The first week was crazy busy, with lots of catching up and character memorization, an editing job for an MD trying to get his article published in a US medical journal, late nights (not going out) and a long weekend of later nights and not enough sleep. Sunday night I finally got a good 7 hours of sleep but all week i've been working with 5 or 6. yesterday i had a great ride to work, where i had a chat with a student of mine as we biked along yi huan lu, saw the owner of jia bar, who told me to be careful, and then explained the american name for coca-cola to the dude i buy a bottle of coke from every day before work. it was pretty funny explaining that it basically comes from two nuts. his daughter was also listening, helping him out when my putonghua failed me and i needed to gesture in order to get the idea of "nut" across (i pointed to a package of peanuts). it was a short sequence of events that really showed me that i live here, this is my home, and i'm, in a sense, a local. i regularly explain where restaurants and bars are in my neighborhood, talk about the best restaurants and dishes in chengdu, give taxi drivers directions when they don't know where to go (this is rare), etc.
after work i went to my girlfriend's house, we went out for seafood, had a great time, my face hurt from laughing and smiling so much. i've also tried to speak more and more chinese with her, now making it more of a routine than an exception. so yeah, a nice long relaxing dinner, then stayed over at her place, got up and made it to class early today, talked with a movie casting-director looking for foreign actors for a movie, gave him my number, chatted for like five minutes. class was alright, listening is really hard as there is quite a lot of vocab and precise words that i don't know, like when to use "just (now)" when it means earlier than expected and when it means later than expected. gotta love little nuances like this. chinese is efficient though - they just add a word to differentiate. after class, i went home, chatted with sam, we went over to alex's and woke up rick, who got in from HK last night. we had lunch at green dragon, then i got a haircut, went to the bookworm and had a coffee outside, studied chinese for like 45 minutes, then went to edu's roof, where we did some muay thai training for like an hour and a half. then i biked to work, where i'm writing this now. i'm looking forward to a few beers after work, celebrating the imminent arrival of friday. i love being in school, even if it is hard as fuck.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Beginning of Term / End of Winter
I suppose winter officially ended about a month ago (apparently on Feb. 4), but its still cold. I got up early today for class, attended, then decided i wanted to skip a level. so i went to the next 3 blocks of reading and writing, held my own, and will be working hard in a large class to do well. my friend andrew, who is now learning to read and write, will be with me in class, which will be good as our strengths balance each other. after class we got the rest of our books, went back to his place, ordered some chuan cai and studied for a bit. i reread the text aloud for him and he worte down the pinyin (another advantage of this class - almost no pinyin, meaning the absolutely necessary knowledge of all the characters), then we played some pes and i went to work early. i just prepped my social class and wrote a couple emails. my books arrived today, which is just awesome. so yeah, prob. a quiet night of characters and reading. i'm already pretty tired, but just have to push through a bit of teaching then back home. tomorrow: speaking, listening, maybe a muay thai lesson. we'll see.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Weekend Madness
A quick breakdown: friday i went out to coffee with my friend Andrew, we caught up, chatted about our respective girls, then i went home and had a fried rice before work. After work, I went on a date with an awesome Chinese girl and went home early, caught a few hours of sleep before I went off to the train station at 7 am. On arriving, my friend Arnaud handed me a beer, the madness began. We played cards and drank beers on the train to chongqing, hanging out with four other members of our football team (jeff hu, mark guan, melon and peter, an american). we grabbed cabs to the university when we arrived and arnaud and i kept trying to get melon to have a beer with us but he was far too hungover from the night before, a going away party for one of our teammates who is moving to shanghai. we had a quick lunch on the street outside the university then hiked up. chongqing is really hilly, perhaps moreso than hong kong or san francisco. the whole city was covered in mist and raining intermittently, the temperature around 10C. we climbed to the top of a hill into a massive construction site, tramping through mud up to the pitch, which was a potato field, sandy and clay-ey, with nice big puddles of water. i watched the first half, got warmed up, and played 10 minutes in the second half, made a few tackles and picked up 4 serious scrapes, 3 on my left elbow and a big patch on my right knee. next time i'll wear more clothes. after the game we tried to play football for like half an hour, then piled into vans and went to our hostel to shower. a new friend, fred, introduced me to the technique of army showering (passing the soap and showerhead over the curtain separating us). it was pretty hilarious watching 15 guys between the ages of 15 and 45 showering withing 2 minutes. then back into the vans and off to golden han's, a brazilian bbq chain that brews their own beer. our host was the former chinese ambassador to france, who gave a nice introductory speech. we chatted and drank and ate, reveling in the tackles and the fraternal sentiments. we returned to the hostel and went to bed around 11, woke up at 10 am in massive pain, went downstairs and had a coffee with arnaud before getting some noodles for breakfast. i bought a couple souvenirs, then we took the train back to chengdu. my recent girl came and met me at the train station, we went back to my house, she gave me a much-needed massage, showered, treated my wounds, then we went to dinner with eli, his gf coco, sam and his gf yin yin. we went back home after dinner, then went to jah bar for a beer. i took the girl home, then met up with eli, sam and callum at hemp house, where we chilled until about 2, then came home and went to bed. another great weekend, further solidifying my love of this place, of my friends, and of the chinese language. other than the constant pain i am in from my rugby injuries, its been pretty great recently. next week the semester starts, and back to the grind. im looking forward to the structure.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Valentine's Day
I spent today chilling at a tea-house/bar my friends own, sitting in the sun in shorts and sandals. I talked with my friend Reed for a while and Terry and Dwayne came by and chatted for a while. Then I bought a rose for my date and some chocolates and walked around. It is pineapple season in Chengdu, so for 1 kuai you can buy a quarter of a pineapple, peeled, on a stick. It's pretty awesome, I mean, who doesn't love pineapples? So yeah, tonight, dinner and then watch a movie. Tomorrow: football and then the Old Firm.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Spring! Shorts!
So in the last week it has clearly transitioned from winter to spring, the Chinese haven't quite caught on yet (they like to wear lots of clothes). Yesterday was the last day of Spring Festival, ending with the Lantern Festival (guo da nian), when thousands of Chinese gather along rivers and major roads and light candle-propelled paper lanterns, which rise slowly in the sky, creating constellations of rising stars surrounded by fireworks and loud booms. It was pretty cool. As I was biking home I wasn't really sure what was happening, and from the 25th floor at work, I watched the fireworks begin around 8. When I went home at 2 am from poker the fireworks were still going strong. I'll be glad to have them put away for a year, as the constant noise is a bit much. Today I played some go with my friend Ben at Middle Bar and had a couple beers, then biked to work. 3 hrs of class and hopefully another beautiful day tomorrow, my friend Andrew returns and so that'll be fun. No big news other than that, Oscar post still to come. Oh and I got a new visa so I'm in China for another 6 months at least.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Chun Jie Kuai Le! (Happy Spring Festival!)
Saturday I got my medical report (all clear, no plague) and Adam and I biked into town to go the PSB (public safety bureau). That went fine as well, other than Adam taking us on an unnecessary tour of northern Chengdu. Then I went to computer city, bought some DVDs and went to the shamrock to meet up with my football team. we stayed there and drank for a while, then i came home and showered. i met back up with all the football mates at the leg n whistle for an australia day party, it was great, playing games, drinking beers with all the boys. after a raucous evening i went home, ready to sleep.
sunday was new years eve so adam and i chilled for a while at his house, watching the early fireworks from the 12th floor. then we went to a party at owen and sam's house (two guys i play football with, an irishman and a dutchman. haha, i've never typed dutchman before) after dinner. it was awesome, a great 2-story penthouse with a big roof, a full bar and about 40 people, entirely foreigners but i didnt know about half of them. it was the best party ive been to in china, a great, american-style houseparty. we climbed onto the roof before midnight and started setting off the fireworks. so yeah its cool that you can buy the fireworks that cities shoot off in the states and light them yourself. so from the 7th story, we looked out across chengdu, fireworks in every direction, ash raining down a bit like pompeii, carousing with cool new friends. we stuck around until about 130 and as we were getting into the cab it started snowing. it was pretty cool, my first spring fest, great party, then driving through snow on the way home.
