Adventures in China

What are three months in China like? Well, it’s an assortment of feelings and experiences. I started my journey in the city of Guilin. The first weekend was spent there, and I met a few people that I plan on keeping in touch with for some time. Along with meeting people, I discovered Guilin Noodles, a simple noodle dish with rice noodle, a few vegetables, and some meat.

I also had the chance to see some caves. I was on the tour with only one other English speaker. We saw some amazing caves and also stopped at a waterfall. This is where I saw the kindness of Chinese people. I also got a chance to be in about 30 high school aged children’s pictures.

After that first weekend, I left with Brit Chris, Georgina, and Julie. We headed to an incredibly small village called Fengyang. This was an experience that I will not forget. When I say small, I mean around 200 people. We lived in a 100+ year old house that was once owned by the wealthiest family in the village.

While in Fengyang, we went on various tours and even taught English to the village children for a week. That was a far cry from the teaching that I would be doing at the end of my trip. The kids were a mix of crazy little hellions, star struck girls that looked at me with longing eyes, and children that actually were interested in learning English.

The things that I will take away from those first few weeks are my first encounters with Chinese people in their own country, the crazy party that the local government officials held for us, and it was complete with an absorbent amount of Bijou. It is the drink that I would later grow to despise. I also met Isabella, a very sweet Chinese lady that was in charge of the whole program that we were a part of.

Next in the adventure was Yangshou. This was a rough time because of the weather. It is a great town and I highly recommend that people visit and stay at Monkey Jane’s hostel. It rained almost the whole time. We got to do some rock climbing, bike riding in the rain, that looking back was a lot more fun than it was while riding. I have funny stories about a motorcycle taxi driver trying very adamantly to get me to buy a massage from a girl, only to drop me off at the whore house. I walked home in the rain from there.

The time I spent at Monkey Jane’s will be some of the most memorable. I met quite a few good people there and had great times playing beer pong with people from around the world.

After the first week in Yangshou, we headed off to the rice fields. It was a long bus ride, but I was with my crew, so it wasn’t too bad. The one thing about traveling alone through China is that you have to be somewhat careful where you fall asleep. Not that everyone is out to steal your stuff, but I didn’t take out anything of value on a bus when I was alone. In the off chance I fell asleep. That takes me to this, while in China, for the most part, I felt incredibly safe. Many people I talked with viewed me as a guest in their country and therefore felt responsible for watching out for me.

Back to the rice fields. They were amazing and I really enjoyed myself the first and second day. That was despite that storms that kept rolling through. I still got some good pictures, but for some reason halfway through, I jacked my ISO up to 3200, and everything after that was really grainy. Not cool when you are excited to see what you shot and you get them on your computer to discover most of them are garbage.

On the third day, Brit Chris woke up with a swollen infected eye. I have no idea what happened, but it was pretty red, and he said it was painful. I went to the pharmacy and got him some medicated eye drops. Upon my return, I ran into Georgina, who had spent half the night vomiting. After talking it over with the group, we decided that it would be the best idea to head back to Guilin. Anyway, the World Cup was on and we didn’t want to miss it.

That was the group’s last weekend in Guilin, and we all parted our own ways. I met some new friends at our hostel that were headed to Yangshou, which is where I was headed for the following week. I got them set up at Monkey Jane’s and got a free shirt out of the deal. That week I did two days of rock climbing, though the first day was rough. I was a bit under the weather due to some overconsumption of spirits the night before. Regardless, it was fun

Halfway through the week, I took the British couple with me to Fengyang for a festival that we were invited to. I met Vicky and Lee in Guilin and they were the two that I took to Monkey Jane’s. This little festival was ridiculous! I was on some Chinese news station, and I saw Lee drink more bijou than I knew was humanly possible. He was also quite possibly the most hung over I had ever seen anyone.  It was a great couple of days!

The next week was spent in Hunan Province at an orphanage. This part of the trip had the most impact on me. When I got there, I was sooo out of my element. I would say that there was about 60 kids there when I arrived, but some left throughout my time there. To clarify, this was not a normal orphanage; it was more of a boarding school for very poor children, that is subsidized by an American non profit. That being said, the conditions were still not very good.

