I'm Ba-ack

Sorry for the lack of posts, Mom. It turns out going to China took up a lot of time and energy (almost as much as getting a Chinese visa), particularly because it's even more difficult to communicate with people in Chinese than in Hindi! I think the fact that I didn't have any grasp of the numbers or food words before I went really hindered my ability to get my point across. Nevertheless, the Great Wall definitely deserves its spot on the list of seven wonders of the world. It is amazing. The steps are also really steep and slanted.

Beijing has a ton of things to do, good food, a large Western presence, and a fabulous subway (the buses leave something to be desired). I could go back. Generally, I went to developed China, where there was air conditioning, paved roads, and even sidewalks! I had major culture shock, partially because Chinese society really focuses on materialism in a different way than in India.

I stopped in Hong Kong on my way back to Delhi, and met up with Rena, one of my best friends from high school! Hong Kong is a party. We went out to dinner with an unknown family friend, who took us out to dinner. We ate lots of fish and pork and even had the traditional Hong Kong dish of pigeon. Rena and her family and I also went out for Shanghaiese food, which is fabulous. I really like Chinese food and most people in China were surprised at how well I could use chopsticks.

Then I flew back to Delhi, and the next day flew to Varanasi. I had a little bit of culture shock coming back as well -- India is still hot and humid. I've moved into the guest house at Nirman (www.nirman.info), which is where I'll be interning this summer (new address on the top banner -- send me mail!). More info on that later, but basically it is a school focusing on integrating creativity into traditional lesson plans.

Whilst I've been here, I've been busy cheating death: monsoon rains that leave two inch puddles on the school grounds, eating raw mangos using the Indian method (which involves squishing them around inside their skins, then opening a hole and sucking out the pulp) after dousing them in Purell, arguing with the Foreigner's Registration Office (it never ends), and last but not least, riding a motorcycle without a helmet (sorry, Mom and Dad).

Riding the motorcycle through loud, dirty traffic was the most exhilarating thing I've done in a long time. it was less bumpy than I expected, and less dusty, perhaps because I learned how to tie my scarf around my head and face. I assume this will prove to be a useful skill at parties.

Varanasi is the noisiest city I've been in, and is most decidedly an Indian place. However, I am slowly finding the places with air conditioning and hopefully things will pick up when school starts and other interns get here.

Mom - I promise to get back into the swing of things.

Nbd

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On the subway

I don't even know what to say.

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"I think the real point of a parasol is to look ridiculous."

Right, Kathryn. Not to shade you or anything.

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Loud and sonorous

The temple of heaven has a circular stone set of steps that puts you higher towards the heavens. If you stand at the exact center, it boosts your voice to make it particularly loud and sonorous. I need the help, so I tried it out.

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Temple of Heaven

K and I in front of the Temple of Heaven. We had to pay to get into a park, which I am morally opposed to doing, and then pay again to get into the temple, but it's gorgeous.

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Wine

Ancient Chinese wine glass. Not a joke. I don't even know how this is supposed to work.

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Lama Temple

The Lama Temple includes a sandalwood Buddha statue four stories high. It is enormous. Unfortunately, photos are not allowed. I tried to take one anyway, but it didn't come out. Take my word for it-it belongs in the book.

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Language

At the Lama Temple, the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside of Tibet, we saw signs in four different languages. From right to left, Mongolian, Chinese, Tibetan, and possibly Uighur (unclear on the far left.) Also, the people here speak a very different dialect, with a lot more Rs at the end of words. Even though I don't speak Chinese I can tell the difference and it sounds funny.

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Breakfast in Beijing

Beijing is famous for a special yogurt that comes in a porcelain jar, so after we got off the train we had some for breakfast. C and I really liked it.

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Warrior

This is just an excuse for a close-up soldier photo. Seeing the warriors was my first encounter with large-scale Chinese tourism: a lot of people and a lot of tour groups. The census reports don't lie. There are a lot of people here. In the streets I don't really notice, but tourist attractions and buses are definitely more crowded than I'm used to, even in India. It seems especially weird because everything is nice here-the roads are paved, there are stoplights, the buses sometimes have air conditioning-but the masses shatter the idea of order I would expect.

In unrelated news, they checked our tickets three times in order to enter the space, and I had to pull out a fake student ID card at some of the checkpoints (I bought a student fee using K's legitimate student ID card). Chinese security also failed to confiscate C's pocket knife even though we had to put our bags through screener. I love beating the communists.

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The site

The terra cotta warriors are underground, but the government built buildings around the pits so tourists can come and look down on working archaeological sites, as well as see the soldiers where they were initially found, instead of in a museum. K and I had some interesting discussions on whether or not this creates ideal conditions for excavation, so I'll have to call Kelly to figure out the answer on that one. C commented on the difficulty of constructing a building without damaging the pottery in the ground below.

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Xi'an: terra cotta warriors

Kathryn and her friend Catherine (hereafter referred to as K and C) and I flew from Kunming to Xi'an last night. Xi'an isn't really near anything else, but has an underground terra cotta army that some farmers stumbled upon when digging a well. The soldiers are amazingly detailed and were once painted. They also held bronze weapons, directed chariots, and generally commanded troops.

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The biggest monastary in Southwest China

I went to visit this Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Shangri-La, which is called Gyalthan (I think) in Tibetan. It houses over 600 monks and was undergoing some construction while I was there. I also had to pay a lot of money (comparatively) to get access, which really differed from the donation based model I found in India.

