good times

hey, remember that time we went to the crappy dive bar in china, with all the really cheap warm beer, and ending up playing some "dare" type game with a group of chinese people, and clark had to spit beer in some random chinese guy's mouth? yeah, that was really weird.

update on today's shaoxing trip (with pictures) coming soon, i promise.

"i have nothing! absolutely nothing for sale!"

yo, sorry i haven't rapped at you in a while, but really nothing at all new has been going on around here. the weather has turned hot and humid, and so we're all just sort of lazing around the dorm or anywhere with air conditioning, which does not include this internet bar, so i'm gonna keep it short. most of the action has been on the home front anyway, but with room draw and course registration finally over, it looks like i'll have more time to focus on the neverending problem that is my summer plans.

tomorrow we're all heading out to shaoxing, a city about an hour from here that has some cool historical sites, and is also the birthplace of Lu Xun, who is china's most famous modern author (and whom i am willing to bet none of you have ever heard of). so hopefully i'll have some pictures and such for my next update.

in other news, if any of you have the opportunity to watch a movie called "taking lives" staring angelina jolie, run for your lives, because it is the biggest piece of crap i have ever seen. that is, aside from that b movie that durrell and i watched in our guesthouse in longsheng, that had something to do with christian warriors on huge trucks battling sick people that looked like those sand people from the first star wars, and there was some princess or something. man that movie sucked. but "taking lives" is also bad.

they may be very small, but there are a lot of them

this morning my conversational chinese class took a trip over to a nearby elementary school to watch a first grade class and then talk to some sixth graders. We each had about ten sixth graders bombard us with questions, most along the lines of "do you use chopsticks when you eat chinese food" and "who is your favorite chinese movie star," but the crafty little devils also slipped in questions about chinese relations with japan and taiwan, which i deflected with the classic "it's a complicated situation, and america definitely does not want to fight a war with china."

because the chinese are infinitely amused by all things having to do with foreigners, the local hangzhou television station sent over a reporter and cameraman to interview us. they interviewed me, among a few others, and asked fairly innocuous questions, such as "what do you think of hangzhou?" and "what do you think of chinese students?" but then they asked me what i thought of chinese music, to which i answered, "i actually don't like it, because i really like american rock music, and china doesn't have any rock music." (which they don't! they use the word for rock music, yaogun, to also describe the horrible pop music that they listen to. i actually don't know how they differentiate between "pop" and "rock" music in china. it all sounds the same to me.) the reporter quickly responded, "ha! ask one of your chinese friends to show you, and you'll discover that china has lots of very good rock music." so that is the story of how my attempt to criticize modern chinese music was whitewashed by the state controlled media.

this past weekend was pretty low key as everybody decompressed from their spring break trips. jeff from shanghai came down to visit us provincials on his way to huang shan, and we showed him what i hope was a good time, even though the weather kinda sucked. the west lake area was as crowded as i've ever seen it, and with the may 1st holiday (international labor day) coming up, it's going to be absolutely silly down there. i can't wait.

that's all the news for now. i'm off to figure out my classes for next year.

spring break southern china 2005! wooo!

so it looks like i have the jump on durrell on this post. i'll leave all the messy details to him because he likes to write about that kind of stuff apparently, and i'm also very tired from sending just writing a family e-mail on the same subject. also these crap chinese computers are starting to piss me off.

in any event, durrell and i skipped down to guilin (limestone rock spires), yangshuo (more limestone rock spires and a whole freaking lot of westerners), and longsheng (dragon backbone rice terraces). we had two days of sunshine, both in longsheng, with just about corresponds with everybody else's pictures of guilin and yangshuo, where it always seems to be cloudy.

yangshuo is one of china's highlights, according to the lonely planet guide, which now rules over the city with an iron fist. all those hotels and restaurants and trips included in the guide are booming, and those that are not have signs saying that they damn well should be in the guide. i was very glad to get away from the place, and all the grungy foreign backpackers (like us) who couldn't speak a single word of chinese (unlike us).