Around the third day there, I had a little breakdown in my room. I couldn’t stop thinking about how unfair life is, and how these kids really had nothing. It wasn’t until after that little episode that I realized these kids had it much better here than at their homes. Even though to me the food was incredibly minimal, it was better than nothing. I started to feel better about the situation as time went on. I realized that I wasn’t sent there to feel bad for them, I was sent there to make their lives a little better for that one week. It was a little rough because of the heat. Most of them went to school during the day, and the rest kept retreat in their rooms to stay cool.

When we did play, it was all about basketball, and I had a great time with them. I will remember a few of the kids specifically. One came from a mother that had lost nine children before him. She couldn’t speak, or maybe she could, but I was told that no one could understand her. The boy, had a pretty bad mental handicap, but he loved hanging out with me. He never said one word to me. He would just smile and look up at me. Another kid was a girl that followed me a lot and always wanted to hold my hand. She was about 6 and just cute as a button. She knew that I didn’t speak Chinese, but that didn’t stop her from speaking it to me. She loved to talk. That was a great week looking back. My parents and I donated enough money to buy all the children a new pair of shoes, so hopefully they will enjoy them.

Once I left the orphanage, I headed to Changsha to catch a flight to Chengdu. I was informed a few days before my departure that Isabella would be joining the group. Georgina was also going to be there, so I had a few familiar faces to look forward to.

When I got to Chengdu, I had a chance to relax for a few days. I tried to buy a new camera, but failed when they didn’t take visa. This was actually a blessing because I wasn’t paid my GI Bill for that month and would have been in the hole a good amount.

Looking back, there were more photos that I wanted to get, but shooting stuff everyday kind of burned me out at the time. Like right now, I spent the weekend in Beijing and took around 600 photos. I guess I love taking them, but without a place to sit down and go through them, it gets to be a little much. I think when I get back I will be much more into it. I just need a break after getting these last pictures edited. I took around 10,000 pictures in 3 months, and have deleted about 7,000. Although, I’m on a plane right now from Vancouver to Portland, and I wish my camera weren’t packed away because some of these islands have amazing cloud formations around them…

Back to China… Working with pandas outside of Ya’an, near Chengdu, was absolutely amazing! These creatures had such funny personalities and I am still shocked at how they were all so different. I was very fortunate that I got to feed them, play with the little ones, and clean their cages. Well, maybe not the last part. I also had the chance to hang out with some really cool people. I took a lot of pictures there, and even got some great waterfall shots.

After Chengdu, I flew to Yantai, via Beijing. Yantai was also awesome. About 10 minutes walk from the dorm was the beach. We discovered a great little restaurant that looked sketchy, but was awesome. They had the best eggplant I have ever had.

On this adventure with me were Katherine and Catherine from Middlebury College in Vermont. It is a small private college in Vermont. I found the to be much less stuck up than I had imagined kids from small private schools. Also, there was Kristin from Seattle. Her parents are from Hong Kong, and everywhere we went, people thought she was our translator. Truth be told, her Chinese was about as good as the K/Catherine’s, which is about 20 times better than mine. Then again, I have never studied Chinese.

Our purpose was to teach kids from the ages of 5-25 English. Most were Chinese, but I had some Korean students as well. In the upper class were some Brazilians. My kids were awesome. I really think I had the best class. They were well behaved, but just a little shy. My star student was Tom. He really stepped it up and volunteered for everything I asked.

I am not a teacher, so everything was trial and error. Many times, I thought I had a good idea, only to take it to the classroom and have it fail miserably. One such example was teaching the kids about the 7 natural wonders of the world. I even had plans to take it to other natural wonders. They just didn’t care. I made them suffer through it and came up with something different for the next class. It was all part of the process.

During our first few weeks, there was a group of Russians that were staying at the hotel. They ended up being really nice and we all hung out from time to time. I even learned a few Russian words. I’m not sure how the girls felt about them, but I enjoyed going out with them.

Yantai was a great place to be for five weeks, but as the end of my trip grew near, the more I was ready to get back to my routine in the states. That is one thing in life I need to stay sane, routine.

After leaving Yantai, I went to Beijing for the weekend. While there, I went on a tour of the “ancient” part of the Great Wall, went to Tian Na Men Square, and the Forbidden City. The low point of this trip was forgetting to bring enough water to the Great Wall, and being severely dehydrated the next day. I had a headache that may have been the worst I have ever had.

The tour of the wall was great. I’m sooo happy that I went on that specific tour because there were no crowds or even other people to move through the tour in a herd-like fashion. Some of the views were just amazing.

