Saturday, November 28, 2009

Pizza Night

Tonight was one of the strangest nights I have had so far.

It started with a craving for pizza, which may be the death of me. It is the only thing that when I get a bad craving for I know is in at least a 2 or 3 mile radius and I have a hard time satisfying with something else.

So I went on google maps, found a place that serves pizza just a mile and a half from my house and decided I would take the walk.

This all started around 7:30pm and I didn't get out the door till around 8. It gets dark here around 6:00 now. From my experiences and from what people say the streets are pretty safe at night as long as you don't go certain places or hang around past 12ish.

The map said I had to walk straight down my street cross the road, down another street and across a park and it would be a mile or I could take the road around the park and go 1.5.

So I started walking down my street and I got to a second hand store that I had gone in a week earlier. While there the first time I had bought a folding table for about $5 to put on my roof where I am currently trying to put together a little hang out spot. Here is an early picture right after I put up X-mas lights (which where being sold at wal-mart for the holidays)

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I also have 2 chairs in my apartment that I can bring up and sit up there and read a book, drink a beer, or look at the stars (about once a week when the starts are actually visible)

Unfortunately I made the mistake of leaving the table up there, and I discovered only yesterday that it had been stolen.

As I walked into the shop to look around for a possible replacement, there it was! Someone had stolen my table and sold it back to the very shop I bought it from. I was not pleased! I tried explaining to the man in the shop what had happened but no amount of translator or me being annoyed was going to make this any easier to understand or get my table back. Eventually I left in a huff and decided maybe I would go back, buy it again, and write in big letters THIS IS BRAD SWAIN'S TABLE, I WILL KNOW IF YOU STEAL AND SELL IT BACK THIS TIME on the top. Maybe I'll get someone to write it in Chinese for me.

So as I walked towards the pizza place I was hoping I could find, I was slightly bitter. Eventually I neared the end of the street and out of no where a small hill and a MIDEVIL CASTLE appeared where this park was supposed to be. Pictures will come in the future, I didn't think I was going to need my camera for a quick walk to the pizza shop. I am learning now I should bring it everywhere.

I quickly discovered that the castle was part of a theme park. I took a side street that I thought would be the quickest way around and found it to be an entrance to the park section of the theme park that I apparently saw on the map.

The only other parks I have been to in Xiamen have been small, flat, well lit, very pretty parks. Parks where you can see very well and also see the other side of the park while standing on one side. Those of course I had all visited with people.

I am now of course by my self, and after about going 100 meters in, I quickly realized that this was neither anywhere near flat nor was it well lit. There where however, plenty of people around to scare the hell out of me. From what I have gathered, all forms of gambling are illegal in China. There is no lottery, or natives with casinos, or horse races for people to take out their urges. This means that the average 20 something year old male likes to go to a high dark place with his friend and play some kind of card or dice game far away from police watch. (this was true when we went on the hike at Xiamen University as well)

Maybe its because I am a suburban white kid. Or maybe its because the only time I ever see this happen is in movies about the 1920's in a back ally and right after the game, little Georgey gets his teeth kicked in because he won to much money from the big kids. Or maybe its because I was alone in the dark in a foreign country with roving packs of 20 something years old's, but this was moderately unsettling to me. Call me a chicken, whatever, you'd be scared too.

The paths in this particular park make 0 sense, I didn't know where this pizza place was, and I was starting to get a little nervous because either 3 dudes where following me or happen to be going EXACTLY where I am going (which is every which way because I don't know which way I am going. This compounds the unsettled feeling) At one point I even stopped and they came up and stood next to me. I figured if they where going to rob or whatever me, they would do it now, but they didn't. So I kept on walking and they kept on following, and I was still freaked out.

To make this all the more exciting, this is a theme park, so there are HUGE CREEPY CHINESE CARTOON CHARACTERS around every corner.

But eventually I went around a corner and took a side path, they took the other and I felt slightly better.

Eventually I emerged in the middle of what I can only describe (to all you camp people out there) as a Jungle 80's aerobics work out on the Chinese equivalent of the sun prod stage in the middle of a park on a Saturday night in China. I was really hoping Jen Kramberg would jump out of a bush, stand up on a chair, and start singing "When You Call My Name" to make it all seem a little more realistic. But no such luck.

