Smog

No running today.

You may have heard that Shanghai is experiencing some massive air pollution. It's true. Visibility is minimal, face masks are typical, and everyone is supposed to stay inside. We can see the smog particles actually coming in the windows like mist. Inside our school this week there was a bit of haze.

We were supposed to have a field trip this weekend with my scholarship team, but it's been postponed due to the smog. Basically when the smog gets like this, the rule is everyone stays inside. School was not cancelled this week for us, but I've heard that schools in Nanjing are cancelled.

I do wonder how it gets so bad and where it all comes from. The World Health Organization (WHO) says the air quality should be 20 ppm. In Shanghai at the moment it is 506 ppm.

It's like a ghost town outside my school.

  

 

Quick Trip to Beijing

 

北京是一个非 常有意思的城市， 历史很多文化也不少。很多人觉得北京只有什么长城，是中国的首都，但是北京有很多其他有意思的东西。除了长城，北京的景点还有故宫，天安门广场，天坛，王府井，鸟巢，水立方，和香山。因为北京历史悠久，所以北京的文化也很丰富，比上海的多。北京的菜跟上海的菜不一样，比如说在上海很多人非常喜欢吃鸡爪，而北京人喜欢吃小虫子（蝎子，蜘蛛和蜈）。我听过了一首歌叫：“北京欢迎您”。在这首歌里，他们说：“不管远近都是客人用不客气。”这句话的意思是：不管你来自哪里，来到北京，你都是北京人的客人，他们都很热心，他们欢迎我们。去北京以前，我认为北京有点儿无聊，可是去北京旅行以后我觉得很精彩。我爱北京！

浦发立

Things stay busy here. A couple weeks ago the international students at my school were treated to a quick trip to Beijing. Our increasingly tight group of Americans, Russians, Italians, Germans, Japanese, Indonesians, North and South Koreans, Estonians and Kazakhstanis, boarded an overnight train to Beijing. Like most things in China, the train was crowded. We slept six people to a cabin on bunks that were too small for many of us. We talked, watched movies on a laptop, and fell asleep to the rocking lull of the train.

We woke up to the beautiful Beijing haze. Some were well prepared with face masks to greet the day. As we got off the train we were immediately corralled onto a tour bus. I'm not a fan of organized group tours, but going with a group of classmates made the trip fun. The German kids brought a Chinese version of a hackeysack to keep break up any boredom as the group moved from temple to temple.

First stop: the Temple of Heaven  天坛. The Temple of Heaven is where the emperor used to pray. The Temple of Heaven has a beatiful ceiling.

Next stop: Tian'an men Square 天安门广场. We ate lunch famly style with a lazy-Susan in the middle of the table, then headed to the famous Tian'an men Square. We saw the big picture of Mao and walked past his tomb, where every Tuesday and Thursday you  can see his body on display. Too bad for us, it was Wednesday. Gotta' leave some things for next time.

Tian’an men Square led us to our next stop,  故宫, or the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the emperor’s palace during the 明 (Ming) and 晴 (Qing) dynasties. It really is a city; when I told my host brother that we were there for two hours, he looked at me funny. I asked him if that was a long time and he said, "No, that’s way too short, you should spend days there!” Like I said, this was a "quick" trip to Beijing. I'll have to go back.

After we toured the Forbidden City, we went to a popular pedestrian mall in Beijing where some ate at McDonald’s and some had the famous Beijing roast duck. Some of us, myself included, feasted on cow stomach dumplings, scorpion and tarantula. It wasn’t the best dinner I’ve had, but it was worth giving it all a tasting. The dumplings weren’t the best dumplings I've had; the scorpion tasted like a burnt French-fry; and the tarantula just tasted like dirt. Been there. Done that. Next time I might go for the roast duck, but I'm glad I tried the market food.

Cooked tarantulas.

After ‘dinner’ we finally arrived at the hotel. Showered, rested, and planned ahead for our next adventure: the Great Wall. The bus ride to the Wall was filled with the sound of our tour guide screaming into her microphone trying to tell us about the history of Beijing. Before goint to "the wall," I really wasn't that interested in it. But once I actually climbed to the top of the highest guard tower and looked out and around I saw why it’s called great. We scuttled up almost 90 degree angle stairs and had our pictures taken with many curious Chinese people. When we stood at the top of the highest part we could see for miles around, and if it weren’t for the pollution we probably could’ve seen for more miles around. We could see the wall snaking around mountains and ridge lines for miles. Amazing! Really.