new years day everything was closed so sam and i basically hid inside until our stomachs got too empty, then we went to peter's tex-mex and i had some great steak tacos (like prob a 7/10 on us standards) with charlie, then we hung out at his house and played some videogames before coming home for poker. oz, dwayne, tom, andy from dave's, zach, rick, sam and i played. it was a good, big game, we played for wayyyy too long and then got mcdonalds breakfast. german and my friend matt from latin, from way back in high school, came by and chilled. today im planning more dvd-watching and an oscar post once ive finished some more of the top films of this year. year of the ox! its off to a good start, with friends visiting and more coming back soon.
sunday was new years eve so adam and i chilled for a while at his house, watching the early fireworks from the 12th floor. then we went to a party at owen and sam's house (two guys i play football with, an irishman and a dutchman. haha, i've never typed dutchman before) after dinner. it was awesome, a great 2-story penthouse with a big roof, a full bar and about 40 people, entirely foreigners but i didnt know about half of them. it was the best party ive been to in china, a great, american-style houseparty. we climbed onto the roof before midnight and started setting off the fireworks. so yeah its cool that you can buy the fireworks that cities shoot off in the states and light them yourself. so from the 7th story, we looked out across chengdu, fireworks in every direction, ash raining down a bit like pompeii, carousing with cool new friends. we stuck around until about 130 and as we were getting into the cab it started snowing. it was pretty cool, my first spring fest, great party, then driving through snow on the way home.
new years day everything was closed so sam and i basically hid inside until our stomachs got too empty, then we went to peter's tex-mex and i had some great steak tacos (like prob a 7/10 on us standards) with charlie, then we hung out at his house and played some videogames before coming home for poker. oz, dwayne, tom, andy from dave's, zach, rick, sam and i played. it was a good, big game, we played for wayyyy too long and then got mcdonalds breakfast. german and my friend matt from latin, from way back in high school, came by and chilled. today im planning more dvd-watching and an oscar post once ive finished some more of the top films of this year. year of the ox! its off to a good start, with friends visiting and more coming back soon.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Winter Holiday, Working and Sunshine
Today I got up around 10:30, a bit early for me in these lazy times, threw on a classic rap album (so I'm told - Das EFX - Dead Serious - 1992) and continued to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez' first volume of his memoirs, Living to Tell the Tale. After Dead Serious finished, I put on Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Soul Brother Number 1, another canonical hiphop album, and continued to read and chatted online with my buddy Andrew in New Zealand. After a good long chat, my friend Adam came by and he, Sam and I got some chuan cai. After lunch, Adam and I went to the Travel Safety Office for our medicals but were told to come back tomorrow between 830 and noon. So he went off to the university to pay his fees and I went home, bought some food at the market (sausage, potatoes, onions) and then Adam and I went to a Starbucks at Wu Hou Ci (a local tourist trap next to a renovated alley of tourist shops called Jin Li). We sat in the fashionable garden and drank our delicious coffees (literally exactly the same taste for the espresso - which is a great taste i've missed in my recent penurious state), reading our novels in the decadent January sunlight. It seemed like a spring day and was a delight to ride around on our bikes, soaking up vitamin D and smiling like adolescents after a dance. (I guess maybe Marquez is making me verbose, his style and energy is really quite contagious - maybe that's what i'll use my vacation for - now don't get too ahead of yourself with delusions of marquez-like grandeur Reid - that's enough of an aside). But yeah, I had forgotten how much of an influence weather has on me, that was really one of the prime reasons I loved austin so much, mainly the fact that when weather everywhere else was such shit it was lovely in austin. so yeah, its great, no clouds, which is quite rare, and a beautiful sunny day, with temperatures maybe in the teens. so surely my laundry will be dry tomorrow, which will be nice. So yeah, no work tomorrow, I have yet to know about friday so we'll see but i dont have my hopes up. Then a week of no work, probably a lot of reading and drinking coffee, going to the bars that are open and eating chinese food, maybe lighting off some firecrackers. it's been an interesting winter but i'll make it through, should be off to yunnan in a couple weeks, then when i get back andrew will be here, then just a couple weeks til the spring semester starts and we can put away winter clothes for a bit. but yeah, sunshine is underrated, especially in the Sichuan basin. more to come.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Leshan and Emei Shan
So on Saturday, after a night partying with Captain Morgan (no seriously, my friend eli is captain morgan. check out his blog elisweetisapirate.blogspot.com ) i went with my friend David from italy to leshan, about 2 hrs from chengdu. we got dropped off at the bus station, caught a cab and ate at an overpriced touristy restaurant, complete with 20rmb cups of tea we didnt ask for. that sucked. from there we caught a pedicab to dafo (the giant buddha, UNESCO world heritage site) and walked around, took some pictures and generally enjoyed the temples and the views down to the rivers. after that we got a ride in a breadtruck to emeishan, i lost my camera somewhere along the way and we spent saturday night at baoguo si at the base of emei shan. it was nice to sleep in a temple, and we were woken up by the morning prayers, which is a nice way to drift in and out of sleep, breathing the incense and passively absorbing the mantras. we got on the road around 830, hiking right up the mountain, lots of steps and well-maintained paths, few tourists. we hit 3 temples, including one in the middle of a grove of pines on top of a hill, covered in mist. it was really sweet. we stayed the night at wan nian si, eating dinner at 530 after a full day of hiking. the sun began to set and because of the cold (at like 1000-1400m or something) david and i decided it would be a good idea to get warm so we climbed into our respective beds and were immediately asleep, only to wake at 10 after a full 14 hrs of sleep. wow it was nice. we hiked down to the bus stop (about an hr of hiking) then caught a bus up to the top of the mountain and bought some cleats, hiked in the snow and ice, saw some monkeys, took a cable car up to the golden summit (jin ding) and walked around. the views over the cliffs are incredible but the clouds were a bit high, so it was ok. the giant statue of the golden buddha was awesome. it was very cool. we took the cable car back down and i got bit by a monkey when he reached into my pocket. it sucked, i got a little scared and ran down the path. then we got a bus down, as the wind was picking up and the sun was setting, the melting snow had turned to ice and it was clearly time to get off the mountain. on the way down i struck up a conversation with the dude next to me, he was an alum of xinan minzu daxue (where i study) and he offered david and i a ride back to chengdu, which was awesome considering the rough guide said the last bus left for chengdu at 5 and it was 6 already. so tired, dirty, cold and basically penniless, we made it back to chengdu. so i got a monkey bite and lost a camera. so it goes sometimes. it was great to use my chinese a lot and im confident that i can travel on my own, which is really cool. so yeah now im back, its nice to be warm and in a place where you can do things and move around after dark. i look forward to returning to emei, its pretty sweet.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Christmas
its the first time in my life my whole family hasnt been together for christmas. so. regardless, last night was great, drinking out with friends, festive and wild and decadent. today was lazy, watched like 3 movies, ate some great food (we cooked twice today!) and hung out with my roommate and his girl. spoke some chinese, drank some wine, opened presents from the rents. so yeah, not bad. new years should be a blast. ill post some pictures soon as well.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
realizations about china
so most of my direct interaction with chinese people happens on my bike (a 21-speed mountain bike) or on the football pitch (yeah i use international english). some of my conclusions:
unlike Americans, chinese do not learn to look both ways before crossing the road
there is not a uniform rule for which side to pass on
bike lanes usually (de facto) go both ways
people love to walk in the bike lanes, pull handcarts, overload their bikes with tables and any other furniture they can, deliver computers, etc. this is quite annoying
i seem to be the only one with somewhere to go, im constantly passing people
in football, (these are generalizations, by no means true in all cases) chinese hate contested headers, think they can score from distance like steven gerrard, love to beat people off the dribble and cant stand up to a physical challenge.
i love my football team here, its a great mix of foreigners and chinese. last weekend we had a xmas dinner, with many toasts, way too much drinking and excellent camaraderie. i really felt at home and loved chatting with my teammates in their native language. my semester is almost over, cant wait to have some time off and learn a lot of the words in my notes, maybe find some kids chinese book to read or something. characters are great though, like the character for the verb to count is the character for rice over the character for a woman, ie what does a woman do with rice? well, she counts it. its cool to see how the characters combine and also what they reveal about chinese society and culture. time for me to go have a social class about education, then a small class, bike home, and go out for drinks with friends who are leaving. thats all for now.
unlike Americans, chinese do not learn to look both ways before crossing the road
there is not a uniform rule for which side to pass on
bike lanes usually (de facto) go both ways
people love to walk in the bike lanes, pull handcarts, overload their bikes with tables and any other furniture they can, deliver computers, etc. this is quite annoying
i seem to be the only one with somewhere to go, im constantly passing people
in football, (these are generalizations, by no means true in all cases) chinese hate contested headers, think they can score from distance like steven gerrard, love to beat people off the dribble and cant stand up to a physical challenge.
i love my football team here, its a great mix of foreigners and chinese. last weekend we had a xmas dinner, with many toasts, way too much drinking and excellent camaraderie. i really felt at home and loved chatting with my teammates in their native language. my semester is almost over, cant wait to have some time off and learn a lot of the words in my notes, maybe find some kids chinese book to read or something. characters are great though, like the character for the verb to count is the character for rice over the character for a woman, ie what does a woman do with rice? well, she counts it. its cool to see how the characters combine and also what they reveal about chinese society and culture. time for me to go have a social class about education, then a small class, bike home, and go out for drinks with friends who are leaving. thats all for now.