The Forbidden City, honestly, wasn’t that cool. I had scene many temples, so it wasn’t that great to see more of the same types of buildings. It was cool to see Mao’s painting at the entrance. Walking through was just a barrage of harassment. People wanting to give me tours, or sell me crap didn’t want. I never blame people for trying to make money, but when they are sneaky about it, I despise them. For instance, the two girls that wanted to practice their English. If I would have gone to get tea with them, they would have scammed me into paying a ridiculous amount for a few cups of tea. This happens all over the world though, and I’m sure it’s nothing new.

Beijing is a cool city that I would love to go back to. I really saw very little, and since the Olympics, many renovations have happened throughout the city. The air even seemed clear and clean while I was there. I was a big fan of the modern architecture that has gone up all over the city too.

When I got back from the Forbidden City, I checked my flight itinerary. I noticed that the date was incorrect for my flight back to Yantai. It said the ticket was booked for the 19^th, and at the time, it was the 16^th. I hopped on the internet and looked at the flights for the day. The last flight to Yantai left two hours from that time. I was already packed, so I grabbed my bag, and headed to the airport. When I got there, I went to the ticket counter. She had told me that there was one ticket left, so I bought it. I even got a refund on my other ticket, jackpot!

When I got back to Yantai, I checked into the Ramada. I had booked a moderately priced room, and when I opened the door, I realized that when it said “king bed suite,” they meant a full on suite. The bed was in a loft area up a nice set of stairs. It even had a full living room and kitchen. Though the bed looked like it would be comfortable, it was pretty hard.

The next day I got up at 7AM and finished packing everything up. After that, I headed to the airport and went home.

That’s it. For more information and details, visit my blog at www.cschave.blog.com and for pictures go to www.flickr.com/photos/cschave

Thanks for reading…

Chris Schave

I guess Friday would be a good place to start. The weather leaving Yantai was horrible. It was raining pretty much non stop all morning and we were nervous about not making our flight. The taxi ride was pretty sketchy.

So I made it to Beijing and the weather was great. It was a little warm, but better than rain. I was incredibly exhausted, and after dinner laid down for a bit. After feeling really lazy, I got up and walked around for a while. I made an attempt to buy deodorant, but it was unsuccessful. I bought something that the lady at the store thought that I wanted, but I think it was some kind of perfume. I sprayed it in my armpit, and it burned badly.

For dinner, I had some pizza and talked with some Canadian girls, but succumbed to the sleepiness that had been haunting me all night. It was only about 9 when I laid down, but it took me a while to get to sleep.

I had booked a Great Wall trip for Saturday and had to get up at 6. The taxi picked me up at 7 and made a stop to pick up another guy. Then dropped us both off at another hostel. We met up with about 18 other people and hopped on a bus.

The ride took about an hour and a half. I tried to sleep for some of it, but the seats weren’t that comfortable. On the way, we passed various sections of the Great Wall that were incredibly crowded and I was beginning to get a little nervous. If you know me, you know I hate large crowds. Luckily we kept driving, and eventually turned off onto a dirt road.

It seemed like we were going down the shabby road, through small villages, for quite some time. We eventually popped out of the trees and went through a nice set of gates. When we got to the end of the road, we were faced with a “Great” wall. It shot up the hill side, and appeared to be very steep. Even the walk to the wall was steep. It turned out that we were at the ancient, non restored part of the wall. The only other people that I saw there were a couple of workers painting hand rails.

The total trek was 10 km. It was all up and down hill, steps and otherwise. At one point the nice part of the wall stopped and we were faced with over grown rubble. Half way through, I ran out of water. The wind was blowing pretty strong, so that probably saved me from dying. I was very happy with this tour though. We got to see parts of the wall that had been knocked down by Mongolian invaders, and other parts that had just collapsed over time.

The guy that we picked up from the other hostel was named Bradley, and he was from South Carolina. We chit chatted the whole time and he was a pretty cool dude. He had also been in China for three months, but had stayed mostly in Xian, where the Terracotta Warriors are. While he was there, he was doing a co-op, which is similar to an internship.

We also walked with some girls from Germany, a couple from France, and a girl from Holland. They were all really nice and shared their water with me when they saw I was out. I keep running into really nice people on this trip.

I failed to mention how incredibly tiring this trip was. As I would lift a leg walking, it would shake until I put it back on the ground. I don’t think my pictures will do any of it justice, but it was steep, and really amazing.

