The joys of travel

The past several days have been quite eventful. I have:

• Been caught sneaking pictures of a cute baby.
  
  
• Been caught sneaking pictures of a cute policeman.
  
  
• Eaten spicy noodles for breakfast.
  
  
• Spent four hours on a train without a seat.
  
  
• Watched my friend and her family eagerly devour a plate of cold chicken feet, complete with toenails.
  
  
• Accidentally ingested a piece of pig intestine.
  
  
• Had my feet forcibly held in a pan of almost-boiling water.
  
  
• Hailed a bus by running out in the street in front of it.
  
  
• Been woken up by the sound of a rooster crowing.
  
  
• Ridden a motorcycle.
  
  
• Been assumed to be from the Middle East because I’m not tall enough to be from a developed country.

Fashionable

Being that it's now winter, and pretty cold out, there is little to do in Jinan besides shopping. You can go with friends, you're not obligated to spend money, and it's always nice and warm inside the crowded markets. Unfortunately, I hate shopping in China. First of all, pretty much every piece of woman's clothing is adorned with frills, bows, or pom-poms. Second, trying something on is more of a commitment than it is in the U.S. Everyone watches you model the item of clothing in question, and barring some extreme defect, you're pretty much obligated to purchase it. And finally, it's China. The quality of many of these items is highly questionable, so you need to be extremely careful when making a purchase. A close inspection is essential.

Despite my general aversion to both Chinese fashion and the overall shopping experience, it's hard to not get sucked in when I am forced to spend an afternoon in the mall. This has led to some regrettable purchases. In November, for example, I bought of pair of brown boots sporting the requisite pom-poms. Unfortunately, when I got home I realized that they were of two different heights.

More recently, I made the most unfortunate purchase yet: a hideous black jacket featuring decorative metal zippers, an arm patch, exaggerated snaps, and a hood with faux fur trim. I regretted it even before the money exchanged hands, but there was no turning back. Sadly, I neglected to take a picture before gifting it to a friend, but I'll try to have her pose for a shot later.

Please. Contain your excitement.

Bring on the Cow

In case you haven't heard, Chinese New Year is coming up, the biggest holiday in China. This entails a five-week national vacation, and tons of firecrackers, family, and food. This year is the year of the cow, so shiny cutouts of smiling oxen wearing red and gold clothing have begun to pop up everwhere. In fact, pretty much everything in the entire country is slowly turning shades of red and gold, the same way everything turns red and green before Christmas in the U.S.

Anyway, one of my friends has invited me to her house to celebrate the holiday with her family. She lives in Sichuan, approximately 1,000 miles west of Jinan. More specifically, she lives in Mianyang - the second largest city in Sichuan, and the epicenter of last year's earthquake.

The plan is that on Saturday, I'll be boarding a train filled with other college students headed home to Sichuan. It's a 36 hour journey. We're taking the "hard seat", which means no bed, but at least we have seats - the trains are so crowded during the holiday season that a lot of people stand the whole way. And sometimes, the only way to board is like this:

Once I get to her house, more fun awaits. To guard the family from brutal winter temperatures averaging somewhere in the 30s, my friend's parents have invested in a single small space heater. (Central heating is for wimps, that's what I always say.) My friend and I will be sharing a sleeping space on the floor. Her enthusiastic response to this news has led me to suspect that the main reason she invited me is for my body heat.

My friend's house does have an internet connection, so I'm bringing my computer, and will therefore not completely drop off the face of the earth. Her house does not, however, have hot water. If you want hot water, you have to boil it yourself. But don't worry - this doesn't mean several weeks of cold showers for me. Why not, you ask? Because there is no shower silly! That's right, I'm looking at a month of cold sponge baths.

So, in sum: no heat, no bed, no hot water, no shower. And did I mention I'll be there for several weeks? Thank god for deodorant.

Larger than life

So, remember how I said that I liked shopping in the U.S. because I'm considered small there, and how here in China I'm enormous? Well, case in point: I was just given this lovely, um, vest? camisole? by a friend because it was a bit large on her and (and I quote) "you're the biggest girl I know". Hm. Yeah. Thanks for that.

Dry

Immediately upon re-entering China, I developed a hacking cough. It's the kind where even a simple laugh turns into an alarming rattle that repulses everyone within earshot. I attribute this new development to the disturbing dryness of Jinan. I grew up in humid south Florida, where notebook paper actually wilts from the humidity and we used to carry around special grease absorbing sheets for our foreheads. Then I moved to New England, where it rains or snows pretty much every other day and where I own no fewer than four umbrellas.