Monday, October 20, 2008
time flies and weather changes
so yeah. since my last update, ive flown to guangdong, crossed to hong kong, went to vermont for my brother's wedding, flew back to hong kong the eastern route (over europe and russia, thus flying around the world in less than a week - take that, phineas fogg!), spent a night in shenzhen and taught english the next day. since then, for the past two weeks, ive been studying like mad to get caught up with my chinese classes (almost there) and still teaching. the weather in chengdu is now solidly fall (which means i wear a hoodie a home but still bike in shorts and a t) and i can feel myself settling back into the rhythm of my routine. additionally, having been paid once, i am rationing my cash carefully, thus not eating western food, going out, or drinking nice coffee - thats right, i have been reduced to drinking instant coffee. such is the destitute life.
other than the cash situation, everything is good, the friends are great, wont be able to travel for a while but that will also be good on the bank account. im really loving chengdu and living abroad, still very much in the honeymoon stages. i think in about 2-3 weeks it'll start to get cold and ill be missing that beautiful austin non-summer weather. im in for an afternoon of studying, re-reading kavalier and clay, and maybe some video games or a movie. gotta keep it on the cheap, yo.
other than the cash situation, everything is good, the friends are great, wont be able to travel for a while but that will also be good on the bank account. im really loving chengdu and living abroad, still very much in the honeymoon stages. i think in about 2-3 weeks it'll start to get cold and ill be missing that beautiful austin non-summer weather. im in for an afternoon of studying, re-reading kavalier and clay, and maybe some video games or a movie. gotta keep it on the cheap, yo.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Sometimes there are just too many things to do
So I havent updated this in a while, largely because updating a blog is something one does when bored and life has been far too busy for that recently. right now i should be getting ready for work, so this will be a list update. complete sentences don't belong in the 21st century:
1. school is awesome, my chinese is a lot better and improves daily, i practice characters for about 1-1.5 hrs per day and write and recognize better than anyone in my class (sorry, gotta floss sometimes)
2. work is good, sometimes stressful
3. bikeriding in china is amazing and annoying at the same time. i bike about 1 hr per day, maybe 10 miles or something
4. chinese food is great and without even trying ive lost 20 pounds. probably the smaller servings, lack of dairy and exercise and sweating all the time.
5. its still summer in chengdu. there have been 2 great storms the last two nights and this morning i had to ride my bike thru rain and flooded streets (about 1-1.5 ft of standin water).
6. i love china and plan on being here for a long time. at least that is the thought for the present.
7. im off to visit a friend in guangzhou friday, then shenzhen sunday, usa tues for my brother's wedding for a week, then back thru guangdong (the province shenzhen and guagnzhou are in) before coming back to chengdu, then back to the grind until sometime in january. itll be intense but day to day life is great and itll allow me to save some money.
8. stay in touch. email me at reidwyatt@gmail.com
1. school is awesome, my chinese is a lot better and improves daily, i practice characters for about 1-1.5 hrs per day and write and recognize better than anyone in my class (sorry, gotta floss sometimes)
2. work is good, sometimes stressful
3. bikeriding in china is amazing and annoying at the same time. i bike about 1 hr per day, maybe 10 miles or something
4. chinese food is great and without even trying ive lost 20 pounds. probably the smaller servings, lack of dairy and exercise and sweating all the time.
5. its still summer in chengdu. there have been 2 great storms the last two nights and this morning i had to ride my bike thru rain and flooded streets (about 1-1.5 ft of standin water).
6. i love china and plan on being here for a long time. at least that is the thought for the present.
7. im off to visit a friend in guangzhou friday, then shenzhen sunday, usa tues for my brother's wedding for a week, then back thru guangdong (the province shenzhen and guagnzhou are in) before coming back to chengdu, then back to the grind until sometime in january. itll be intense but day to day life is great and itll allow me to save some money.
8. stay in touch. email me at reidwyatt@gmail.com
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Tuesday Sept. 9 2008
Well its been a while. Let me think what I did last week.
Wednesday I don't remember doing a whole lot, other than playing poker and again making some money. My white, soon to be pollution-colored, Red Sox hat has proven itself a totemic luck charm. Nate, Rick and I got xao kao (BBQ) after the game and then went home.
Thursday I think I was also pretty lazy, I think I watched a couple movies and went to bed pretty early.
Friday I met Ken (the translation guy) at a job and we did about three and a half hours of work on the Tibetan horse racing video. He then took me out for lunch, we had some really good Sichuan food, and talked about his business, Chinese generational differences and a little bit of politics. He has become a good contact and I look forward to doing work for him in the future.
Friday afternoon I came back home and relaxed, hung out with Alex and Rick a bit. We went out for dinner with Eli, who has lived in Chengdu for a while and will be working in Kunming for 3 months as Captain Morgan. We went out to Dave's Oasis for a drink and then went to Cafe Paname, where I tried to meet up with a Chinese girl I met a couple weeks ago. She was busy so I hung out at Paname until way too late, it was the most crowded it's been that I've been there.
Saturday I slept really late, was wait-listed for soccer and it was really hot and gross, so I ate at Pete's Tex-Mex, which was better than I expected, about the same quality as an airport burrito. I went home and watched some Trailer Park Boys and took a shower. I basically wasted the afternoon waiting to go to Kevin's party at his place. I went over to Alex's and chilled with Eli, Callum and Alex for a while, then met Rick and Kari to grab a cab to Kevin's.
The party was on the roof of an apartment building that houses the foreign English teachers. There were quite a few people there and the breeze was nice on the 7th floor. There were some pulled pork sandwiches, a large bowl of punch and we all brought beers. After socializing for a couple hours, Rick, Kari and her friend and I went to meet Eli and Callum at Zoo, a club that Eli's girlfriend works at. We hung out there for a while and everyone else was going to go home so I called Dwayne and had him meet me out for another drink. Another late night, in large part because I knew it was the last weekend I had before school started.
Sunday I woke up tired and laid around pretty much all day. I had some Western food delivered, watched some more Trailer Park Boys and did some laundry. I met up with Alex and Eli and we got Rick on the way to the bowling alley. Alex and Eli have a deep-seated rivalry in bowling and it was pretty fun to watch. Rick and I played a few games (on our own lane) and bowled pretty average. I broke 100 one game. There will be more bowling in the future. We went back to Alex's house and chilled after that and I noticed it was 1 so I went home.
Monday was my first day of school and work. My class has six students, including me, 3 Americans, 1 German, 1 Philippino and my friend Andy from Scotland. Monday I had class from 10 to 12 and then from 2 to 4, so I walked to school (about 25-30 minutes), had reading and writing class, walked to Alex's, ate lunch, walked back to school, had listening class, walked to work (about an hour). I work in downtown, on the 25th floor of a huge building. I taught three classes, one of them was a one-on-one, the other two were 3 and 5 students. The kids speak English well, and are between the ages of 16 and 40. After work, I took a cab home and talked to my parents for a little while before falling asleep.
