David's Palace

My American friend here in Chengdu opens his house up to friends from all over the world to stay for free. He is single guy that has a three-story, five bedroom penthouse. He bought it for cheap and in horrible condition but he had it fixed up very nice. It's the nicest house I've ever been in in Asia. Here are some pictures.

Outside of the confines of comfort

No class today due to the Mid-Autumn Festival yesterday. I met Matthew at the North Gate at 9AM. We took a bus to the outer rim of the city(Chengdu). This was definitely not as nice as the central parts of the city or the where my school is located. I experiencd a lot of culture shock here. The first time for me to really feel uncomfortable in Asia since my arrival in Guilin when I got to see the purple lights of prostitution houses.

This area was especially ghetto/sketchy, though. I'm used to getting weird looks in Asia but usually they are,"Wow, a white person" type like and not a "I'm going to stab you and take your money" type of look. Luckily, Matthew is a pretty big guy(he breaks the Asian stereotype).

We had to walk through this area for a while to get to another big bus station to take a bus outside of the city. We went down sketchy back alleys and streets. One street was just shops selling sexual merchandise, mostly pornography. I quickly found that I should stop looking into the shops. It was rather disturbing and somewhat violating. Little kids were running around playing like it was nothing.

At the bus station, we paid hardly anything to take an hour long bus ride 20 miles out of Chengdu to a smaller town. I was even more out of place here. Everything was very dusty, especially the road. Matthew and I went to the nicest hotel in town for lunch and tea while we waited an hour or so for Ding Laoshi. Although it was the nicest hotel, and very nice compared to everything else I saw, it was only $50USD a night. While we ate, sipped on green tea, and waited, I took advantage of the time to get my Chinese homework out and study. I also liked to ask Matthew questions about China. Matthew works for non-profit here in China that does mostly counseling and other things.

Finally, Ding Laoshi's driver pulled up with her and two other people in the back seat. Matthew and I crammed in. We drove even farther out into the countryside, but not too far. We were meeting the Xie family. Finally we found the place. Their house was down a long cracked cement path with fruit trees all around. It looked like a big old shed. It was split up into four or five living spaces. Their house had cement floors and old small furniture, but we were grateful guests. They poured us more tea. I had to be careful with the table my drink was sitting on because it was wobbly.

Everyone gave a short introduction introducing themselves. I tried my best to deliver what I had to say in Chinese. I got all my information across but it wasn't perfect. I just tried hard to show them that I was trying but in a very humble way. It was good chance to practice my Chinese. The boy and I had exchanged numbers the other day when we had first met so we had been sending messages back and forth for the last couple of days. It really touched me when he said that his friendship with me was really motivating for him to practice his English - something he thought was so difficult before but now he thinks that it's fun and easy. My eyes welled up and I had to wipe them dry. It's just grace that I may have that impact on him.

Matthew and I went to the bus station way far out. It was super crowded. People were pushing and shoving like it was the end of the world. Luckily, Matthew and I are bigger and stronger than the majority of the people. We muscled our way through the crowd to find ourselves standing at the back of a long line waiting to get on a bus back to Chengdu. We would finally succeed. After an hour on the bus, we would arrive back in the sketchy outskirts of Chengdu. Maybe it was just the time of day(5 or 6pm) but it seemed especially busy and ghetto. A small girl was just peeing on the sidewalk. I wish I hadn't seen that but I nearly ran into her walking with the crowd. Everything in this part of town just seemed so filthy and vile. I'm not trying to put the people down, I just felt REALLY out of my comfort zone.

Some more walking, another bus, and some more walking and I would arrive back at Sichuan University.

Wo xue Zhongwen.

So I've almost concluded my first week of classes here at Sichuan Daxue(Sichuan University) and I have been studying and learning a lot. My classes have kept me very busy.

On Monday : : : I have Chinese in the morning and then a Chinese Society class before lunch. Then after lunch, I have a Global Business class for three hours(I only have it once a week)

Tuesday : : : is Chinese again (Monday th
rough Friday) in the morning and then at night we have a lecture about Tibetan relations with a guest speaker for our Western China course.

Wednesday : : : Chinese and then culture. Classes are finished by lunch.

Thursday : : : I have Chinese in the morning, and then Chinese again later in the afternoon.

Friday : : : Just Chinese in the morning and then I'm done.

Even though I started at the beginning level, we are moving very quickly and I am having to study a lot. But that's what I primarily came here for so everything is working out. My reading and writing Chinese characters are behind my speaking and listening skills so I have had to concentrate most of my studying time on this.

A new thing for me has been cooking. Food is very inexpensive here. I bought a pan and some other cooking supplies so that I could start cooking. The other day, I bought some fresh onion, garlic, and eggplant from vendor not far from my dorm. 2 RMB! It was so cheap. I didn't even cook it all up. I also bought some fresh bananas for 3 RMB, but I didn't cook them. Overall my cooking experiences have gone really well. In my International Dorm, someone is always cooking something different. Whether it be Thai food, Korean food, or Nepalese food, it all smells delicious. I've had a lot of good times so far.

Buying a bike

I feel like a 16-year-old who just got his license. A bike equals freedom here in Chengdu and now I have freedom. But there is a story behind the adventure of purchasing one.