The next day, back in Kunming, Kathryn and I went to the Western Hills with another friend, where we climbed hills (obviously) to get a great view of the city and the lake. The dragon gate was supposed to be the big attraction, but there was a stone forest that caught my eye. Supposedly the entire region was under water at some point, leaving these huge stone formations on top of the mountains.

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Cutest announcers ever

Adorable. They spoke in Chinese, which I could infer because I picked out one of the three Mandarin words I know. Also, I saw their notes.

You will be treated to an insanely long blog post since the lights on the overnight bus don't work so I can't read my book, and it's officially too dark to look out the window meaningfully.

Almost no one could understand any of the Tibetan I tried to use, except one thanka painter from Lhasa who proposed to me. I feel like this is par for the course in any Tibetan area.

I also hiked to a temple with the name "1000 chicken temple." I saw decidedly less than 1000 chickens, but took some great photos of the town. From the top, you can see the two sides of Shangri-La. One side looks like a city-it's built up with restaurants and hotels and places to buy cell phones. The other side is still a village. It's mostly green with some houses and one road. They haven't finished the road over the hill connecting the two sides of town, but from the temple you can see the huge contrast in living conditions.

I also visited the largest monastery in the area, and I think in all of southwest China. It houses 600 monks and has a lot of temples. I scaled a wall to reach a far-off sputa, and a lovely old Tibetan lady had to help me down because I misjudged the height of the wall. Oops. Hopefully I'll have learned my lesson by the time I reach the great wall.

The square in old town hosts Tibetan dancing every night, so I watched that. During the day, people sell trinkets, and there are barbecues set up everywhere. I tried grilled yak and peppers, which comes served on a skewer with a spicy, tangy sauce. I would love to replicate the recipe for my family but I'm pretty sure it contains MSG and am not at all sure I could find yak meat anywhere in North America. How different are yaks from bison?

I met many, many travelers and expats. Apparently there are 12 expats in the whole city, which I thought was a lot because it's a pretty small place. I also met a woman from New Jersey! She lives off exit 135. Yes, she asked me what exit I lived off of, even in China.

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Wednesday

I have no idea what's happening, except a large number of schoolchildren and their families have gathered in the square to sing and dance. They're all wearing Tibetan clothes and have been out since at least nine in the morning. The temple and enormous golden prayer wheel loom on the hill above.

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Construction

China is crazy, part two: This post brought to you by China Construction Bank, the one place Bank of America partners with so I can retrieve money sans atm fees! I can't believe they have no partner banks in India. Alright, I'm ending my bitterness.

On my first day in China, we went to a store to pick up a dress Kathryn had tailored. She got it refitted and was told to come back today.

We came back today, and this is what the storefront looked like. (If the picture didn't load, it's because my phone is acting funky, but imagine the inside of a store looking like a construction site, with exposed wires and wooden planks and men sawing and hammering everywhere.)

Two days ago, dresses and fabric filled the whole place, and today it was covered in sawdust. Apparently it will be finished in four days! Then they can move the inventory back. That is the quickest construction I've ever heard about, anywhere.

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Sleeper bus

China is crazy.

I'm currently laying on the top left bunk of an overnight bus to Shangri-La, a Chinese city that decided to rename itself to bring in tourist dollars. Or yuan, as the case may be. It's working.

There are three rows of bunk beds (only the middle is fully visible in the photo), each about the width of a person and approximately 5 feet, 5 inches in length. I put my feet against the end to measure. They're surprisingly comfortable, fully padded and air conditioned. We haven't started moving yet, but so far this is beating the he'll out of the overnight bus from Delhi to Dharamsala.

Thankfully I have a window on one side. At least I have something to snuggle up against. I can't imagine sleeping with metal railings on both sides of a top middle bunk.

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Golden Temple

This morning Kathryn and I biked around Kunming to pick up a dress she had made. Biking in China is an adventure, made more adventurous by the fact that I am wearing a skirt. However, cheap Chinese bikes have locks built in to the back wheel, which makes a lot of sense.

After lunch, Kathryn sent me to visit the Golden Temple, which is really made of bronze. It's a Taoist temple from the 1600s with a 14 ton bell from the 1400s. The bell is huge. I rung it for 2Y, which is about 35 cents. Personally, I found the bell tower more impressive, since it's three stories high and gives good views of the city.

Getting there was an adventure: I gave the cabbie a piece of paper saying, "I want to go to the Golden Temple" in Chinese, which went well until he accidentally drove to the exit and wanted to tell me that. He wrote me a note that I assume says as much, but I told him I couldn't read it. I think he understood that I couldn't speak but couldn't figure out that I hadn't written the characters myself. Oh well. On the way home I tried to say where I wanted to go in Chinese, which utterly failed, but I handed him the paper and he drove me home.

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Breakfast

I took a photo of the noodle soup I had for breakfast at 830 this morning, but my phone lost it somehow. To someone not from China, noodles with veggies, beef, and meat broth looks like lunch or dinner, but all the Western restaurants were closed at that hour, so Kathryn and I ate a real Chinese breakfast. I refused the beef but am pretty sure I got the meat broth anyway. The lady cooked the noodles in a separate broth really quickly, then put a bunch of stuff in a bowl. I asked Kathryn to make mine medium spicy, which meant I could eat it without crying. Success!

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