Journey to the West

 It honestly surprised me how quickly the time to leave Chengdu rolled around. Although I knew I'd miss it eventually, at the time I actually got into Grace's car and headed to the airport, I was so excited about traveling and going back to England that I barely looked back out the window when we drove away. Cate and I had just enough time at the airport to get food at a restaurant with a delightfully Chinglish-y selection of signs admonishing patrons to stay mindful of their travel plans as they ate before we strolled along to our gate and took a short flight to Guilin.

 Guilin is located in Guangxi province, a part of southern China well-known for its natural beauty, especially the "karsts" or irregular limestone formations that dot the landscape there. Because we ended up getting to our hostel rather late, we fell into bed and decided to begin our explorations the next day, which started with a brief climb up Fubo Hill, a karst located in the city that offers unparalleled views of the surroundings.

 After descending from Fubo, we strolled around the various lakes and rivers that set Guilin apart from most Chinese cities, stopping for lunch and other assorted snacks along the way. It was a relaxing day, as we'd intended, and when it got too hot and sunny in the afternoon, we sat and read in a cafe until it was time for dinner. The name of the game was relaxation, after all!

 We'd signed up for a boat trip down the Lijiang River to see more karsts the next day, and it left late enough that we could have a big Western breakfast before it was time to go. I practically inhaled the coffee, which was a drink mostly absent from my life in Chengdu, and we both enjoyed staring out the window at the beautiful scenery as we made our way to the dock where we would cast off and spend a few hours on the river.

 As things often happen in China, the tourist-y experience was a strange mix of the historical and the jarringly modern. Traditionally, the boats that were punted along the river were rafts made of long tubes of bamboo, but now that they're outfitted with outboard motors, they're too heavy and must be constructed of PVC pipe instead. For some reason, I found this fact hilarious, but soon calmed down and enjoyed the two hour float along the river. In a somewhat strange turn of events, we even got to see a portion of the karsts that are immortalized on the back of the 20RMB bill...this was hugely exciting to the domestic tourists, but Cate and I honestly found the hullabaloo surrounding pictures there a bit much.

 We spent the afternoon riding rented bikes in the outskirts of Yangshuo, another beautiful city along the river, and we were absolutely exhausted by the time we made it back to Guilin. We went to a cheap restaurant around the corner to eat as much food as we possibly could before falling asleep at the table, and then slept a long night in our surprisingly nice hostel.

The next morning we saw two attractions: the Seven Star Park, which was an over-developed piece of land just outside the city that was notable mostly for its large population of monkeys, which we got up close and personal with on one of the less-traversed trails:

 And Reed Flute Cave, a huge limestone cavern with beautifully intricate rock formations that are inexplicably lit up with a variety of neon-colored lights. I found it so strange that this beautiful natural feature had been lit up like a psychedelic pop art experiment, but it definitely made for some pretty pictures:

 We'd planned a few days out in a more rural area called Longsheng, so we packed and rearranged our bags to ease the next morning's journey. You see, getting out to Longsheng is no walk in the park: first, one must take a two and a half hour bus ride. Then, one must take a half hour hike to bypass the portion of the road blocked by a landslide several months ago, THEN get on another hour-long bus, and then (if one selects a less expensive hostel) hike 45 minutes seemingly straight up the side of a mountain with all of one's bags.

So Cate and I set off on this epic journey at 8 am, and finally arrived, sweaty, tired, and peeved, at around 2. That said, the journey was pretty worthwhile once we saw the beautiful views from our hotel room. The area has been named a UNESCO world heritage site because of the beautiful terraced rice paddies, and our hostel had a huge front porch that was perfect for an afternoon of sitting and reading, which is exactly what we did, pausing at regular intervals to enjoy the sweeping views.

 We woke up late the next morning and hiked still farther up the mountains, to an amazing lookout where we spent a long time, enjoying the views and haggling with an old man selling art to buy a souvenir. Then we wound back down to the village, where we ate eggplant that we'd seen the cook clamber down into her garden to pick and had another lazy and scenic afternoon.

We retraced our many steps back to Guilin the next morning, and took another long stroll around the other part of the city that we hadn't yet seen until it grew dark. Our last day we'd firmly resolved to do nothing but enjoy ourselves, so we took advantage of the favorable exchange rate while we still had it and had a foot massage and a full-body massage! We also enjoyed fresh mango juice and delicious local snacks, and still had time to pack and ready our things before we each started our journeys back to our next destinations (England for me, California for Cate).

All in all, my travels were a perfect mix of scenic, relaxing, and delicious, and just what I needed before returning to England. But that, as always, is another story for a different day.

Friends, New and Old

In my last two weeks in Chengdu,  I've been lucky enough to welcome two of my friends from Oxford into my apartment here, which has been a welcome change from what has often been a rather solitary and sometimes lonely summer. Then again, coming this close to the time when I'll be leaving China for at least a year has made me more than thankful for the amazing people I've been lucky enough to meet here. Always an extrovert to a fault, it is often the people I'm surrounded by and get to interact with that make me the happiest, and this summer has been no exception!

Before Melvyn and Cate arrived here, however, I had several interesting adventures that are worth relating. First, I went with my friend Vicki and her college roommate Xiao Li to a type of restaurant that, although famous in China, isn't very well-recognized in the Western world. You see, China has a surprisingly large Buddhist population, especially in the southwest portion of the country, and many devout Buddhists are vegan because they don't believe in injuring any animal for their own consumption or enjoyment. Therefore, there are restaurants that are entirely vegan, but perform some sort of wizardry on tofu and vegetables to make them taste and look like meat, texture and all.