longsheng, on the other hand, was awesome. the place is a collection of minority villages, enormous mountains, and 700 year old rice terraces that stretch from the valley floor to the tops of some of the peaks. we spent a day hiking from the village where we were staying to another and back, during which point we were the only tourists around. because we had no map, only our wits, we had to ask every person we met if we were going to right way. most of them told us we were crazy to try walking ourselves, then immediately offered their guiding services. however, after some gently prodding most gave in and pointed the way. that night durrell got sick. i think it was from dehydration, but perhaps it was from the bottle of water he bought in some random house that was covered with animal excretement when we got lost. who knows.

i am now back in hangzhou, and madly scrambling to finish this post before it starts raining and i have to ride my bike back to the dorm in the rain. below are pictures.

durrell and the trip leader on the day we got to longsheng. we decided to ditch the group of slow people from hong kong and go off by ourselves, and she, inexplicably, decided to join us.

durrell on the boat near yangshuo.



me free-soloing a 5.13b in guilin, which i later dubbed "total b.s."



durrell being directed in taking pictures by an old couple in guilin. the city is in the background.

that, i believe, is all.

pictures added

so i slipped that picture back into my last post. it should be showing up by now. and, as an added bonus, i included a picture of your favorite person (me) walking down a path in this bamboo forest/buddhist shrine area type thing yesterday.



note to elise: i finally got the postcard, but apparently there was a whole stack of mail in the mailroom that somebody forget to give to us, so i'm not really sure how long it took to get here. thanks all the same.

Elise you are my favorite nun, and I love you, and want to marry you, and make lots of babies, and stuff.

Elise come on down, you have just one the special prize. I don’t know what that prize is yet, because I have not bought it. But I am sure it will be around five dollars when I do buy it. That is a whole 40-Yuan. You won the special prize because you are the only one to care enough to write me a letter of some sort while I am here. My own family won’t even write me. Elise, I love you. I framed the letter and it is hanging over my bed right now.

While this weekend, Golze and I will be taking a trip to the beautiful province of Guangxi. I don’t actually know if it is beautiful but I have heard good things, like, Guangxi is beautiful. Are plan is to stop in three cities Guilin, Yangshuo, and Longsheng. So if you don’t hear from us for a really long time, send the army to this area.

On another note, I was cracking at this girl. And we were taking having a good time. And she reached up to scratch her head, right then I discovered that she had more hair under her armpit than I have on my head. I almost got sick on myself. But being the composed and calm young man that I am, I just swallowed the little bit of vomit that came into my mouth. This gave me a new appreciation for American girls, or just girls that shave their armpits.

On that note, I’m out.

And don’t forget, if you don’t hear from us, send the army.

When Monkeys Attack

This weekend I went to my roommate’s friend’s house. My roommate’s friend’s name is Shan Ji. Four of us went on the Journey, My roommate (Hao Nan), Shan Ji, Huo Ji, and me. Shan Ji is lives in a small Nong Cun an hour outside of Hangzhou. The place that he lives is known its plentiful bamboo forest and its…ah, well its known for its bamboo forest. Oh, the place is called An Ji. We got to on An Ji on Friday night, and his mom prepared a wonderful dinner, using the local bamboo in many of the dishes. I must admit that bamboo taste pretty good. After, dinner we didn’t really do much but goofy around, because it was really. But, we did make a small trip to Shan Ji’s grandpa’s house, where I got to try for the first time, Qing Yuanzi. Qing Yuanzi are this small green balls, that come in sweet and salty flavor. Personally, I prefer sweet. So, after chillin at his grandpa’s for a little while all went back to Shan Ji’s house and played cards for push-ups. I ended up doing a lot of push-ups. But that’s ok because I am hella buff now. After that we just went to bed.

The next day, we woke up early to go hiking. But first we went to Shanji’s mom’s store to get some supplies. This is what her store looks like:



And here are some pictures of the town.