For some reason, two other guys and myself decided to run down the last section. Looking back this was pretty stupid considering how tired my legs were, but it was fun, and I didn’t get hurt. We were jumping over things and stepping off of boulders that may not have been stable. Wooo!

When we got back to the bus, I bought two waters and chugged them without hesitation. That might have been the thirstiest I have ever been in my life. We took a ten minute drive to a restaurant and ate some pretty awesome food. As usual, the tofu sucked. I’m not a fan of the stuff, and I find that the only thing it takes the flavor of, is the bad components of each other ingredient. That and the texture is strange to me.

The rest of the ride was filled with on and off sleep, note passing, and talking with Bradley. When I got back, I hopped in the shower to cool my fresh sun burn. It wasn’t that bad, but the cool water felt good. After showering, I met up with Bradley, a British girl, and the Dutch girl.

We went to a bar called 37. Sitting outside is always interesting in China. People think you’re a display, and in a way, I think the restaurants try to draw the others in with westerners. I don’t blame them. The German girls ended up walking by and sat down with us. We all had some good conversation, some beers, and eventually went to grab a bite to eat.

At dinner, a man from Argentina joined us. It turned out that he is an artist. I asked him what type of art he does and he told me meat. I thought maybe there was something lost in translation, but it turns out that he really does carve various types of meat. Interesting… I guess there is a meat sculpting event here this week.

After dinner, we parted ways and Bradley and I walked back towards our respective hostels. We walked next to Tian Na Men Square. It really is just a big square. I know very historical events took place there, but it really isn’t that great to visit.

When I got back to my hostel, the Canadian girls were in the bar drinking, so I joined them for a quick beer. We ended up talking about politics, and though I sway towards their point of view, I played devil’s advocate, so they could see why people feel the way they do. It was fun, but I was tired, so I went to bed. I awoke around five in the morning with a massive headache. Normally, I would attribute it to the beer, but in this case, it was dehydration. I guess the beer did play into it, but it wasn’t a hangover. Apparently, from the time I got home, to the time that I started drinking beer, there wasn’t enough water consumption. The headache really didn’t go away until around two in the afternoon.

I was supposed to wake up and go to the Forbidden City with Bradley, then meet up with Floortja, the Dutch girl, for a bike tour. That didn’t happen. I went and got some Chinese medicine for my pounding headache. It didn’t help.

Around 11:30, I walked about 4 km to the Forbidden City and did a self guided tour. People are sneaky around there. I had people telling me that they wanted to go to a tea house to practice English, then when the bill comes, it’s an outrageous price and they threaten to call the police if you don’t pay.

When I got inside the walls, a man was very intent on giving me a tour. Then he said the line was really long and if I had a tour with him, we could bypass the line. After much talking, I got him to leave me alone. When I got to the ticket counter, there were about 5 people in front of me. Bunch of scammers. Luckily, I’m not into falling for these things

The Forbidden City itself was pretty cool, but my headache and the heat distracted me. It is old and had big buildings, with big open spaces. It had a really “forbidden” feel to it. The Imperial Garden was probably my favorite part. I walked through a gate to see more, and realized that I had exited out of the back of the city. A sign behind me read, no re-entry.

On my way back to the hostel, I stopped by a book store and found the three English books that they had, and bought something by Faulkner. I might find more tomorrow in the international terminal when I get back to Beijing.

The big news for the weekend is that I booked my flight back to Yantai for the wrong date. Not sure how that happened, but it did. I got online and looked at my flight info. Today is the 16^th, and the flight was booked for the 19^th. I hopped on the China Air site and saw that the last flight they had of the day was at 5:45. It was 3:05. I was already packed, so I grabbed a cab and hauled ass to the airport. It turned out that there was one ticket left for the flight, and I got it!

I’m now sitting in the airport waiting for my flight, which is delayed by 45 minutes.  Now I just need to see about a refund on my other ticket.

Pictures will be posted Tuesday Evening, US time. I flow home in the morning!!!

Chris- Adviser Abroad China

Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com

www.flickr.com/photos/cschave

Well, I made it to Beijing today. We left the school in the middle of a torrential down poor! The roads were flooding bad, as Yantai has nothing in the way of water run off. It must not rain that much there. Some spot I could hear the water slapping against the doors on the van. We made it though. I flew out with the C/Katherines and our flight was delayed by about an hour I think. Couldn’t say for sure because I really never looked at the time. The flight did go quickly. I am pretty sure the pilot had the throttle hammered down the whole flight!