Since Vicki knew I don't eat meat and we'd joked about how difficult that makes life in Chengdu, she took me to one of these such restaurants, and IT. WAS. AWESOME. I confess that I've sometimes scoffed at vegetarians who try to pretend they're eating meat when they really mostly get poor soy substitutes, and while I do still enjoy eating vegetables that are delicious for vegetables' sake, the "fish" pictured below, which was complete with a crispy seaweed skin, almost changed my mind. Everything was absolutely delicious, and I think I ate more in that one meal than I have in several other days since I've been in China.

 After the work week was over, I decided to cross another item off my shrinking Chengdu tourism list: the Wenshu monastery, which is located in the northeast corner of the city. It's been operating as a monastery since the Tang Dynasty, and is famous for its peaceful gardens and intricate architecture. Although I braved the rain to make a visit, it was absolutely worth the damp hair and soggy toes for the sense of peace that pervaded the entire complex, and I spent several hours strolling through and enjoying the quiet (as well as taking some pictures).

 After the monastery, I grabbed lunch and did some shopping, then treated myself to an incredibly cheap Chinese pedicure before getting dinner and heading home to watch a movie. All in all, it was a lovely day, full of the exact type of relaxation I felt like I'd been needing.

On Sunday morning, I had a surprise at church. One of my friend's Grace's friends was in town from Xi'an with her family, and they turned out to be an adorable bunch. There were two little boys, who proudly told me in English that they were "Ian" and "Chris", and then chattered happily along with me in a mix of English and Mandarin all through lunch. Their little sister, a baby fondly nicknamed "QQ", was just the type of roly-poly little infant that everyone likes to play with, and I was so happy when they invited me to their apartment after lunch to play with the children and join in on a prayer meeting. I even got to read the boys a Bernstein Bears book that offered both English and Mandarin on each page...it was quite funny to see that the same books I'd read when I was the boys' ages were available in such a foreign context. I've always loved children, and getting to interact with them is one of the things I miss most at Oxford; the funny thing about living in a town dominated by a university is that everyone is either students or eccentric professors, so that's not conducive to many babysitting gigs.

The next week at work seemed to drag by, as I basically counted down the hours until Friday night. I'd been planning all summer for my friend Cate, who was taking part in a language program in Tainan, to fly in on that Sunday for a week in Chengdu and then a week of travel through Guangxi Province in southern China, but I'd also been pleasantly surprised when Melvyn, another Rhodie who was in Beijing conducting research as part of Oxford's Masters in Public Policy, had offered to fly down for the weekend as well and join us.

Finally it was Friday, and I waited until it was time to head to the airport to pick up Melvyn. Things didn't exactly start as planned: when I went to the terminal to pick him up, I mixed up his flight number and waited for him in the wrong waiting area, and then when we got back to my apartment and I showed him to the extra room I'd prepared for him, we were greeted by a huge spider (we're talking 3 inches, seriously) that scurried around the room with surprising speed and took almost an hour of furniture moving and shoe throwing to finally kill. We were still able to make it out to grab a drink together and catch up before his long flight and my habitually early bedtime caught up with me and we headed home to bed.

The next morning we woke up early in order to get a jump on the thousands of Chinese tourists who flock to the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Center every Saturday. On the way out the door, I noticed a rather large and growing puddle in my living room, but chalked it up to a leaky window or some other small nuisance and resolved to take care of it when we got back.

I'd already been to the Panda Center last time I was in Chengdu, but considering that it was four years ago and in January, I was excited to be able to go back. Melvyn and I stopped for a large American-style breakfast at one of my favorite Western restaurants in Chengdu, and then still managed to make it to the Center before 10, when the pandas are said to become much more lethargic and take their mid-day naps.

We watched pandas of all ages and sizes eat, tumble, and waddle about, and we were both spellbound. Although less active, the pictured panda was my favorite, because we thought his pose made him look as if he was having an existential crisis, or at least thinking deeply about the questions of the universe, which was somehow quite funny to us at the time. Besides this guy, we saw probably thirty other Great and Red Pandas over the course of our two hours at the center, making it a truly lovely experience.  

 Melvyn had also expressed interest in going to see the Leshan Grand Buddha, another Buddhist relic from the Tang Dynasty that's a two-hour bus ride from Chengdu, so we jumped in a cab to head to the bus station the moment we finished at the panda park. We both snoozed on our various forms of transportation, but it was only early afternoon by the time we arrived, so we were glad that we'd have plenty of time to wander around what is admittedly a huge site. Granted, the moment we walked through the door we were subject to the type of D-list celebrity treatment that I've written about before. The many pictures with strangers were pretty standard, except for one notable guest that jumped in to take a selfie with Melvyn. Luckily, I was able to capture the occurrence:

 Finally, we made it to the main attraction, which is a two hundred foot tall statue of Buddha that dates from the 8th century AD. The sheer scale of it is enough to awe any visitors who make the trek, and here's a photo of Melvyn whispering sweet nothings into the deity's ear to prove it.

 The lines to climb down and stand at the Buddha's feet were literally hours long, so we didn't quite make the descent, but we still enjoyed walking around the miles of trails dotted with smaller statues, gardens, and temples for the afternoon. Before we started the journey back to Chengdu, we snapped a photo together with Siddhartha himself:

 By the time we made it back to the city, it was almost 8 pm, so we high-tailed it over to the amazing food court at the IFS center so that Melvyn could try some more Chinese delicacies, including noodles, fried rice, and beef, all washed down with fresh fruit juice. Then we meandered back through the busy downtown shopping areas to a subway station so that we could trek back to my apartment and catch some sleep before church the next day.