We had heard of a place across the river that sold a selection of used bikes. Myself and about 5 other friends made the journey asking for directions along the way, and also pointing to a piece of paper that had Chinese characters on it that none of knew the meaning of. I didn't want to pay more than 100RMB but everyone that had gone to this place before had paid at least 140RMB.

We finally found the place when Chambers crossed the street first and was instantly bombarded by people asking if we wanted bikes. The place was so sketchy. They led us down a dark alley that was very wet. They had many fish swimming around in large cement containers. Everything smelled so humid and also like a mixture between snake and fish that had died and were sitting out for too long. Many people were each trying to sell different bikes that were their's. It was obvious that all of these bikes were stolen. I almost stepped on a watersnake that was in a puddle. It really freaked me out and the local people just laughed at me. The people who lived down there were picking up the snakes and throwing into a big container so that they could eat them later. Ew. While I was bartering, I could smell the hot snake breath of the people. On the ground, There were remnants of dead rats. The tail was the most distinguishable thing from the pile of guts.

My Chinese was good enough to tell them that I wanted a bike for 100RMB. A man herded me toward a bike that looked ok. I checked it out and it seemed ok so I made the purchase. The next closest price that anyone got was 125RMB. After the purchase, I got the heck out of there. I didn't want to buy the locks that they were trying to sell because I figured that they could break into their own locks. Riding my bike back, I ran into some minor problems but nothing that couldn't be fixed. I bought a lock from a bike repairman and he also fixed my bike for only 10RMB. The locks that everyone else bought were 30RMB! HAHA.

Long story short. I have a bike that works now. So now I've been cruising around. But to this bike I had to go the sketchiest place I've ever been. It was so shady.

A little update on classes. I met my professor today. Gao Lashr. She is very nice and class seems like it will be fun. I'm taking an intensive language course which means Mondy to Friday 8:30AM to 12PM. We will go through a chapter a day. I'm really fortunate to have some background of the language. I'm excited to try to really get better at the language. Class starts next Monday, September 8.

Voyage through China

I've been thoroughly missing the Internet these last 10 days or so. I met up with the PLU "crew" + some other American students .
from various places that are traveling with us. We stayed at the Kowloon YMCA in HK for a couple of days exploring places that I had already seen but it was still a fun time I really appreciated seeing my friends and getting to have a taste of home. The highlight of my time with them in HK was the seafood dinner we had on Lamma Island and the day at Repulse Bay with my buddies.

From Hong Kong, we took a flight to Guilin. Guilin is famous for it's beautiful natural scenery. However, when we got in at night, the area looked really sketchy. It was the first time in my life that I saw obvious places of prostitution. It was funny at first but then just creepy. It is definitely a new thing to see those places. We could identify them by the purple lights illuminating from open businesses. I think we stayed at the nicest hotel in town, which was still sketchy. The next day in Guilin, we took a river ferry exploration down the Li River. This whole area is famous for it's jagged rock hills that jet up out of the ground. We also took a small tour of the rural area.
This was poor China. Quite different than Taipei or Hong Kong.

At night we took a train to Wushan. The train was very cramped. I had just a small bed that was the top of three bunks.
I just slept all night considering it was a 12 hr. train ride. At first it was very claustrophobic but I was tired from all the travel so it was fine.

We arrived in Wuhan early the next morning and spent some time exploring there. Wuhan is very polluted, very crowded, very Chinese. It was a good experience but out of my comfort zone. I loved it though. In Wuhan we traveled to famous place called the Yellow Crane Tower. It is one of the three most famous towers in China. From there we took a long bus ride to the Three Gorges Dam were we would board our 5 star cruise along the Yangtze River, China's biggest and the 3rd largest in the world.

This cruise ship was so insanely nice. Never did I expect to travel on a 5 star cruise for this trip. Apparently all the 4 star cruises were booked so we took the 5 star one. It would take us all the way to Chongqing(near Chengdu, look on a map). For the first night we remained docked and the next day we had a tour of the largest dam in the world, the Three Gorges Dam From here we would leave up the river.

The cruise was very very nice. I was really taken aback. Most of the other travelers were coming from the Olympics. .It was very surreal. Each day, we would stop at a different location and have a short excursion. One day we took a small boat up a tributary of the Yangtze. It felt like we could have been natives navigating the
river. Very cool. Another day we visited Fengdu, or the "Ghost town." It was mostly just idols and deities that were worshiped. Here was the supposed afterlife connection from physical to Heaven or Hell. So many evil statues, many depicting Hell torture scenes.

The cruise would end after 4 nights, 3 days. We finished in Chongqing. From there we went to the Buddhist cave carvings in Da Zhu.
It was just more history and statues. This place was a place that people would stop at before heading out on their journey along the Silk Road. This would be there prayer location to ask for protection for the long journey and also to thank the gods after they returned.

A 5 hr bus ride would deliver us to Chengdu. Then following our Sichuanese dinner(Spicy!) we would arrive at Sichuan University. We are staying the International dorms. I just met some Koreans and some Japanese wing mates. We communicated through Chinese. This event will really challenge me to get better. I'm really excited. I'm in the market for a used bicycle right now. It should be fun. I've been super busy so it will take some time to get back to everyone via Email. Know that I am doing my best and I will get around to every email. So if you send me something, I will reply. It just might take some time. I'll try to get some pictures up soon. Dzi-jian!