After this bazaar scene I walked a little further through the woods and I next arrived at an arcade. (in the middle of the woods) The arcade had a bunch of basketball shooting booths, a make the duckies swim by shooting water at the target booth, and a big sign that said pizza, steak, and french fries.

I noted this a possible place to eat if I didn't find the real pizza place (since the map had indicated that the Pizza place was not in-fact inside the park, but on a street near it)

I then proceed to walk around the arcade and found that it was only actually half arcade half BEAUTIFUL RESTAURANT ON A LAKE?! Leave it to the Chinese. (the distinction between luxury and tacky, at least by American standards, is still a very gray line here) At this point I was really wondering if the bout of food poisoning I had had 3 days ago was making me have hallucination now, and really wanted to get back into the streets of Xiamen where I belonged.

Eventually I did, and when I did, I immediately saw a giant Billboard that basically said EUROPEAN JAZZ PIZZA back the way you just freakin came. The pizza place I found online was called EJ's, so I put two and two together and headed back for the arcade/4 star restaurant.

Beside the arcade outside, I was the only person in the whole place. After some butchered attempts at ordering in Chinese (to the great amusement of all 3 waitresses working) and a fair amount of pointing I eventually got a pretty decent peppers and onions Bi Sa (the i makes a hard E sound, say it out loud) and a pi jiu (beer).

I sat in the super nice part of the restaurant over looking the lake and the people taking paddle boats out in it. I sat and enjoyed the fact that I was no longer wandering threw some horrible drug trip gone wrong.

Of course, the really smart part of me said, "Hell, I know my way back now and all I have to do is look for the giant lit up castle. So I'll just head back the way I came". So I did.

It was relatively uneventful and the castle was in sight when all of the sudden the all too familiar chorus of "hellos" started.

The "Hello" chorus is a phenomenon that, 95% of the time involves 15 - 30 year old males who are with their friends. One in Chinese says "Oh look a Foreigner!" And then As I walk by he says "Hello!" and all of the others race to catch up and say "Hello!" as well. Then the 2 that know the most English attempt to impress each other (not me so much, I am just the catalyst) by how many random questions they can ask me in English. Sort of like a verbal pissing contest.

Typically I put up with this for about 3 of such questions and then make up I place I have to be. To be honest, I think my answers are a little bit of a disappointment anyway, since they are never typical American responses they learned in School. For example, "What sports do you like to do on your free time." is usually answered with "Lacrosse, Running, and Skiing" which are not "Football, baseball, and basketball" which according to text books, should be the answer.

But not this time, this time the "Hello chorus" was followed by a different question (from a guy who spoke English pretty well). "Which kind do you like?" followed by a wave of the finger. This made me worried because it was pretty dark and his finger wave was pretty ambiguous. It could have meant anything from "we can find you heroin or crack" to "older men or younger men".

It turns out, after about 3 minutes of conversation I figured out it was the latter!

This became apparent after he apologized. His English was rusty because the last person he had spoken English with was his "63 year old Canadian boy friend who had died visiting Malaysia last year". Seconds later I found out that he was 26 and just had a thing for older men.

Thankfully the next question was "How old are you?" and the answer "23" (in China the birthdays are celebrated differently) apparently got me off the hook of being any interest to him. I next made it quite clear that I was a fan of women, no offense to them. This was received by 4 or 5 disappointed aw's from the back up singers in the Hello chorus, the group of guys I was supposed to "choose which one I liked" from a few minutes earlier.

Not wanting to be rude, I hung around for a few more minutes and talked. But by this time it was about 9:25 and I "had to meet a friend at 9:30" so I said "Zai Jian" and was on my way.

Nothing much but odd recollections of the absurdity of the last 2 hours worth of experiences happened on the way home. I was happy to get home and be some where that didn't make me feel like I was lost in wonderland.

I wish I was creative enough to make this kind of stuff up.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

power failure

Today's blog post about the super market was half written when the power, in what would appear to only be a few floors, went out.

So instead since I can't post that, I will simply post that I now know how to set up VPN's on other people's wifi via my iPhone. The world is now my free wifi hotspot :)

There is positive for every negative! Though the negative side, having no dinner, is considerable. Temporarily the positives still out weigh the negative but we will see by breakfast tomorrow if I still feel the same way.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Brad's List of 8 Inferred Guide Line for driving in China.

