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...

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.

Okay, So There Was Stuff To Do

Alright alright so I found some things to do. It turns out that everything was fine; in my room, there were two sweet gay boys of Mexican persuasion (Rrricardo and Gustaaavo) and a nice Australian grad student named Ben who was was studying robotic engineering (what what, dad! we talked for like half an hour about robots and japan and traveling etc etc). He looked like a nerdy Prince William. My friends arrived in the night too, so I wasn´t alone, either. See, Mom, Everything Always Works Out.

So it turns out the Russian boys were...get this...SLOVENIAN. Last night we were all sitting in the lobby, my friends and these boys, and it turns out they are on Slovenia´s National Karate Team. The first thing they asked me was Where is Slovenia and I was like, ¨Eastern Europe?¨ and they were disgusted and said it used to be part of Yugoslavia. Well How Was I Supposed to Know. I think I should get credit for knowing the general area. Then I said , ¨So what brings you to Tokyo?¨ and they said ¨Äirplanes.¨ har har.

Then one of them goes, ¨Do you know Ahmed the Dead Terrorist?¨ And Max, I am like oh man this is that Youtube ventriloquist act and sure enough IT IS. So we broke the ice with the Slovenians by watching Achmed the Dead Terrorist on Youtube. It´s amazing how much Youtube can bring people together all over the world...NO JOKE.

So after we had a good laugh, my friends and I were going to go to a jazz club, and we invited them all to come. Well we couldn´t get in because it was so packed so we went to a nice little bar/grille joint and everyone had three beers and i had wine. (Of all the various alcoholic beverages in the world, I find wine the least offensive.) So we ended up making friends with the Slovenians after all. Yay.


Today, I was hungry and wanted an afternoon snack so I stopped by this hopping joint with a horse race on the television. Apparently this was a Horse Race Yakitori Restaurant which basically means everyone eats yakitori ravenously and then waves their little shishkabob sticks angrily at the TV and say things like ¨What the hell number 5! What the hell!¨ I got plopped at a table with a Japanese man who looked to be somewhere around 60. He had the scratchy growl of a man who has ruined his voice half from smoking and the rest from yelling at TVs. He heard me talk to the waitress (¨I don´t need anything else, thanks.¨) and he said ¨Your Japanese is good. What brings you to Tokyo?¨

So I told him that I was touring Asia with other students and studying along the way. He said ¨Where have you been in Japan?¨ and I said ¨Kyoto. I saw lots of temples,¨ and he let out a whistle and said ¨That place has temples coming out the wazoo.¨ (*in the Japanese equivalent.) I said ¨Yep!¨ and we chatted a little more. When my food arrived, he said ¨Don´t you drink sake?¨ and I said ¨Sake? It´s barely four o´clock!¨ and he laughed. While we were speaking he had been pulling at a loose thread on his sweater, and finally the waitress saw him and came over and swatted his hand away (¨Stop pulling at it!¨) and clipped it with some handy scissors. You could tell he was a regular.

Then I told him about how my family was probably moving to Tokyo and he was excited. I said you´d be working on robotics, Dad, and he said ¨Tokyo is the place to be for that.¨ After we chatted a bit more and I ate a bowl of yakisoba, I pulled out money to pay for my meal and he was like ¨No, no, no. Let me.¨ and i said ¨no, no, it´s fine,¨ and was fishing around for a coin in my purse and he said ¨No, no, really!¨ and he yelled out to the waitress, ¨Hey! I´m buying this girl lunch!¨ and the waitress said ¨Really? Sure thing!¨ and he pushed the money back at me. He said, ¨Come back tomorrow and we´ll chat again!¨ And I said sure and thanked him. I won´t be there tomorrow, but it seemed better to just say yes.

(So the thread story reminded me of a night at my host family´s house in Toyama. My room was next to the living room, so one night after I went to bed I heard the mom and dad bickering about who got to take a shower first. They couldn´t decide so they played rock paper scissors and the mom won, and so after 20 minutes or so I could hear the dad snoring really loudly on the couch and I wondered, aww I wonder if she will let him sleep because he had such a long, hard day. So when the water turns off, I hear the pit-pat of the mom´s feet padding softly towards the dad and this is what happens:

Pit, pat, pit, pat. pause.
SLAP.
¨BATH TIME, DADDY!¨

I laughed so hard I had to stick my face in the pillow. It was great. The End.)

In Tokyo and Nothing To Do

So I am sitting at the hostel in the lounge with nothing to do on a Friday night in Tokyo. None of my friends are here yet...plus it is cold outside and I don´t feel like wandering around. There is a table full of drunk Russians on my left and across from me there is a very cute blond Russian boy who looks like a soccer/lacrosse/rugby type. When we made eye contact he smiled a very wolfish smile. Did I mention that I am in a bunk dormitory in this hostel so there are BOYS in my room? How awkward. Well there must not be any issues with this because this is one of the best rated hostels in Tokyo, according to Lonely Planet. Don´t worry, I know self defense. I hope I didn´t just give you a heart attack, mom.

What can I say in Russian? ¨I speak a little Russian?¨ Then he´ll TALK to me in Russian and I won´t understand. The Russian on my right keeps laughing at my pink computer and asking me questions like how many words per minute can I type and why is it pink and other things. He has his hair in a ponytail and, in a black turtleneck sweater, looks like the poet-type who takes his work too seriously and spends half an hour trimming his facial hair around his chin in the morning so it looks Just Right. No Thank You.