When I got to the the Beijing Airport I said goodbye to the girls. I was late for my check-in, so it quick. Now I am at the hostel and have booked a tour for the Great Wall in the morning. Good stuff. Lots of pics to post after that, I’m sure!

Chris out!

So this is it. I just got back from graduation and saw the kids for the last time, maybe ever. It is pretty sad to say goodbye to them, even the few that annoyed me a couple of times. The last day was pretty chaotic, but fun. Nobody wanted to do anything and I don’t blame them. I won’t miss making lesson plans, or even teaching, but I will miss the kids. Most of all, I will miss Tom. He was my star pupil and reminds me of a Chinese version of me when I was his age.

Tonight, we will have a teacher and faculty dinner, which are always fun. I have some more pictures to edit from the graduation and I will do that tomorrow on the plane to Beijing. I will have one or two more post for this trip, and on the way home I will write a reflection of the entire trip and post that. For those that have followed my blog for the past three months, thanks.  I’ve had a blast having all these experiences and writing about them.

Chris- Adviser Abroad China

Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com

www.flickr.com/photos/cschave

This last week has been good with the kids. My extended family has had a rough couple of weeks though. My cousin Micah passed away last week. I haven’t spoken to him in years, but I will still miss him. He was a great, kind person, and my heart goes out to the rest of family and his friends.

On Saturday, my other cousin’s husband went for a bike ride at 8 AM. He never returned. After 4 days, he walked out of the woods and found a ride home. I’m not sure the details, but I’m glad that he is back with his family.

For me, the week here has been good. The kids are ready to finish school and start a four week vacation before their actual school year starts. It’s hard to keep them focused. We had an English play contest last night at school, and my class got the most creative award.

After the plays, we went to the beach and got dinner. We ordered 4 plates of shellfish, and it was awesome! It got kind of cold, so we went back to our rooms and watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

I think I will miss going to the beach. It’s so close here.

Today went well. I let my students have a paper airplane contest for the last five minutes of class. It got a little out of control when they started throwing them out of the window.

After school, I had to sit on a panel to decide who would be the MC of the graduation on Friday. It was tough when we had to tell one of them she didn’t make it. I felt like I was firing people on the Apprentice. Your FIRED!

Tonight, I have to go watch a movie with the kids.

Chris- Adviser Abroad China

Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com

www.flickr.com/photos/cschave

This weekend was pretty good. We went to a Korean restaurant on Friday night then bounced over to KTV (karaoke). This would be our debut of  Xi shua shua. We had rehearsed this last week and are even contemplating making a music video. One of the Chinese guys that went with us kind of hogged the selection list. It was still pretty fun. We ended up getting back early and we were all pretty tired, so we went to bed.

I woke up early Saturday and worked on some random stuff I had to get done. We didn’t really do a whole lot during the day. I went to the beach with the K/Catherines. We all went to a Irish Pub for dinner and stuck around for some pints.

Sunday was pretty fun. We went to a lighthouse and saw a bunch of stuff downtown. The pictures should tell a lot more and will be posted later today hopefully.

Chris- Adviser Abroad China

Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com

www.flickr.com/photos/cschave

This is my work journal that I have been keeping

8-2

I’m trying to think back to when I was the same age as these kids. Were Mondays always boring and tiring? Is it me that is boring and tiring? I hope not. So as this may imply, the kids just weren’t into it today. Honestly, it is much harder for me to be exciting when the kids don’t seem to be excitable.

Over the weekend we went to Dalian. It was a great time with the exception of a bout with sea sickness that I lost pretty badly on the way there. Last night, we got back pretty late, and I was a little tired this morning, but a stout cup of Joe woke me up pretty well.

This afternoon, we had an western food festival for the children. They made potato salad, fruit salad, cookies, and a few other western dishes. Unfortunately, I just got to monitor. The cookies smelled great, and I haven’t had good cookies since leaving my parent’s house two and a half months ago. I normally don’t even like cookies, or sweet food for that matter. I hope I don’t get fat when I get home from gorging myself with all the foods that I miss.

