Friday, September 19, 2008

Wednesday 9/17/08

Today was easily my favorite day to date in China. We went to a battleground between the Manchurians and Mongolians. The rest of the day was unplanned until dinner, so, Brendon, Alan, Bechson, Ben, and I decided to hike to the top of a hill on the other side of town. So we walked through the town that from a distance looks clean and tourity and in person is a coule steps below the class of ramshackle backwater. (Though there were some delicious mooncakes.) The hike was reasonably strenuous mostly because of the time constraint of dinner at 6, but the views were spectacular. It is always windy here. This is the ideal climate for a flag or windmills. We walked through fields with friendly farmers. People here are not as aggressively friendly as they were in Beijing. But it only takes a few smiles and a couple horribly butchered words in Chinese for all the Mongolians I’ve met to become incredibly friendly, warm, and generous. I feel that fundamentally I am somewhat Mogolian (besides being considered barbaric by the Chinese.) Brenden and I took a somewhat more circuitous route back and ended up slipping under a barbed wire fence to walk along the freeway. Along the way we came to the decision that we would try to hitchhike back. After getting no response by holding out our thumbs, or shouting ting, ting, ting! (stop, stop, stop!) A Jeep driven, I think, by a farmer, randomly stopped, more out of curiosity, I suspect, than anything else , and we caught a ride into town. Also, while walking along the highway we passed some farmers who were loading trucks full of freshly harvested carrots. We had a brief conversation and both of us were gifted carrots the size of my forearm. (Honestly after eating that I expect to get X-ray vision.) We then went into town to buy some water for the walk back to our yurts and I had a nice trans-cultural game of peek-a-boo with the little son of one of the shopkeepers. Peek-a-boo is apparently universal, high fives, and patty cake are not. Oh well.

We are currently staying in yerts out in the middle of the Inner Mongolian Steppe. Yesterday we went horse back riding. Again, I like the lack of safety laws in China. They put me on a horse, and at some point I asked the horse owner if I could ride the horse independently and the guy laughed, said I could, and left. I did manage to get the horse to canter a couple times in the 2 hour ride through the steppe. This place is kind of like a cross between the southwest (cowboy hats, ranches) and China (chinese people speaking chinese.) Last night we had a party that involved watcing a goat get chosen from the flock, having its throat slit, being butchered, and slowly roasted over a fire. We also sang Karaoke and people who wanted to tried the local liquor which is made out of fermented milk. (To the best of my knowledge it is the most foul substance ever invented.)

I would like to apologize for grammatical errors. As the son of English teachers, they offend me as well, but I'm constantly behind with these posts and end up writing them when I am exhausted. The first picture is Zach going down a slide. The second picture is John and David cruising in tubs ontop of a hill surveying the grassland. The third picture is where we hiked taken from our we hiked you can see our yert camp distantly in the back behind the town, the penultimate picture is of an Aobo or Mongolian shamanistic temple, the third picture is Tianjinners enjoying Mongolia, Ok. 再见.

Monday 9/15/08


We left Chang’de at 8:00 to go to the nearby, and genuinely strange looking, peak that looks like a thumbs up. The Chinese understanding of hiking is somewhat strange, almost as strange as their understanding of stairs. To me hiking involves things like trails and dirt. To the Chinese even what is virtually a long driveway up to the top of a hill counts as 爬 or climbing. Our 爬 to the top was reasonably exhausting but was predominantly paved and staired. Which brings me to my second point, what is the purpose of Chinese stairs? The concept of evenly spaced steps (both vertically and horizontally) seems to be well within the capacity of what was the most advanced civilization in the world. Also, what good are steps that only take you up half an inch? It’s puzzling. To be fair, the hike was great. Chang’de is built in the valleys between rocky summits and the frequent glances back showed the city at its most vulnerable. The sprawl and disorder of the city looks grasping and delicate from the mountains above. Zhao Laoshi told us that if we touched the bizarre thumb-like rock we would live to be 103. The rock is just as strange looking from the top and the small railings at the crowded peak seem like less than reassuring trip lines. I also hiked with Peter, Zach, and Brenden to another rock that the sign claimed if you climb through the tunnel you will live your life without disease. 103 years without disease, I’m still waiting for the rock that when touched grants one 3,000 concubines, but still for one days work not bad at all.

Sunday 9/14/08


We are currently in Cheng’de. It is a strange city. It is both desperately impoverished and disgustingly touristy. It has both a remarkable history and a distinctly artificial feel. Cheng’de was initially the summer retreat of the Imperial family because it is more inland and cooler. So we visited the beautiful summer palace (for those keeping track summer palace number 2 of the trip) where we were accosted by deer that subsist entirely on crackers and ramen. We went to pretty temples and quiet lakes. However, we also went to a college in Cheng’de to speak broken Chinese to students who have studied English since elementary school. We arrived for the tour of the school and there were students marching in uniform everywhere. Some of the Chinese students we talked to asked how often we marched and were incredulous when we said never. The school itself is very new and felt somewhat artificial. The students were all brought in from the countryside to a beautiful brand new school, which is nice, but… I don’t know; it was strange.