Jinan is nothing like either Florida or New England. In the two months I've been here, it's drizzled twice. I can hang my clothes up to dry in the morning, and they'll be dry by lunch. Even jeans. Wherever you live, I challenge you to get a pair of soaking wet jeans dry in less than one day. It's pretty much impossible.

Anyway, because my theory is that better hydration will cure my cough and allow me to chuckle without frightening away small children, I've been looking for pretty much any and every opportunity to absorb water. When I sleep, I keep my head under the covers so that instead of breathing in the cold dry air outside, I get to breath the warm humid air of my homemade cave. My newest clever innovation is to fill my water bottle up with boiling water, and inhale the steam while I wait for the water to get cool enough to drink. It's like what I imagine a spa to be like. Clearly, I'm living in the lap of luxury here.

Roommates

I am an undesirable roommate. This evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of my co-habitation experiences have ended in disaster. There was the girl at camp who left bits of Slim Jim hidden in the carpet. Another roommate spent hours admiring herself in the mirror, took life size glamour shots to hang up in her room at home, and somehow came away with the impression that I was the self-absorbed one. My college roommate and I were great friends...until we actually had to share one room instead of two. And my roommates in grad school had a bitter parting after it was revealed that one was cheating on the rent.

In any case, because of my own lack of skill in this arena, I hold a very high level of respect for people who can successfully live together in peace and harmony. In my opinion then, Chinese college students are no less than gods. They share a tiny dorm room with five other randomly selected students. That's six students per room: three bunk beds, one large table, and one small desk. Just look at this:



Each window represents six students. And they stay in the same room, with the same roommates, for all of college. Imagine a world where your roommates know every detail of your life, including who calls you, how often they call, what you say to them, what time you wake up in the morning, what time you go to sleep, how often you skip class, what you do in your free time, what you snack on, how often you snack, how often you do laundry, and so on.

Despite (or because of?) this forced intimacy, roommates typically forge a special bond with one another. They usually have all of their meals together, go out together, borrow each other's stuff (often without asking), and generally function as a unit. They even shower together, because I guess nothing says "friendship" like a good back scrub. (This actually isn't completely unreasonable, since showers are communal and take place in a special building across campus. As a result, showering is more of an "event" than you might think, and at the point where you're standing naked with a bunch of classmates, you might as well have one of them get your back.)

To me, the amazing thing about all of this is that no one complains. Okay, well, fine, I've heard two people complain about their roommates. One guy complained about his roommates smelly feet, and one girl complained that a few of her roommates study too much for her taste. But seriously? That's nothing. If it were me, I know I'd be annoyed that someone's alarm goes off every morning at 6:30, or that so-and-so slurps her tea too loudly, or that whats-her-name is always on the phone when I'm trying to sleep, and so on.

Which I guess is why I'm such a bad roommate.

A List

After two weeks at home for the holidays, I'm heading back to Jinan tomorrow. Here are a few American things that I'll miss:

Clean roads, sidewalks, and floors
There's a reason the Chinese take their shoes off when they get home. It's because the ground of any public place in China is used to dispose of fruit pits, spit-out seed husks, crusted food wrappers, used bamboo skewers, mucus, and old tea leaves, among other things.

Cheese
Shredded, melted, sliced, and with crackers.

Being little
In the U.S., I generally shop in the "petite" section and wear a size small or extra small. In China, shopkeepers have to scrounge in the back to find a "large" for me, because it's rare that they encounter someone as enormous as I am. I have also been forced to stop wearing my 1.5 inch heels because they cause me to tower over some of my male friends. Which is just awkward.

Shopping
Yes, things are cheaper in China. But the fashions there are weird, and you have to try things on in a crowded little space behind an old curtain that the shopkeeper will hold up for you. It's not uncommon for the shopkeeper to watch you change, and once I accidentally made eye contact with a curious stranger while I was half naked behind the sheet. Again: awkward.

Mixed drinks
I don't want to be forced to drink any more Tsingdao beer or disgusting bai jiu (like vodka, but with a bad taste). I'd much rather sit around with friends sipping screwdrivers or margaritas at my leisure.

The New York Times
Word on the street is that while I've been gone, the Chinese government went and blocked access to the NYT. What will I do without my main source of news??

Smoke-free environments
Most Chinese men smoke. Usually, this smoking is confined to restaurants and balconies, but I am lucky enough to share an office with an indoor smoker. He is actually very considerate and will only smoke inside when he's alone in the office, but still, the office doesn't have great ventilation, so the smoke is often hanging in the air waiting for me, even if the original cigarette is long gone.

Wide open spaces
Even Florida in snowbird season is considerably less crowded than Jinan on a normal day. And come on, Jinan just doesn't have places like this: