Recap

So, I've been back in the states for a week and a half now. I'm over the jet lag (I actually recover pretty quickly from jet lag, I have a trick for it!) and accustomed to using a fork again. Accustomed to being able to understand all the conversations I hear when I wall down the street. I've moved and already started sorority activities in the short time I've been back...already reunited with my best friends, already done my first homework assignments. It almost feels like I never left. It's a very, very strange sensation.

I feel like I need to explain something about the entries I made while I was in China. I used it very much as a diary, rather than an extended report on the trip. Many of my entries were negative because when I got around to writing I was tired and cranky. I was talking to a friend about this and she said that because we're so close and she knows my writing style well from other blogs, she understood that I was having a good time, but that others might not. When I complained about the trip to Suzho, it didn't mean that I thought it was a terrible day for everyone, it was just bad for me. When I said that there were things that were bad about the Great Wall, it didn't negate or overshadow the awe I felt at standing on one of the 7 wonders of the (medieval) world. I think the message gets lost in my writing or even in my interactions with other people a lot. I loved this trip. It changed my life.

People always ask me on first seeing me or on first finding out that I went to China how it was. How do I answer that? It was phenomenal. I couldn't put the experience into words. I saw the fog on the Mongolian valleys beside the Great Wall of China. I walked through the city where only emperors and the royal family were allowed to live. I made friends with someone who barely spoke the same language as I do. I saw all of Shanghai at once. I saw a pearl pulled out of an oyster. I met important people, I saw so much artwork, I was treated like royalty. But I don't want to tell that story. Everyone had that experience on our trip. I want to tell people that after walking around Beijing for a day in sandals, my feet were almost completely black. I want to say that everything I thought about traveling has changed. I want to say that at once I gained an overwhelming reverence for my home country and an undying desire to leave it permanently. I want to tell people how you can tell where the bathrooms are from a block away, except in Shanghai where western toilets were much more common. I don't know where to start. I don't know how to condense my experience into soundbites someone will listen to. I know that I will never, never forget this trip.

I think the best I can do is thank Ying and Edwin for all they did for me and the other students. Thank the other students for being so fantastic and turning this experience into one that was a ton of fun. And thank my friends for pushing me when I wanted to back out.

This would be the part where I put more pictures, especially of the work from our Shanghai critique, but unfortunately, my camera is not cooperating with me, so that will have to wait for a week or so.

What a long, strange trip it has been

Yesterday...sucked, who am I kidding. I was sick and totally thought about staying at the hotel rather than going out, but because it was our last group excursion and it was only a half day I thought it would be totally lame to to not go. So we get in this bus that isn't air conditioned...in Shanghai...in the summer...(Shanghai is ridiculously hot and humid in the summer) to head out to Suzho. Said city is famous for its gardens and should only be about an hour and a half drive (does that sound like any particular TV show?) from our hotel. 2 hours later, we stop somewhere to ask directions when the bus driver won't listen to Ying, presumably because she's a woman. Half an hour after that, we finally make it to the first garden. We were supposed to be there from 10 until noon and it's now 11. Rather than extend the visit to 1, we're only given an hour to examine the Humble Executive's Garden. It was, of course, beautiful, but I was feeling really sick thanks to the bus ride over with no A/C (excessive heat can make me nauseous, plus the bumpiness didn't help) and the killer headache from my sinuses being plugged.

After the first garden, we pile back into the bus and drive to what was supposed to be a waterfront promenade. Our intrepid bus driver again has no idea where he's going, but we make it to the street eventually. Said street is entirely under construction, though. And the body of water reminded me quite a bit of the Millrace. There is a good point in this story, though! After walking along the street for a while, in search of a place to have lunch, we end up at a little restaurant. For 12 Yuan I get a bottle of water, a bottle of coke, a plate full of fried (rather than steamed) dumplings and a seat in front of an air conditioner. This was brilliant. Feeling refreshed, my group heads out to find another garden. Where we thought it was turns out to be the entrance to a zoo. The garden we're looking for is down a back alley. We walk to it, but it's under construction, too! So we decide to go to the back entrance to the zoo, which is near by, and meet up with the other group to see the animals. In particular, we've heard there's a Panda. Everybody loves a Panda! I'm cranky from the walking and the heat and the head cold and any number of other reasons and end up sitting on a bench with my head pretty much between my legs for the zoo trip. Ying and Edwin discuss what do do for the rest of the day--they decide that Edwin will stay with any students who want to see more gardens and catch a later train home. Ying, who unfortunately is also not enjoying herself, will take anyone ready to go back to Shanghai on the bus. Guess which group I pick?