We also visited a local artist in his house. His hospitality was astounding and I think fairly representative. In China people are so encouraging to anyone trying to learn their language. They chat, smile, laugh, and compliment at the least provocation. The artist we visited was very talented, very jovial, and very forceful. I ended up being placed (by placed I mean forced very politely into a chair) away from the rest the Carleton students and next to the artist, his wife, and our tour guide. I had considered myself well versed in the ways of awkward conversation but I had not considered how vastly expanded my abilities to be awkward were by speaking in another language. The three other people at the table carried on a conversation on my relative good looks and would wait occasionally for my input. As I had nothing to say on the matter they would instead repeat words like 帅 (handsome) assuming that I did not understand and that with increased volume and repetition everything would become clear to me. It was actually very funny in hindsight.

We are staying in a four star hotel at the top of a long private driveway so that we can look out over the city. Up the driveway from us are giant Buddhist statues carved out of the mountain. (This place also has the largest wooden Buddha in the world as well as a major Tibetan Buddhist temple built for the Dalai Lama during the Qing Dynasty. Both places were incredible.) Last night we walked up to the statues and got to climb up and see all of Cheng’de lit up in front of us. I love the lack of safety laws in China. My route down the mountain was a 30 kuai (4 dollar) roller coaster ride down the mountain in pitch black. By roller coaster ride, I mean a small car on a track hurtling 45 mph down a cliff face with only gravity powering you and less than reassuring nets at the biggest turns. Best 4 dollars I’ve probably ever spent.

The food so far has been good and as today is a major holiday (Mid Autumn Festival) I've had my first sugar since coming to China in the form of moon cakes or red bean paste filled balls of sweet dough. I'll try to post again soon. Feel free to comment if you have any suggestions or email me at randolpn@carleton.edu.

Friday 9/12/08



Yesterday was our last day in Beijing. We went to Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square was hot, really, really hot. It doesn’t help that it is a large rectangle of just stone. There were flower floats all over it for the ParaOlympics which made it much prettier than the usual pictures of the huge unadorned flat space being paraded with tanks. (Although, there are only so many floral arrangements that can make being condemned to a wheelchair for eternity seem cool.) There is something that seems just remarkably paradoxical about this place. Tiananmen square has 1.the forbidden city-- center of traditional China with its beautiful architecture 2. all the much less pretty communist architecture that came from the utilitarian school of thought and behind it all 3. cranes, building new hotels, apartments, office buildings. Cranes are the omnipresent symbol of Westernization in China.


We also visited the tomb of Chairman Mao, where we got to see his corpse guarded by two soldiers. He was looking good for 30 years dead a little waxy but…Then, we walked to the Forbidden City which was really very cool. We would pass these beautiful huge buildings and the tour guides would say things like “and this is where the emperor would change clothing on his way to the building over there where he would blow his nose…” or “this is the House of Accumulated Estrogen and Elegance where the emperor would keep his 3,000 concubines.” Think about that. 3,000 concubines! Sorry about the delay in posting. Internet access has been limited. Pictures are of the whole crew in the Forbidden City.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Tuesday 9/10/08

Hello friends, family, family of friends, friends of family, 什么的。

This is the first post of the Carleton Tianjin Blog (which is admittedly a clunky name. Suggestions? It was shorter the Carleton Dragon Riders’ Blog of Reliving the Journey of Marco Polo affectionately known by its acronym CDRBORJOMP.)

We are staying at a dorm on the Tsinghua University grounds that is significantly nicer than any dorm I’ve ever been in. We have TV’s, coffee tables, individual bathrooms, and complementary sewing kits. Unfortunately we don’t have internet. The University is arguably the best or second best in China and is beautiful. Quiet walks with weeping willows brushing the roads, the canals, and the pond, it is a genuinely gorgeous school or at least this part of it is. It struck me that I was in China when I woke up this morning around 6:45 and went for a walk around the lotus pond which across the street from our dorm. The Lotus pond is very large very pretty and has many scenic lookouts and pagodas. There were old people doing Taichi on platforms over the lake and on the shore just below them were old men who were fishing in the lake. I’m skeptical that there are fish to be caught in that murky, bright green, suffocated water. The Beijing skyline and a major intersection a stone’s throw away and people are fishing; it seemed, somehow, very Chinese. Today we listened to a lecture on Confucianism by Professor Zhao on the Lotus pond’s island. Afterwards we toured Tsinghua University with some students there who I suspect speak English better than I do. We also went to the Summer Palace, which was something like the Emperor’s summer retreat, and it also incredible. Just the sheer number of stairs would have made me bow to the emperor’s will. I will attempt to post pictures of everything soon.

Everyone arrived from their flights fine. The new terminal is mesmerizing. It is 1. huge 2. colorful and 3. bizarrely designed. It is so mesmerizing, in fact, that it didn’t occur to me that I was supposed to wait outside of customs in the other terminal. I sat there thinking “where is everyone?” But oh well. Last night the weather was rainy and depressing (especially when you’re uncertain whether the poor visibility is due to pollution or just the rain.) We could see the Bird’s Nest and slight blue light that we were told was the water cube. Today, however, the sky was clear and blue the temperature was hot but cut by a nice breeze. I will try to write again soon. If you guys have any suggestions or question email me at randolpn@carleton.edu