One of the things I am having the hardest time adjusting to is the absolute insanity that happens every day on Chinese roads.

I have however, been compiling a list of inferred guide line that I thought was worth sharing. First some information on ownership, roads, and cars in Xiamen.

Personal car ownership has increase an average of 40% every year in the past 4 years.

90% of these people got their license for the first time when they bought these cars. (today's inspiration for this post came from Su, Lindon's wife, who picked me up to go to the grocery story today. She has been driving one day a month for 2 years for a grand total of 24 days of driving experience)

To put this driving culture and mentality in perspective, Imagine a city the size of Boston where the vast majority of people drive like they are between the ages of 16-20 in brand new cars.

Most roads where built 20+ years ago and where meant to handle government vehicles, some taxis, and buses. Personal car ownership at this time was essentially 0. This means that the biggest roads around where intended to accommodate the traffic of a residential culdesac)

Bicycles and hybrid motorized bicycles have been the primary mode of transpiration here for decades and used the roads for much of this time because there where so few cars. They where, for the most part, the largest and fastest moving things on the street. Because the spike in car ownership has only occurred recently, this mentality has not really changed. (Even though they clearly no longer are.)

All Chinese roads have large side walks. It is as common to see cars on side walks as it is to see bikers.

Ok, that does it for outlines. Now...

Brad's List of 8 Inferred Guide Line for Driving in China.

1) There was a little joke I used to tell friends when we where first learning to drive. It went "All stop signs with white boarders are optional." For all of you who have not heard this joke, all stop signs have white boarders. In China it is not a joke.

2)You do not have the right of way.

3)At all costs, stay away from buses. Usually this means just don't drive, since buses are EVERYWHERE. If you must drive, assume that these lunatics will drive their 2 ton lump of steal and glass full of 39027430948 Chinese people like it can handle and accelerate like it is a Formula One car and is equally as long.

4) All lines, signs, and lights are for purely atheistic purposes. I am not really sure why they waste the paint and electricity. It would be easier to understand Chinese driving if the pavement was blank and there where no lights. This would at least remove the confusing illusion that you are following some kind of logical system. That way you could focus on not getting run over instead of putting all of your energy into yelling "WTF IS THIS GUY DOING! ITS A RED LIGHT AND HE IS IN 2 LANES WITH PEOPLE CROSSING THE ROAD!"

4a) All lines that are painted are dotted. This includes main streets, narrow avenues, alleys, and one way roads. Keep in mind these are NOT straight-aways on unpopulated New England back roads, this is like putting a dotted yellow line in the middle of Time Square.

5)Do not use your blinker. Most likely you will get pulled over for having unnecessary lights that distract other drivers.

6)J walking is not only legal but necessary as there are no cross functional walks. People standing on the dotted lines on a 4 lane highway are not uncommon. This is again misleading because all 4 lane highways are actually 6 lanes and the dotted lines serve as almost not protection.

7)Using your Horn or flashing your lights usually means "You WILL loose this game of chicken because I am not backing down, even though I am on the wrong side of the road" or "I am driving twice your speed behind you and will plow your car into on-coming traffic if you do not pull on to the side walk and let me pass".

8) All of these guidelines will be rendered useless in a matter of a week. As a rule of thumb I throw out all of my establish a guidelines once as week because usually I see 3 or 4 examples of them being rendered useless in this time.

Getting my license within a month!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

南普陀寺 (Nanputuo Temple)

To continue in the trend of doing turisty things on Saturdays, Shita, her Sister, Jolin, Jolins boyfriend, and I went to Xiamen University and Nanputuo Temple for a nice hike.

After being introduced to the new people I was asked to give them American names, which has become a standard procedure when meeting new people. I however am not a fan of it yet, since usually it is done before I know the person well. This is a silly reason not to like it, but I for some reason feel like it would be better if I could do it at the end of the day rather than at the begging. I'd hate to give out a name I like to some one I don't particularly want to see again and vise versa. The names given this time where Sarah and Steve, mostly because the "S" sound was preferred by Steve.