We do visit one more garden on the way out, but when we all end up sitting on a rock sketching, I think she realizes we all want to go home just as much as she does and we roll out. I end up in bed by 10. 11 hours of sleep is a huge luxury around here. Today, I slept until 9 and only chose to get up to take advantage of my complimentary breakfast!

After breakfast, I caught the subway to the Super Brand Mall. It was super. Holy crap. It was soooo American, I loved it! Unfortunately, the American experience came as a package deal with American prices. I balked at 150 Yuan price tags in H&M and took off for stores with sales racks. As I slowly acclimated to my new price point surroundings, I was able to get all of my shopping done for everyone else on my list without picking up a single thing for myself! It was like Christmas shopping, only more frustrating because of the language barrier.

Once my shopping was done, I caught a taxi back to the hotel, puttered around, painted and took a shower! Now here I am!

9/18/08

Let's start at the beginning (that's a very good place to start). Here's the Photobucket album with all my China pictures in it.

The exhibition was quite the experience! We had an early breakfast so we could get over to the school to set up early. For the first half of the day, everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off! Everyone was stressed. My things weren't even that hard to assemble and I was nearly in tears. Ren Yan wanted to use tinsel as part of our display. Thankfully, I talked her into a very simple, elegant hanging for the masks with white string against a white background. I wasn't terribly happy with the way the masks turned out, especially the ones I made, and I thought that a multi-colored tinsel boa that was formed to say "2008" or make a star would make it gaudy. Ick. This is the way we ended up hanging it:



Along with the partner project, I also wasn't thrilled with my personal project. Maybe I'm just never satisfied.











Once the art was up, though, it was a blast! I was super impressed by everyone's projects! The printing that SUAD did for us seemed pretty nice. The videos were all great. Generally, after the stress of getting it up, spirits lifted and we were able to enjoy ourselves. Before the opening ceremony of our show, we got to meet the president of SUAD (!) and he gave us all a booklet of Olympic poster art (including work done by UO students that was incorrectly as OSU!) and a special edition Confucius coin in a beautiful wooden box. There were a couple of speeches given by professors and one student from each school. Christian spoke for us and Cindy (I don't remember her Chinese name) spoke for SUAD. During the showing, we took lots of photos with the other students. It was a lot of fun, but bittersweet because it was our last moment together, probably forever. Braeden's partner, Song Ge, cried as the bus left.



Fan Ye Ming and I



Ren Yan and I. Do I look uncomfortable?



People checking out my shit!



Steven (unseen) picking up Yu Zhaorun with Ren Yan in front.



Me and Pan Zhi Fei

Post show, we went out to dinner with the SUAD big wigs which included most of us getting a little sloppy. Then we had a mad dash to an overnight train to Shanghai. First sleeper car I've ever been in! Wowzers! We arrived in Shanghai at about 6am, checked into our super swank hotel (not to worry, there are pictures coming), rested all morning and then went to a "garden" that was really just a shopping center. I found a store that I really liked, though, it's called Meters/bonwe. Dinner was interesting. Our last event for the night was a trip up to the 88th floor (viewing deck) of Jinmao tower. That was sweet!



The view from the top of Jinmao tower down to the bottom floor.

Today, we went to the Shanghai Museum (very cool) and the Biennal (even cooler) and an art district (kind of a let down, but there was good pizza!). Tomorrow, we're going to go to some real gardens! I can't believe there are only 4 more days!

Day 14

I hadn't anticipated writing anything tonight as I actually have quite a lot of sewing to do before the big show tomorrow! But I'm downloading a few episodes of Flight of the Conchords to watch while I'm sewing and it looks like I'm going to be here for about half an hour. Guh! I hope this whole show thing works out for me...I'm really nervous. Really, really nervous.

Pic-Pic-PICTURES!

I finally got everything in my China folder onto photobucket, so get ready for a ton of pictures!



Some rockin leg warmers on display in the SUAD museum.



A giant cow in the Beijing airport! It's one of the mascots for the paralympics.

Giant caged tigers



Bowerman in Beijing!



Meat jello



In the Forbidden City. Dragons were the symbol of the

Christian and Stan in the Forbidden City.



Gui. In the Forbidden City.



Steven and Mao. Tian'anmen Square.



Me and Mao. BFFs.



Maybe not the most flattering outfit. Temple of Heaven.



The Great Wall I.



The Great Wall II.



The Great Wall III.



Souvenir peddler on the Great Wall.



Me and Ren Yan,



Souvenirs in Confucius' temple



Dinner!