Man I am so bored!! What the heck is there to do!!!!

Planes, Trains, and Little Kid Roller Coasters

Okay, so no planes today. But there were definitely trains and little kid roller coasters. Today I left the house of my homestay family from four years ago, the last time I was an exchange student. It was very chill. I mean that in the relaxed sense, and also in the temperature sense because it was snowing. SNOW! We saw a temple in the morning and then watched three hours of CSI. Ah, Japan! A fusion of the old and new.

The next day was much the same, except we watched a 2 hour movie of the host daughter´s school´s sports day, filmed with a handheld camera. TWO HOURS. But I was hanging out with my host mom so I didn´t mind. :)

So today I hopped on two bullet trains. It was crazy, we started out in snow (yes, it was snowing!!) and then we literally sped into a new climate. I am in Tokyo now and it is pretty mild. Crazy! I sat next to a very nice boy on the train to Tokyo...he saw that I had my massively obese backpack and moved his seat upright so I could fit it behind us, and I was like ¨It´s fine¨ in Japanese and then we apologized about it for ten minutes. We both sat down to read but neither of us really wanted to, it seemed like, and I couldn´t think of a way to start a conversation. Then he asked to pull down the shade and I said ¨it´s fine,¨ and then he had to get up for a second and I was like ¨it´s fine,¨ and then I was thinking gosh he is going to think all I know how to say is It´s Fine.

Finally we were arriving in Tokyo, and I offered him some gum, and then he asked me where I came from, and I told him the whole story and he said he was a first year college student studying medicine. He said my Japanese was really good, but when people talk this is what I hear:

¨I am....student....medicine studying.....this weekend....isn´t it?¨ and i say yes, how interesting. Studying medicine is hard. and he says ¨Yes, but...and so...in high school....not too hard.¨ and i say oh that´s good. so it sounds like i am paying attention but really i´m just barely.

I do seem to be making lots of friends on trains...people must see this poor ragged looking foreigner hoisting 50 kilos of crap on her back and think ¨aw.¨ two days ago i was about to miss my connection because I didn´t know to get off the train, and this old lady was like ¨Hurry! You´ll be late! Conductor, wait!¨ and then, I am not kidding, FIFTEEN other grandmas sitting nearby all started making clucking noises and saying things like ¨Don´t forget your purse! Did you get everything? Move out of the way for the girl! Here she comes! Be careful, now!¨ It was like in the span of that 20 minute train ride everyone sitting near me decided to be my host grandma without me knowing. Thanks to them I got out in time, so hey!

On the train before the Tokyo train, there was a lot of snow outside so it was easy to strike up a convo with the lady next to me. (aka, ¨Some snow, huh!¨) At the end of the trip,, she gave me an extra coffee she had lying around in purse and helped me get to my platform. SO FRIENDLY!


I know, i know, you´re all wondering, ¨So what happened with the boy on the train to Tokyo??¨ I wish I could tell you it was something schmaltzy, like we looked into each other´s eyes and kissed and parted in tears, but we sort of just looked at each other and looked away and laughed awkwardly and then ran in opposite directions. I DID say ¨bye¨... yeah he was cute but who´s got time for romance on a trip like this?

Anyway, so the kiddie roller coaster. On the website of this hostel I am staying at in Tokyo, it says ¨Kiddie Theme Park nearby!¨ And I thought oh, how quaint. Little did I know they meant ¨Kiddie Theme Park RIGHT NEXT DOOR!!¨ I tried to take a nap this afternoon but it was hard to sleep, what with screams every 30 seconds. Poor weary travelers, who come so far only to have their afternoon siestas interrupted by the intermittent shrieks of children...

Who cares about formatting!

sorry the formatting is weird and the captions dont line up with pictures. Use your imagination :D

SUPERMATURAL RUB FEET ROCK

On a handout for a foot pressure point mat:

¨SUPERMATURAL RUB FEET ROCK.
Function go feet mat do feet crack feet helosis bermatophytosis a thletss foot sole coarseness callus scurf againpuregold point a good many evermore knea d be tet upto dispel illness repel wane lose eye forgettery hae mark edness curative effect.
Csage feet and root classs at one fime dip in re view water five minvee genely rub sole this or that b ut ue after ehenar velvet pliability especiany be well.¨

Excuse me while I go scurf my againpuregold. ahahah






So the picture above has a sign in the bus window that says ¨Welcome, Atkinson Norah Group of USA!¨ <- This is what our tour guide was holding when we arrived in Datong, China. I am pleased that the Chinese Communist Party saw to it that I was welcomed properly to their glorious country...otherwise I might have had to resign from my ambassadorial position.






So this is Asuka at night, after a long bike trip. I wonder who lives here. Sugoi!















I took this picture from the top of our college in Kyoto. It is literally built into a hill.








A massive Japanese graveyard in the hills of Kyoto. There are lots of restrictions on building here, so none of the mountains are developed. It´s like as if no one were allowed to build anything in the Hollywood Hills. Except these hills are green and luscious and not on fire! I just saw on the news that California is burning down. Oyoyoy,
I will pray to the mountain kami for California rain.

Tomorrow I go to see my old host family! Bullet train time. WOOOO! Don´t look out the window, bleaaugh :P And then, ON TO TOKYOOOOO.