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!