And you thought America was a melting pot - pffft.

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2 blogs in 1 day!!!!!! *Rick Flair* WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! So last time (5 min ago for me) I blogged, I saw the Temple of Heaven, got sick like a boss, and got hit with some hilarious racism (it makes more sense if you don't think to hard about that last part).

And now for the "thrilling" *cough* conclusion of what I did friday night:

July 1st: Just kidding, I didn't get to talk about the acrobat show! So CET loaded up on some busses and headed to a Chinese acrobat show. The show was rather fun, and they had a bunch of different stuff from tight rope walking (which was probably the best I've seen anywhere), a bit of devil sticks, people that had these things that were two small weights at the ends of some long ropes (least favorite part), Chinese yo-yo's, some crazy balancing acts with people who I don't think have spines, balancing acts that involved chucking little girls in the air at lead 3 stories high, a cool juggling act that was done on a stage that acted like a drum, so he was doing a tap dance show at the same time, and my favorite was the umbrellas. So this girl basically laid on her back and took some old school chinese umbrellas and balanced/span/flipped them with her feet/toes. So I'm sure your thinking, "ok, that's cool and all umbrellas can have a large handle and the umbrella has a huge surface area, so it's not that hard." and yeah, that's a decent point, except half the time she was catching them ON THE BRIM OF THE UMBRELLA. Oh, and did I mention she was doing two at a time? Was mind blowing. Also remember that all of the stunts were done with none of the safety equipment (or regulations) that the US has. It was a cool show, but sadly this is one of those things you just gotta see, words won't do it enough justice.
And then that night, I decided to *Que drum roll* ... Go to Karaoke! Yeah, me and singing never go well together but I did it anyway. So twenty of us (mix of roomies and Americans) went out to a local KTV place (KTV = place to do karaoke) and rented a room, which is cheap when you have 20 people, and they had a free buffet, so I was in a happy place. I didn't sing but it was fun to listen to people sing, and dance w/ some friends. One of the roomies had an amazing voice, like we all thought the voice was the video (it was a chinese song) until she paused for a breath when there should have been words and we were stunned. But all and all it was a good time and we had a lot of fun.
Quick side note: this weekend was the weekend I started making really good friends with some of the UNC CET'ers. Friday I spent a lot of time with Robby the Dos and his now girlfriend Megan. So a bit more about Robby the Dos: He's a military guy who's done a bit of service, was at App state, came to UNC, and is doing CET for a whole year. He's a cool guy and we've gotten along really well. Side Note, Megan is also legit.

July 2nd: Not much happened besides me resting up because a)Karaoke/Dancing to Karaoke is hard work and b) Polishing off that whole being sick thing. Though it was CET/UNC'er Ian's Birthday so me and another CET/UNC girl Aja went out with him for a birthday dinner. Both are from Charlotte. Aja (rising senior) is big into music and is in the Marching Band though not a music major (Econ I think). Ian (rising sophomore) is a Spanish, Chinese double major (dog gone, I can barely do English or Chinese). They're both also really cool, and I've been chilling with Ian a lot recently. So of course since it was his birthday, we + Ross went out to Sanlituan (pronounced sanlituar with a Beijing accent) which is a large shopping area with a lot of nightlife as well.
So while I'm not going to focus a lot on the drinking aspect of the night, I will bring up this story cause it's funny and kinda another peak into chinese culture mashed with "American" culture. So one of the main streets in Sanlituan is lined with a bunch of small clubs that are either a) small bars with a group singing or b) well, you'll see in a second. So as we were walking up the street looking for a place to chill and grab a beer, a bunch of people are outside of their respective clubs trying to flag people to theirs. A decent number of them were the type b where they would call out "pole dancing, strippers, sexy dancing" etc. of course we didn't go to one of those clubs, but the club we sat outside of was next to a type b club. And every club (a or b) had open windows. So when we passed by the b club nest to the a club we chilled at, there was some girl doing some pole dancing or w/e. So we sat down, and after 5 min, we hear some MJ coming from the b club next door, so I lean over for a look, and instead of w/e girl was there before, there was now an MJ impersonator singing and dancing on stage, and while he wasn't stripping or doing anything crazy with the pole, he was using it for a spin or two. (Note, this is all within a 5 second look before I went back to my beer).
Now I find this funny because a) Chinese LOVE MJ. Love him to death, even when my roommate dance, he throws in some MJ moves and b) This is a perfect example of clash of "american culture", Chinese culture, and just trying too hard. First you have a girl "stripping"/pole dancing which of course is an attempt to try to attract sleazy foreigners (can't blame them) but from the quick first glance, it didn't seem like there was any real stripping or anything going on w/ the girl (point being is that the club kinda missed the whole point). And then when you have the MJ impersonator, a) Mj is great and all, but also seriously out dated - the perfect example of "america", Chinese, and just trying too hard. Honestly, a good bit of modern Chinese culture feels like a blender of america and gimmicky stuff. Perfect example, I saw a guy wearing a T-shirt that was an Adidas T. Fine, but under the Adidas logo was a picture of a storm trooper from Star Wars. Again, a blender of American culture + a twist of gimmick. Though honestly, with some of the weird advertisement mash-ups in America, I really can't blame them.
So to make a long story short, we ended up meeting some other CET students (including Robby the Dos) and Ian had a good 20th birthday.

So I'm starting to run out of words again, so I'm going to save Sunday for the next blog (you get 3 today!) and mention some other stuff real quick
Every Monday I've been taking Kung Fu classes from 5-6:30. So as of right now, I've started learning how to use my fists, a 6 ft bamboo pole, and double knives (teehee!).
Also, this upcoming week is Midterms so It's going to be a toughie, but apart of that is I decided to opt of of the oral part of my midterm by entering a speech contest. The winners from CET get to compete in a Beijing wide one against other University students who are mainly from Ivy league schools. I'm going to be doing mine on the problems of Chinese who's native tongues are of minority dialects, and problems with their education systems (I'm translating a paper I've already done for UNC). too bad my chinese is about as good as a 4th graders, and not a college students.
http://www.google.com.hk/imgres?imgurl=http://files.sharenator.com/close_enough_Trying_to_lose_weight-s636x251-129434.png&imgrefurl=http://www.sharenator.com/Trying_to_lose_weight/&h=251&w=636&sz=37&tbnid=Vm3Yo4L3kGudUM:&tbnh=54&tbnw=137&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dclose%2Benough%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=close+enough&usg=__x0eFNYBWz2HWcrkjGEg29yWiA5w=&sa=X&ei=r1oYTof5Mcn7mAXv-pkc&ved=0CEMQ9QEwBQ

Next time: Drum and Bell Tower, my embassy doesn't care about me, and maybe the summer palace if I got time.
Stuff to think about:
Making UNC friends in China and not at UNC, qualify as ironic?
Do a lack of safety regulations increase or decrease the quality of an acrobatics show?
Make your own Chinese "American mash-up" reference, hang it on your fridge and see how many people ask if your kid did it for an art project. Or frame it an say it's a portrayal of the current status of American Culture (burn art world!)
--Robby

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