After getting the supplies and seeing some of town we made our way to Long Wang Shan (Dragon King Mountain). When we got to the top of the mountain we saw this cute little monkey sitting in the middle of the road. But as the car we came in approached it, it ran up a tree. When the car finally stopped, I was like I got get a picture of a Chinese monkey. I have never seen a Chinese monkey before. Here is what the little monkey looked like:



So we got out the car and took out some food to try to get the monkey to come to us. As soon as the monkey saw that we had some food to give him, it bolted right for us. But before he bolted right, I think he gave a signal to the rest of his buddies, because like 8 monkeys came out of nowhere, trying to get some food. As soon as we gave the first monkey some food the monkeys started to get aggressive on us. And demand more food. Here is one of the monkeys in his attack position:



When, I was taking this picture I didn’t realize this was his attack position, I just thought that this is where he liked to hang out. If I had known that is where he started his attack formation, I would have run away like a little girl, which I did later. I never thought that Chinese monkeys all knew kung fu. So, when we gave the first monkey food, they saw that we were pulling the food out of these bright red bags. Once they realized where the food was coming from that is when they made their move. The first monkey attacked one of the red bags, doing so type of ninja back flip into a roundhouse kick sending our bag full of bottled water flying. And the rest of the monkeys began to attack us and tried to attack the other red bags we had. Here is a monkey attacking Huo Ji:



The only monkeys that didn’t attack us were a mother and her child.



These two were the only ones that I liked, just because they didn’t attack us. After learn that all these monkey’s ran away when you picked up a rock, we finally got them to get away from us or so we thought. As we naïvely began making our way up the mountain, we started to realize that we were not alone and that the monkeys were hot on our trail. Here the monkeys tracking us down like Navajo:



I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but the monkey in the front is looking the other way to make it seem like he is not following us. I know what you are doing you stupid monkey. But after using some sticks and rocks, the monkeys stopped following us. When finally got to the top and saw that there were no monkeys around we decide to take a lunch break and enjoy the scenery. After enjoying a peaceful lunch break, we came out our hiding place to find this:



A damn monkey waiting on a wall for us to come out. Lucky for us, this time there were only two monkeys. But because during the eating process some of the food that I was eating did not make it to my mouth, I had some left over food that hit the ground to give to the monkeys. With sticks and rocks prepared we began to try and feed the monkeys again.



Here is Shan Ji, hella scared, trying to feed a monkey. After giving the monkeys all the food that hit the ground we went down to were the river was and looked at the cool scenery around there. The monkeys followed us all the way to the water and were like screw this, I can’s swim. And then they left to never be seen again. The area that we were in was full of waterfalls.



The place was very beautiful. And because it was a hot day, my roommate and his friends all decided to go swimming.



But because the water was flippin freezing, they only made it to as far as the waters edge. But to them it still counted as a nice refreshing swimming. I don’t know how that works out. But anyway, the scenery was cool and full of rocks, trees, and water. It was basically full of all the things that make scenery really nice. In honor of the monkeys, my roommate and I decide to take a monkey picture.



After we finished climbing that part of the mountain, we decided to climb a different part of the mountain. This part of the mountain path was ridiculous. It seemed like when they were making the path for this part the mountain, they decided to just throw some rocks down and if the rocks made stair they were like cool good work, and if the rocks didn’t make stairs, they were just like fuck it, close enough. Walking on this path was scarier then the monkeys. Because the path was so bad we decide to make our own way up the mountain.



It was fun going up our own way because; going up our own way was fun. I don’t know how to explain it, it was just fun. The path we chose was just walking on the huge boulders in the middle of the riverbed. Going up this was good because we got to see all the small waterfalls that the huge boulders formed.



Going up the path was fun but going down was not so fun. That’s only because the rocks were slippery as hell and gravity ended up pushing me into the river. Fortunately only my feet got wet. After we finally getting down the mountain we were crazy hungry. We went to Shan Ji’s friend’s house for dinner. Her name is Zhang Xiao Yan. She lives in a more villagie part of An Ji.



Her house was a small little Chinese nong cun type house. It was really cool. Right outside of her house she has a bamboo garden.



And if you walk through her bamboo garden you can find a field of You Tai Hua (a yellow flower that they use to make oil for cooking). This is me hiding in the flowers, can you find me?



If you have not been able to find me yet, I am in the middle. I know I blend in well. After exploring the fields around here house it was time to eat.