Tuesday I walked to school, class from 8 to 12, reading and writing then pronunciation class (very difficult, a real task-master of a teacher), then Andy and I walked back to his apartment (just down the street from me). We ate some jiaozi, played winning eleven for a while, then I talked with Dwayne about his bike and tried to unlock it. It appeared rusted shut, so I had the bike repair guy add some oil (ja yo! Ja yo! - same as the cheer for Chinese teams), which also didn't work, so he offered to cut it off, borrowed an electric saw for cutting metal from next door and had the lock off in about 3 minutes, then he sold me a new lock (35RMB), pumped up my tires and off I went. I went home for a bit, Rick came by and we chatted for a while, then I rode my bike to work. Riding to work takes 20 minutes, riding in a cab takes about 15. The bike riding was really fun, tons of two-wheeled traffic in the bike lanes, it also helps to get to know the streets. Classes are good, I really enjoy the teaching, getting better at it already, etc. I biked home then met up with Eli at Middle Bar for a drink. We had some beers and chatted about music, listening to my ipod on the bar stereo, then went to Zoo. Rick came as well and we had a couple beers and then ate some shao kao (Rick corrected my spelling on this one) then slept.
It's good to be busy, I really love my life in China right now, a good balance of learning and teaching. The old adage about living abroad (you learn something every DAY) is proving true. Chinese is improving, social life is great, etc.
Well its been a while. Let me think what I did last week.
Wednesday I don't remember doing a whole lot, other than playing poker and again making some money. My white, soon to be pollution-colored, Red Sox hat has proven itself a totemic luck charm. Nate, Rick and I got xao kao (BBQ) after the game and then went home.
Thursday I think I was also pretty lazy, I think I watched a couple movies and went to bed pretty early.
Friday I met Ken (the translation guy) at a job and we did about three and a half hours of work on the Tibetan horse racing video. He then took me out for lunch, we had some really good Sichuan food, and talked about his business, Chinese generational differences and a little bit of politics. He has become a good contact and I look forward to doing work for him in the future.
Friday afternoon I came back home and relaxed, hung out with Alex and Rick a bit. We went out for dinner with Eli, who has lived in Chengdu for a while and will be working in Kunming for 3 months as Captain Morgan. We went out to Dave's Oasis for a drink and then went to Cafe Paname, where I tried to meet up with a Chinese girl I met a couple weeks ago. She was busy so I hung out at Paname until way too late, it was the most crowded it's been that I've been there.
Saturday I slept really late, was wait-listed for soccer and it was really hot and gross, so I ate at Pete's Tex-Mex, which was better than I expected, about the same quality as an airport burrito. I went home and watched some Trailer Park Boys and took a shower. I basically wasted the afternoon waiting to go to Kevin's party at his place. I went over to Alex's and chilled with Eli, Callum and Alex for a while, then met Rick and Kari to grab a cab to Kevin's.
The party was on the roof of an apartment building that houses the foreign English teachers. There were quite a few people there and the breeze was nice on the 7th floor. There were some pulled pork sandwiches, a large bowl of punch and we all brought beers. After socializing for a couple hours, Rick, Kari and her friend and I went to meet Eli and Callum at Zoo, a club that Eli's girlfriend works at. We hung out there for a while and everyone else was going to go home so I called Dwayne and had him meet me out for another drink. Another late night, in large part because I knew it was the last weekend I had before school started.
Sunday I woke up tired and laid around pretty much all day. I had some Western food delivered, watched some more Trailer Park Boys and did some laundry. I met up with Alex and Eli and we got Rick on the way to the bowling alley. Alex and Eli have a deep-seated rivalry in bowling and it was pretty fun to watch. Rick and I played a few games (on our own lane) and bowled pretty average. I broke 100 one game. There will be more bowling in the future. We went back to Alex's house and chilled after that and I noticed it was 1 so I went home.
Monday was my first day of school and work. My class has six students, including me, 3 Americans, 1 German, 1 Philippino and my friend Andy from Scotland. Monday I had class from 10 to 12 and then from 2 to 4, so I walked to school (about 25-30 minutes), had reading and writing class, walked to Alex's, ate lunch, walked back to school, had listening class, walked to work (about an hour). I work in downtown, on the 25th floor of a huge building. I taught three classes, one of them was a one-on-one, the other two were 3 and 5 students. The kids speak English well, and are between the ages of 16 and 40. After work, I took a cab home and talked to my parents for a little while before falling asleep.
Tuesday I walked to school, class from 8 to 12, reading and writing then pronunciation class (very difficult, a real task-master of a teacher), then Andy and I walked back to his apartment (just down the street from me). We ate some jiaozi, played winning eleven for a while, then I talked with Dwayne about his bike and tried to unlock it. It appeared rusted shut, so I had the bike repair guy add some oil (ja yo! Ja yo! - same as the cheer for Chinese teams), which also didn't work, so he offered to cut it off, borrowed an electric saw for cutting metal from next door and had the lock off in about 3 minutes, then he sold me a new lock (35RMB), pumped up my tires and off I went. I went home for a bit, Rick came by and we chatted for a while, then I rode my bike to work. Riding to work takes 20 minutes, riding in a cab takes about 15. The bike riding was really fun, tons of two-wheeled traffic in the bike lanes, it also helps to get to know the streets. Classes are good, I really enjoy the teaching, getting better at it already, etc. I biked home then met up with Eli at Middle Bar for a drink. We had some beers and chatted about music, listening to my ipod on the bar stereo, then went to Zoo. Rick came as well and we had a couple beers and then ate some shao kao (Rick corrected my spelling on this one) then slept.
It's good to be busy, I really love my life in China right now, a good balance of learning and teaching. The old adage about living abroad (you learn something every DAY) is proving true. Chinese is improving, social life is great, etc.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The mountains and cold weather!
September 3 2008
I grabbed a cab around 720 and met Rick, drove to the bus station up north and bought our tickets. The bus was nice and uncrowded so I swiftly drifted off to sleep, aided by my ipod. I woke up as the road became rough, about two and a half hours outside Chengdu. We had hit the earthquake zone. We were traveling northeast and took the eastern way around the epicenter of the earthquake. The roads were torn up, hit by rock slides, bridges knocked out and temporary ones caused severe bottlenecks. We made it to Pingwu in five and a half hours, passing tons of blue-roofed temporary housing. Pingwu lies in a valley in the Minshan mountains, on the way to Wanglang and Juizhaigou. The Minshan mountains form a bridge between the Tibetan plateau and the Sichuan basin.
Once we arrived, we made contact with the local office for the reserve and then ate some lunch. We eventually found a hotel and dropped off our bags and it was too late to visit the temple so we decided to scout out a hike. We climbed up a ramp through the forest on the hill behind our hotel and made our way to a small temple, surrounded by refugee housing. We found another trail from there, a staircase climbing the ridge. Five pagodas stood along the way and after about an hour of climbing up the hill we reached an electricity tower. An old man came up with us, who lived on the hill among his fields. I'll post a picture of the terraces in the hill. Also, a guy selling magazines marched up with us, talking with Rick a lot. He also thought I looked like an immigrant because I'm tan.
At the top, the old man left us and we talked with another old guy leading his bull. We walked down the mountain road and asked the magazine-seller to come have dinner with us but he refused. We got dinner at a Hui/Sichuan place and then went back to the hotel room to sleep. Pingwu is a city of 20,000 people and tons of refugee housing. They're the buildings with the blue roofs. The air was cleaner and cooler (slightly) but not too much higher than Chengdu.
Saturday we woke early and ate baozi (dumplings) and walked around to the temple (pictures posted). We caught a bread car (a van) to a Baima village on the way to Wanglang. The Baima are a minority subgroup of Tibetans. They are known for bright dress and have recently tried to develop tourism in the region but the earthquake has been terrible for them. We waited in the village for twenty minutes trying to hitch a ride, then decided to start walking. We walked along the road for 45 minutes before hitting a dam and climbing up the hillside. We saw a car and hailed it, got a ride all the way to the reserve compound, a little under two hours more in the car. We rode along an artificial lake in the mountains, created by the dam in 2003. It had beautiful green water, lying in the lee of the green, forest-clad hills. Rick and I were very glad we caught a ride.
On arriving, we found the park empty and the employees largely unhelpful: no nature guide, no advance notice we were coming, etc. So it seemed there was a disconnect in communication between the office in Pingwu and the park employees. Oh well. We hiked a short eco-trail and came back to our room.
