Where's Mulan When We Need Her?

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I'm not sure what Americans are doing this weekend, but we Chinese are sharpening our straight swords and getting some lucky crickets. We might even get Mushu to raise an anscestor or two if things get really out of hand.

Yesterday, at about 9 AM, I was awakened by something that sounded roughly like a really loud and close police siren. China doesn't really ever have cops out patrolling the streets (the rules of the road are more like general guidelines that can be violated whenever you want), so I was really confused as to what was making that obnoxious sound so early on a Saturday morning. Turns out China was in the process of testing the sirens that go off if Shanghai starts getting bombed.

This past week, all that's been talked about here is how China and Japan are on the brink of war. At first, just the Chinese roommates were talking about it and I figured it wasn't a big deal. But now, all of the news stations here are playing the same footage of China getting ready for who knows what. What scared me the most was that I registered with the US embassy before I left for China so that they would know I am here, and yesterday I awoke to find an email from them warning me about the China-Japan territorial dispute. The email was a warning saying that there will most likely be very violent protests in China very soon, and that even peaceful gatherings can "turn confrontational and escalate into violence. U.S. citizens are therefore urged to avoid areas of demonstratoins and to exercise caution when in the vicinity". I'm hoping that China and Japan can make it three more months before they decide to start bombing each other so I can get home in one piece.

In lighter news, it's finally official--Friday night I turned in my application for going to Kensington, Australia. There was a lot of back and forth debates about whether I should try and find a different program in South Africa or find a better one in Australia. I made a million pro/con lists and we even held a group debate here in China, but in the end Australia finally won. Anyways, I'll be spending these next three months going to the gym and practicing the ukulele so I can be in shape for Australia--I'm hoping to join the rugby team as well as the wakeboarding team, in between playing ukulele on the beach.

My roommate and I have been talking a little bit more. She and I set aside the last part of each day and she speaks in broken English to me and I speak in broken Chinese to her and we do our best to tell each other about our lives and cultures. I told her how one time my mom gave me sushi and told me it was chicken, and I stupidly believed her and she later told me it was eel. My roommate laughed and she said that her grandmother did the same thing to her. One day, her grandmother came home with a bunch of raw meat. They cooked it and ate it, no big deal. Afterwards, my roommate asked her grandmother what kind of meat they had just eaten, and her grandmother replied "dog". The kicker is that it wasn't just any dog, it was HER dog!!! Their dog had been killed, so her grandmother took it to the butcher and brought it back and they ate it! My roommate told me she went to her room and cried for hours until her grandmother came in and told her to suck it up. I almost died listening to that story. Everyone has been telling me that the Chinese breed special breeds of dog to eat, but now I'm pretty much convinced that they are serving unfortuntate stray dogs for dinner.

This weekend was a pretty relaxing weekend--the first time I slept a full 8 hours since I've been here. My roommate told me on Friday morning that I was "such a good student" because I go to bed after midnight and wake up at 6:30 every morning to continue studying. She explained to me that she thought all Americans slept until noon every day and didn't do anything once they woke up. I thanked her, neglecting to tell her that the only reason I am studying so hard is because my brain is not picking up Chinese as fast as my Chinese teacher would like. I also didn't tell her that for the first month of the summer before I left for London I slept until about 3 PM every single day, until my mom would come into my room and tell me to get up, at which point I would go down stairs and watch TV and take a nap.

Anyways, this weekend was a blast, as usual. Yesterday we went to the Shanghai museum of something or other--I think it was science and technology, although I couldn't tell because they also had polar bears. I know what you're thinking--I promised never to go into a museum again for the next 10 years after getting an overload in Europe this summer, but this museum was special. The museum was the most expensive one ever built in China, but more importantly, it sits on top of a huge underground market. We stayed in the museum just long enough to see the polar bears, and then headed down into the market.

I cannot even describe how big this market was. Imagine Valley Fair in the Bay Area, but only on one floor, and now quadrouple that. We spent six hours inside and probably saw about half of the market. There were countless shops selling millions of things, from pearls to jade to backpacks to shoes to iPhones and everything else in between. You could tell how fake the iPods and iPhones were because they all had the word "iPhone" or "iPod" on it, something that is not written on the real ones.

As soon as we walked into the market, we were bombarded by a million shop owners, some with business cards, all yelling and pulling us towards their store. It was so aggressive! They would yell things like "Lady, I have purse you want to buy!" or "Man, come see watch!" and we would yell, just as aggressive, back at them "bu yao!" (don't want). You literally had to yell or else they would drag you into their store (we tried ignoring them at first but that did not work at all).

We all kind of split off once inside the market. Rob and I went to go look for a backpacking backpack since we're planning on going camping soon and we want to be a bit more mobile for our upcoming travel week in two weeks. Rob, Thea, and I are going to Chengdu to see all of the baby pandas, and then travelling north to Beijing to do all of the super touristy stuff up there, like climb the Great Wall and maybe make a journey out to the Shaolin Temple. Anyways, it took Rob and I over two hours to buy a backpack. I think everyone in the market must get their merchandise from the same supplier, so it was not a matter of finding a backpack, but finding someone who would sell it to us at the price we wanted--100 kuai (16 USD). The problem is, they see that you're white, and the price shoots up about 600 kuai. We would go into a store and ask how much the backpack was, and they would be like 900 each. So Rob would go "No no no. You and I, we're friends. What is friend price?" and they would go, "OK, only for you, I say 600 for each bag". And Rob would somehow get them down to 300 kuai for two backpacks. And while we probably would have paid 150 each, we thought we could get lower. Two hours later, and after getting kicked out of two stores and being told never to come back, Rob and I were proud owners of two high quality backpacks, for which we each paid 125 kuai. Not bad when the starting price was 900. The shop owner wouldn't even look us in the eye as she handed us our backpacks, she was so mad.

We spent the rest of the time exploring the market. Rob wanted a painting, and I went up to the shop owner and said in Chinese "my friend likes this painting. How much?" And she gave me an answer, which I translated for Rob, who said "that's way too much!" and the woman replied in English, "no, your friend is Chinese--she speaks it perfectly. I just gave you the Chinese price, I can't go much lower" and Rob replies "yeah good luck talking to her" and which point I burst out laughing because Rob could not have said a more true statement.

After six hours of shopping, we took the metro back home. All of us were pretty tired and broke from the market (ironic that I think 20 USD is a lot, considering I spent the summer in London) so we grabbed some sushi and had a mini jam session before bed time. Not a bad way to spend the weekend.

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Photos

Cheese!!
We were almost as popular as the museum exhibits! The random girl in the middle asked Thea and I to take a picture with her.

Well It's Not Africa...
Sad that I won't be doing this in Africa, but this was a good substitution

New Backpack!
My old backpack fits into my new one with room to spare. So excited to use this backpack in the Australian Outback!

Babson
My sorority is going through recruitment right now back home. This is our lounge, which is normally filled with a rug, sofas, and a flat screen TV. Kind of glad I'm in China and can't help with the sand clean up.

Comments

[Dad]

Don't waste your time going to Shaolin
Chelsea, all the real monks are in shows at Epcot or teaching on Sunnyvale-Saratoga road next to the Japanese Italian place. I have two hours of video of my trip to Shaolin with the Wing Chun Club that you can watch from the comfort of the sofa from which you napped away your break. You can watch that show as its the same one they do on PBS. Dad