Mid-Autumn Festival

Remember that moon cake I pictured in my last post? Well, yesterday was the day to eat it. Did I? No. They're not very appetizing.

Anyways, I asked so many Chinese people, HOW in the world do we celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, which takes place on the Harvest Moon. They all said eat moon cakes and be with your family. I didnt and couldnt do either of those two, so we went to a park not too far from school to see if people were doing anything out of the ordinary.

Turns out they weren't doing anything out of the ordinary, but this time we decided to partake in their normal activities: i.e.- fan dancing.





Here is our new "dancing" teacher. He was THE MAN. Hands down, the best dancer in China.


After we finished fan dancing, so did all of the old ladies and our dancing sen-say(not sure how to spell). He was leaving and saw us and decided to give us an impromptu lesson. About 100 Chinese gathered around us to see what we were made of.


We made a date to meet with him in the park tonight to teach us fan dancing, but it started to rain. Shucks. Next time.

In the mean time, check out this video of fan dancing. It includes our "teacher" and if you wait till the end, you can see me in the background showing off my moves! And don't forget, they do this pretty much EVERY night!

Sky's the Limit

Mexican food in China:


"Sky Screen" in Beijing... put's Vegas' Freemont Experience to shame. Apparently cost about $40M (US) to build:





Oh, and the Autumn festival starts this week or next week, its the next biggest holiday in China behind New Years. I don't really know what they do to celebrate this holiday besides visit family and eat yuebing (Moon Cakes):


Oh, on another note, today we started our daily 20-minute "recess" inbetween one of our classes. We get to play badmitton (my fav), volleyball, basketball, jump rope, and the Chinese version of hackey sack. It's actually quite fun!

Jia you! (Put some gas on it!)

------ insert asking-a-trucker-to-blow-his-horn-arm-motion here -------

This weekend we ventured to Taishan, one of China's most famous mountains. Famous for what? I don't really know except that it probably has to do with Confucius (as it has the highest Confucius temple in China).

We (Natalie, Stephen, Matt, Matt's Chinese roommate, Chen laoshi (our teacher), her roommate, her roommate's boss, and I... phew) left Beijing at about 11:30pm on a train headed for Taishan. All of the sleepers and "soft" seats were sold out, so we were relegated to buy $10US "hard seats". Which, well, lived up to their name. After 7.5hrs on the most uncomfortable ride of our lives (one bench sat 3 people, but since the Chinese are Chinese, some sat 4 people), we welcomed the 7:00am wake-up call to get off that God-forsaken train!

When we arrived, we were greeted by a tourguide and a van who took us straight to a hotel. At the hotel we were met by a man who was nice and genial and treated all of us to a big Chinese breakfast. Why was he doing this? Why did we have a tourguide and van waiting for us? Well at the time, none of us really knew, until later when my teacher finally told us that her roommate works for an advertising firm and this was a business relationship.

Anyways, so then we headed to the base of the mountain. We arrived at about 9am and immediately started hiking. By hiking, I mean we climbed a lot of stairs. In the beginning the hike was a gradual incline, but towards the end, it turned out to be pretty vertical. 3 hours later we hit the "Middle gate." We were only half way there and already really pooped!

I don't know if you can see a little speck of a red arrow in the center of the picture. Yes, that is our destination from the MIDDLE GATE.

After a long lunch at middle camp, all of us except for Stephen and Matt's roommate decided to take a gondola thing up to the top... Thank God!

The second half of the hike would have had 4x as many stairs and was 100% vertical. I think we could have done it, but none of us were in the mood to after the horrible train trip. Needless to say, Stepehen and the roommate only took 1 HOUR to get to the top, whereas the average is about 2.5-3 HOURS. I couldnt believe it!

A view from the top:

The top of the mountain had its own little town filled with restaurants, shops to buy stuff, and tea houses. There were also a lot of little temples and scenic points scattered here and there, none of which we visited because we were too tired.

Sunset:

We also rented a hotel at the top. Let's just say that we got what we paid for. It was about a 20minute walk (UP STAIRS) to one of the highest points on the mountain. Our rooms were very crude and we had a toilet/shower combination. The toilet required us to throw water down the hole in the floor in order to semi-flush. Not pretty. Needless to say, we refused to take showers there.