Wanglang is interesting in that it was created in 1965 as a nature reserve, making it one of the oldest in China. Wanglang sits between Juizhaigou and Huanglong, both National Parks and UNESCO World Heritage sites. They are far more popular tourist destinations than Wanglang and the three parks sit on the spine of the Minshan mountains in a unique eco-system in the world.
WWF helps provide some of the funding and surely had an influence in the eco-trails. Unlike most nature trails in China, an eco-trail is made of wood, not concrete, and when trees fall over the path, they are left to lie there and decompose. This is pretty cool for the ecosystem but a bit of a pain when having to crawl under fallen trunks. The park was wet from days of rain but a lot cooler, about 65 in the forest during the day. The trees are mixed-conifer forest in the valley, as it was partially logged earlier this century. The forest felt a lot like the Pacific Northwest.
We ate a quiet dinner with the employees, no other guests, played some cards and went to bed early, reading and then sleeping for a long time in the quiet, cold mountain air. Our room was awesome, 60RMB per night, with a great bathroom (better than in our apartments in Chengdu), tasteful wood furniture, separate bedrooms and electric blankets on the beds. The beds were also super comfortable.
On Sunday we ate lunch, then got a ride to the end of the valley, where we saw the craggy mountains, hiked a couple trails and then walked about 10 km along the road back to the compound. It was a tiring afternoon and we were glad to eat a good hot meal. We saw a vole, horses (the Baima have grazing rights in the park), a lot of birds and a field-mouse. The forest at the end of the valley is virgin forest. Most of the tall conifers are over four hundred years old. We had dinner back at the lodge, played some cards and saw the stars, then slept like the dead.
Monday we ate lunch then paid a guy to drive us past the Baima villages and to a main road. We hitched a ride in a cabbage truck back to Pingwu. It took about 2 hours and I read the whole way, following the same river that ran as a stream through Wanglang. In Pingwu we walked around a while, ate some corn with some local farmers and chatted with them, mainly about boxing, then at dinner and got a massage. After that, to bed in an awful hotel room (but only 30 RMB for the night).
We grabbed the bus yesterday, overcrowded and lots of Chinese puking both on and off the bus. We got back to Chengdu around 2, then cabbed home and played soccer at 530. My electricity was off in the building, so I went over to Alex's before soccer. We beat the Chinese pretty well and had a couple French guys play for the first time. We grabbed a beer at the Leg and Whistle afterward and had pasta from next door (not bad), then I went over to Alex's after a shower and watched True Romance.
This morning I got up and took the bus to the university to get my books and schedule. It went well, I met another American who will be in my class and then walked back towards home. It'll take about 20-25 minutes on the bus and 30 if I walk so I'll be looking into buying a bike soon. I grabbed a coffee and chatted with Terry at the Coffee Beanery, then came home. I watched Hot Rod, which was pretty funny, then got my work schedule: 6 to 9 pm, Monday thru Friday at Web. So it'll be rough but I'll make enough money and stay on a serious schedule during the week. Unfortunately, no more Tuesday soccer for me but I'll still have Saturdays. I guess you've gotta work sometimes. More updates as things progress, but I'm excited for a week with structure. Maturity.
I grabbed a cab around 720 and met Rick, drove to the bus station up north and bought our tickets. The bus was nice and uncrowded so I swiftly drifted off to sleep, aided by my ipod. I woke up as the road became rough, about two and a half hours outside Chengdu. We had hit the earthquake zone. We were traveling northeast and took the eastern way around the epicenter of the earthquake. The roads were torn up, hit by rock slides, bridges knocked out and temporary ones caused severe bottlenecks. We made it to Pingwu in five and a half hours, passing tons of blue-roofed temporary housing. Pingwu lies in a valley in the Minshan mountains, on the way to Wanglang and Juizhaigou. The Minshan mountains form a bridge between the Tibetan plateau and the Sichuan basin.
Once we arrived, we made contact with the local office for the reserve and then ate some lunch. We eventually found a hotel and dropped off our bags and it was too late to visit the temple so we decided to scout out a hike. We climbed up a ramp through the forest on the hill behind our hotel and made our way to a small temple, surrounded by refugee housing. We found another trail from there, a staircase climbing the ridge. Five pagodas stood along the way and after about an hour of climbing up the hill we reached an electricity tower. An old man came up with us, who lived on the hill among his fields. I'll post a picture of the terraces in the hill. Also, a guy selling magazines marched up with us, talking with Rick a lot. He also thought I looked like an immigrant because I'm tan.
At the top, the old man left us and we talked with another old guy leading his bull. We walked down the mountain road and asked the magazine-seller to come have dinner with us but he refused. We got dinner at a Hui/Sichuan place and then went back to the hotel room to sleep. Pingwu is a city of 20,000 people and tons of refugee housing. They're the buildings with the blue roofs. The air was cleaner and cooler (slightly) but not too much higher than Chengdu.
Saturday we woke early and ate baozi (dumplings) and walked around to the temple (pictures posted). We caught a bread car (a van) to a Baima village on the way to Wanglang. The Baima are a minority subgroup of Tibetans. They are known for bright dress and have recently tried to develop tourism in the region but the earthquake has been terrible for them. We waited in the village for twenty minutes trying to hitch a ride, then decided to start walking. We walked along the road for 45 minutes before hitting a dam and climbing up the hillside. We saw a car and hailed it, got a ride all the way to the reserve compound, a little under two hours more in the car. We rode along an artificial lake in the mountains, created by the dam in 2003. It had beautiful green water, lying in the lee of the green, forest-clad hills. Rick and I were very glad we caught a ride.
On arriving, we found the park empty and the employees largely unhelpful: no nature guide, no advance notice we were coming, etc. So it seemed there was a disconnect in communication between the office in Pingwu and the park employees. Oh well. We hiked a short eco-trail and came back to our room.
Wanglang is interesting in that it was created in 1965 as a nature reserve, making it one of the oldest in China. Wanglang sits between Juizhaigou and Huanglong, both National Parks and UNESCO World Heritage sites. They are far more popular tourist destinations than Wanglang and the three parks sit on the spine of the Minshan mountains in a unique eco-system in the world.
WWF helps provide some of the funding and surely had an influence in the eco-trails. Unlike most nature trails in China, an eco-trail is made of wood, not concrete, and when trees fall over the path, they are left to lie there and decompose. This is pretty cool for the ecosystem but a bit of a pain when having to crawl under fallen trunks. The park was wet from days of rain but a lot cooler, about 65 in the forest during the day. The trees are mixed-conifer forest in the valley, as it was partially logged earlier this century. The forest felt a lot like the Pacific Northwest.
We ate a quiet dinner with the employees, no other guests, played some cards and went to bed early, reading and then sleeping for a long time in the quiet, cold mountain air. Our room was awesome, 60RMB per night, with a great bathroom (better than in our apartments in Chengdu), tasteful wood furniture, separate bedrooms and electric blankets on the beds. The beds were also super comfortable.
On Sunday we ate lunch, then got a ride to the end of the valley, where we saw the craggy mountains, hiked a couple trails and then walked about 10 km along the road back to the compound. It was a tiring afternoon and we were glad to eat a good hot meal. We saw a vole, horses (the Baima have grazing rights in the park), a lot of birds and a field-mouse. The forest at the end of the valley is virgin forest. Most of the tall conifers are over four hundred years old. We had dinner back at the lodge, played some cards and saw the stars, then slept like the dead.
Monday we ate lunch then paid a guy to drive us past the Baima villages and to a main road. We hitched a ride in a cabbage truck back to Pingwu. It took about 2 hours and I read the whole way, following the same river that ran as a stream through Wanglang. In Pingwu we walked around a while, ate some corn with some local farmers and chatted with them, mainly about boxing, then at dinner and got a massage. After that, to bed in an awful hotel room (but only 30 RMB for the night).
We grabbed the bus yesterday, overcrowded and lots of Chinese puking both on and off the bus. We got back to Chengdu around 2, then cabbed home and played soccer at 530. My electricity was off in the building, so I went over to Alex's before soccer. We beat the Chinese pretty well and had a couple French guys play for the first time. We grabbed a beer at the Leg and Whistle afterward and had pasta from next door (not bad), then I went over to Alex's after a shower and watched True Romance.
