Life in China coming to a close..

So after spending Christmas in Japan with my big bro and new Japanese family, who were extremely welcoming and fun for the whole week, I sat some exams and was informed by my classmates that we have 7 weeks holiday… eh what?
As you can tell I’m not too on top of how things work out here. After much consideration of what to do/where to go/who with, I headed down with some friends to Hong Kong to crash at our friends student dorms (apart from one night when me and Andy ventured to Mirador mansion, just down the road from notorious ChungKing Mansions) where we celebrated the new year. While the new year parade and fireworks were uninspiring and/or hidden by a mass of people, our 10 days on the island were sweeeeet! I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to drink magners and pay £8 fish supper in my entire life. The things to do, whilst great fun involve spending a lot of cash… quickly back to the mainland then.
I decided in the end to head off by myself to the most southern part of China, an island called Hainan and stay in the city Sanya for two weeks. I’d managed to get in contact with an American couple there who run a centre for disabled children and they kindly put me up for this time feeding me all day and giving me a very comfy bed in a room all to myself. Who said volunteer work didn’t pay? It was probably the best part of my whole trip, while I’ve never worked so hard in my life (8am-8pm almost everyday) I also did things I never thought I could. Working with Chinese people the whole time who spoke no English (except telling me that Jesus loved me - I quickly found out they were devout Christians) and looking after children who had learned to live with conditions such as autism, cerebral palsy and down's syndrome was a hugely grounding experience. Despite my fears of not knowing what to do or how to look after the kids before I got there.. they are probably the most open and loving kids I’ve met in my entire life and all the workers were great at keeping me in line! Apart from me there was only one other full time volunteer over the two weeks, Anna from Sichuan, who was helping with English/Chinese translations. We got really close over the two weeks which surprised me when I think of how different our backgrounds are. She also introduced me to Mr Xing, a friend of her lecturer and a well-off Chinese man who insisted on taking us out for expensive meals and trips to exotic beaches so he could practice his English with me. Nice!
Also in Hainan I “bumped” in to a couple of classmates from Edinburgh, it was nice to see some people I knew while down there.. even if someone happened to be face down in the sand bottle of gin in hand. Did you ever get all the sand out your beard?
Two weeks of hard work and burning the front half of my body bright red, I headed up to Guilin/Yangshou area where I got to do some proper sight seeing.
Going via Guangzhou I was nervous about heading off travelling by myself after being so settled in Hainan, however China being China, I was well looked after by the cute old couple next to me who insisted on feeding/watering me and generally making sure I was okay. I can’t get over how generous and friendly the people are here sometimes, all without being asked and with no expectations of anything in return.
Reaching Guilin at 3am wearing flipflops in the pouring rain with no idea how to get to the hostel or even what it was called in Chinese (I’ve never claimed to be organised) I was again totally lucky to meet a girl from Harbin who happened to be looking for the same place, all this just as I was about to head of in the opposite direction from the hostel, in the dark, by myself. Phew! Guilin had some crazy people and a lot of the basics were a rip-off, but reaching Yangshuo the scenery was breathtaking and making the effort to speak Chinese again got me far! I met a girl who taught rock climbing classes and took me out for the day then showed me the cheap and tasty places for dinner – hard to come by in these big tourist spots. I also bumped into a couple of German guys who I’d met in Guilin, they showed me the most beautiful pictures I’ve even seen of China and were great to sit and talk to with some beers down by the river. Also in Yangshuo I met Fiona from Oz whom with I adventured to the LongJi (龙脊）rice terraces, we travelled on the bus hoping to get off at the popular Ping'an only to be tricked by the lady on the bus into going to the next town, DaZhai, and staying at her sisters’ house.. Which actually turned out to be the best trick anyone could have played on us! In DaZhai the people were sparse, weather was beautiful, rice fields a plenty.. and we came across this amazing little vegetarian hostel/restaurant run by the most lovely Mongolian lady I’ve met in my life who had a great understanding of how tourism should be in China, an insight into the culture rather than the overpriced and nasty hotels we came across when we later went to Ping’an. The trip ended with a stop in Beijing where I met a few more class mates, drank quite a bit, and avoided the clouds of smog. The most important day for me was when I went to Tiananmen Square, which was full of tourists both Chinese and foreign, but knowing the history of the square and finally being there after 6 months of living in China was a very eerie and poignant feeling.

On another note, since then 2nd semester in Dalian has been really awesome. While some friends from semester 1 have left, new students have come and our year abroad continues. Now I can’t think what exactly what we’ve been doing, there were certainly parties, nights out, exams, and class dinners, oh and of course the trip to Beijing! This time with Carly, for what was probably the most unexpected trip of my life (we were planning on Thailand). Going in May rather than February meant Summer Palace was beautiful, the beer garden was open, and the days loooong. After haggling at the markets, 6 hours of kareoke with some random Chinese students from Sichuan and avoiding Carly's pleas to eat shark on a stick with her at the tourist-aimed snack street I finally made it to the Great Wall! Despite having to head out on my own as Carly had already been a few months before and wanted to spend a day chilling out, I soon met two Chinese girls the same age as me (again from Sichuan!!) and we spent the day hanging out, climbing the wall all while speaking Mandarin. I was amazed that how compared to when I first arrived in China, I could actually have such a good laugh with these girls without speaking a word of English! A really fun day, and not for the fact I got my must-take picture on the wall.