The main dish in the middle used some of the bamboo from right outside of her house. The main dish was hella good. It actually was all good food. After dinner we just stayed and hung out for a little. And jumped over a wall in the middle over here courtyard. I mean what else would you do after dinner, but jump over a wall.



After jump over the wall a couple of times, it was time to leave. We all went walked back to Shan Ji’s. And ate some more of those Qing Yuan Zi. This time I helped out in the kitchen. Here I am helping keeping the fire going so that the Qing Yuan Zi could get steamed.



Actually I only did this for about ten minutes before I got fired. I guess I was not keeping the fire hot enough or something. After losing my job, I went to go play mahjong. I must say that since I have came to China my mahjong skills have increased.



Because I was kicking their ass in mahjong. It was not until, the freshly made Qing Yuan Zi arrived did I start losing. That was only because I was distracted by the food. But after Mahjong was over we all went to bed for the night.

The next morning Huoji and I woke up late. Because we woke up late, my roommate and Shan Ji had already gone somewhere. So Huo Ji and I did some exploring on our own. We found a pretty cool tea field and a Chinese bamboo mill. Because in China trees are not so plentiful, they use bamboo instead of wood for a lot of things. And also the bamboo industry in China is big because, the giant panda’s love their bamboo. Here are some shots of the tea field and the bamboo mill.



After doing a little exploring it was time to go. And we got a ride back to the city part of An Ji. We just hung out there until it was time to leave. And that is pretty much my weekend.

On a completely different note, Golze and I finally played shuttlecock. Let’s just say that it ended with me, as the Chinese say, trampling him.

i'm just gonna throw this out there right now: picking tea leaves is interesting and fun for about 15 minutes. after that, bending over in the sun digging through bushes for the perfect tea leaves for eight hours a day gets a little old.

let me put this in some context here. on saturday morning most of us piled into the good old zhejiang university of technology tour bus and headed out into tea land. first stop was the national tea museum (one of many around the country) a bit out of town. there was a fairly interesting tour of the sites, with an introduction to the types of chinese tea (seven i think: green, red, black, oolong, yellow, white. so i guess only six). apparently, china is the only country in the world which regularly uses more than one kind of tea as part of its culture (i.e. japan: green; england; black; america: iced (i'm not kidding on this last one, the chinese actually consider it a unique kind of tea inveted by americans)). after that, we wandered around the grounds for a bit before lunch, which was really nice. I feel like all the flowers around here bloomed on friday night. today was the first day of really nice weather, though it was still sort of that perpetual haze that seems to envelop hangzhou.

after lunch, we trucked quite a ways out of town to a tea farm. hangzhou is famous for its dragon well tea, but the most famous is the west lake dragon well tea, which really describes nothing more than its proximity to the lake. that stuff is really expensive, many hundreds of dollars for half a kilo. so they certainly weren't about to let a bunch of foreigners tramp through their tea bushes (that sounds sorta dirty).

the place we went to was better anyway. instead of west lake dragon well tea, they grew zhejiang dragon well tea, which is exactly the same thing. we got to see them treat the already picked leaves, which they do by roasting them for about 20 minutes in a sort of big pot. then they store the leaves for about a month, when they are sold. we got to drink some of the freshly made stuff, not the best, but it's really amazing the difference between the crappy tea i bought at the supermarket and this stuff.

we were also treated to a rousing presentation by a pre-eminent professor of tea (you can major in tea in china), who was this tiny old dude and we couldn't understand what he was saying at all. awesome.

then we headed out to the fields. i asked our guide, another tea scholar, whether all the pollution was having any effect on recent tea crops. he said yes, but the problem was people messing up the fields, not any water or air pollution. i looked at a pool of sludge and garbage that we walked by on the way up to the fields and decided that i don't know what to think about that. out in the fields our guide showed us how to pick appropriate tea leaves, then we went off to do the work. after a while i wandered back, only to find that everyone had moved on and i was all alone. but never fear, i found them, and then we bothered some real tea pickers and gave them the leaves we picked. only one of mine was not up to snuff, so i guess i have what it takes to earn 8.50 a day picking tea leaves in china.

