La Duzi *Disclaimer: this might be too much information for some of you.

Traditionally, my blog entries have been pretty surface level, where I’ve gone and what I’ve done there. This time around I thought I would occasionally sprinkle in some more in-depth detail on a few real events that are everyday life here. This one isn’t pretty in the least.

La Duzi. In Chinese, the way to describe diarrhea is la duzi. This literally translates to “pull out of the stomach.” First off, I think spicy butt would be more appropriate given the effects. Another thing, talking about having la duzi in China is not a taboo at all. In fact, people are generally pretty open about it. Following this trend, I’ll be open about my la duzi.

The other day I had ma la tang. Tang is the Chinese word for soup, la is the Chinese word for spicy, and ma is another type of spice that famously comes from Sichuan province. While studying in Sichuan (my last trip) I often had a lot of ma la hotpot. Basically ma la hotpot is a boiling pot of oil with the ma and la spices that is used to cook raw vegetables and meats. The ma la hotpot in Chengdu, Sichuan frequently gave me la duzi. In Shanghai however I have had more normal bowel movements in a week than I had in Chengdu in 4 months.

My first dose of Shanghai la duzi came from the lovely bowl of ma la tang (which I guess translates to “numb spicy soup”) shown in the picture. I was cheap. It was delicious. It was spicy. It gave me la duzi!

Maybe that was too much information for you. Now you understand my day to day life a little better. Well, I’ve got the runs… Oops!... I mean, I’VE GOT TO RUN!

I’m back

And that means this blog is also back in action. Pretty much anything older than this post is from 2008 or later when I was last in China or further back to my time in Taiwan.

Here we go, this is what it feels like to be back:

1. Although I’m not exactly experiencing “culture shock,” I definitely am rusty on this whole traveling in China thing. I’m also doing some major dusting off on my Chinese.

2. Little Things are coming back to me…but slowly. For example, I got into the taxi form the airport and as we started off I tried frantically to find my seatbelt. As we started weaving through traffic at speeds unsafe for the typhoon conditions, I realized that backseats of taxis often do not have seatbelts in China. Then I felt this uneasiness come over of being out of my comfort zone and literally worried for my safety, an element of travel that I had not felt since my first summer in Taiwan. It’s safe to say that I’m adjusting.

3. My roommate situation is good. Out of all the Chinese roommates, I am glad that I got the one that I did. He like to play basketball so that’s a HUGE plus. His English name is Phillip. I don’t remember Chinese names very well so Phillip will have to suffice.

4. I had my Chinese placement test today. Safe to say that it kicked my butt. But I did well enough on the oral section and should have no problem getting into the 300-level. (Right were I need to be and should be.)

Well that’s all for now. I’ll do my best to update this thing. Maybe add some pictures. And my Gmail account is working. Was it just me or did anyone else think that Google boycotted China?