This morning I got up and took the bus to the university to get my books and schedule. It went well, I met another American who will be in my class and then walked back towards home. It'll take about 20-25 minutes on the bus and 30 if I walk so I'll be looking into buying a bike soon. I grabbed a coffee and chatted with Terry at the Coffee Beanery, then came home. I watched Hot Rod, which was pretty funny, then got my work schedule: 6 to 9 pm, Monday thru Friday at Web. So it'll be rough but I'll make enough money and stay on a serious schedule during the week. Unfortunately, no more Tuesday soccer for me but I'll still have Saturdays. I guess you've gotta work sometimes. More updates as things progress, but I'm excited for a week with structure. Maturity.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Parties, Becoming a Voice Actor and More!
Well, my interested readers, I suppose this will be the only update this week. Let's see how well I can remember all the fascinating happenings in Chengdu.
Monday Rick, Sam and I went to an outdoor souvenir market, it was pretty crap. I did manage to buy a second towel, which is really a necessity. Then we went to the PSB, I got my visa, it all went smoothly. Then we went to Web English School for me to do an interview, which really just ended up being me scheduling a demo class. Then we went to their friend Dodo's shop across the street. It had all the typical American-style hippie acoutrements: rasta t-shirts, pins, floppy hats, bowls, posters, cds, Bob Marley everything, etc. It was a pretty funny sight in China. Then we got some fish for the piranhas and came home. Later that night we went over to Oz and Callum's for poker, I didn't do as well as last week and Rick was the big winner.
Tuesday Rick and I played dou di zhu with Lorna at Middle Bar, I enjoyed a great iced coffee and we took the bus to soccer. We walked all the way across Sichuan University, probably like a 20 minute walk. We passed some lotuses in full growth, towering a good seven or eight feet out of the pool, flanking a massive old-style building likely from the late 19th century. It was very scenic and the weather here continues to cool off, which is very nice. We crushed the Chinese opposition this week and I didn't have to slide-tackle once. After football we grabbed a cab to the Bookworm for trivia, our team came in second place yet again. I had a great dinner of penne pasta there. Sam went out with a couple Chinese girls and then called me to come out with them, we hung out for about 30 minutes at Cotton Club, then they had to leave, so we caught a ride to Cafe Paname, which was dead, then went over to Dave's Oasis. Andy, one of the owner's and my football teammate, was there, as well as Heather (a Canadian on our trivia team) and Jeff (an Aussie also on our trivia team). They are 3 of the six new owners. We sat around and drank beers and played trivial pursuit. It was very reminiscent of some Grinnell memories of mine.
I've been sleeping a lot recently and Wednesday was no exception. Maybe it's the whole 1-time-zone thing. Who knows. Wednesday I got up, ate lunch with Rick and Sam, went to teach my demo class at Web. Essentially, they said, try to get 25-30 students to talk for an hour about a subject. I decided to do mine on relationships, so I gave a quick intro on myself, where I was from, and drew a map of the United States to show them the different places I've lived in. Then I had them name different types of relationships and then we wrote down the roles within those relationships. I then had them describe the personality qualities that they liked and didn't like about those roles (teachers, mothers, fathers, etc.). I also found out that only 2 of the students had siblings. The students were aged 15-25, generally spoke quite well but it was a bit of a challenge to get the quieter ones to speak up, so I called on their table and tried to encourage them that way. I had them split up into groups to do an activity where they describe someone, how and when they met them, if the relationship changed over time, etc. I went from table to table and at the last one looked at the clock and 5 minutes had flown by. So it went very well and I will start teaching there part-time next week.
I walked a while, as it is impossible to find a cab at 515, crossed over the river and then finally caught one. I had my longest conversation with a taxi driver, maybe a total of a dozen or so sentences we both understood. It was starting to rain and I was glad to be home. We played some dou di zhu then went out for dinner with Andrew, a kiwi, for some Hui food. Hui people are Chinese Muslims, unlike the Uighurs, who are essentially a Turkic people living in NW China (Xinjiang). We had a great meal of skewered lamb, chicken curry and beef and potatoes. We walked to Dave's Oasis and threw Sam a going-away/birthday party and split a bottle of Jameson. I got the bright idea to go to the Leg and Whistle to watch the late Liverpool Champions League qualifier, which ended nil-nil at 90 minutes. At that point I decided it was time to go home.
Today I slept in, then got up and went to meet a new contact about dubbing a Tibetan documentary on horse racing. There were some technical issues and after about an hour I got a ride back home. But I met a good contact, Ken, from Chongqing, who runs a translation firm. So he gave me his card and I'll do the narration for the movie next week after I get back. It would be pretty sweet to get into the entertainment industry, and this would be a hilarious way to get started. Anyways, I'm sitting in the AC waiting for some Western food, later we'll go to Sweetlicks for dinner and tomorrow Rick and I go up north, into the mountains, trying for the fourth time to make it to Wanglang. More exciting news to come.
Oh and if you wanted to, ya know, send me a letter or something, here's my address:
Reid Wyatt
sichuan sheng
cheng du shi
bai yu xiang
5 lou 10 hao
Monday Rick, Sam and I went to an outdoor souvenir market, it was pretty crap. I did manage to buy a second towel, which is really a necessity. Then we went to the PSB, I got my visa, it all went smoothly. Then we went to Web English School for me to do an interview, which really just ended up being me scheduling a demo class. Then we went to their friend Dodo's shop across the street. It had all the typical American-style hippie acoutrements: rasta t-shirts, pins, floppy hats, bowls, posters, cds, Bob Marley everything, etc. It was a pretty funny sight in China. Then we got some fish for the piranhas and came home. Later that night we went over to Oz and Callum's for poker, I didn't do as well as last week and Rick was the big winner.
Tuesday Rick and I played dou di zhu with Lorna at Middle Bar, I enjoyed a great iced coffee and we took the bus to soccer. We walked all the way across Sichuan University, probably like a 20 minute walk. We passed some lotuses in full growth, towering a good seven or eight feet out of the pool, flanking a massive old-style building likely from the late 19th century. It was very scenic and the weather here continues to cool off, which is very nice. We crushed the Chinese opposition this week and I didn't have to slide-tackle once. After football we grabbed a cab to the Bookworm for trivia, our team came in second place yet again. I had a great dinner of penne pasta there. Sam went out with a couple Chinese girls and then called me to come out with them, we hung out for about 30 minutes at Cotton Club, then they had to leave, so we caught a ride to Cafe Paname, which was dead, then went over to Dave's Oasis. Andy, one of the owner's and my football teammate, was there, as well as Heather (a Canadian on our trivia team) and Jeff (an Aussie also on our trivia team). They are 3 of the six new owners. We sat around and drank beers and played trivial pursuit. It was very reminiscent of some Grinnell memories of mine.
I've been sleeping a lot recently and Wednesday was no exception. Maybe it's the whole 1-time-zone thing. Who knows. Wednesday I got up, ate lunch with Rick and Sam, went to teach my demo class at Web. Essentially, they said, try to get 25-30 students to talk for an hour about a subject. I decided to do mine on relationships, so I gave a quick intro on myself, where I was from, and drew a map of the United States to show them the different places I've lived in. Then I had them name different types of relationships and then we wrote down the roles within those relationships. I then had them describe the personality qualities that they liked and didn't like about those roles (teachers, mothers, fathers, etc.). I also found out that only 2 of the students had siblings. The students were aged 15-25, generally spoke quite well but it was a bit of a challenge to get the quieter ones to speak up, so I called on their table and tried to encourage them that way. I had them split up into groups to do an activity where they describe someone, how and when they met them, if the relationship changed over time, etc. I went from table to table and at the last one looked at the clock and 5 minutes had flown by. So it went very well and I will start teaching there part-time next week.
I walked a while, as it is impossible to find a cab at 515, crossed over the river and then finally caught one. I had my longest conversation with a taxi driver, maybe a total of a dozen or so sentences we both understood. It was starting to rain and I was glad to be home. We played some dou di zhu then went out for dinner with Andrew, a kiwi, for some Hui food. Hui people are Chinese Muslims, unlike the Uighurs, who are essentially a Turkic people living in NW China (Xinjiang). We had a great meal of skewered lamb, chicken curry and beef and potatoes. We walked to Dave's Oasis and threw Sam a going-away/birthday party and split a bottle of Jameson. I got the bright idea to go to the Leg and Whistle to watch the late Liverpool Champions League qualifier, which ended nil-nil at 90 minutes. At that point I decided it was time to go home.
