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!

Vegetarian: Old Word for 'Bad Hunter'

As many of you know, I have been cutting meat out of my diet for the past year and a half now. It's not for any political or ethical reasons; in fact, I have often been known to joke that, if you can catch it, kill it, and eat it, then that's natural selection at work. Rather, it's because I think the amount of meat in a typical American diet is unhealthy, especially given the growing problems with the quality of the meat itself due to the use of chemicals, hormones, etc. I had originally only planned to eat less meat, and become as 'oftenarian', as I told my friends, but I found that I felt better when I ate less of it, so the times I did imbibe became less and less frequent. Now, I've still been known to scarf down a Chick-fil-a sandwich on occasion, I still have no problem cooking meat for other people, and I would never try to convince a carnivore to make the same decision (I think everyone's bodies are different and therefore need different things), but I stick mostly to fish (preferably wild), dairy, and eggs nowadays.

That's all fine and well in the Western world, but in China, that decision makes me the strangest of exceptions rather than the rule. Eating meat, especially pork, has a long and illustrious history in Chinese culture. Traditionally, eating meat was a status symbol, since most Chinese people were peasants that subsisted mostly on grains and other produce and could only afford meat on the most special occasions. The word for 'pork' is actually the same word for 'meat' in the wider sense, and in today's China, it's in pretty much every dish, whether in chunks, strips, or ground into the sauce. China now produces 1/3 of the world's meat, and is the largest producer of pork. Interesting tidbit: of the pork farms in China, over 60% are single family farms with less than 5 animals. Other interesting tidbit: the population of pigs in China is twice the population of the United States.

So, I think I've proven the point that meat is important in China, but not to me. Needless to say, I was not surprised when, after I'd been picked up from the airport, driven to my apartment, dropped my stuff off, and dragged my exhausted and jetlagged body to the company cafeteria to eat my lunch, the chef placed three dishes down in front of me: fatty pork (which is like chunks of stir-fried bacon), thinly-sliced strips of beef, and a cabbage dish with pork chunks in it. Not wanting to be rude, I picked the pork out of the cabbage and ate that with the rice he'd also given me, and then I steeled myself to go have the inevitably awkward conversation with him. After I'd explained in Mandarin that I don't eat meat, watching his face get slowly more suspicious and confused, I waited for his response. He seemed genuinely concerned when he replied softly, 'But then...what DO you eat?'

After I assured him that eggs, fish, vegetables, grains, fruit, tofu, and pretty much everything besides meat were totally cool with me, he seemed reassured. And after I'd spent my first afternoon unpacking and buying necessities like water and clothes hangers, I came back to the cafeteria for dinner and was treated to this lovely sight:

Since that first day, everyone at the cafeteria has been amazingly helpful and accommodating, although I do occasionally have to answer questions like, 'Well, what about spinach? Do you eat spinach? Or green beans? Or tofu?' As if these things may somehow fall under my definition of 'meat', and therefore be off-limits.

I should probably also explain my living situation, to make this all make more sense. You see, the company I'm working for, the Continental Hope Group, provided me with an apartment for the summer. And a nice, large apartment at that! I have a living room, two bedrooms (although it is unclear why I need both), a bathroom, and a dining room...and a "kitchen". I use the quotation marks because the kitchen is literally a room with a sink, cabinets, and the place where a stove and oven once were. When they'd originally told me I could eat at the company cafeteria, I found it superfluous, since I love to cook, but once I saw the equipment (or lack thereof), I realized the cafeteria would be a necessity, not a luxury.

So over the weekend, I ate at the cafeteria, settled into my apartment, walked around the area to explore and find necessities like the nearest ATM, and counted down the hours until I would start work on Monday. You see, last weekend is probably the most alone I have ever been, in the truest sense of the word. I've traveled a lot, don't get me wrong, but I've always had my family, a school group, a study abroad program, or at least one other student or friend with me. But in Chengdu, until I started work, I didn't know a single soul, and I had an apartment to myself...which I have also never had. It was hard, honestly. I was worried that I wouldn't meet people, wouldn't like the ones I worked with, and then I'd have eight weeks just watching the clock until it was time for my friend Cate to come from Taiwan and travel with me. And to me, being extroverted almost to a fault, this was a scary thought.