Melvyn was a good sport, and so he let me interpret the all-Mandarin church for him so that I could spend my last Sunday in Chengdu in a place that has meant so much to me while I've been here. We waited around for a while after church talking and saying goodbye to everyone, and then grabbed lunch before heading back to my apartment to meet Cate, who was flying in that afternoon. There were some logistical problems with communication, but we eventually found one another, and let Cate have a break to shower and change after her long day of travels, while Melvyn had a Skype call and I tried to figure out the source for the puddle in the living room, which was now encroaching on the hallway and was almost half an inch deep.

I left the puddle issue unresolved, and the three of us went to dinner with four of my friends from Chengdu at a restaurant that specializes in local dishes and offers a free Sichuan mask-changing performance. It was so nice to be able to unite my Oxford and Chengdu friends, and we had a great dinner together, which seemed to fly by. We then headed over to the Global Center, the massive building I'd visited previously, with my friend Thomas and Vicki, and strolled around until I could see that Cate was fading quickly, and then we brought everyone home to rest up.

The next morning I woke up at the crack of dawn to make sure Melvyn got a cab to the airport and got on his way without incident, and then fell back into bed to grab a few more hours' sleep before work. My main objective in the morning was to get the mystery puddle taken care of, and it eventually was resolved; it turns out there was some sort of pipe leak, but my apartment is now water-free and clean to boot!

Since then, this week has been filled with both wrapping up loose ends at the job and continuing to do touristy things with Cate, and it's crazy to think that tomorrow will be my last day in this city. I can't honestly say that I'll miss every bit of it terribly, or that I'm not excited to return to Oxford and the life I've built there, but this week has definitely made me realize once again how lucky I have been this summer. So here's to friends, new and old!

Tomorrow we leave to travel to Guilin in Guangxi Province for a week, so check in over the next few weeks for many more photos and stories from that experience.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Shirts Get Going

The August heat that has settled over Chengdu has brought a recurrence of one of my least favorite aspects of living in China: absolutely rampant shirtlessness. Now, I'm obviously not referring to female shirtlessness, and not even that among young people. No, in China, as the temperature rises, middle-aged and elderly men feel more than comfortable rolling their shirts up to reveal bellies of differing sizes (some of them quite impressively large), or even taking them off completely to stroll around as if nothing is amiss. For them, perhaps, it is nothing out of the ordinary, but for me, seeing an older man stroke his girth like a pregnant woman taking maternity photos is enough to kill my appetite on a daily basis. When I studied abroad, we jokingly referred to it as "Beijing Belly", but I haven't yet stumbled upon a suitably clever Chengdu name for it.

In order to wipe that mental image from your brains, let's discuss the more traditionally scenic aspects of Chengdu and its surrounding areas that I've been lucky enough to experience. You see, the short business week after I came back from Hainan was nothing remarkable; it was mostly filled up with writing up the advertisements and translations I'd promised, so time went by fairly quickly and it was the weekend before I knew it.

I'd previously been invited to join a group from my company on a trip to Songping Valley, an area in western Sichuan that is widely known for its beauty and minority cultures, but I'd had plans and had to decline. Ever since I'd seen the pictures my coworkers brought back, I had been regretting the decision, so I was ecstatic when I found out that another crew would be heading out for a weekend. I was less ecstatic when I learned that none of the people I'm close to in our office would be accompanying us and we'd have to leave at eight on Saturday morning, but I made it to the bus with time to spare nonetheless.

The trip normally takes 3 hours, but of course we were lucky enough to go on a weekend when the eight-lane expressway leaving Chengdu was under construction and had been reduced down to two lanes, so when I woke up from a 90 minute nap, we were still crawling through traffic in the outskirts of the city. I was relieved when we finally broke through and started moving at a good clip, but that quickly turned to dismay when the older woman across the aisle from me began vomiting from car sickness at five minute intervals, a feat that became impressive (but no less disgusting) when it continued for the entire two ensuing hours until we reached our hotel!

Needless to say, I practically sprinted off the bus into the fresh (and clean!!!) air and sunshine, and ate a sizeable late lunch (by this time it was almost 2). We then had just enough time to drop our things off in the hotel, a nice and surprisingly large one that the company purchased and refurbished about five years ago. Then we piled back on the bus and the woman began vomiting like clockwork on the admittedly curvy mountain roads. Luckily we only had about 15 minutes until we reached our first destination, a traditional-style Qiang village. The Qiang are an ancient people that have lived in the corridor between the Hans and Tibetans for thousands of years, and are considered fascinating for their somewhat matriarchal herding society.

That was about all I got to learn in the village, however, before I was cornered by coworkers wanting to take my picture. Unlike Beijing, foreigners are fairly rare in Chengdu (although every Chinese person like to remind me there are over 5,000, I've seen less than 20), and it's still a badge of honor to have a picture with or of one of us. When you add the fact that I'm pale, six foot two, and have green eyes, it's just icing on the cake. Sometimes I get annoyed at the constant bombardment, but the shy way in which the people asked made it clear that they'd be wanting to have a picture for a while, and I didn't want to be rude. So, I stood in this pose -which had been picked for me by one of the women -  for about five minutes, until everyone had their fill, and then they lined up to file in one by one and take single photos with me. I threw up peace signs and put my arm around the more excited ones, and it reinforced the (disconcerting, in my opinion) sense I sometimes get that living in China as a conspicuous foreigner is akin to being a very minor celebrity.

 Finally, the woman who had arranged the pose for me shooed everyone away and let me at least take a stroll through the village with her. Auntie Zheng, as I was to call her, is a 53 year old who has worked at the company for almost ten years, and the other workers defer to her with noticeable respect. She's also funny and kind, so I enjoyed our walk together, despite the fact that she made me stand under her umbrella to avoid the sun. No matter how hard I try, I cannot convince people here that Westerners enjoy the sun and aren't afraid of tans. For almost all of Chinese history, dark skin has been pariah to the Han, who associate it with rice farmers and other outdoor laborers. As such, modern day Chinese, especially women, avoid sunlight like the plague and get actively upset when I try to enjoy the feeling of the rays on my face.