I took the bus for the first time, which is an adventure in it self. The limit to how many people may ride the bus is only regulated the size of the people on it. Half of the ride was spent getting friendly with a mildly smelly painter, but eventually the people thinned out and I got a little room to breath and a seat.

The final destination was a beach located near Xiamen University. We went for a little walk along the beach and ate little candied apple like things. This can be seen here.
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After that we went for a walk around Xiamen University which is widely know to be the most beautiful University in China. It was quite nice, with a lake in the middle and plenty of beautiful architecture and art work surrounding.
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We stopped for a coffee (which was a first) and I botched my order. I was trying to order a iced latte, instead I got iced coffee with green tea. (which is actually a thing on the menu so its not like I butchered it THAT bad, just one wrong word) It was still tasty.

Next we walked over to the Temple which is built inside the university at the base of a mountain. The story is that a single Monk made his home in a cave there. Apparently many of the locals got sick and the monk cured them, so they begged him to stay. It is now home to some of the oldest Buddhist writings in China.

Out side the entrance there was a pond with an unimaginable amount of cat fish in it. Many children where feeding them.

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Here is the entrance.
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Something I have noticed about many temples and tourist attractions that is different than from attraction in the US is that they are not at all set apart from the daily hustle and bustle. Many times a famous Church or land mark will sort of be out of the way of all the markets and shops. In China it is usually just a door that leads you behind all the shops, then you find what you are looking for.

It is worth showing a few close ups of some of the art work on the roof
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Truly beautiful, I am a big fan of the lanterns.
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One of the many gods people where praying too.
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While it is all quite comical to me, I kept it inside as not to offend anyone. (Which, as I am sure plenty of you know, is a big step for me :D)

We then started to hike the mountain. There where steps all the way up! All along the way there where buildings and statues that looked like this
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Many of the rocks had carvings like this
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Each of the carvings where about 10 feet up. At each one you could find 5 or 6 people throwing coins up and trying to get them stuck on in the lettering. Apparently this brings good luck. This picture shows it a bit better.

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Along the way many cracks and caves where filled with these little guys.
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No one could really explain to me what they where. The best description I can give is that apparently you need them when you are dead. Sort of like the Egyptians, I guess.

Everything in China appears to be made to climb. Unfortunately, Chinese people don't seem to want to take advantage of this because every time I decided to climb things I attract a crowd of 10 - 20 people and get told "Its dangerous". When asked "why?" there seems to be no response. Maybe its because they have farther to fall. Questioning is not the forte of many Chinese.

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The view from my rock.
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The Island you can just barely make out in the back ground is actually Taiwan.

Unlike Hong Kong most of the stuff in the air is actually clouds not pollution.

Towards the top the statues and things thinned out but the people did not. Oddly the top was not filled with families and places to see the view, but had a food vendor, a construction project, and people playing cards everywhere. All very strange. We had to walk another good half mile to get away from it all and rest. Litter is also something that is a big problem here, there was a fair amount of garbage which was really to bad because everything else was so beautiful. Here is another rock I climbed/picture I thought demonstrated how beautiful it was.
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We did eventually find a nice look out place.
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Pollution and gamblers aside it was all still very beautiful and a good hike. If I had to guess I would say it was probably only 1.5 miles but pure elevation climbing.

Afterward I took the bus home and took a quick nap. I was then invited over to Shita's house for dinner with everyone form the office plus Steve and Sarah. Shita and Sarah's cooking was fantastic! Some of the best food I have eaten here so far. I have asked her to teach me to prepare a few things including a tofu dish and a Cucumber dish I thought Dan would particularly enjoy.

We ended the night by me teaching every one 2 drinking games we played in College much to everyone delight. (Kings and Up The River for those of you who played along with me in past years) It was very entertaining. Highlights would probably be "9: Bust a Rhyme" "Categories" for obvious reasons.

All in all a very nice day. I am fortunate to have such nice coworkers that are willing to entertain me all the time! Maybe some time soon I'll do some home work and show them some times I have discovered.

Until next time.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Runing Tally of Things I Really Miss

I thought it would be mildly therapeutic if I made a running tally of things I miss now after two weeks (besides family and friends). Most of these things are currently food items, though it may change in time. Not sure why, but here goes.