Of course, that was not the case. I started work on Monday, and found that my coworkers are a friendly group, many close to my age, and some who even speak some English and want to practice with me. I'm working with the real estate division of Continental Hope Group, specifically with the team that is developing a luxury project called Atlantis that is close to Chengdu. I'm supposed to help them with their English outreach and advertising, plan some events for Westerners in Chengdu to get acquainted with the development, and help them look over proposals for different real estate investments in Europe and the Americas.

My first week went well, but it was an adjustment getting used to the pace of the corporate world outside of the US once again. I often say (only half in jest) that efficiency is an American concept, and it's true. When I worked in India, it took me a few weeks to figure out that tardiness was expected, tea breaks were often, and lunch breaks were long. In China, it is somewhat the same. People in my office tend to work from exactly 830 am to exactly 530 pm, and I've noticed that playing on phones and making personal calls is completely acceptable. Probably the weirdest thing I've seen so far is that it seems perfectly normal for coworkers to take short (and even medium-length) naps at the desks after lunch! A normal day for me in my first week involved sitting in on a meeting or two, taking a trip to see one of the projects or hotels the company owns in the area, and then reading a brochure or book about the company and its operations. Naturally, that didn't ever take me the whole day, so I was sure to bring books and articles to read for myself to stay busy the rest of the time.

Because it was the week of the biannual sales meeting, all of the company bigwigs were in town, so I was also treated to my first Chinese business dinner. With twelve of my coworkers (most of them the higher-up executives), we went to a traditional Sichuanese hotpot restaurant, which is sort of like a Chinese version of fondue, but much more intense. The center of every table has a large pot over a flame, filled with a salty soup and also a broth made with chili oil, and you cook the different items all together and then fish them out and eat them individually. Once again, my pescatarianism was brought up, as people were concerned I wouldn't eat food cooked in the same pot as meat. Once I assured them this was the case, they were then worried that it would be too spicy for me. Sichuan is the second-spiciest regional cuisine in China, and uses a special type of pepper that is what they call a 'mala', or tingling spice. I do indeed love spicy food, but the Sichuanese are rather proud of their singular spice, so people always seem impressed when I can actually handle the heat.

The rest of my week at work went by quickly, the high point being a trip to see the site of the Atlantis development, which is probably one of the most opulent developments I've ever seen (for a preview, check out the Chinese website here: http://www.dlatlantis.com/). Before I knew it, it was Friday, and I had a long weekend ahead!

On Friday night, I went with two of my coworkers to explore a bit of downtown Chengdu. We took the subway into the city (I live about 10 km outside of the center), and emerged in the bustling central shopping district. After walking around and admiring the large buildings, beautiful shopping malls, and general chaos that is a Chinese city, we went to eat dinner in a food court of a type that has become popular here. When you enter the court, you put a certain amount of money on a plastic card (looks like a hotel room key), and then you can gather various dishes from the different stalls. There were all sorts of foods, and I had sushi, shrimp dumplings, and fried rice, along with some deliciously fresh mango juice. We also made what I always call a 'pilgrimage' to Carrefour, which is a French chain that is pretty much the only grocery store that stocks Western foods from recognizable brands. Now, I love Chinese food, don't get me wrong. But anyone who has lived overseas knows that there are days when you want something familiar, so I overpaid significantly to buy a jar of peanut butter and a jar of Nutella to keep at my apartment for just those days. By this time it was getting late and my residual jetlag was starting up, so we headed home soon after. Here are my two favorite shots from the experience:

I was up early again in the morning, this time for a sightseeing adventure outside of the city. One of Joe's best friends is from Chengdu, and his father had offered to take me and one of his son's friends to see two famous sites that are within driving distance from Chengdu. First up was Wenchuan, which was the epicenter of the 8.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked Sichuan Province in 2008. The town has now been mostly rebuilt by the government to accommodate tourists that want to come and see the remains of the wreckage, as well as to commemorate those lost in the quake.