Today I slept in, then got up and went to meet a new contact about dubbing a Tibetan documentary on horse racing. There were some technical issues and after about an hour I got a ride back home. But I met a good contact, Ken, from Chongqing, who runs a translation firm. So he gave me his card and I'll do the narration for the movie next week after I get back. It would be pretty sweet to get into the entertainment industry, and this would be a hilarious way to get started. Anyways, I'm sitting in the AC waiting for some Western food, later we'll go to Sweetlicks for dinner and tomorrow Rick and I go up north, into the mountains, trying for the fourth time to make it to Wanglang. More exciting news to come.
Oh and if you wanted to, ya know, send me a letter or something, here's my address:
Reid Wyatt
sichuan sheng
cheng du shi
bai yu xiang
5 lou 10 hao
Saturday, August 23, 2008
And today the Olympics end. Time flies.
Sunday August 24 2008
Friday I got up early and caught a cab downtown to my job interview. It went well but they want me to work Sunday mornings. We'll see how things develop. After the interview, I went to Starbucks and got an Americano, then cabbed home. I got some lunch with Sam and then Rick and I went to the pool. It was really sunny and hot, I swam 1km and then we chilled and talked with some Chinese girls at the pool. It was a great afternoon.
Then Rick and I came back to my house and we met up with Sam, Iona and Fran for dinner in the neigborhood. They're both English girls who have been here for 2 years. After dinner they came by our house for a beer and we watched the USA-Argentina basketball game, by far the worst game of the tournament, because it wasn't close enough to be exciting and there were almost no dunks.
After the game, Rick, Sam and I went to Cafe Paname and had some drinks there and then walked over to Panda Bar and stayed out far too late.
Saturday I slept in and then ate some noodles on the way to the bus. Rick and I bussed over to the Sports University to play football with a bunch of other foreigners. We played 10 on 10 on a turf field. I slide tackled and got a great scab on my elbow and knocked Gaven out of the game for a while. When he came back in, it was on our side.
After the game, Terry, Andy, Rick and I all went down to the Shamrock, an expat bar that supports the football with free beer. So we sat around and traded China stories for the afternoon. Norman, a Canadian guy who plays soccer with us, was also there. Rick went home after a while and Andy, Terry, Norman and I stayed until the beer was done, then went to the Leg and Whistle to watch the football matches. Simon was there and watching the rugby with his wife and some other Aussie friends. Liverpool won on a 94th minute winner and I bet Andy 100-to-1 odds that Liverpool would win the league this year, on 100RMB. So if I'm right, he's out 10,000RMB. We'll see what happens in May.
Kevin, an American who also plays football with us, came by the Leg and after the Liverpool match he and I went across the street to another bar, owned by Chinese guys, to watch Arsenal. I started falling asleep during the halftime so I decided it was probably just a good idea to go home and sleep in my bed. It's been a good weekend and I've got a job interview, so there'll be more news soon.
Friday I got up early and caught a cab downtown to my job interview. It went well but they want me to work Sunday mornings. We'll see how things develop. After the interview, I went to Starbucks and got an Americano, then cabbed home. I got some lunch with Sam and then Rick and I went to the pool. It was really sunny and hot, I swam 1km and then we chilled and talked with some Chinese girls at the pool. It was a great afternoon.
Then Rick and I came back to my house and we met up with Sam, Iona and Fran for dinner in the neigborhood. They're both English girls who have been here for 2 years. After dinner they came by our house for a beer and we watched the USA-Argentina basketball game, by far the worst game of the tournament, because it wasn't close enough to be exciting and there were almost no dunks.
After the game, Rick, Sam and I went to Cafe Paname and had some drinks there and then walked over to Panda Bar and stayed out far too late.
Saturday I slept in and then ate some noodles on the way to the bus. Rick and I bussed over to the Sports University to play football with a bunch of other foreigners. We played 10 on 10 on a turf field. I slide tackled and got a great scab on my elbow and knocked Gaven out of the game for a while. When he came back in, it was on our side.
After the game, Terry, Andy, Rick and I all went down to the Shamrock, an expat bar that supports the football with free beer. So we sat around and traded China stories for the afternoon. Norman, a Canadian guy who plays soccer with us, was also there. Rick went home after a while and Andy, Terry, Norman and I stayed until the beer was done, then went to the Leg and Whistle to watch the football matches. Simon was there and watching the rugby with his wife and some other Aussie friends. Liverpool won on a 94th minute winner and I bet Andy 100-to-1 odds that Liverpool would win the league this year, on 100RMB. So if I'm right, he's out 10,000RMB. We'll see what happens in May.
Kevin, an American who also plays football with us, came by the Leg and after the Liverpool match he and I went across the street to another bar, owned by Chinese guys, to watch Arsenal. I started falling asleep during the halftime so I decided it was probably just a good idea to go home and sleep in my bed. It's been a good weekend and I've got a job interview, so there'll be more news soon.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Chinese singles bar? Or: How to get a number without knowing Mandarin
Friday August 22, 2008
A one day update! Damn, my ego just got a boost!
Yesterday I slept for a long time (I don't know why but I seriously feel like I need 10 hours of sleep here – not tight) then got up and Sam and I went to get a bite of lunch (zhong shue zhao – dumplings in sweet-n-spicy oil) then I went to the coffee shop for a while and read. I also called a contact about a teaching job and set up an interview. Then Rick called me and he, Sam and I played dou di zhu (I misspelled this one before – pinyin zh is pronounced as j) at the tea-house midway between our houses. It was nice enough to sit outside during the day and was probably somewhere in the high-70s, low-80s.
Sam and I went to Green Dragon for dinner, got an amazing tofu dish, a sweet potato dish and an oily beef dish. It was way too much food and we stuffed ourselves before taking a nice stroll home. Yulin is a great neighborhood for people- and girl-watching, sitting in front of the glass windows of the restaurant, looking out at the constant streams of people walking by. There are, like, lots of, like, people in China.
We got ready for the night, Oz having alerted us of a good bar/club to meet at. Rick came by and met us, then we met Oz and his co-worker Justin, an American. The bar was alright, exceptionally overpriced (30RMB for a Bud Ice – 3x as expensive as a big Tsingtao and much worse) but the girls were beautiful, so I guess that's a plus. It was really busy and when I went to the bathroom I got a back massage as I washed my hands, and for me, that made the whole experience worthwhile. It was a first.
Sidenote: Height. In the US, I'm pretty tall. In China, I'm gigantic. I've seen seven Chinese people taller or about my height since I've been here. It'd be hard to quantify how many Chinese people I see in a day but it's a lot. I feel like in the US, I see at least a couple people taller than me every day. Additionally, it's not like in the US, where there are lots of dudes who are six feet tall. I'm, on average, six inches taller than Chinese guys, probably eight to ten inches taller than Chinese girls. I'll try to keep this count going for as long as I can. The main reason I bring it up is that yesterday I saw two guys my height or taller. Nuts!
So we sat around for a while. This bar was funny because there's an electronic board that posts singles ads, complete with the table number of the interested party. Rick wrote up an ad, I don't know if it was posted, but it was a pretty funny situation. Oz and Justin ended up joining the table of a couple cute Chinese girls but after a while realized they couldn't talk to them. It is very important to know Chinese in order to pick up Chinese girls, much less to communicate with them. This will be a large motivation for me. So they left, Sam and I sidled up and I had a good incomprehensible conversation with the girl next to me, but I was able to tell her my age, find out hers, learn her name and get her phone number. So I figure, after a couple weeks of Chinese class, I'll call her and see if we can get together. Gotta start somewhere.
The girls left and we figured we'd do the same. We took a cab home and played some dou di zhu. When we play dou di zhu, we bet 1RMB per hand. The profits from the game go to a general pot for a bottle of Jameson. As we grow nearer to Sam's departure and the pot gets closer to fruition, we have been playing more and more dou di zhu. It has quickly become my favorite card game. I stayed up way too late and got up early for an interview and got a job offer. But you'll just have to wait...until the next update.
A one day update! Damn, my ego just got a boost!