8-3

The kids in class were in for a treat today, or so I thought. Last night I had come up with what I thought was a great lesson plan. This morning I taught my class about the 7 natural wonders of the world. I even came up with a list of vocabulary and everything. Well, it turned out that they thought it was a little boring. I would say that I had the attention of two of them consistently throughout the class.

Here I am trying to be creative and help them enjoy class a little more, and they straight up said they were bored. It’s all good though. I’ll just come up with something more exciting for tomorrow.

We also found out today that our student evaluations come out tomorrow. I am not worried about mine, but I don’t think that one of the Canadian ladies will do that well. Her students complain to the younger teachers that all she talks about is women’s curling and herself.

Today marks two weeks until I fly home. I’m excited to get back. Though this program is only a month, I have been here for two and a half months, and I am ready to get back. Everyday I have a very slight stomach ache and I know it is from the food, and probably digesting a little bit of the tap water each day. All in all, today was a good day.

8-4

I had a great day up until the afternoon. I called my father over Skype during my lunch and found out that my older cousin had passed away during the morning. This made me pretty upset so when I went back to school we just watched movies.

After classes, we had to have conversation period. It actually got my mind off of the depressing news. I really don’t feeling like doing much now…

8-5

I feel a lot better today. I’m still not happy, but better. My homeroom was okay today. They just didn’t feel like learning. Since I’m not an experienced teacher, I don’t know how to approach this situation. I think I had them getting more excited toward the end of class though.

For the afternoon periods, I tried to teach them about the solar system. The first class didn’t care at all. The second class seemed to like it, so I taught them more about the planets. I like when lesson plans work well, but when they don’t it’s frustrating.

After classes, there was a speech contest. The contestant from my class was great and he got first! I was very happy for him. The other judging however, was horrible. Second and third did not deserve any awards… Not to be mean, but they were really not good at all!

In my personal life this week, not a whole lot has happened. I am making more and more plans for when I get back to the states. I am planning out my eating schedule for the first few days when I get home.

I have made arrangements for my final few days in China. I will be flying to Beijing next Saturday morning. This wasn’t the original plan, but the soft beds on the train were sold out. Can’t say that I am too sad about not taking a 14 hour train.

In Beijing, I will be staying near the Forbidden City and Tian Na Men Square. It should be a good weekend. I’m hoping to see the Great Wall, Summer Palace, and the Forbidden City.

Next Monday, I will fly back to Yantai at 10:55 PM, then wake up the next morning and fly back to Beijing at 11 AM. Air China would not let me just fly out of Beijing, so now I have to make two additional flight. Weak sauce!

Tuesday I will fly back to Portland!

Chris- Adviser Abroad China

Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com

www.flickr.com/photos/cschave

Every time I travel this happens to me. About two weeks out from going home, I start making plans with people for when I get back.  This makes me excited to get home. Then, I start getting annoyed about things that didn’t bug me before. In Iceland this happened, but thinking back, it didn’t in Europe.  The people in China are starting to bug me.

I understand that they may not see that many white people, so I don’t mind everyone staring at me a little bit. Last night when we were waiting to get off the ferry, two Chinese couples just stared at us and laughed for about twenty minutes. I just put my headphones in and ignored them. I guess there is a difference between curiosity and being rude. To me, this was the ladder of the two.

The bad thing is that now I am annoyed just by people staring at me for extended periods of time. Now I know how the elephant man felt. Or even Cher for that matter. I’m not sure which one is more hideous. My money is on Cher, gross!!!

School went pretty slow today. It’s hard to get twenty kids to be excited about learning about past participles.

Yesterday, the ride back on the ferry went well. I read a book called Killing Yourself to Live, by Chuck Klosterman. The book is about Chuck traveling the country visiting places where rock stars died.  The reason for this adventure is so he can write a story for Spin Magazine.

I remembered something that I have felt for a very long time as I read this; I am very annoyed by people that know way too much about music. It gets on my nerves when people compare everything to a song, or an album. These type of people are some of my least favorite people. Another thing that I dislike about them, is that they generally have ZERO musical ability, yet they praise and critique people with talent. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book. However, a few chapters were heavy on the musical talk. If it would have taken me more than three days to read, I don’t think I would have finished it.

ANYWAY (something ol’ Chuck does a lot of in his book), The boat ride was long, but I did get a lot of work done and I am on schedule to finish my internship paper this weekend.