After the village, we tried to go to a local Qiang peoples museum, but it was closed for an unknown reason, so we walked around the exterior and took more pictures until it was time to pile back on the bus to return to the hotel. We had about an hour before dinner, so I laid down and tried to find something on television, to no avail. For dinner, we were treated to a huge spread of meat dishes, thankfully interspersed with some veggie options and one delicious whole cooked catfish, a local specialty. As we ate, the leader of the trip asked trivia questions about the company and rewarded correct answers with assorted gift baskets of home goods, sporting equipment, and (for an unknown reason) laundry detergent. Even if I had known enough about the company to answer correctly, I don't think I would have participated due to the ruckus building at my table.

Auntie Zheng and her husband had brought a little surprise for the weekend: what looked unfortunately similar to an old oilcan that was filled with homemade Chinese moonshine. Upon first taste, I discovered it tasted something like a grease fire consuming an orchard of plum trees, so I tried to sip as little as possible at each toast that was made. Auntie Zheng's friends, the three bus drivers from our trip and two other men from the company, did not take the same approach, and as they became more red-faced, they decided it would be a good idea to teach me the differences between different Sichuan regional dialects...and of course, they all rolled up their shirts to reveal bellies. Needless to say, I was not the quickest of learners (I blame the incapacity of the teachers), but it was nonetheless a very entertaining meal!

After the food was finished, we headed outside, where a large square of tables had been set up around a central open area and a large barbecue pit. There was an entire sheep roasting on the spit, and while it cooked we were entertained by a group of dancers in traditional costumes performing Qiang routines and singing traditional songs. It was beautiful, and although I obviously didn't take part in the mutton-eating, that was apparently quite good as well.

 After the dancing, we took part in a traditional Qiang drinking game, which was extreme even for my American college experienced self. The women brought out two large vases, about a foot tall and filled with some sort of grains. Apparently alcohol is fermented in the vase for a year, and then a reed straw is poked through a whole in the top of the vase. A cup full of hot water is poured through the hole, until the liquid level is right up to the top of the spout, and then participants in the game have to drink through the reed straw while the women sing a song. After the song is finished, another cup of water is poured into the vase. If the water overflows the vase, it means that the participant didn't drink the equivalent of the full cup of alcohol, and they have to play again. If the water doesn't overflow and they drank enough, they are then tossed up into the air by a group of women (think high school cheerleading style).

Being the token foreigner, I was sure they'd make me play, and sure enough, I was second to go. I finished the challenge on the first try, thank goodness, but I saw some coworkers do it as much as three times before finishing. I can only imagine how terrible they felt Sunday morning! After the drinking game, people started singing songs in front of everyone, and no matter how hard I argued, they wouldn't skip me over. When one of the men finally said, "you can sing or you can dance!" I reluctantly belted the Star Spangled Banner, and then beat a quick retreat to my room before I was called on again.

The next morning we had to pack our bags before breakfast, and then we piled into the buses once again to drive an hour to the actual scenic area of the valley. This time, the roads were curvy and narrow and our driver's speed a little too high for comfort, so it wasn't just the woman across the aisle from me that was taking advantage of the car sickness bags! Once we got to the park, though, it was completely worth it. The moment we got off the bus, it looked something like this:

 The air was clean, and having been pent up in a polluted city for most of the summer, I was delighted for the opportunity to take a hike in clean air. We had almost two hours, so Auntie Zheng and I set off to explore the various trails. I was surprised by how willing she was to walk quickly and far, and we had a lovely morning exploring the woods, lakes, and small waterfalls. This was my favorite spot of the park:

 By the time we were set to meet for lunch, I was hungry from the exercise. Of course, the lunch they set out for us had next to no vegetarian options, so I ate some rice and a cob of corn, and then hurried over to a small store to buy a bag of peanuts so I'd have something to hold me over until dinner. I'd thought we were leaving after lunch, but people kept talking about "piaoliu". Now, I had no idea what this was, nor did I have a dictionary to look it up, so I just nodded and smiled and got onto the golf cart with the rest of my coworkers when we were prompted. Once they gave us the gear, however, I figured out quickly what "piaoliu" was!

That's right, white water rafting! Granted, this was Chinese style, where passengers just hold on to the inside of the boat as guides do all the work, but it was still fun (and quite hilarious) to see everyone squealing and screaming down the shallow river. I was surprised to find that the waves were rather large when we went, and I was half soaked by the time we finished! Luckily, though, we had time to sit in the sun and dry off before finally climbing back on the bus at 4 to head back to the city. On the way out, we passed women like these who were drying Sichuan peppercorns on the side of the road to sell:

 Although I hadn't thought it possible that the trip back could be worse than the trip there, it somehow managed to outdo itself. Not only was my stomach growling after the meager lunch of peanuts and corn, but the traffic was even slower coming back into town, and then our driver stopped at seemingly every neighborhood on the way into the city to let off various passengers. By the time I got back to my room, it was almost 11 pm! By that time, nowhere was open for dinner, so I ate the last of my precious peanut butter and some raisins, and went to bed still hungry. Don't get me wrong though: for all that I hated the transit to and from the valley, the scenery, clean air, and hiking was well worth the trek!