Iced Coffee - Actually any coffee that isn't just a front for caffeinated tar in general is greatly missed. (I am very thankful I took a lb from home but I only have that much so I am saving it for days I really need motivation in the office) But its 78-84 degree F here and I would probably pay up words of 5 or 6 times what I'd pay at home for a cup of Java Madness or Brewed Awakenings Iced Coffee.

Baked Goods - I have no stove and the Chinese aren't big on baking. I had some bananas going brown today and got really excited to make Banana bread. I popped them in the freezer turned around and took them out again because I forgot I don't have an oven. Banana Bread could probably be its on category.

Maple Syrup - This might as well come from the moon. I can't even get "syrup" let alone grandpa's grad A homemade maple syrup. Pancakes and French Toast are both make-able, but no substitute for topping has yet been found.

Dark Beer - I have had one Sam Adams since I left. While beer is never in short supply, the color and taste range from about the equivalent of Stella to Bud Light. It does not seem to get much worse than bud light though. I have not so far found a Chinese equivalent to say, PBR or Naddy. This makes beer drinking very easy but also extremely uninteresting. The easy part does not bode well with the fact that it is considered in bad taste if a guest has an empty cup. Fortunately the beer ranges from about 3.1% to about 3.8% so its not to hard to keep to keep it together.

Pizza - This one is not as much of a nagging persistent missing like the other but more of an unsatisfiable craving that hits out of the blue. The interesting bit is that there is an Italian restaurant not TOO far away where you can get kind of a traditional Italian style pizza (and even then its not really that great) but this is not the kind of pizza that will satisfy this urge. If anyone gets to Pepe's or Sallys in the next year and has some left overs, I'd probably still eat it even if you sent it regular 5-7 business days shipping.

Interesting Discussion - There are plenty of interesting things to do, see, eat and try. Unfortunately my Chinese isn't good enough, and none can speak English well enough to have discussion beyond the point of what we like to do, what we study in school, what we like to eat, and what is different about China. This is all well and good because I can talk about all of them to just about everyone. But for someone who likes to dig a bit deeper every once and a while I may need to start finding a new outlet.

That is the major ones at the moment. There are probably a few more but they aren't to persistent if I can't think of them off the top of my head like these ones so they aren't making the list. I am sure I will add more as time goes on.

Xiamen Horticulture Expo Garden

Well I officially regret not buying 2 camera batteries. Gonna have to track another down here.

Yesterday was another fun adventure. We went to the Xiamen Horticulture Expo Garden. This massive (6 mile by 5 mile) garden was built 2 years ago to celebrate the different architectures and cultures all over the country.

The garden is built over 3 different Islands with bridges connecting them. Here's the entrance.
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I would guess that each province or cultural section got about half a square mile each in which they have built scaled down buildings and classic land marks. They all had a pretty basic format.

The first part was an entrance arch designed in that cultures traditional architecture like so...
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At a glance many have similar over all structure, but the difference are in the colors, woods, paintings, and carvings. Here are two others for comparison.
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After that there is a traditional garden with plants and statues from that province like these

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And then there is usually their most famous building.

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There was also usually a building dedicated too showing some kind of culture

Some had dancers
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Some had cool Buddha statues
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Others had amazing lanterns
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Beautiful painting
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And traditional writings
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There where pretty Chinese lanterns pretty much everywhere.
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And of course the obligatory group shot.
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There are actually three other people with us "Jen", Lily (company accountant), and "Peter" (who is probably the most similar person to me I have met so far, also speaks decent English) all of whom are taking pictures. From left too right: Asila (company secretary) Me (like its hard to pick me out) "Jen's" younger brother and Lily's friend who's name I can't remember and didn't say a word the whole time.

Blah, and unfortunately this is again where my stupid camera battery goes dead. We are really only half way threw and I didn't even get to take a good picture of the Emperors palace or the rising moon! Might just google it and add them later!

The second half of the day and 3rd Island was dedicated to the different Universities in each province. The major part was on ancient Chinese learning and then a 1 mile by one mile section was carved up with different arches from about 30 different Universities represented from all over China.

I'm annoyed because I took some pictures on my cell phone but can't see to figure out how to get them on my computer. Anyway, I did snap a picture of one of the school arches because it translated to "Northeastern University", so Dan, I have a picture of it for you when I figure it out. haha

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Until next time.