below is a picture of the tea fields. stuck in the middle was a family's ancesteral grave site. this is the time of year that everybody visits their family sites to make offerings, set off fireworks (of course), etc.



that is all. hopefully i'll squeeze out another one of these before durrell and i take off for break.

ryan should stop reading my blogs over my shoulder

i recently heard that every english class taught by foreigners at the school here has one student who isn't really a student but rather a communist spy put there to make sure that the teacher doesn't teach any subversive topics. they even tell the teacher this. and no, i am not making this up. we now suspect that one of our roommates is also serving the same purpose. in fact we are fairly certain. we are currently organizing an internal affairs task force to weed him/her out. ok, that last part i made up.

several students we know are members of the communist party, including tyler's roommate (since high school) and clark's roommate (since a few weeks ago or so). hopefully it won't have much of an affect on clark, though he has been looking a little pinker lately. maybe it's just the affect of today's sun on his fair new jersey skin.

my roommate just taught me how to play chinese chess, surprisingly fun. there's one piece that can jump across the entire board. after teaching me, he immediately kicked my ass in a game. so i did what any reasonable person would do: taught durrell how to play, then schooled him. twice. though to be fair the games were pretty close. i'm also learning how to play good ole weiqi, otherwise known as Go, otherwise know as that game with all the black and white stones.

the plan stands to head down to guilin for spring break, which starts on the eigth. so far just me and durrell, but others may canjia as we say over here in china. check for updates soon. in other news, no pictures this time around, mostly because i'm lazy.

Merry Easter

I just want to start by saying Merry Easter everyone. Well, this weekend I didn’t really do much because I have been sick all week. But don’t worry its not the la duzi it’s just a good old fashion cold. From a lot peoples’ away message back at home, it seems like they have the same thing. I feel your pain. On another note, I have decided to make this blog more interesting. How you ask? Well, I have decided to write part of this blog in the dialect that I speak at home. Last night, I heard my roommate speaking his home dialect and it inspired me to right part of this blog in my home dialect. You will know when I start using my home dialect because only like two people who read this blog can understand it.

So on Friday night, because I was still getting over my cold, I had the bright idea to go with some friends to a smoky reggae bar around Xi Hu. It really helped me feel better. But, even though it did not really help my health condition, I still had fun listen to all the old school rap songs I had not heard in awhile. Apparently, in China, Snoop Dog is considered rap music. After, the reggae bar started to get boring so I went with some other people to a techno dance club. Yeah, I stead there for about ten minutes and bounced. I knew that place was not for me when they started playing Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean” music with Martin Luther Kings “I have a dream speech.” Some how it just felt a little to sacrileges to me. I mean Billy Jean is a great song why did they have to ruin it. So after staying there for a total of about 20 minutes, I went back to the reggae bar. At the reggae bar, I spent the rest of the night pretending I was Courtney’s boyfriend. I don’t know why she was getting tired of getting hit on by every Chinese guy in the bar, she was getting hella free drinks. But, I guess her getting hella free drinks ended up being a problem, because by the end of the night I ended up having to carry her most of the way home. It was a great ended to a Friday night.

Because Friday night destroyed my already deteriorating health, I decided to just stay in on Saturday and Sunday. I on Saturday, after eating dinner with my roommate’s friends, which was really interesting because everyone in the room wanted to take a picture with me like I was a superstar or something. I decided I would spend the rest of the weekend putting in work on this little piece, I been getting at for a minute now. The little brizzle ain’t no dime, but I can work wit it. Let, me tell you my mouthpiece in Chinese, has improved. I can spit that fire now. So, it did not take that much work to get the little brizzle, feeling my mouthpiece. And yeah, that’s basically what I did this weekend. If you need some of this translated to you IM this man: JEBFB12

In other news, Golze and I have started a betting pool. We have started betting on when Clark is going to write his next blog. I have next week, but Golze has Sept. 2010. I think my odds are pretty good. If you want to get on this betting pool. Email Golze at Ihavepornfever@lovegoddess.com

Well I’m out

This blog was brought to you by the letter P.