 The most heartbreaking part of the town is the memorial that was built on the site of the town school, which was severely damaged in the quake, killing several students and teachers. The wreckage remains as a monument, with the Chinese flag flying over it and the clock commemorating the exact time of the earthquake on May 12. Beside it is a plaque that talks about what happened in the school and the quake in general, and dedicates the monument to those Chinese people who died that day and in the aftermath.

It was a sobering visit, and I have to admit that I was somewhat relieved when we left and headed on to our next stop, which was much less somber. Sichuan province is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site at the Dujiangye Water Project, which is an irrigation system that was designed and built 2,000 years ago and is still functional today. It has become a large tourist attract and museum, and has funny little details like the (vaguely creepy) pandas that walk around to take pictures with visitors that can only happen in China. For the record, the pose was the panda's idea!

 Although the project itself is a bit complicated, here's a diagram...suffice it to say that it simultaneously regulates water levels, prevents flooding, diverts water for irrigation, and filters sediments from the soil. Pretty impressive, huh? 

 By the time we'd walked around the extensive project, we were all hungry, so we went to another type of Sichuan restaurant, which specializes in baking meats and fish with veggies and (you guessed it!) Sichuan peppers. I ate far too much and we stayed out far too late, but it was a lovely evening with Mr. Chen, Florence (pictured), and her boyfriend.

Sunday was once again an early wakeup call, because I was going to a Chinese church! The government has relaxed its stance on Christianity in recent years, and so some legal churches have sprung up, despite the still-extensive paperwork that is required to begin one. One of the mothers from the church came and picked me up, and it wasn't until we got to the service that I realized I had no idea how to say the most basic religious words in Mandarin. God, Jesus, Spirit, Scripture, soul...these are not things that are taught in classes or even used in most Chinese conversations! Given that I was the only foreigner there and the entire service was in Mandarin, it was a bit of a struggle to figure out what was going on, but I definitely enjoyed it. I even recognized some of the songs, which were mostly English hymns that had been translated.

After church, I went with several girls around my age and Mrs. Huang (the woman who'd introduced me to the church) to lunch at a famous Sichuan hotpot restaurant. I wasn't particularly hungry due to the huge volume of food I'd consumed the night before, but I dug in so as not to be rude. After lunch, we also went to a prayer meeting at the house of one of the churches' members, and everyone wanted to take pictures with me, so here's the best one:

Once the meeting was over, Mrs. Huang drove me to meet another friend, Tian, for dinner in one of the oldest parts of Chengdu. It has been renovated to look as it may have hundreds of years ago. By that time, I was so exhausted that all I wanted to do was go home and fall into bed, so after dinner, that's exactly what we did.

So there you have it, my first week in China! Told you I'd do better this summer, so keep checking for more updates :)

Ketchup/Catsup/Catch-Up

So this is one of those times when I’m going to forego an apology in order to save space to take you all on a whirlwind tour of the past two months of my life.

When I left you last, I was blissfully happy on the way from Italy to Greece…seeing as how I am now hopelessly sleep-deprived and jetlagged, on hour 22 of a 26-hour marathon trip halfway around the world, things have obviously changed a bit! Then again, I wouldn’t change a bit of it.

First off, I guess a bit of an insight into our time in Greece is in order. Our first day there was basically a series of travel catastrophes: an impossibly expensive taxi from the Athens airport to the port that necessitated a hot bus ride, which got us to the port just in time to see the ferry we’d planned to hop completely sold out, thereby calling for a five hour wait in a small waiting area populated mostly by homeless Athenians, then a nasty storm that whipped the seas into a frenzy and made for a stomach-churning two hour ferry ride that had been advertised as 45 minutes (keep in mind that this was the week after the South Korean ferry disaster, which meant that more than a few passengers on board were panicked and hysterical the entire way).

When we finally arrived in Poros, the idyllic Greek isle much more affordable than the more glamorous Mykenos or Santorini, I could’ve hugged the affable German man who turned out to be the owner of our house and helped us bring our things inside before calling a friend who owned a restaurant to prepare a huge and delicious Greek feast with extra wine to wash down the long day.

