Hey Folks, This has been the week of all weeks. I've done a lot and think its all really worth writing, so I'll try to keep things brief. On friday after class some friends and I decided to go to Beijing's underground city museum. During the sixties, Mao Zedong felt that building an intricate system of tunnels under Beijing would be a fabulous idea. Not only was he afraid of nuclear attack from the Russians at that time, but he also thought that the future would not be on the sea or in space, but underground. Consequently, today the system [View Full Entry]

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Hey Folks, So this week has been an exciting one. First off, I wanted to start with more fun with language. My internship coworkers have lately been calling me "DaBai." This literally translates to "Big White," which I naturally thought was in reference to my last nickname, Small White. But I have since learned that "DaBai" is the name of a brand of shoe cleaner. Perhaps this is a metaphor for my whole life here. Anyway, my story begins with a long weekend. My friends and I decided we should spend two days and one night hiking a less frequented [View Full Entry]

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Hey there folks, Maybe its a testament to my learning more of this language, but I've developed a favorite word. My word of the day is "Li Hai." Li Hai is kind of like the English equivalent (cover your ears kids,) "badass." Parents, if you can think of an appropriate substitute after reading this, feel free to do so. Anyway, you can tell someone they are pretty li hai. I told a cabdriver he was li hai, who, after listening to a complicated set of directions in a poor excuse for command of his native tongue, pulled out a detailed city [View Full Entry]

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Thats right folks, I'm still in China. But as you can imagine, the adventures are never ending. I'm going to try to give you all a window into my world here. The study abroad thing is like a world in and of itself. Sure, we live in China, but its more of a hybrid world. Sure, we speak plenty of Chinese, but there is English spoken. Our native language is much better for cracking jokes than this new one. Suffice to say, however, I've developed a knack for multilingual humor... So, the Chinese word for potatoe, tu dou, sounds alot like [View Full Entry]

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Hello Again! So this morning, as I was dressing, I put a short sleeve t-shirt over a long sleeve thermal, as is the style of the times. I was immediately questioned by my homestay parents. "That little shirt belongs below the big shirt," they said. "You will be cold. Why are you doing this?" "Because," I said, "it is hen cool." Side note: In Chinese, the verb hen is the standard verb placed before adjectives. Sometimes it is translated as very, but most often it just means is. So, a sentance could be ta hen shuai, or He is good looking. [View Full Entry]

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So Hey there folks, Tomorrow I'm off to my internship, again. I don't think I covered much of that in my last letter. I'm interning for a Chinese advertising company called MLC. They are doing a story on Intellectual Property Rights here in China. As you can imagine, while the WTO has asked for those laws to be enforced, things are moving slowly. You might also be wondering, "Carl, given your mediocre Chinese skills, how, exactly, do you plan to hold a job in that country?" If you were to ask that, I'd say, thats a very good question. Despite the [View Full Entry]

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Hey Folks, Thats right, some American came to ZhongDian maybe a hundred years ago, and wrote in his very famous book that the city was so perfect, it must be Shangri-la. So, the Chinese, never ones to miss a beat, renamed the homely Tibetan city of ZhongDian, you guessed it, Shangri'la. Since then, tourism has boomed, and everyone is happy, except of course the Tibetans who lived their. As I have learned, even in the more developed parts of their invaded plateau, they still prefer to live in the countryside, raising their yaks, and praying, while entrapreneurial Chinese flock to their [View Full Entry]

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Hello Friends! I have just come from one of the most authentic cultural experiences I have had while traveling here in Yunnan Province, China. I am currently staying in a UNESCO World Heritage site, the ancient city of LiJiang. This is home to the Naxi people (pronounced Na - Shee), who were until very recently a completely matriarchal society. Some more secluded branches of the Naxi still are. That means the women are in charge, and in some cases they practice "Walking Marriages," where women do not marry, men roam from house to house, and children don't know who their [View Full Entry]

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Hello Friends and Welcome to the Year of the Pig, Its been an exciting week, believe you me. First off, my family and I are settling in to something like a routine. I get up at six every morning so I can shower and have a breakfast soup complete with dumplings, tomatoes, a green leafy vegetable, a poached egg and lots of little white shrimp. Sometimes I have about a dozen ping pong ball sized white (maybe mashed rice?) globules filled with a sweet bean paste in a hot broth. Its always very good. I've also developed enough of a [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everybody! Its been some time since I last wrote, I know, but the wait has been well worth it. This past week has been orientation week. Basically, it was the chance for everyone to make friends while still able to use their mother tongues, and, more importantly, had no school work whatsoever. It was successful, now we are all a happy group of twenty something's who have learned to party all over town. Yesterday, however, was the biggest day of them all. We moved out of our temporary dorm and moved in with our homestay families. Lets see if [View Full Entry]

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