The northern most building in this picture is our hotel:

The climate on the top was really odd. In the late afternoon, it was still relatively warm, yet we had a cool breeze. At one point I really felt like I was in Monterrey or near a beach in California. It really made me miss that kind of enviroment, but at the sametime invoked a deep sense of respect for this kind of mountain scenery, seemingly protected from pollution that so often plagues Chinese cities. I also realized that not many places in the States can match China's natural beauty.

That night we were in bed by 8:30 (of course, not until after we did a little impromptu star gazing) because we had to be out of the hotel by 5am in order to catch the sunrise. I wish our pictures did the sunrise justice, but well, it was beautiful. I don't think I've ever really watched a sunrise in my life. It's amazing how the sun just pops up little by little. That day I promised it would not be my last.

We then descended the mountain by gondola and bus (still with our tourguide on our trail). At the bottom of the mountain we were left with this view:

Note, that you can't even see Taishan. It's behind those mountains. Despite only hiking half of the way, we managed to go a pretty far distance.

At the bottom there were 2 vans waiting for us with more of my teacher's roommate's business accomplices. They took us out to lunch (on the menu was the region's famous Lamb soup (SOOOOO GOOD). The soup was good, until the chef brought in a platter full of 50 or so LAMB EYEBALLS. My teacher told him "Nooo!! Don't put into too many, just two or three!" 15 eyeballs later, only two people tried them. Natalie said it had the consistency of an egg. Needless to say, I stuck to the cow stomach and duck liver (yet again, not a joke).). The two vans then shuttled us to the train station where we had less than 15 minutes to catch our first class-bullet train back!

Next adventure, next weekend: Spending the night on the Great Wall.

1/2 Way There

To be honest, I'm actually thinking that the glass is half empty. Only 3 more months till I drink it all up (12/22/07, for reminders sake) and I return back to my beloved country and countrymen.

I like China, but I like America better and I can't wait to be back in TX and DC.

On a happier note, tomorrow we are required to visit with some American diplomats and discuss with them (in Chinese, of course) the China-US government/economic relationship. Looking forward to that.

Willy Wanka's Factory

Not only is his stuff safe to eat (per our "discussion" today in class about the quality of Made-in-China goods and whether the US is making this food/toy situation a bigger deal than it actually is), but Wanka's also making a killing, thanks to people like me (Thanks, Mom!)



That's right! I, Ashley Mergen, have a Chocolate Drawer. Be jealous, be very jealous.

Too early for Xmas

Had to share:

http://hillarynutcracker.com/completelynuts.html

脱了裤子放屁

Tuole kuzi fangpi.

That, my friends, is the name of today's lesson in my 260 class. What does it mean, you ask? Litterally translated it means: "Take off your pants to fart." Not joking, I do not joke.

Why is this a chinese suhua, or saying? Well, apparently the hidden meaning is 画蛇添足(hua she tian zu), or "Draw a snake and add feet to it." If that's not clear enough for you, here it is in spelled out fully in English:

"Don't ruin the effect by adding something supurflous."

So, my friends, please keep your pants on.

-Ashley


PS- Started The Alchemist yesterday... I think it's going to be a great book.

PPS- Just have 2 more episodes of the first season of 24 to go!

PPS- It has totally escaped me that today is Sept 11.

自相矛盾 (Contradictions)- The good kind

So, went to my first concert in China. And be rest assured, it will not be my last. (Actually, will be going to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in 2 or 3 weeks).

Line up:
Chinese band
Chinese band (Brain Failure)
Chinese band
Japanese band (RaIN)
Ramones (Marky)
Cui Jian
Nine Inch Nails

Chinese bands were pretty good... loved Brain Failure. Despite its name, their music sounded like it belonged on the Clueless soundtrack. Japanese band pretended they were like Mick Jagger... stupid.

Ramones... what a joke! Marky Ramone talked in between each song (there were about 30 of them) and tried to smoothly segway into the next song, but it was incredibly comical and we thought it could have been an SNL parody skit! He'd say as soon as one song finished "Do you wanna be sedated? Because I WANNA BE SEDATED. 1-2-3-4!" And yes, we heard the 1-2-3-4 countdown for every 30songs.


It was amazing how the Chinese crowd was reacting. We were practically up against the railing (on the grass seating section) and there were a lot of Chinese cops hanging out in front of us. When the Ramones played, Chinese kids started throwing trash at the cops. I couldnt believe it!