As in:
Pimpin’ pretty preposterously producing phat prospects.

china grande

so this past weekend we all, except durrell, took a trip out to shanghai. the city is really awesome, and it bled me dry (i spent about a total of 30 dollars). just about everything is in english, which is quite the turn from everywhere else in china where nothing is in english, or at least in english that makes sense. (an example, the other day i saw a hairdresser's that was translated as "odium of hairdo").

tyler, courtney, and i stayed with our pal jeff, who studied in beijing with us but is now being a bum in shanghai, tutoring american kids for the sat and applying for paralegal jobs. he showed us around, and we saw all the usual sites, including people's square, the bund, the old city, and pudong (more on those later). below are some views of the city.

as you can see, shanghai is extremely modern and extremely beautiful and extremely nice. it really puts crap places like new york city to shame. the first picture is from people's square, the second from the top of the peace hotel on the bund.

in the late afternoon we hopped across the river to pay a visit to pudong, or, as i like to call it, #1 ultramodern desolate wasteland in china!!! pudong is the new economic zone of shanghai, which basically means no rules. the buildings are all supertall, with huge amounts of open space, and absolutely no people. it doesn't help that half of them are not even finished yet. i wouldn't be surprised if the place was inhabited entirely by robots. but we managed to dash across the huge empty streets to the jinmao (jinmiao?) building, which is the world's third or fourth tallest building. it is perhaps the only new building in shanghai that actually looks cool. we caught the elevator up to the hyatt at the top, which is the highest hotel in the world (inside a building). we had a drink at one of the many bars (the only one without a minimum charge) and watched the city light up. below is a picture of the building from the bottom i took at night.

that evening we went to taco bell for dinner! the only taco bell in china. it is called taco bell grande, and is actually a sit down restaurant. the food was pretty decent and the prices we surprisingly resonable for such a clearly western-geared place. the waiters all wore sombreros and ponchos and said hola and adios. quite a trip. we stole their hats at the end.

that night i bought some dvds.

the next day we checked out the shanghai chinatown. sounds weird, but it was where the original city was before the europeans came and built their colony away from the chinamen (i realize that is not the preferred nomenclature, but i wanted to instill some colonial feeling into the post). then, after trying in vain to catch a cab we walked over to the french concession to check out all the cool houses that are still there, included sun yat sen's house when he lived in shanghai for a long time. according to jeff, it's usually really easy to catch a cab, but we tried three or four times while we were there and failed every time, so i think maybe he was on crack. speaking of crack, recreational drugs are extremely against the law in china, dealing them can sometimes end with the death penalty. but apparently in shanghai the government lets the trade run relatively free in order to keep all the foreigners happy. just what i heard.

in other news, it turns out chinese propoganda is funny for about 2 months and 25 days, after which time it gets extremely annoying. last night in the cafeteria there was this music video playing (at full volume) of semi-traditional chinese signing. the video itself though was the story of some commie soldier during the revolution who got injured and was nursed back to health by a village girl. as soon as he got better they happily parted ways, him back to the front and her to continue sitting on her front step singing about how fucking great china is. i just wanted to smash my fist through the t.v. set. i just cannot understand how the students here just soak this crap up. i can't help it, but my level of respect for them as independent people, especially young people, just drops everytime i encounter this kind of situation. is this just me, some kind of cultural difference, or is it really as pathetic as i think it is?

上有天堂，下有苏杭

Lately, I have been receiving e-mails about whether or not I actually go to class. And the answer to the question is obviously, yes. I just don’t write blogs about going to class because that would so interesting and pointless, and I know that nobody cares that today I learned how to say the word “the.” So mom, yes I go to class everyday, and I didn’t come to China just to drink beer. So stop sending me e-mails about how I need to go to class and study more.

With that said this weekend was really fun. This week was a good week because my weekend started on Thursday, which also happened to be St. Paddy’s Day. Everyone’s plan for St. Paddy’s Day was to go to this Irish Pub that we found and get wasted. However, I planned to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day studying in my room, like a good student. That plan was quickly thrown out the window at about 9:30, but it wasn’t my fault. But before I explain that I have to explain something that happened earlier in the week.

