a mountain on Thursday, apparently. Whew!

I´ve been making friends with the locals on my quests for food, which occur after class (elevensies), at noon (lunch), at 3:30 (second lunch), at 6 (dinner) and at 8:30 or so (after-dinner snack). I´ve been getting noodles at one diner in particular...I always go in the afternoon when the cook´s favorite kung-fu drama is on, so I order before it starts and then we watch it together (far away from each other but we´re the only people in the diner), and then I ask for my check during the commercial break. It´s a nice system. He´s got two little boys, one with really red cheeks and the other a tiny version of the first only jollier, like that ubiquitous Chinese laughing Buddha. They say hi to me and then murmur in Chinese and laugh hysterically. Joke´s on me, I´m sure, but I don´t care.

If you walk across the street there is a knick-knack shop, and inside the knick-knack shop lives a small dog(?). If he were my pet and I lost him and had to describe him in a poster, it would probably read something like this:

¨LOST: SMALL THING WITH GINORMOUS EARS. LOOKS LIKE LARGE SQUIRREL, FACE LIKE EWOK. RESPONDS TO THE NAME ´ALFRED.´¨

I named him Alfred because he looks like a grouchy old man abruptly woken from his afternoon nap with rebellious, disheveled eyebrows. I say, ¨Here, Alfred¨ when I walk by, but he sniffs at me and then jumps into his bed, which is under a tarp draped over two motorcycles. It looks really warm in there, I would totally curl up in there with him if that wasn´t weird and this wasn´t China. Anyway, I´ll try to snap a picture of him soon so you can all meet him.

Today Marlene and I were carrying our leftover trash from dinner while walking back from the university and spotted a trash can and stuck our garbage in. Then I noticed the can was one of two baskets, attached by rope to a long flat stick strung between them. This is the thing people use to carry stuff on their shoulders.

Suddenly I just felt really strange... I dumped my trash into a basket that someone will carry on his or her back tomorrow morning.

I need to think about that.