And that day was pretty much the only stress I experienced in Greece. Our three days in Poros were just as lovely as the pictures: chillier than we’d thought, but sunny, quaint, and even home to a beautiful Orthodox candlelit Easter service that we were lucky enough to witness. To sum it up, I give you this picture of the view from our pool (along with other selected shots):

Although we were reluctant to leave, we had a city to see in Athens, and two friends from Oxford to meet: my flatmate, Emily, and Rachel Kolb. The two ladies had been travelling through the Greek isles together, and since Emily was heading back to Oxford and Rachel was planning to go to Corfu with us, it made sense for us to all get together for a day and see the Parthenon to boot.

We took a morning ferry back to Athens (much less eventful this time, thank goodness), and had just dropped our luggage at the hotel and eaten breakfast when Emily and Rachel found their way in from their hostel. We stowed their stuff with ours, and then headed out into the city for some sightseeing. The first (and by many people’s accounts, the only) must-see in Athens is the Parthenon complex, so we made our way up the south slope, stopping at the various famous theaters and other features in various states of disrepair as we shed layers in the warm Greek sun.

We spent probably an hour and a half at the top, admiring the Temple of Athena and the other, smaller temples that adorn the Acropolis (literally: ‘high city’), as well as the gorgeous views of Athens. We took a ton of pictures, but this one is my favorite: the whole crew all together in front of the iconic façade of the temple to the city’s patron goddess.

We eventually peeled ourselves away, mostly due to the rumbling of stomachs ready for lunch, and then were disappointed to find that the Acropolis Museum had closed early for the Easter holiday. Joe had surprised me with a pedicure, since my feet had been complaining from all the walking and traveling, so I strolled over to the salon and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon before finding my way back for the last dinner we’d have with all the Rileys together.

The next morning was a whirlwind, as we had to get all of the Rileys minus Joe to their flight back to Madrid, as well as make our own transfer to Corfu, where we were set to meet a group of Rhodies to celebrate the last week of our break before returning to Oxford. Since it was Easter Sunday and cabs were in short supply, we’d thankfully arranged with our same drivers from the day before to return to the airport, and everyone made their flights without incident.

Our plane to Corfu was less than an hour, and spent in an airplane that was, as my father would say, a glorified crop duster.  Considering Greece all but shuts down on Easter Sunday, I was surprised that there were even flights, let alone reasonably priced plane tickets, but I was eternally grateful to have not been forced to take the alternative option, which was a 7 hour bus ride through the twisting mountain roads.

We got there before the larger group coming in from Oxford, and we prepared a lunch for them, but that was the extent of my involvement in planning anything that week (as hard as that is to believe). Reaching the end of a month of travel in which Joe and I had been responsible for every detail of the trip, from transport to lodging to currency exchange, I was all planned out and ready for some of the fresher legs to take over.

Perhaps in part due to my resolute non-interventionism, the trip to Corfu was amazingly relaxing. Although the weather wasn’t as warm as we’d hoped, and there were several rainy days, it was still a great mix of getting to catch up with everyone and hear about their various exploits over the period we’d been gone, as well as relax on the beach and explore the area around Kassiopi, the area of Corfu that our villa bordered. We even found a company that rented sailboats for half days at ridiculously cheap off-season prices, and spent four hours riding the high seas and stopping to swim, lay out, and explore caves (although they were little more than crannies in the rock, which I found a bit anticlimactic after my grand visions of high caverns).

We’d also made the decision to go to Albania for a day, since Corfu is only a 40-minute ferry ride from a major archaeological site called Butrint. As luck would have it, the day we were set to go dawned grey and rainy and stayed that way, so we trudged around the extensive ruins in a deceptive drizzle that had us all completely soaked by the time we were finished. Despite the dampening effects of the weather, we were all able to enjoy the site, which played host to Greek, Roman, and even Venetian settlements over the course of history due to its strategic position on the coast. It has been extensively excavated, and in remarkable shape; there are even a few areas where 14^th and 15^th century mosaics are still intact and on display. Although some areas are flooded, it adds an interesting dimension to the old ruins, especially with the added effect of the raindrops playing on the surface of the water. In what used to be a Roman Catholic cathedral, we stopped to take a wet dog picture:

All too soon, however, it was time to ship back out to the United Kingdom. But before we could go back to Oxford and buckle down as students, we had to make a stop in London. We met Dr. Riley at the hotel, which I hadn’t realized was across the river from Big Ben and Parliament, offering probably the most stereotypically British views one can imagine from the hotel windows:

Since Dr. Riley has never been to London, Joe and I spent the afternoon after the flight to Gatwick strolling around the Thames Walk and looking at such landmarks as the Tower of London, the Globe Theater, and the London Bridge, which for the record is not the TOWER Bridge that people always mistake it for, but rather a nondescript passage almost a kilometer down from its more beautiful cousin.