After one of the basketball practices, the coach of the basketball team approached me and another Middlebury student, saying that she was studying English and that she wanted us to help her. But because we have a language pledge we said that we couldn’t. But she said that she would still like to hang out sometime, so we exchanged numbers. I didn’t really think that she would call me to hang out because the only thing that she wanted to do was have us teach her English. However, I was so wrong.

So on St. Paddy’s Day, right when I wake up from my nap to start studying again, like the good student I am, MOM, I get this call from the coach’s wife. She says that she wants to meet with me and some kid that she coaches to have tea. So I meet with her and the kid she coaches, his name is Chen Yu Long and her name is Shan Yi, to go have to somewhere on campus. As I enter the tea place it looks really realized and chill. Everyone is having a good time conversing. We end up sitting down at some table with other Chinese students and they are all speaking English. I come to find out that this tea place is place to come and practice your English. She tricked the hell out of me. But it was cool because they let me speak Chinese while the spoke English to me. Some them spoke really good English and some of them; I had no idea what the hell they were saying. It made me understand what I sound like when I speak Chinese. But some the Chinese people were really “Li Hai” and refused to let me speak to them Chinese, so I made them feel bad and corrected them every time they said something wrong, they quickly got the hell away from me.

After having fun doing that, Shan Yi decide to take me, Chen Yu Long, and this girl that I meet at the English speaking place, named Yi Hui out to the bar. At the bar we played a lot of drinking games. It was hella fun. It was much better than studying. After downing a few beers because I wasn’t so good at their Chinese drink games They liked playing games where you have to think and stuff. Not so good at that when I have been drinking, or even when I am sober for that matter. But after getting right, Shan Yi took us all out to eat and walk around Xi Hu. By the time I got back to my room it was like 2 a.m. So much for the studying plans. I guess I have been going out a lot since I have been here.

St. Paddy’s Day was Thursday. Friday was one of the most interesting days I had in China. The day started normal went to my one and only class and after that I went with my roommate to his basketball class. In his class, I swear there is this kid that looks like the Chinese version of Prince. He has the little pencil type mustache, really skinny, short, tight clothes, and everything. He was even really pretty like Prince is; I tried not to look him in the eyes. The only difference is that he didn’t play basketball as well as Prince does. I heard that Prince is hella good at BBall, this kid throw the ball over the backboard, so a little different.

After playing ball the strangest thing happened to me. It made me feel like a breezy. These three Korean girls gamed me down (for those that don’t speak West Coast Slang that means they hit on me). It was hella awkward, especially because they used broken English to do it. One of them came up to me and was like, “My flend rinks you ham some.” I didn’t know what to say. After she was like give me your number before I don’t want it anymore. I didn’t know what to do but give her the number. I was just in shock that was getting gamed down by these Korean girls in broken English, and that it was working, because they ended up getting my number. I wonder what their game is like in Korean, because in broken English it was off the hook. I have to remember how they spit their game so that I can use it when I get back to the States.

After being turned into a breezy I prepared to go to Suzhou for the weekend, this also brings me to the title of this blog, which the majority of you reading this probably can’t understand. It says, “Shang You Tian Tang, Xia You Su Hang,” which means, “In heaven there is paradise, on earth Suzhou and Hangzhou.” It is a famous Chinese proverb. Another famous Chinese proverb, probably my favorite is, “上有天使，下有马渡.” This reads, “Shang You Tian Shi, Xia You Ma Du,” this means “In heaven there is angels, on earth there is Ma Du. Personally, I think this proverb is so true.