Yesterday I slept for a long time (I don't know why but I seriously feel like I need 10 hours of sleep here – not tight) then got up and Sam and I went to get a bite of lunch (zhong shue zhao – dumplings in sweet-n-spicy oil) then I went to the coffee shop for a while and read. I also called a contact about a teaching job and set up an interview. Then Rick called me and he, Sam and I played dou di zhu (I misspelled this one before – pinyin zh is pronounced as j) at the tea-house midway between our houses. It was nice enough to sit outside during the day and was probably somewhere in the high-70s, low-80s.
Sam and I went to Green Dragon for dinner, got an amazing tofu dish, a sweet potato dish and an oily beef dish. It was way too much food and we stuffed ourselves before taking a nice stroll home. Yulin is a great neighborhood for people- and girl-watching, sitting in front of the glass windows of the restaurant, looking out at the constant streams of people walking by. There are, like, lots of, like, people in China.
We got ready for the night, Oz having alerted us of a good bar/club to meet at. Rick came by and met us, then we met Oz and his co-worker Justin, an American. The bar was alright, exceptionally overpriced (30RMB for a Bud Ice – 3x as expensive as a big Tsingtao and much worse) but the girls were beautiful, so I guess that's a plus. It was really busy and when I went to the bathroom I got a back massage as I washed my hands, and for me, that made the whole experience worthwhile. It was a first.
Sidenote: Height. In the US, I'm pretty tall. In China, I'm gigantic. I've seen seven Chinese people taller or about my height since I've been here. It'd be hard to quantify how many Chinese people I see in a day but it's a lot. I feel like in the US, I see at least a couple people taller than me every day. Additionally, it's not like in the US, where there are lots of dudes who are six feet tall. I'm, on average, six inches taller than Chinese guys, probably eight to ten inches taller than Chinese girls. I'll try to keep this count going for as long as I can. The main reason I bring it up is that yesterday I saw two guys my height or taller. Nuts!
So we sat around for a while. This bar was funny because there's an electronic board that posts singles ads, complete with the table number of the interested party. Rick wrote up an ad, I don't know if it was posted, but it was a pretty funny situation. Oz and Justin ended up joining the table of a couple cute Chinese girls but after a while realized they couldn't talk to them. It is very important to know Chinese in order to pick up Chinese girls, much less to communicate with them. This will be a large motivation for me. So they left, Sam and I sidled up and I had a good incomprehensible conversation with the girl next to me, but I was able to tell her my age, find out hers, learn her name and get her phone number. So I figure, after a couple weeks of Chinese class, I'll call her and see if we can get together. Gotta start somewhere.
The girls left and we figured we'd do the same. We took a cab home and played some dou di zhu. When we play dou di zhu, we bet 1RMB per hand. The profits from the game go to a general pot for a bottle of Jameson. As we grow nearer to Sam's departure and the pot gets closer to fruition, we have been playing more and more dou di zhu. It has quickly become my favorite card game. I stayed up way too late and got up early for an interview and got a job offer. But you'll just have to wait...until the next update.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Visitors and Poker
Thursday August 21, 2008
Monday I went to lunch with Rick and Sam, then got a coffee and went to the university to finish my registration. I paid and then grabbed a cab home with the proper paperwork and let the sweat cool in the nice air conditioning. Then I went over to Andy and Dwayne's apartment, which is about 10 minutes walk down the street. We played some Winning Eleven and watched soccer highlights. Then I went to Sweetlicks' to meet up with Rick and Alex and Sam for dinner. Alex's two friends, Spencer and Rebecca were here so after we ate, we took cabs downtown to walk among the lights and in Tianfu Square. Then we went to Jah Bar for a beer, Alex and his jet-lagged friends left early, then we played some do di ju and came home and watched Hancock, which was moderately funny.
Tuesday Sam and I got up and went to the PSB (Public Security Bureau) so I could apply for my student visa. There was no real complication and they accepted my passport for processing and I'll go back on the 25th to pay the fee and finalize everything. After that, we went to McDonald's and then came home, watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica and got changed for soccer.
Rick and I took a cab to the university and met Nate as he was coming through the gate. We walked to the field and had a good turnout but we kept getting beaten by one Chinese team, which played in an un-Chinese manner: they won headers, they were tall (almost all above 5'10”), they attacked well and as a team. We got pretty discouraged but I was able to make a great slide tackle on their best player, getting all ball, and have a nice tender spot on my leg to show for it. Slide tackling on turf sucks.
After the soccer, Rick and I grabbed a cab back to Yulin and we met Maggie Connolly (Grinnell, '07) and Felix Zhu (Grinnell, '05) for hot pot. We went to a nice place, it was really good. Hot pot is essentially a giant bowl of oil and spices that is heated from below. It is very spicy, not quite as spicy as I imagined, but the spice didn't overthrow the other flavors. We were a table of ten, with Maggie, Felix, Sam, Rick, Alex, Spencer, Rebecca, me and two Chinese friends of Alex. It was a great meal and afterward we walked back to my apartment, I took a shower and then we went out to Hemp House, seeing a giant spider in the stairwell en route.
We hung out at Hemp House for a while, played some pool and foosball, then they decided to close so we came back to Yulin and went to Middle Bar for a while. The party broke apart piece by piece and Sam, Rick and I ended up playing do di ju, then went home.
Wednesday I slept late and watched some Battlestar Galactica with Sam, then took a nap. I left the house for dinner, when we ate in the neighborhood, some okay Sichuan food. Then we came home and watched the USA basketball game. After that, we went to Oz's to play poker and Maggie and Felix met us. We had 8 players and I won a few early hands and was the big stack for most of the game. I put Felix all in and knocked him out and wound up winning 535RMB from my original buy-in of 30RMB. So it was a damn good night for poker and I paid for the cab home.
Monday I went to lunch with Rick and Sam, then got a coffee and went to the university to finish my registration. I paid and then grabbed a cab home with the proper paperwork and let the sweat cool in the nice air conditioning. Then I went over to Andy and Dwayne's apartment, which is about 10 minutes walk down the street. We played some Winning Eleven and watched soccer highlights. Then I went to Sweetlicks' to meet up with Rick and Alex and Sam for dinner. Alex's two friends, Spencer and Rebecca were here so after we ate, we took cabs downtown to walk among the lights and in Tianfu Square. Then we went to Jah Bar for a beer, Alex and his jet-lagged friends left early, then we played some do di ju and came home and watched Hancock, which was moderately funny.
Tuesday Sam and I got up and went to the PSB (Public Security Bureau) so I could apply for my student visa. There was no real complication and they accepted my passport for processing and I'll go back on the 25th to pay the fee and finalize everything. After that, we went to McDonald's and then came home, watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica and got changed for soccer.
Rick and I took a cab to the university and met Nate as he was coming through the gate. We walked to the field and had a good turnout but we kept getting beaten by one Chinese team, which played in an un-Chinese manner: they won headers, they were tall (almost all above 5'10”), they attacked well and as a team. We got pretty discouraged but I was able to make a great slide tackle on their best player, getting all ball, and have a nice tender spot on my leg to show for it. Slide tackling on turf sucks.
After the soccer, Rick and I grabbed a cab back to Yulin and we met Maggie Connolly (Grinnell, '07) and Felix Zhu (Grinnell, '05) for hot pot. We went to a nice place, it was really good. Hot pot is essentially a giant bowl of oil and spices that is heated from below. It is very spicy, not quite as spicy as I imagined, but the spice didn't overthrow the other flavors. We were a table of ten, with Maggie, Felix, Sam, Rick, Alex, Spencer, Rebecca, me and two Chinese friends of Alex. It was a great meal and afterward we walked back to my apartment, I took a shower and then we went out to Hemp House, seeing a giant spider in the stairwell en route.
We hung out at Hemp House for a while, played some pool and foosball, then they decided to close so we came back to Yulin and went to Middle Bar for a while. The party broke apart piece by piece and Sam, Rick and I ended up playing do di ju, then went home.
Wednesday I slept late and watched some Battlestar Galactica with Sam, then took a nap. I left the house for dinner, when we ate in the neighborhood, some okay Sichuan food. Then we came home and watched the USA basketball game. After that, we went to Oz's to play poker and Maggie and Felix met us. We had 8 players and I won a few early hands and was the big stack for most of the game. I put Felix all in and knocked him out and wound up winning 535RMB from my original buy-in of 30RMB. So it was a damn good night for poker and I paid for the cab home.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
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