We didn’t stay out too late, however, because the next day was the *cue scary music* Tough Mudder Race we’d signed up for. Now, I would like to point out that this was under no circumstances my idea. For those of you who don’t know what a Tough Mudder is, it’s a 12 mile off-road race peppered with obstacles, including constant (you guessed it) mud. Speaking as someone who’d never run more than 6 miles consecutively, this was about as far outside my comfort zone you could go without venturing into marathon territory!

We’d made a team of 20 Scholars, along with some non-Scholar friends who’d signed up for the race. I was a late addition, having been essentially peer-pressured into it. The morning of, as we took the train from London and then trudged in the 50 degree drizzle through a muddy field even to get to the start of the race, I was cursing my friends (and Joe) who’d convinced me to sign up for the thing.

I’d like to say that I had a blast running the race, but it was absolutely miserable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I did it, but categorizing it as ‘fun’ would be a complete lie. Due to the rain and the more than 20,000 people who’d run the course over the 36 hours before we started, there was scarcely any traction, and the lines by each obstacle were longer than we’d expected, so it took us a full 4 hours to finish the whole course. We joked that our speed wasn’t a running pace, or even a jog, but a ‘slog’ that carried us slowly but surely towards the finish. Some of the obstacles were exhilarating (like the huge ice bath we had to swim through or the monkey bars over the water), while others were plain dangerous (a high climbing wall that I skipped after seeing someone fall and break their leg). In addition, I slipped going down a hill on mile 5 and re-aggravated an old back injury, meaning that I had to forego several obstacles and limp the last mile and a half, carried forward only by my pride…and Joe, who dropped back from the group to help me finish. 

All that said, I was so proud to have finished the thing! It was undoubtedly the most physically difficult thing I’ve ever done, and it was definitely a bonding experience for those of us who made it the entire 12 miles together. By the time we made it to Oxford though, I was just barely able to limp to the shower and collapse into bed before I passed out from the exhaustion…talk about an eventful first day back in the UK! Here are some pictures from the ordeal:

Now, onto Trinity Term, the last trimester in the Oxford academic year. I’d thought that not having any class would mean that I would have long, lazy days ahead of me, but for the first few weeks, man was I wrong! As I think I mentioned previously, I was co-Chairing the Rhodes Ball committee, which meant that I was practically buried in emails and meetings for the first two weeks of term, and spent almost a full 72 hours at Rhodes House, leaving only to sleep and sometimes eat. As often happens with an event of over 250 people, things just kept cropping up, and I couldn’t believe until the moment it all ended that everything would go off smoothly. Somehow, however, it did! I thought that our theme, the 1920’s, came through everything in the evening, and a good time was had by all…none more so than Laura (the other co-Chair) and I, who felt almost like we were watching a child of ours graduate from high school after all of the time and effort we’d put into the event. Obligatory photos from the evening:

Almost before I’d had a chance to finish Ball clean up and turn a draft of my Master’s thesis in to my supervisor, my sister came into town for two weeks. We’ve always been close, if very different, so it was great having her around to get an idea of my life in England and celebrate my birthday was a much needed respite from all the craziness of the past weeks. We traveled to Santander, Spain for the four days immediately around my birthday, a trip that had extra special meaning because our mother’s family was historically from the region. It was a much-needed holiday in the sun for all parties involved, and we spent most of it lazing around and walking along the seashore, punctuated by large portions of Spanish food and gelato.

Once back in Oxford, I took Laura to the local castle, various parks and meadows, my favorite restaurants/pubs/cafes, and even on an ill-fated punting voyage where we all got soaked! We went to London for a day, and toured the Tower of London before walking the Thames Walk and exploring the area around Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, because of my thesis due date, my poor sister was also subjected to various afternoons of reading and studying in Oxford cafes. At the end of May, however, she had to head back to the US to start her summer internship, so I saw her off to the airport early one morning, and then jumped on a train myself.