Last week at work was fairly monotonous, as I was working through translations for the new company website. Although translating from Mandarin to English is much easier than going from English to Chinese, it still gets quite monotonous after a while, so I had my share of headaches. Friday after work, I took my friend Jerry to a Tex-Mex restaurant in the city that's owned by a Texan expat. Although I think Jerry was less than in love with the beef burrito he ordered, I scarfed down a plate of nachos, a veggie chimichange, and a bowl of fried ice cream, and I was the happiest girl in the world! Not having Western food for 6 weeks does things to a person, especially one as deeply in love with cheese as I am.

I was looking forward to sleeping in late and visiting a Buddhist monastery on Saturday when I got a call that ruined those plans. At 10:30 (that's pm), my boss called to say that he'd just gotten out of a meeting, and that my presence was required at an opening ceremony for the waterpark at the Atlantis development. I'd heard about the ceremony, but hadn't planned to go, and now my relaxing Saturday was replaced by a 7 am departure time to get debriefed on the proceedings.

To top it off, I woke up to pouring rain on Saturday, so needless to say, I was in a foul mood when we arrived at the project. I was momentarily brightened by a cup of strong coffee, but when I found out that my role was to stand at the entrance and hold umbrellas for the guests as they arrived, that quickly vanished. Just to be clear here, it was REALLY raining. As in, they put out umbrellas to keep the rest of the umbrellas dry:

In typical Chinese fashion, so many guests were late that the opening ceremony started 30 minutes late, meaning that I'd spent a full two hours in the cold rain. Even in my less-than-optimal mood though, I could appreciate the hilarity of the opening ceremony, which was the exact type of over-the-top kitsch that I love about China.

The ceremony started with a series of dances, ranging from hula to Shakira to a more traditional Chinese one, all with crazy costumes:

Then, each of the executives got up and made windy and pseudo-inspirational speeches about the company, the country, and the waterpark. There was also a band that sang a popular Chinese song and (inexplicably) Adele's "Rumors", and finally a four-foot tall captain's wheel was brought up on stage. The Chairman of our group went up and spun the wheel, which then shot off confetti all over the stage and into the crowd. And just like that, the waterpark was open!

I'd hoped to be able to make my escape after that, but it appeared that all the executives were set to tour the park, and I was to go with them. Now, this was no walk-through...I witnessed each of the highest-level staff in my organization, comprising a group of the richest and some of the most powerful businesspeople in China, actually taking part in all of the attractions! The Ferris wheel, carnival-style shooting games, even bumper cars! It was a test of strength to keep myself from laughing as I watched the Chairman's wife ferry him around in a bumper car, head held high and regal as anything, throwing terrible glances at anyone who came close enough to threaten their plastic vehicle:

After the tour finished and a fancy meal was consumed, I did finally make it back to Chengdu to take a hot shower and curl up in bed before dinner, which was a Dongbei style dumplings restaurant. Now at least I can say I've been to the red-carpet opening of a Chinese waterpark, and no one can take that from me!

Sunday I went to church and then spent the afternoon with my friend Alicia at an area of town that has been refurbished to look like a traditional alleyway and is home to many delicious local snacks and small cool shops stocking interesting goods like sunglasses that bridge the gap between Lennon and Mickey Mouse Club:

And then Monday it was back to work for me! Two nights of this week are worthy of recounting, though. One was at a delicious restaurant on the banks of Chengdu's main river, which had beautiful views of the lights and the water, with the host of Saturday's event (who wants to improve his English):

And the other was a trip to the Global Center, which is one of the largest buildings in the world (it's 330 feet tall and over 2 km around, housing 18 million square feet of floorspace). Although it's home to two hotels, a waterpark, an icerink, offices, and Asia's largest IMAX theater, my friend and I just walked around the shopping portion, which was completely covered in beautiful stone and was spotlessly clean. Even this tall girl was impressed by the sheer size of it!

Hainan, or The Best Business Trip Ever

I know I hurriedly introduced the subject in my last post, but now that it's almost another weekend, I guess I owe a bit more of an explanation than an almost breathless conclusion/introduction.

So, as I said previously, last week was a doozie! Between the interpreting, meeting preparation, and actual meetings, I was looking forward to a weekend away from it all. That is to say that I was excited for a weekend when I wouldn't have to think about work, but little did I know that I would actually get a few days outside of Chengdu and all of its craziness.

My boss called me on Friday morning and told me with surprisingly little ado that he, along with the President and Vice President of the company, would be heading to Hainan from Saturday afternoon to Wednesday morning, and they wanted me to accompany them.

Now, a little background on Hainan. Located off the coast of Guangxi Province in the South China Sea, it is one of the most beautiful areas of China, and world renowned for its beaches, rainforests, and mountains. It has been developing rapidly since casinos were legalized there in the mid-1990s, and my company's real estate development division is in the process of building two major projects on its Western coast. Also, random fun Hainan fact of the day: the Miss World pageant is usually held in Sanya, one of the island's two major cities. 

The purpose of the trip was to have several meetings with the various firms on the project and local government officials, as well as see the existing construction on the Mumian Lake project, which is in the construction phase, and the site of the Qizi Bay Resort project, whose design has just been approved. My job was to learn as much as I could about the projects through the meetings, and then also visit the sites, take pictures, and write some English advertisements for the company to use internationally. That all sounded fine and dandy, so naturally I didn't protest as the flight and hotel reservations were made (surprisingly quickly).

I'd planned a lazy night on Friday, so it was the perfect time to spend packing and preparing by reading up on Hainan and the areas around the two projects. Then I had enough time on Saturday morning to do some reading and more preparation before the car came to pick me up and take me to the airport.