 

A clear day at the Great Wall.

After our excursion to the Great Wall we went to the Olympic park where we saw the bird’s nest and the water cube. We walked around there for a while and waited for the lights to turn on. The lights were really cool. At the head off the Olympic park there was a weird futuristic Jetsons looking building. The sky was growing pretty dark and we were getting hungry so we headed off to dinner. We were all tired so after dinner we quickly went to sleep.

Bird's Nest at night.

On the last day we woke up early to pack. The continental breakfast was especially good this morning, serving up cakes, toast, eggs, cereal and orange juice. Once again the tour guide started her screaming into the microphone, she went rambling on about Chairman Mao as we tried to nap. Our next destination was Mao’s home in Beijing. Contrary to Mao’s ideals, his house was a very traditional Chinese type of architecture one of the types you may see in a kungfu movie. After Mao’s house we went to a communist-themed restaurant where the employees would dance in praise of Chairman Mao and communism. The walls were painted with Mao quotes and old PRC propaganda. This was the first place I’ve seen so far in China that boastfully professed its love and praise for Mao.

After lunch we drove a couple hours into downtown Beijing to walk around a street market that had small shops, little cafes and vendors selling western foods. Some of the shops sold souvenirs, some sold Mao memorabilia and some just sold random things. My roommate Brady and I found a CD store and bought some Chinese reggae CDs -- an interesting twist on the genre. It was growing close to our departure time so we headed off to the train station. The train back was the same style as the train to Beijing, small, cramped but fun and exciting. This time we did not watch any movies, just stayed up and talked. The next morning we split and headed off to our host families in Shanghai.

Me and my host family earlier this fall.

Like I said, things are busy here. I'm trying to catch up on my blog and organizing photos.

We Went to Camp

After a string of holidays, breaks and one-day and three-day weekends, the school had its fall military training, something required of all students in public schools in China. Because we are international students, we did not participate in the regular military training, but instead, we were sent off to an alternative military camp, off campus in Dong Fang Luzhou.  The camp was called was called 东方绿舟, or Oriental Land. The stated goal was to improve our discipline and motivation.

We embarked on our training by bus in the peak of a typhoon. Due to the storm, many roads were either closed or flooded -- but somehow still open. When we arrived at camp, we saw many Chinese teens in yellow rain ponchos marching around miserably.  But as we entered the gate of where we would be staying, from the bus window we could see a gift shop, a bar, a giant chess set, and a cafeteria. The architecture behind the gates of Camp Oriental Land was diverse, ranging from southern plantation style, American colonial, something that looked like a Russian cathedral style house, and a modern structure.

 

 

My two NSLI-Y roommates checking out the scene.

They took us to a big lecture hall where we were issued our uniforms. The outfits were blue camo-pants and T-shirts with a weird design. All of the clothes were too big for everyone. The pants were XL and the shirts were XXL. They should have fit me because Chinese sizes are smaller than American sizes, but the uniforms were in American sizes and the shirt fell to almost below my knees.

After our fittings, we went to our hotel. We were told it was “camp” so we expected that we would be roughing it a bit. To our surprise, they boarded us at a four-star hotel with TV, AC, and hot water in every room. Each room also came with a supply of robes, which were a source of entertainment for a while.

Our first exercise was for everyone to make a triangle out of rope. Blindfolded. They organized us into groups and we would be in those groups for the duration of the training. Our group name was the “Tiger Group” and our motto was a Chinese nursery rhyme about tigers. I was the group leader.

Dinner at the cafeteria was as great, better than the food at school. The next morning we woke up to a delicious breakfast; there was toast and hardboiled eggs, and even orange juice (although the orange juice wasn’t very good). After breakfast we had marching instructions directed by a man who looked like a high ranking official based on his uniform.

After marching we had lunch. Lunch included fruit, which is always nice to see and something I miss about home. Next came teamwork games, including walking together with our ankles tied to another teammate’s leg, working together to get our team across a body of water, and lifting everyone over a 12-foot wall. And then dinner and bed.

 

 

Jenai's ankle shows the mark of the three-legged race. We won!

The next day was much of the same: breakfast, marching, lunch, teamwork games, and dinner. During dinner we were treated to a barbeque and team performances, including dances and songs. It was a late night.