Chris- Adviser Abroad China

Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com

www.flickr.com/photos/cschave

I’d like to write about the beer festival while it is still fresh in my mind… Crazy, out of control, amazing, fun… All words that describe tonight.

First, let me say that Chinese people can’t drink a lot without getting very drunk. I guess they don’t have an enzyme that breaks down alcohol. I saw a lot of craziness, and a lot of puking.

When we arrived, we went into the first tent. These tents held easily over 1,000 people. The man on stage looked to be about fifty, but he was dressed like a fifteen year old Brit punk girl. We picked up a round, and watched the madness ensue. Though the front portion of the crowd seemed to be pretty lit, the rest were still tame. That mood changed, but I will get to that later. Moving on…

We went to an outdoor stage area and there were about six girls on stage dancing. I went to stand on a bench and it broke. I walked away like nothing happened. This was where we our first contact with a group of Chinese people. One guy, Steven, was pretty drunk. He almost spilled beer on my camera. I was sober, so I averted disaster. After cheersing a few time, we moved on. Next, was the Paulener tent.  Not sure if that is spelled right, but I’m not too worried about it. They had a German band. I can get this back in New Braunfels, TX, so we didn’t stay long.

After leaving there, we went to the Tsing Tao tent, but we quickly learned that all tents would cost money to sit at a table. The minimum for most was about 300 Yuan. Jog on… We continued that walk around until we got back to the first tent. Things had escalated fast. I saw guys spraying beer all over. There were glass bottle breaking, and basically, it looked like a scene out of Roadhouse. I got in the mix and took some pictures. We’ll see how they turn out. It was pretty awesome though. The girls weren’t into it at all, so we went back to one of the earlier stages. After standing for a while twiddling our thumbs, we were invited to sit with some Chinese people. They loved America!

Turned out that they were kind of pushers. This means that that were trying to get us to drink more with them. Nothing bad, but I was really full and not looking to increase the size of my man tummy. That is a funny word, tummy. Long story short, I had four beers and got some good pictures.

Once finished with them, we decided to walk one more lap. The highlights include seeing scorpion, tarantula, and other bugs on sticks. The scorpions were not all fried, some were alive in a bowl. GROSS! Another thing we did was finding some Churros. The man working the booth was very gay and gave me free chocolate. I gave nothing…On the way back we were looking for a taxi. One guy said 100 Yuan. We paid 28 to get there. We found one for 50 and took it… Good night!

I’d like to point out one thing. I know on this trip I have written about going to bars quite a bit. Like Anthony Bourdain, I believe that there is no better place to meet people and learn about their culture than at a bar over a few pints of beer.

Chris- Adviser Abroad China

Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com

www.flickr.com/photos/cschave

Oh sweet mother of pearls! We got on this ferry about an hour ago. Barely moving  now, but we’re on our way. I got a first class ticket cause I’m a baller, but the girls got a 4^th class room. Sad… Catherine and I went up stairs to get a beer and we were met by some Chinese men who insisted that we sit with them. To appease them, we sat. After quite a few rounds of bijou, I went to my room. I puked. I hate bijou soooo much. It’s sake times 20. I’m going t bed now. So tired…

Next day

I awoke around 3 in the morning with an upset stomach. This was not due to the bijou, rather the boat rocking throughout the night. As many of my friends will attest, I have a fairly weak stomach in general. My parents love telling a story about the time I had spaghetti on a vacation, and when we were driving through Central California, I puked with such intensity that it hit the windshield. Needless to say, sometimes I get motion sickness. I probably threw up about 5 times throughout the morning on the boat. Once I got off the boat, I met up with the girls and we got on a bus to downtown Dalian. Luckily, Kristen had a grocery bag because I utilized it. One of the drawbacks was that it had a small whole in it. I had just drunk water, so that was mostly what came out, but it got all over my shorts. Gross…

Throughout the rest of the morning, I had quite a few more run-ins with the hotel toilet, as well as a few stops on the side of the road. I was finally able to get some water to stay down. I felt confident that I was good to go, so I got a caramel Macchiato from Starbucks. It was good, and after, my throat felt a lot better.

Today, we just walked around to a bunch of different shopping centers. I am looking for some more Lacoste shirts, and after this morning, a new pair of shorts. Tonight, we will go to the International Beer Festival! I am going to take a nap now. I’m pretty tired after last night’s adventure…

Chris- Adviser Abroad China

Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com

www.flickr.com/photos/cschave