Our flight was at 5:30, so I'd planned on buying a snack before getting on the plane to hold me over until what would ultimately be a late dinner. My boss laughed at me when I told him I was going to buy fast food, and took me to the Air China business lounge, which apparently every executive in our company has access to. There was plenty of good hot food, fresh fruit, and even coffee, so I was overjoyed...especially when our plane got delayed two hours and we had to wait for quite some time. When we did board, I read about half a journal article before falling asleep and not waking up until we'd landed in Haikou, the capital of Hainan and the place we'd be spending our first night.

Getting off the plane, meeting the men from the Haikou office, and driving half an hour into the city was quite a process, and I was relieved when we'd checked in and I could relax in my own room. The hotel was lovely, with a shower blessed with water pressure and heat that my poor Chengdu bathroom can only dream of, so I took a nice long shower and then promptly fell into bed.

The next morning I spent in meetings, learning about the design of the Qizi Bay project. It's huge, with multiple hotels, hundreds of villas and apartments, and four high-rise condominium properties, but I was surprised by how much of the natural flora was incorporated into the design. The villas were incredibly opulent, so all I'm hoping is that I'll one day be able to afford to come back and try out the finished product!

We then went to Hainan hotpot for lunch. Due to the vastly different cultural legacy and traditional food style of Hainan, it was far removed from the oily spiciness of Sichuan, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the simpler flavors. I ate a ton, and then was given three hours to explore Haikou while my bosses conducted interviews for an open spot in the Hainan office. I'd made a list of possible things to do, but as things happen sometimes, a torrential downpour started right before I was set to leave, so I asked the driver to take me to the Hainan museum, which seemed like a safe (and indoor) bet. Unfortunately, the museum had been damaged in the previous weeks' typhoon, and was closed for repairs. The rain continued, so I took shelter in a cafe and drank more coffee while reading for a few hours. Not the best time way to explore Haikou, but a lovely afternoon nonetheless!

Around 4, we left to drive the two hours out to the site of the first project we'd be visiting, Mumian Lake. Everyone else in the car fell asleep, but I enjoyed the green countryside dotted with rice paddies, fruit orchards, and palm trees, so I happily stared out the window until we pulled into a small town by the beach to eat dinner. My bosses went to the restaurant to order, and I took a nice stroll along the beach as the sun began to set.

Keep in mind that every beach is different, and this particular public beach looked something like this:

 Obviously, overrun by chickens, scattered with fishermen's leftovers, and dotted by pipes spewing unidentified liquid is not generally how I enjoy my beaches, but I took a stroll nonetheless, and picked up some small shells and pretty pebbles. Then I picked my way back to the restaurant, which was right on the fishermen's wharf and served amazingly fresh seafood. Once again, I ate probably more than I should have, and took a nice nap on the remaining journey to the project.

Instead of going to the hotel, we went to the newly-constructed poolhouse at Mumian Lake and saw the premises (although the tour was a bit limited in the dark). Although I'd seen pictures, I was surprised at the lovely decorations of the place, which incorporated stone, wood, and water elements, in keeping with Chinese traditional notions of feng shui. I noticed everyone was waiting around for something, and I assumed it was just for our driver to go back to the hotel, but then a group of people that I found out were the architecture team filed in, and we headed up to a conference room.

Seeing as it was already past 9 pm, I was surprised when everyone settled in for a meeting. Apparently I'd missed the memo that the architecture team was supposed to do a dry run of their presentation for the next morning's meeting with local government officials, but that is just what proceeded to happen! I knew that Chinese business meetings sometimes went late, having experienced a 9 pm one myself, but this was something else. By the time everyone was satisfied with the presentation, it was past 11 and I was almost asleep in my chair. I did nap on the 20 minute ride back to the hotel, and then I fell into bed the moment I laid down, dismayed at the early wakeup call the next morning.

We met for breakfast in the lobby at 7:30, and ate a standard Hainan dish of rice noodles in soup with vegetables and eggs. Then we hopped back into the van to head to the local military hotel (which are common in China) for our meeting with the government officials. The mayor of the local town, several of his chief advisors, and one provincial-level official sat at the other side of the conference table as the architecture team and a group from our company's design division explained the Qizi Bay project, and then there was a question and answer session. I had trouble understanding the Hainan officials, since their dialect/accent is quite different from Sichuan or Beijing, but I enjoyed hearing the presentation, and it seemed to have gone well by all accounts.

After the meeting was finished (late morning), we went to lunch at the company cafeteria near the Mumian Lake site. That afternoon, we drove out to the site of the Qizi Bay resort, which is on the western coast of Hainan. The area gets its name from the small pebbles that dot the beaches, which look like Chinese chess pieces, or 'qizi'. Legend has it that there once were two immortals playing chess on the beach, and they became so engrossed in their game that they didn't take the time out to eat or drink anything. Seeing this, the local people brought them food and drink so they could continue their game uninterrupted. To thank them for the hospitality, the immortals scattered their pretty playing pieces on the beach once their game was finished, and Qizi had its name.

True or not, after clambering through the sandy woods in the tropical heat, I was relieved to see the beautiful, wide expanses of sand and clear water. Especially after the slightly disappointing beach experience of the day before, the clean, open beach was a sight for sore eyes! The design team members explained the plans for the beachfront to me, and then I had about an hour to relax on the sand. Although I was still wearing my business clothes from that morning, which precluded swimming or laying in the sand, I enjoyed exploring the various rocks and shells that dotted the shore, and wading in the shallow water.

After only about an hour, we had to begin the trip back to the hotel so that the designers could catch a plane back to Shenzhen, where their office is. So we trudged back through the woods to the van, and I promptly fell asleep on the way back to the hotel. I had a break before dinner, so I checked emails and watched some TV. Then it was back to the company cafeteria for another deliciously fresh meal of seafood and local dishes before I could fall into bed for a good night's sleep.