After hearing this Chinese Proverb, and hearing that Suzhou is supposed to be the Venice of the East and filled with beautiful gardens, I made travel plans. We left around 6 pm for Suzhou and didn’t get there until 10 pm. Because my roommate was busy I ended up going with two of my roommate’s friends, one named “Re Qing” and the other one the call “Ye Zhu.” Ye Zhu is his nickname, which means THE BOAR in English. Here is a picture, tell me if the name fits:



He is really like 5’9’’. I have grown a little since I have been in China. Because we got to Suzhou kind of late there wasn’t much to do so Ye Zhu and me decided to go and see what Suzhou’s nightlife be like. We walked around for a while and finally found this street full of foreigners and bars. After walking around for 20 minutes we finally found a bar that was playing hip hop music. As we enter the bar, I quickly notice that everyone in the bar is of the female nature. The girl that greeted me at the door quickly shows me an open sat at the bar. As I am sitting down, I glace to my left and notice that this foreigner is intensely sucking face with some Chinese girl. I see this and think what the fuck, this is not normal. As I see this I quickly stand up to reevaluate my situation. I look back around at my surrounds and think, hey all the people in here are female. As continue to think to myself, I say self, this isn’t a bar, silly, this is a brothel. At the point I got scared and ran out of the bar screaming like a little girl. I am much to innocent to be in a place like that. After that incident we gave up looking for good bars and just went back to the hotel for the night.

On Saturday, We got early start to try to an experience the paradise that is Suzhou. We started out by going to a place called Huqiu Shan (Tiger Hill). Huqiu Shan has a famous pagoda named Yunyan Ta (Cloud Rock Pagoda). Sometime in the 10th century it started to lean, much like The Leaning Tower of Pizza. Here is a picture of it leaning in all of its beauty.



This is me and Re Qing’s friend, she goes to school ins Suzhou. In reality, this pagoda was not leaning that much. You actually could barely tell that it was leaning at all. Here is what it really looked like:



However, it was still pretty cool. The gardens surrounding the pagoda were the real highlight of Huqiu Shan. They were are beautiful with there own fill and flavor.



After going to Huqiu Shan we walked around for a little while and saw so of the other sites that Suzhou has to offer. We stopped by this really crowded shopping area near the temple of Xuanmiao Guan. It is a cool area because it combines the traditional style builds with modern companies. The area was pretty crowd so decided to leave and explore more of Suzhou.

Suzhou is a beautiful water town but I am pretty sure that its waterways can’t compare to Venice’s. However, Suzhou is filled with absolutely beautiful gardens. Here is pictures of another garden that we went to that day, called Zhouzheng Yuan (Humble Administrator’s Garden).



After going leaving this garden walked around and went in to a few shops near by. In one of the shops I bought these really cool Chairman Mao and Culture Revolution T-shirts. At first the lady wanted like 8 dollars for one. But after some intense haggling I talked her down to 11 dollars for three. According to my Chinese friends my bargaining skills are pretty Li Hai. So if any you come to China, I can get you a good deal.

After so intense hanging I was pretty hungry, so went back to around our hotel and ate. And after eating we pretty much walked around until we were bored and went back to the hotel and went to bed at like 10 pm.

The next morning because Re Qing wanted to hit on his friend, Ye Zhu and I went to another the most famous garden in Suzhou called Wangshi Yuan (Garden of the Master of the Nets). It was cool but not that cool, I think Zhouzheng Yuan was better. However, this garden was still beautiful. Here are some pictures:



After Wangshi Yuan, Ye Zhu and I went to Panmen (Coiled Gate). Panmen might be the prettiest place I went to out of all the place. Panmen is the last remaining original city gate in Suzhou. Around the city gate is a wooden and brick pagoda. The area around the pagoda and gate was beautiful. The first picture in the series is from the top of the pagoda, which was incredibly high, good thing I am scared of heights.



The last picture in the series is me preparing to go turkey hunting when I get back to Middlebury. After going to Panmen Ye Zhu and I meet back up with Re Qing and his friend. We just spent the rest of the time in Suzhou around Xuanmiao Guan, shopping. After we finished shopping we just left.

I have to say the best thing Suzhou is not the gardens or the beautiful waterways. It was the Xiao Long Bao (these dumplings). A lot of cities have Xiao Long Bao, but by far Suzhou’s Xiao Long Bao are the best. If you ever go to Suzhou you have to get some of the Xiao Long Bao.

Well, because I don’t really no how to end this blog I will end it with random pictures of Suzhou. Enjoy. Oh, the first picture is of a stone liger. I guess in ancient China they had ligers.