Day...12?

I linked up all the other blogs of people on this trip, so you can see what their experiences are, too!

Today was just another uneventful workday in Qianfu.  Ren Yan and I decided to scrap the masks we made yesterday and start fresh with simpler masks.  A couple of her friends who go to school at the university across the street from SUAD came and helped us with the paper mache-ing.  One of them spoke insanely good English.  His name is pronounced "Ding-y."  I don't know how you would spell it.  The other didn't speak much English and I don't remember his name.  It was nice of them to come (and they brought me a Beijing Opera mask lighter keychain!  Gift giving is so huge here!) but really, they didn't do much for finishing the project faster.  This is ok.  I'm sure it was nice for Ren Yan to have someone to talk to while she worked.  We work out in the foyer of the building and while there are a couple of other groups working out there, we're too far apart to really talk.

The cafeteria, which I have a love/hate relationship with, provided the same indistinguishable food as it has on every other day.  I made the mistake of getting something vaguely western looking for lunch the other day and ended up pretty much not eating anything.  Now I look MUCH more closely at what I'm picking and yesterday and today I had pretty good success with getting food that's edible.  There's a fried cabbage dish that's similar to one my mom makes.  There are pieces of bacon that are mostly fat in it, rather than polska kilbasa, but it's still tasty.

The mask painting is...coming along, I guess.  I work much faster than Ren Yan (I finish about 3 masks for every 1 she does), but hers look like art, rather than something an elementary schooler slapped paint on.  I think on Monday I will probably re-do all but one of my paintings.  Jeeeeez.

On the bus ride home, Christian's partner, Fan Yei Man sat with us (most of the Chinese students live on the new campus, but a few live in Jinan, so they ride the bus home with us.) and he cracks me up.  He speaks pretty good English, but he gets flustered and/or confused pretty easily and ends up accidentally saying funny things.  The other Chinese students apparently call him "Show Man" (the pronunciation is closer to chow mein than anything else), which means "short" because he's the youngest of them.  He's 20.  I remember being 20 and the youngest.  But that was a little different because in China, he can get a beer anywhere he wants (including in the cafeteria!) and when I was 20, I couldn't really drink with my of-age friends.

Tomorrow, we have the morning off to go to a spring (Jinan is famous for its springs) and a mountain.  Then in the afternoon, we're doing Karaoke with the Chinese students and at 3:30ish the work on the personal project begins again!  I'm having some serious issues with sewing...I think I may make some water colors of the clothes instead.

Day 10

Yesterday was another sightseeing day. We went to Weifang, which is famous for its kites. I got Garrett an eagle kite from the shop we went to. After the kite shop was a traditional woodblock print shop. The cutest dogs in the whole world (ok, not the whole world, they weren't as cute Bruno.) lived with the artist and as I got antsy during the long (though cool!) presentation, I drifted out to play with them for a few minutes before returning to watch the demonstration. I ended up buying 4 prints. 3 for me and 1 for my parents. I've been trying to excercise self-control with spending since I blew through about 350 US dollars in Beijing. It's a lot of money and a lot of stuff to pack! So far, the only money I've spent in Jinan has been for the kite and prints.

Today was a work day with the Chinese partners. Ren Yan and I finished paper mache-ing our masks. Tomorrow, we paint. I left at 5 so I'd be able to find the fabric store in Jinan. What I thought was a fabric store turned out to be a baby bedding and towel store. Not useful. After a futile attempt at finding the store Ren Yan had told me about, I went to McDonalds for dinner. McDonalds. It was phenomenal. Fake cheese, real pickle. Oh my god it was great.

I'm feeling a little homesick. Not the same crippling homesickness I had for the entire summer in Jersey, just a feeling that if I were to get on the plane tomorrow and be back in the states by the end of the day, it would be OK. There are things I miss about the US that I just straight up can't duplicate in China. My friends. As much as I like the people here, there's nothing that compares to the way my girlfriends and I connect. I miss them. And I miss real cheese. Even quesadillas for every meal for a week. That's how I was eating right before leaving. Now there's variety in my diet and by no means is there a shortage of food. But they don't eat cheese around here. I also miss cooking for myself. And eavesdropping on people's conversations on the street. As I walked around Jinan tonight, my ears were searching for English. I kept thinking I was hearing it, but then it always turned out I was tricking myself. I also miss the way people drive in the states. You know...like there are rules! There's so much honking around here! It kills me!