The next morning, I had to say goodbye to the architecture team, whom I'd really enjoyed getting to know better. We ate breakfast together, and then they started the trip back to Haikou for their flight back to Beijing. I waited around the hotel until one of the Hainan project managers could come pick me up to take me to tour the other project, Mumian Lake.

Mumian Lake is an almost thousand acre project that is already in the construction phase. It includes hotel rooms, apartments, villas, and an amazing range of amenities, including a golf course, multiple swimming pools, shopping, fruit plantation, and tennis. As of now, only the swim center and the model villas are finished, and the first three phases of apartments are under construction. So most of the tour involved enjoying the natural beauty of the place, which I obviously can't complain about, since it looked something like this:

Here's a picture of me in front of the lake, rockin' the sweet hat that the project manager gave me to wear (he was very concerned about my fair skin tanning, and after arguing for several minutes without being able to convince him that I wanted to be tan, I gave up).

The last photo is a picture off one of the balconies of the model villa, which as you can see, is designed to some pretty high standards. Being somewhat of an interior decorating nut, I was pleasantly surprised at the tastefulness of the design. Despite the fact that a large body of luxury housing in China is almost disgustingly overdone in golds and reds, the Mumian Lake concept is tropical and vibrant, with lots of wood and natural light, and I loved it!

I ate lunch after my tour with some of the local executives, and then I had several hours to wait before our trip back to Hainan. Per usual, the three hours turned into four and a half, but I was content in the air conditioned conference room. Of course, this meant that it was past dinner time by the time we got back to Haikou, and I was starving! I walked across the street to a small restaurant to get some food to go, and watched a movie in my hotel room until I fell asleep.

The next morning we had an early flight back to Chengdu, and I was both sad to leave the beauty of Hainan and excited to get back to Chengdu to tell my friends and coworkers about my journey. I have to admit that I was disappointed as I watched the plane dip back into the filmy smog over the city, remembering fondly the clear air of Hainan (which the WHO has shown is the cleanest in China and second cleanest in the world!), but it was surprisingly nice to settle back into my apartment and routine here.

Oh, one last thing before I get back to work for the day: for those of you who didn't believe me when I said that after-lunch naptime is a normal occurrence here, I took a quick photo yesterday around 1 pm of the office adjacent to mine. Don't you agree that this is a tradition we should institute in the US?!

A Taste of 'Merica

I love living abroad. I'm sure you've been able to gather that from what you know of my history, bouncing around the globe from place to place at every opportunity I get, but I truly do think that travel is addictive. If you've ever read one of my favorite books, Bewildered Travel by Frederick Ruf, or indeed have traveled to a truly unfamiliar place by yourself, you may understand as I do the value of being completely lost in a place, disoriented and in awe, depending only on your own intuition to navigate and explore. Ruf frames travel as a religious experience, which I think is true in the abstract sense. In a more concrete way, traveling to places that are truly different from the one where you were born and raised forces you to confront all of your prior convictions, even the things that you haven't even realized you were convinced of. Living outside of them, for even a short time, lets you question those convictions and discover that there are ways of life completely contrary and foreign to your own, and I think realizing that there is something powerful and beautiful in that is the deepest lesson that travel can teach. I often find myself pausing when in other countries (usually in large, bustling cities) to look around and notice that I've stumbled in on a completely different ecosystem from my own, another world with all of its own problems, triumphs, and defeats that has been functioning completely outside of my awareness before I came and will continue to bustle along after I've left.

Then again, another thing that traveling does is make you truly appreciate the things about home that you miss most while you're away. As counter-intuitive as it may seem to some people, I never love being home more than when after I've traveled to some spectacular location. To give a slightly silly example: when I was in Greenville over Christmas break, I think my parents became somewhat concerned about how moved I was by the great customer service we got nearly everywhere. This is typical of the polite, friendly Southeast, but is far removed from the brusque treatment given to customers at nearly every British establishment (that is one English stereotype that is almost completely true). That's not to say that I don't love living in Oxford; I truly do! Rather, having the cashier at Publix ask me about my week and compliment my blouse made me emotional because it was something I had never truly appreciated until I became accustomed to tight smiles and averted eyes at Tesco. Living outside America has truly made me a more patriotic American; not because of some lofty political insights, but because the less than stellar parts of living abroad have made me love the conveniences of being home.

Anyway, that's a long and uncharacteristically philosophic introduction meant to convey the fact that while I do love being immersed in other cultures and ways of life, I also appreciate the allure of home, even while I'm abroad. The past week and a half has been a true mixture of both, so let's start with the cool Chinese stuff first (since most of you are reading this from the comfort of highly-efficient American air conditioning!).  First, the week before this one at work was pretty run-of-the-mill, working on translations and researching various hotels and other possible investments for the company, but I did go to two interesting dinners that were completely foreign. On Tuesday, I went with two friends to a restaurant that serves traditional Sichuan-style food and also features a show of, among other acts, Sichan Opera, or mask-changing. The three actors all wore different painted masks (only one breathed fire!), and then they carried out a complex dance, where at intervals they would wave a hand over their face to reveal a different mask that had somehow appeared without explanation. It's a beautiful art, all bright colors and deception, and I had an absolute blast! After dinner, the three of us went into the Jinli district, an area of Chengdu that has been refurbished to look ancient and features ponds, lanterns, and other vaguely cheesy yet still beautiful details characteristic of China's past. It was crowded and overpriced, but was still an interesting after-dinner walk.