 

Group photo.

The last day at Camp Oriental Land was promised to be the most fun day. It was fun. We had dragon boat races, “fun-bridges” which were  a series of ropes strewn across a stream that we had to traverse, and an obstacle course with little Chinese kids adding to the obstacles.

Sadly we had to go back to school, no more breaks or long/short weekends for a while.

Across a Long Bridge

It is hard to find time to write, so I’m catching up. Earlier this fall, during the Chinese National Holiday, we had a week off from school. During the break, my host father took me to his hometown, Zhejiang province 浙.  My host brother, George, couldn’t go because he had to go to extra school. Like most Chinese high school students, he studies A LOT. My host mother stayed back in Shanghai, too.  

George, my host brother.

 

Driving out of Shanghai was interesting and a real experience.  I didn’t realize how big the city was until we had been driving through skyscrapers for at least 45 minutes. We drove past my Chapel Hill friend Mathias’s old apartment building in Shanghai, dozens of tower cranes, and endless buildings.  While we were driving it was really hazy. I’m not sure if it was fog or smog.  Crossing the border from 上海 to 浙江, we crossed the longest bridge I think I’ve ever been on. I thought the bridge I rode my bike across this summer in Astoria, Oregon, was long, but this one put the Astoria bridge to shame.  It took us at least 15 minutes to cross the bridge my host father told me that there is actually a longer one a little farther north.

We stopped at a rest stop for lunch and got 种子, a sticky pyramid of rice wrapped in a leaf.   When we reached my host father’s hometown we went to his house and were greeted by several mangy dogs (I should’ve gotten my rabies shot), two little kids and an old woman with a back bent by years in the field. That night we went to my host father’s teacher’s son’s house to eat dinner. We went to the teacher’s house and watched a Chinese-Japanese soccer match. Later the teacher’s son came over with his wife and I learned how to say,  行尸走肉 (The Walking Dead), as in the popular American television show.

That night we stayed at an OK hotel. There were cigarette burns on the carpet, but other that it was fine. We watched the Voice of China which is a not-so-famous American TV show but has turned into a very-famous Chinese one.

The next morning we picked up my host father’s nephews and visited the house of a famous Chinese calligrapher. It was very big house with pagodas on top of every hill and ridge surrounding the house.  We hiked up to one of the pagodas and could see everything all around. It was a nice change to the skyscrapers and tower cranes in Shanghai.

Our sightseeing tour continued a few more miles up the road to see a Buddhist temple, one of several we saw over the week-long break. The second temple we went to was a popular tourist site; it was enormous and we didn’t even see a third of the things in and around the temple. The main attraction was a giant Buddha inside of a man-made cave in a mountain. Giant Chinese and Sanskrit words were written on the cliffs surrounding the temple.

After we visited the temples, we met up with my host dad’s colleague for dinner.  I thought we were headed to a restaurant, but instead we met up with another guy at his apartment and picked up food to cook for dinner. We bought fish, pork, little apples that you could eat in just two bites, grapefruit and peanuts. It was my job to carry the fish after it had had been scaled and all of its organs ripped out. I thought it was dead but apparently it wasn’t because it was still squirming around in the bag. Despite the squirming fish, the dinner was very good.

After dinner we drove back to my host father’s hometown to spend the night at a family friend’s house. They put me in what seemed to be a newly renovated part of the house.  In fact, it was still being renovated and that’s what woke me up the next morning. New curtains were being installed, and that’s when I woke up. Despite it being the nicest room in the house, it felt somewhat eerie because of how big and bleak the room was. It had all white walls with nothing but a bed and it was fairly large, which made for a strange environment. In the morning they served fresh wontons in a steaming soup. The wontons were extremely hard to eat with chopsticks.

We spent most of the day at my host father’s teacher’s glass store. We went to another Buddhist temple where we saw some monks in prayer. I was getting pretty tired, but we also went to an opera museum, and to another friend of my host father’s house to chat. The family was moving to Shanghai and asked us to take some things back with us. The day ended with a visit to a duck farm to buy some duck’s for my host father’s parents. We relaxed that night and I helped my host father’s nephews build little wooden models of chariots and horses. After a long day, I was glad to fall into bed.

On our last day in Zhejiang province, we walked around some neighboring villages and took one last hike with the nephews to a Buddhist temple.