Also, I just applied for my private loans and was denied. I'm fucked! Fucked! How the hell am I going to pay for myself now? I quit my job on the assumption that I would have sufficient loans upon my glorious return to the states. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Day 8

I failed to mention yesterday that there were LOCUSTS at dinner! LOCUSTS! I ate one...I mean, I had to do it so I could say I did!

Today was pretty mellow. We had breakfast, then a big long work block with our partners, then lunch, a museum tour, a calligraphy lesson, more work time, dinner and then a game of "basketball" broke out. Apparently I'm really good at calligraphy...? The calligraphy student who was teaching me and Ren Yan and Ying were all like "ooh, ahhh, Megan...so good!" and I tried really hard to crawl inside my skin to escape the attention. But it was pretty cool to be good at something. I quite enjoyed that. The basketball game was fun and funny to watch.

Ren Yan drew me a little map of how to get to a fabric store in Jinan. I think when I get back I'm going to try to find it before bed. We'll see, though. It might be closed. Shoot, I hadn't thought about that...

It's Day 7??

The days have blown by so fast, I can't believe it's already day 7. We've already left Beijing, we've already "finished" one project. I don't know if I can recap it all, but let's try:

Day 1:

Plane ride. It was too goddamn long.

Day 2:

798 art distric. This was phenomenal, I took about a million pictures of all the textures and colors and artistic styles that I liked. Some of my favorites (I'll post pictures later when I can write from my own computer) were giant versions of little lion toys in stacked cages, a clothing store with mostly coats and a gallery show of paintings that looked like little plastic toys. But there were so many beautiful, wonderful things to be seen.

We also went to CAFA and met the head of the Graphic Design program. His studio designed the Olympic medals. How awesome is that? The museum on campus was full of art about the Olympics (everything seemed to be about the Olympics in Beijing) and there was some amazing fashion design work when we first entered. I tried to photograph it, but the guards said it wasn't allowed. Boo.

After CAFA, we went back to 798 to look some more, but I was too tired. Lexis and I went to a little cafe and got smoothies. I wrote postcards home, she worked on her journal. It started pouring rain at one point, so I was glad to be inside! After that, we went out to dinner at a "Thai" resturaunt. One of the dishes was meat jello. Meat jello! I was actually really impressed because my family is Mormon and there's a joke (unfortunately it's fairly accurate) that jello molds, especially with fruit in them, are a staple at Mormon gatherings. I look a picture. I wonder if that's weird in Chinese culture.

Day 3:

Forbidden City. Emperial China really knew how to impress. The buildings here were huge and extravagant. The colors struck me again. I started formulating my project for Beijing (some fashion design work) here and realized that I wanted my palatte to be pulled from the ancient buildings. So my colors are vibrant red, blue, green and yellow. Hopefully I'll be able to find a scanner here soon and I can post the sketches.

After the Forbidden City, Brooke, Sylvan, Christian, Matt, Steven and I went to find the cultural district of Beijing where there were supposed to be art supplies. After quite a lot of exploration (and buying a "Dolce and Gabbana" purse), we found it but there wasn't much to be seen. It was mostly calligraphy supplies. Oh man was I shocked by how pushy people are about sales on the alleys, though. They shout at you from across the street! Jesus Christ, it made me uncomfortable. Once we realized we weren't going to find what we were looking for, Steven left for the hostel and the rest of us got beers and curry chicken to kill time until we needed to be at the Laoshe Tea House. Said tea house was nice, but I was so tired and antsy by the time the show started that waiting for it to be over just about killed me. I think I fell asleep pretty much immediately upon returning to the hostel.

Day 3:

Temple of Heaven. I'd like to go back. My tiredness and my bad hips (god, I sound like an old lady when I say that, but it's true...) made me really cranky and while I know what I saw was beautiful, I didn't fulfill my assignment for the park and really, I just sat and sketched in a couple of spots rather than exploring.

We went back to the hostel and hung out, worked on some crafts and generally rested for the afternoon. Then, Brooke, Matt, Steven, Braeden and I went to Ya Show, the counterfit mall. If I thought the salespeople near Tian'anmen Square were pushy, it was nothing compared to Ya Show. Every time I turned around, someone was yelling "hey lady, you need..." at me. I was fairly uncomfortable, but got good at walking fairly quickly and ignoring them. I was looking for a particular Louis Vuitton bag that just started appearing in the September fashion magazines, but didn't find it. I found a similar "Marc Jacobs," though. So...I don't know. That plus two pairs of "Pumas" and a perfume cost me almost 500 Yuan. Way better than in the states, even on Canal Street, but still more than I should have spent, probably. I did still have two more cities, as Ying would later point out to the whole group.