Later in the week, Mr. Chen and Florence invited me to dinner again, this time to a seafood restaurant. I love most types of seafood, but I was pleasantly surprised by the kind that this restaurant offered. When you first enter the restaurant, you have to first walk through a large room filled with fish tanks, which is where you order your dinner...right from the live fish, shellfish, eels, frogs, and other creatures swimming in the tanks! Here's a photo of Mr. Chen picking out a crab for us to give you an idea of the craziness of the experience:

When I was asked my preference, I told them to go ahead and order for us, so we ended up with crab, welks, small conches, and mussels, cooked in a variety of sauces and mannerisms. I ate far too much, but enjoyed every bit of the food, as well as the friendly conversation that always accompanies a dinner with two of the nicest people I've been lucky enough to meet in Chengdu. That night, I went to bed with a full belly and a happy heart!

Friday night after work, I went with a coworker to meet some of his friends to play mah-jongg. When I was in Beijing, I'd learned to play the rummy-like game with tiles, but the version played here in Sichuan is slightly different and played at a much quicker pace. My friends were also playing for money, so I decided to just watch, and for the first few games it looked something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIcxV-VOPlE . Although I slowly started to figure things out, I was still confused as to how the money changed hands, so I watched and drank tea and ate noodles rather than taking part.

The next day, I had no plans until dinner, and I'd decided to make it a very American Saturday. After being in China for two weeks with no contact with other foreigners, no coffee, and no Western food (except the peanut butter and Nutella I occasionally ate spoonfuls of!) I was long overdue for a taste of home. Again, there are some experienced travelers who would scoff at me, but I love America even more when I'm not at home, so I will scoff right back!

The first order of business was to take the subway into the very center of the city, where there is a beautiful Starbucks with surprisingly fast Wifi. I spent the morning sipping on an Americano, and I really do mean that I sipped: with the exchange rate, it cost about 4 US Dollars, so I savored every drop of espresso and hot water!

stereotypical Starbucks shot

I was reading scholarly articles that I downloaded for my DPhil research, but I took a break to help a nice Australian backpacker (and the first foreigner I've met here) get directions to his hostel. After almost four hours, I was hungry and ready for a break, so I strolled out onto the street until I found a McDonalds, and then allowed myself three of my guiltiest pleasures for lunch: fried chicken and french fries with Diet Coke. I spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around the shopping district of the city, people watching and window shopping in the expensive Western stores. Then I had enough time to go home and lay down for an hour before I had to get ready to go to dinner.

One of my friends at Oxford has an old friend (also American!) that now lives in Chengdu, so he'd helped us exchange contact info. When I told Ari that my Saturday was all about a taste of home, he told me about this small Italian restaurant that has sprung up in the city that was offering a tasting menu of authentic Italian food and wines that evening. Needless to say, I jumped at the thought of a formal dinner with wine to boot! The crowd ended up being a good mix of Chinese and foreigners, and the meal was absolutely delicious. Afterwards, we took a picture together in the small but undeniably Italianate restaurant:

Ari had also told me about a local bar that serves a variety of European beers, so we finished up the night with a trip there, where I had a pint of a delicious Belgian wheat beer. I didn't stay for long, since it was almost midnight and I had to be up early for church the next morning, but we met some friends of Ari's from Singapore, and I went to bed that night full, tired, and happy.

The next morning, I went to church with Grace and out to lunch with some of the friends from church, and then spent the afternoon with everyone at a furniture store owned by one of the church ladies. We sipped tea, nibbled on fruit, and relaxed, and I helped some of the children practice their English. It turned into a whole day, including dinner, and I had so much fun chatting with everyone and learning about their lives. Here's a picture of me with 'Jessie', a four year old girl who is practicing her colors (in Chinese and English), and my friend Alicia:

Then, all too soon, it was Monday again, and back to work. I do have to say that this week has been significantly busier than the last few, but I'll only tell two short stories.

The first happened on Tuesday. I'd been informed Monday afternoon that I was to go to a meeting at one of the Group's other companies on Tuesday, but hadn't really been given too much information about what it was. When I got there, I found out that representatives from a European company were coming to learn about the company and discuss possible future business ventures, which sounded interesting to me. Before they arrived, I was given a short introduction about the company itself and what they were hoping to do with the Europeans. Then, when the guests arrived, we sat down in a conference room and my boss's boss started speaking Mandarin and then paused and looked to me to interpret! Having been given no prior warning, I stumbled a bit at the beginning, but recovered and managed to convey most of the information on both sides for the first part of the meeting, which was just a general introduction, etc. This was followed by a technical explanation of the Group's products, which was blessedly interpreted by someone who knew a lot more industrial vocabulary than I do, but then I was expected to translate for about an hour on the projects for which the Europeans were looking for a joint venture partner, which included wind tunnels, of all things. Here, I started to develop a major headache, since I know very little about wind tunnels in English, and much less in Chinese! By the end of the meeting, which lasted all afternoon and included a dinner where my presence and interpretation was still required, I had a crushing headache and was more tired than I have been in a long, long time. That night, I crawled into bed around 7 and didn't even make it all the way through a movie before I fell asleep.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent preparing for a meeting with the Group's President and Vice President, who were in town and wanted to hear about my progress on the European hotels, as well as some other miscellaneous business I've been helping my boss with. As meetings in China tend to do, ours ran incredibly long, and I was asked to sit in on another discussion about a possible investment in the US, so I didn't end up being released from work until almost 9 pm! Which brings me to Friday, today, which is blessedly an easier day (hence the blog writing breaks). I did, however, find out that I've been ask to accompany the Group's President on a trip to visit the project currently under construction in Hainan, aka China's tropical paradise: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hainan+china&client=firefox-a&hs=eEr&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=fflb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=_7nRU6CeGYep7AbakoFQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=1142&bih=675 . Needless to say, I think I shall have some interesting things to report next week!