 

A hike with my host father's nephew.

 

We ended our excursion by going to my host father’s friend’s house in a neighboring village and walked around. We said goodbye his family and took one last hike with his nephews to a Buddhist temple. Before we left we gave the family members a few more presents and they gave us some too. Before leaving the province we went back to the duck store to buy a couple live ducks and several dozen fresh duck eggs. We put the live ducks in the trunk and sped off to Shanghai. The drive back seemed longer than the drive to Zhejiang even though traffic seemed better and there was no fog.

Duck farm.

 

For lunch we stopped at the same rest stop and got the same thing. For the longest time I heard a strange sound coming from the car and I couldn’t figure out what it was until my host father told me, it was the duck’s quacking. When we got back to the apartment, George was still at his extra school. Man he works hard! For me, the rest of the break was spent studying and working on homework. It was really nice to get away and see a different side of China.

 Tired students.

Hello, from Shanghai!

After a summer of bike riding across the United States, I was home for about 10 days before heading off to China. As some of you know, I was awarded as National Security Language Initiative Youth Scholarship to study Chinese language and culture in Shanghai for a year. The scholarship is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

The past few weeks have been very eventful. I left Chapel Hill on September 5^th and spent about two days in Washington, DC, for an orientation. After that, my group had a series of early flights, long flights and jetlag. By the time we landed at 浦东 international airport, we had less than 12 hours until we had to go to school.

 

At the airport, we met our resident director, Sarah, picked up our luggage, and headed to our school, High School Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University 交大附中. We had a school orientation and I took the HSK 4, a national Chinese language test for non-native Chinese speakers. I placed in level 2 Chinese out of 3 levels. There are 6 levels of the HSK, so I’m hoping to get better by June.
 

 

My NSLI-Y scholarship group.

 

I live in a dorm at the school during the week and have two roommates. My roommates are on the same scholarship program as I am. One is from Ohio and the other is from Washington state. The Chinese government does not allow us to room with Chinese students at the school, but I do have a Chinese host family and a host brother who I stay with on the weekends.

During the first two weeks, we were still getting into the groove. We had to do a lot of passport stuff; we explored the city a little; and discovered the school cafeteria food was good -- and then discovered it was bad. We learned how to get around on the subway and found out who our host families were. My host family lives about 20 minutes from my school.

I’m doing well. I have had one injury so far. On the third day a few of us were racing and I tripped – or something. There was no way to break my fall other than let it happen, so my chest, shoulders, arms and face got scratched. The fall landed me a visit to the school nurse and my wounds are now pretty much healed. It didn’t hurt much at the time, but I did get pretty scraped up.

My host family is really nice. They give me lots of food and are very polite. George, my host brother, is 15, studies too much. Every Friday he goes to school after school, and on the weekends he goes to another class that focuses on math or science and English. In his free time he likes to study. My host father is the manager at a Caterpillar (CAT) dealership in Shanghai, and my host mother works at a university and helps people with their PhDs (I think). I am lucky because my family does not speak a lot of English, so it’s good practice for me. My host family also has a dog.

Communicating with friends and family at home has been hard because I’m in school a lot of the time, and because I don’t always have Facebook and Internet access. For some reason, messaging on Facebook works, but I don’t have access to any other parts of Facebook. Messaging on Facebook works without a VPN, but Flickr won’t. I can Skype, but again, timing is hard. I did Skype with my mom and dad once and with the guys from my summer bike trip.

All the Chinese kids at school are pretty nice, especially the 新疆 kids or Uyghurs. Uyghurs are one of the many ethnic minorities in China. The international kids at school are nice, too. There are a couple of Germans, a couple of Russians, an Estonian, a Norwegian, some Indonesians and lots of Koreans and Japanese.

So far school isn’t that hard, but the school days are really long; 5:30-6 wake up, 7:50 school starts, 9:15 school ends and 10ish bed time. That totals about 13 hours in school, but we do get a one hour lunch break and a 2-hour dinner break. I think this long schedule will make mine back in America
feel more laid back.
 

 

School lunch.
 

I have not really tried anything out of the ordinary food-wise, besides crab stomach, a couple of pig trotters and maybe a few bits and pieces of dog in the cafeteria food; no scorpions or cockroaches for me, yet.

I have lots more to tell, but I can save that for later.   

 

 

浦发立/Paris