Joe and two of the other Rhodies in the International Relations program, Kit and another Rachel, had decided to take a study trip together to ‘revise’ (as the Brits say) for their exam, and I took the opportunity to tag along and finish up my thesis before starting some studying of my own. Our chosen destination was the Lakes District, a verdant farming area dotted with hills, mountains, and yes, lakes, in Northwest England, and the train ride up was gorgeous, quaint, and impossibly green. That was about the only sightseeing we did, since days were devoted primarily to work, but I did take every opportunity to walk through the town center, and I took a break every night to cook dinner, which always relaxes me.

When we got back to Oxford, the work continued in earnest. I had three weeks to turn in my thesis and study for two exams that each counted for 20% of my final grade in my course, so there aren’t many fun things to report from that period. However, suffice it to say that I finished everything somehow, and my exams went off without any major suffering. After we’d finished our last exam, we were subject to ‘trashing’, the Oxford tradition of throwing champagne, confetti, and other rubbish on students who’ve completed their exams, and then I spent part of the afternoon helping Joe move things from his apartment to my room, which we’re using as a storage unit this summer since I couldn’t get out of my lease.

Later that afternoon, we headed into London, but I had no idea for what. Since Joe is spending this summer doing Army training in Fort Benning, Georgia, and I’ll be in China, we’ll be apart from June to October. He’d told me previously to clear my schedule on Friday, the last day we’d be together, and he’d said to wear a nice dress, but had given me no further details. Once we got into London, he took me to a beautiful hotel he’d reserved, and then we got ready for dinner at a beautiful little Italian restaurant. I didn’t think there needed to be any more, but he grabbed my hand and led me through the streets until we rounded a corner and saw the Lyceum, a famous old theater that was currently hosting the West End (British Broadway) version of THE LION KING! Joe knew that the Lion King was one of my favorite movies as a child, and he’d gotten tickets for us to go to one of the productions. I’ve actually never been to a theater event on that scale before, and I absolutely loved the whole production: the costumes, props, sets, and choreography all wowed me!

Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye in the morning, and Joe headed to the airport while I went back to Oxford to finish packing for the summer, organizing our ‘storage’ room, and running last minute errands around town. Then I had just enough time for a goodbye dinner with my friends before I fell into bed to catch some sleep in anticipation of the early morning wakeup for the flight home.

I only had about a week and a half in South Carolina, and it wasn’t nearly enough! I’ve always prided myself in being independent, but I’ve never been as far away for as long as I am at Oxford, and so I’ve never before appreciated being at home quite so much. The amount of time I got to spend with family and friends and the little things I miss while in England (like customer service, fried vegetables, and driving) were sweeter than I could’ve imagined. In addition, I had several joyous occasions to celebrate: first, my friend Kelly’s wedding, which my status as a bridesmaid had brought me home for in the first place, and second, my best friend Reagan’s engagement! Needless to say, the wedding weekend in Raleigh was a time of celebrating several matrimonies. The pictures from the photographer haven’t come out yet, but here are a few of my own shots:

All too soon, however, it was time to bid adieu to the land of Publix and Chick-fil-a. I started my current epic journey in Charlotte, with an overnight flight to Frankfurt. Then there was an eight-hour layover, and my current eleven-hour flight to Chengdu. Needless to say, with the time changes, fitful airport naps, and weird airline food, my body is in a state of disarray at present.

However, I’m rather excited for what’s waiting at the other end of this journey. You see, I’ve gotten the opportunity to do an internship at the New Hope Group, a large agricultural conglomerate in Chengdu. I’m not yet completely sure what the job itself will hold, but I am excited for a summer of living in China, immersing myself in the language and culture. I also know that I will have more free time to write blogs, so prepare yourselves for less sporadic and more comprehensive postings…hopefully with almost as many pictures as this post has had. Until then, be well! I for one am going to take another of those fitful naps. 

(My apologies for the delay in actually putting this up. Reliable internet access has proven to be a difficult thing to come by in Chengdu. Then again, that's another story)