Before going to Ya Show, I put on sneakers. They made my feet and my knees and my hips feel so much better. Turns out supportive shoes make for a happier Megan.

Day 4:

The Great Wall. I hadn't prepared myself for this mentally or physically. Like...it's the Great fucking Wall of China. In the pictures it looks like it just gently rolls across the countryside. Actually, it's steep and it's crumbling and it is a really hard hike. There were 30 guard towers from where we started to where we finished...in an effort to lose a souvenier peddler (they just follow you or guide you until you buy something or tell them that you absolutely will not be buying anything from them) I took a break in tower 9 (I thought if I made it clear that I was having lunch, he would leave me alone) and ended up sketching for about 45 minutes. Edwin caught up to me then and was kind of in a rush to get to the end, so he asked me if I wanted to take a shortcut to tower 25 with him (and some souvenier sellers, obviously). I took the shortcut (which is probably really good, becasue I don't think I would have finished in time, given the 45 minute break) and it was actually really beautiful. We walked down into the valley on the Beijing side of the wall and through this farming community. I ended up paying the ladies 50 yuan for the scenic tour, but they really wanted me to buy something from them. It took forever, even with Edwin translating, for them to accept that I didn't want a book about the Great Wall or postcards. Even with the shortcut, the end of the hike was really steep. I'm so glad I was on the wall for a while, but I'm even more glad I took the shortcut. Not because it was easier, but because it was so pretty and so different from what I would have seen otherwise. We've done a lot of tourist-y stuff in China, but this didn't feel like that. At least, it's not something I would have done as a tourist, without Edwin there to translate and make sure I wasn't going to be trafficked...at least alone!

After the wall and a lovely rest, a group of us went out to the bars. The first place we went to was kind of a dud and nobody seemed to be having a good time, but then we went to another place that we thought was a karaoke bar...turns out it was just a pretty bad band that only did covers! I had a great time there, dancing and singing at the table. Even if Stan was a downer. Jerk. We got a little lost on the way home and got directions from several locals. I really like the people on this trip!

Day 5:

Just bussing it to Jinan and a crazy fucking banquet. There was so much food. So much. Each of us could have easily had our own table for the food we were given. We tried a mystery Chinese liquor. It was pretty good, but strong as hell. I switched over to beer after one cup. Jackie, the head of international affairs for SUAD, seems like a really awesome guy. Like he could drink just about anybody under the table.

Day 6:

We met our SUAD partners. Mine's name is Ren Yan. She's really cool. We had a little introduction and show-and-tell of art with all of us, then went to lunch, which was pretty good. After a tour of the campus (which is like an art wet dream, I can't fathom actually going to school there. When I saw room after room filled with sewing machines, I almost dropped out of UO to go here. Never mind applying. Then I saw one of the black and white darkooms, which had probably 15 enlargers and an attached lighting studio and almost died.) we brainstormed ideas for our project. Yan and I have an idea....but it's secret! The SUAD student took us out to dinner at a Korean resturaunt. We had sushi, too, but it had...I think a cut up hot dog in it. It was fucking strange.

Upon arriving home, I pretty much passed out. No joke, I think I was asleep by 9:30. Edwin called Braeden and I's room at 10:30 or so and not only did it wake me up, but I thought it was early in the morning. So disorienting. But I was planning on getting up at 5:45am, so I think going to sleep at 9:30 is acceptable.

Day 7:

We visited Confucius' hometown, Qufu. I slept for the whole 2 hour bus ride there...eep! The building sites were pretty, but we kept rushing through everything! Then, I opted out of going to Confucius' gravesite, so I ended up with a lot of free time before lunch. Oh well. I got a really awesome little lion toy from a street vendor and some silk scarves for my project from the shop at the hotel where we had lunch. Lunch was so good. I don't know if it was because we were at the fanciest resturaunt we could have possibly found (it's where dignitaries go when they're in Qufu) or if they served slightly Westernized food to us, but it was the best meal I've had since arriving in China. There was fried chicken that tasted like American fried chicken. Fried rice, fried fish (I've been missing fried food, so this was grrrr-eat!). sweet-and-sour chicken, egg flower soup, broccoli and beef. Oh my goodness...

Next, we went to Mount Tai. Rode a cable car almost all the way up, rushed to get to the top and then turned around to rush back down to catch the cable car again before service ended. The whole day felt so rushed. I guess that's the way it goes, but I would have been happy to do just the Confucian adventure or just Mount Tai and taken the whole day to really experience it. Oh well, this is the way it went and I'm still glad I saw the monuments.

Tomorrow, we work with our partners more. Wish me luck!