The concert ettiqute was AMAZING. The manners the Chinese lack in the general public they make up for during the concert.
1.) No one spit
2.) We were able to sit down on the grass in between each band
3.) No crowd surfers
4.) No surging toward the front
5.) Everyone lined up/no pushing
6.) We all had our own personal space that no one invaded
7.) No one smoked pot

I loved it. Although, the lack of chaos did kind of take away from the concert. NIN is a band that ususally causes riots and bloodshed, but here, we all stood in a respective spots and bobbed our heads and hands. They were really good, but it felt like a little bit of energy was missing.


Now the highlight of the night was Cui Jian, the "godfather of Chinese rock'n'roll. I didnt have high expectations for him, but he was phenomenal! Probably in his mid-40s, always wears a hat with a small red star, very Bruce Springsteen-ish. He sang, played guitar & trumpet, had amazing drummers in the background, and a saxaphone. Wo ting bu dong (I didn't understand) his music, but after looking at concert reviews today (having to use a program that bypasses govt censors), I learned that he was actually a huge inspiration for the 1989 student protests. This is the largest crowd he has played in a very long time b/c the government won't let him play bigger venues than jiuba (bars) b/c they're afraid of his message going out to too many people. The crowd absolutely loved him! It was great to hear them sing about freedom and what have you!


Oh, and get this- we couldnt bring water inside the venue (which was outdoors) because the plastic bottles, when thrown, are too dangerous. The only thing we could drink was beer or other liquors that they put in plastic cups. Tai mafan (what a pain)!

New Semester New People

Hi all.

Just finished my first week of school. I placed into level 260, which is essentially beginning 3rd year students. That's encouraging because it tentatively shows that my language skills have improved by a years worth over the summer!

Well, in about 10 minutes I'm leaving to go see the Beijing Pop Festival. Not pop, but rock'n'roll. (They only call it pop so the govt will approve the event). I'll be seeing a bunch of Chinese bands in addition to the Ramones (or just one Ramone (Marky)) and Nine Inch Nails. The fact that the govt allowed NIN to come to China is crazy in itself, given the extreme nature of the content of their songs. Can't wait to see what its like. They expect about 30-40,000 people to attend between yesterday and today.

Anways, will write back later. :-)

Shanghainigans

Ok, so we've been back from Shanghai for almost a week now, but I might as well round out my family's and my trip around China.

Our last stop was Shanghai, which I absolutely loved. The weather (to me) was pretty comfortable, a little humid, but guess what: I COULD SEE THE SKY! Seeing the sky is actually a pretty big deal for me. It was so exciting! LOOK:

This is us on the Bund. The Bund is a walkway along the river that features Shanghai's modern architecture on one side (pictured above) and not so modern architecture on the other side of the river.

Something I didnt realize before was that Shanghai was modern to this extent (dont know if that made sense, I think I just wrote that sentence in Chinese gramatical form). My parents were disappointed that there wasn't a whole lot of history besides in this museum, which we stayed in all day on a rainy day:

But nonethessless, much to my dad's shagrin, there was SHOPPING! Shopping Galore! On Nanjing street (like NYC Times Square, but much bigger) and the Yu Gardens (actually more like a bazarre) every two seconds people were accosting us asking if we'd like to buy a watch or bag or whatever. At first it was really annoying and I was mean with my "BU YAO!"s (I don't want/need). But by the end of our stay, I started having fun with it. I tried to yell "BU YAO!" before they could even utter a word to us. It was fun... well, at least for me.

Here's my dad at Yu Gardens taking a break from pretending to shop:

Speaking of breaks, we always made sure we knew exactly where on of these were just in case we ran out of steam from all of the bargaining:

In the middle of the bizzarre is a rock garden, that meiyou yisi (was not very interesting). But here are the parents for a little photo session:

At Yu Gardens we also met my friend from college, Jackie, before she headed back to GW. Here we are at lunch. Does it look like my dad is enjoying the food?

(and yes, that's frenchfries inbetween Jackie and I)

After 2+days in Shanghai, I think we all were ready to return to Beijing (and in my parents case, return home).

They had one full day before leaving home and decided to check out the Birds Nest (Main Olympic Stadium), Natatorium, and the Egg (Performing Arts center) while I went back to the Pearl Market to buy them some things they forgot to pick up.

That night they treated me to an AMAZING dinner out the Outback. Things I take for granted, eh?

After a tearful goodbye, they left for America last Saturday and arrived home safely.

All in all, it was a great trip. I loved being with my parents, and despite my earlier thoughts, my Chinese improved over the trip. I think I spoke more Chinese on the trip than at school. haha.

Anyways, I would just like to thank my parents for a great time. I LOVE YOU!