Back in Dalian, our good friend English Rob had his last night and headed off on travels round the rest of China, Edinburgh classmate Justin came back from Singapore, had an awesome but far too brief visit from Loz who’s been in HK, and a few of us took a very last minute and fun trip to Tongliao, Inner Mongolia. Outside of the China bubble my brother and his wife had the arrival of my beautiful niece, Islay.
All in all, it has been an amazing 9 months and I while I miss everyone from home I have to stop myself thinking about heading back because right now things are going too well! I’m still living with my Ayi, who’s trying to teach me how to make good dumplings as well as other recipes without that dreaded MSG! Leaving her is going to be very hard for me but instead of worrying about what I’m going to miss, it is time to make the most of my last month and a bit in China, 'cos who knows if I'll ever make it back.

Christmas in China

d(I wrote this blog in December so a few months late.. sorry!)


As suspected I haven’t been at all committed to this blogging business, to be honest the last few weeks have flown by, which is probably down to the fact I’m counting down the days that I go to Japan for Christmas.
Things have been a lot more festive here than I thought they would be and started off with my first ever Thanksgiving! It was a wonderful night of bottomless glasses of red wine - thanks to the wine waiters and of course our own stash under the table! The food was amazing, my first three course meal 6+ months. Okay four course, it was a buffet. I've never been happier with a plate of mash potato in all my life... As the dreaded “tell us all what you’re thankful for” speech came up I floundered a bit, and could only really think of what I’m not thankful for. Shit. Now that’s led me to think, what has China really got for me?
One thing I’ve heard everyone moan about at some point is…..*drum roll*… the staring. Yes, that glazed look of wonder, which seems to haunt me everywhere I go. Sometimes I can get a smile out of them (old men), sometimes even a bit of embarrassment(teenage boys), usually I just try to stare them out(everybody else). When I first got here it really bugged me, I’m just me, from the outside I thought I looked normal enough.. I really didn’t get what there is to stare at. After countless Chinese people telling me it’s just out of interest, I’ve come to accept that it is not offensive and even stopped noticing it. In fact it is my Chinese friends who now say “Gosh everybody is staring at you, that’s so weird”… Thanks for pointing it out. Anyway I’ve always been good at zoning these types of things out, even the cries of “Lao Wai” (foreigner) don’t bug me so much anymore.
I do love people’s reaction though when they hear me speak Chinese, now I know that my Chinese isn’t great, and my tones seem to depend on my mood at the time, so its funny to be praised for even the simplest “Ni hao”. I love the way they falsely give you complements. They know and I know that I am making no sense, but they'll keep telling me how great I am. Chinese people are so encouraging! What is bad is if they ever catch you doing your homework, I was in a park with some classmates, and the number of people that came up to us and marvelled at the fact we, real life foreigners, were writing characters and proceeded to grab our books and examine what we'd been doing (without asking of course) then take photos of what seemed to be the highlight if their week, was a bit ridiculous. We were discussing the other night how being a foreigner in China kind of gives you a taste of celebrity life. And it is not fun. I don’t need people pointing out to me all the time that I’m foreign and oh, my skin is so so so so so white, just like I imagine people back home don’t need reminded that they work in that box in my front room.
However, I am becoming a lot more sympathetic in regards to the great amount of social problems in China. It seems that in some sense people will never be considered more than a number, in the hospitals where the treatment of patients is get them in and out asap, and of course there is no such thing as privacy, to the simple task of using the supermarket/ buses/ lifts where you are usually being shoved out they way or cramped into a corner. The reason for all of this is simply because in China, "there are far too many people".
Now there are some habits, I don’t believe there are any excuses. For one there’s the spitting, it is so gross. People spit everywhere, needless to say restaurants and buses are common spitting ground, of course the home is often a favourite, my morning and night time soundtrack is usually my Ayi hocking up in the bathroom. And the excuse, “it’s a reflex we can’t help, like throwing up…” so they’re all puking on the street.. nice.
The way of eating fish is also one that gets me queezy, while I’ve never really eaten boney fish because, well it takes too long to get those bones out, the Chinese save time by putting it all in their mouth and eating the flesh as they spit the unwanted bones simply on the table top, or if you’re feeling really fancy onto a tissue. The same goes for nuts, the floors in tea houses are usually littered with these soggy shells.
I have to admit I’m used to is all now, but I don’t think I could have grown as used to it all as I have if it wasn’t for the people that I’m sharing it with, we might not all have the same experience, but whether its our Listening teacher exerting all types of gas through class, or that horrible time we had at the doctors, I know that there is always someone to tell who will be equally as disgusted and find it just as hilarious.
One thing I would like to mention when comparing China to Britain is that in general, people treat foreigners really well, if there is racism then from what I can see it only comes in the form of ripping us off or taxi drivers refusing us. Nothing like the violence that goes on in "developed" countries that is caused by racism. I have only seen one fight in the whole time that I've been here and that was two old men in their underpants who drank too much baijiu and then came over to give us a personal apology! (I'm sure if I came across the same situation in Glasgow on a Friday night knives and buckfast would be involved)

What was probably one of my best nights in Dalian so far was our evening of decorating the tree at Carly’s as she made some awesome brownies, singing Christmas songs (with a guitar and everything like) then trying to handle mulled wine and egg nogg. I really did just think, as this year draws to a close, in the end, there were some positives after all. I’ve met some great people from both Edinburgh and beyond that have ended up feeling like a family, everyone has fitted so well together, which may be surprising considering how different we all are. But it’s the people that I’ve ended up being here with, including my Ayi – spitting and all - that have really made the difference. And even though it is now far too late for thanksgiving I finally realised that I do have something to be thankful for, and China isn’t so bad after all.