What's going on in China today?

For the past month I have been in Nanjing I've experience a plethora of new things. Other than consistently learning the Chinese language, I've been soaking in the culture like a sponge. There are many components of China that always make me say "We're not in America anymore." Although this may be true, I still remind myself that this is all apart of the cultural roller coaster I signed up for. Everyday is an adventure in one way or the other.

I don't know why we're smiling

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for a member at a gym called Vera. The facilities were very nice and they seemed to be well established. The staff was nice and there was a loyal clientele. My friends Lanier and Sam joined at the same time I did. Lanier found the gym and convinced us to join with her. We considered paying for three months because they offered a great discount for a longer duration of time, but we decided to just try the gym out for a month. About a week into out membership Lanier and I arrived at Vera to find the lobby filled with roughly twenty police men and a lot of angry club members. We were confused as to what was occurring. Suddenly, an English speaking native approached Lanier and I and said told us that owner of the gym took all of the money from the savings and fled the city. He said that the boss could not be found anywhere and that this was the last day Vera would be open. Lanier and I kinda glanced at each other, humorously swapped some profound words, and tried to contemplate what was occurring. Shortly after, the kind man said, "Welcome to China. This is as real of an experience you will get here. Stay and soak in the culture!" He along with numerous other people began to curse the ineffective nature of the police force. As the policemen sat in the lobby smoking and continued to do nothing, the members of the gym began to grow more impatient. One nice lady told Lanier and I that she had an eight year membership. It was quite sad to see how upset and how unfortunate the situation was for many of these people. I will say that I am quite fortunate that I only lost $80. Over the course of a week the members of Vera and the employees gathered on the front stepped of the gym where they proceeded to block a major intersection in order to gain the provincial governments attentions. Unfortunately, their efforts were simply ignored. I turned in my information with no hopes of seeing my money again.

"Can I borrow a smoke?"

Since we're on the note of protest, it's an eerie time to be in Nanjing if you're Japanese. Due to a lot of old culture conflicts and debates of islands between China and Japan, the Chinese people are lashing out against the Japanese. Nanjing will always be remembered in history for the Nanking Massacre. During the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, it's estimated that 300,000 Chinese people were killed in the city of Nanjing. As a result of the incident, Nanjing is known for holding the most animosity towards the Japanese in China. Due to recent events over the issues of islands ownership, many Chinese citizens have taken their frustration to the streets and have banded together to speak against the Japanese. This week I saw an enormous wave of red flood the street as people gathered to speak against Japan. It's said that many Japanese citizens are being persecuted as a result of the island conflict. The Japanese embassy in Beijing is being trashed and Japanese store owners are forced to close early and they are also forced to deal with damages to their shops. Children are also frequently asked by there parents to only speak Chinese and not to speak Japanese in the public. CIEE, my study abroad program, requested that students with Japanese heritage reframe from letting people know. Our culture professor informed our class of Japanese friends she has in Nanjing that have woken up to signs outside of their homes telling them to get out of China. Of course I'm sugar coating the harshness of the true message. 

With so many things occurring on a daily basis, I'm amazed by how much I've been capable of experiencing since I've been here. Whether it be good or bad, all I can truly do is be a spectator as a outsider in this country.

Nanjing, China 南京

I ate smelly tofu for the first time here...

It's been almost a month, so I think it's about time I made a new post. It's been about a three weeks since I've arrived in Nanjing, and I have been having an amazing time. Studying Chinese has proven to be a lot more difficult over seas, but it's been great studying with all the students in the CIEE program. We have about thirteen students in the program who are all here for a variety of reasons. I've been making new friends on a daily basis and making an effort to continuously break out of my comfort zones in order to make my experience here as enriching as possible.

Just like Rhodes, I sleep a minimal amount, but I'm finding that I have a lot more time to dedicate to studying. On the first day of classes we were all required to sign a language pledge. The pledge pretty much states that we are not allowed to speak English from 8 am to 8 pm Monday-Friday. I'm not gonna lie....it's rough. On the first day I struggled an immense amount, but as the week progressed I began to start thinking in Chinese rather than English. The language pledge is meant to force us to begin thinking in Chinese, force ourselves to learn words we commonly use everyday, and to engulf us into an active Chinese lifestyle as a foreign student.

That's not Nanjing....

In the past few weeks I've already completed more than I could ever imagine. I believe my Chinese proficiency is well in its way, but it's still nowhere near where I want it. It's an uphill battle, but I'm loving it. I'm studying at Nanjing University and I find it to be an amazing campus. The building I'm living in is the international students building. Everyone from all around the world is living under the same roof. It's pretty amazing to see so many nationalities mingle amongst each other and attempt to find common grounds through the utilization of their secondary language.

Where the Chinese at?

As far as making new friends are concerned, I feel as if I've become a lot more outgoing and have made an effort to make new friends on a daily basis. It turns out that a majority of students who study abroad in China are from South Korea. It's kind of funny because right now I've made more Korean friends than Chinese friends. They speak to mee in English, Korean, and Chinese. Whenever they do not know an English word they will use Chinese, and if they do not know the Chinese word they will use Korean. It's pretty cool because I cannot speak Korean, but I can understand Korean better than I can understand Chinese, and to make things more confusing I can speak Chinese better than I can speak Korean. We fully utilize all three languages in order to communicate. I think it's pretty awesome if you ask me. In China I've tried my best to have more pride in my heritage and make it very clear that I am an American born Korean. When I came to China I changed my first given Chinese name to my Korean name. Using similar characters with the same meanings I was capable of keeping my Korean name. Every Chinese and Korean friend I made knows me as 张永彬 (Chinese) or 장영빈 (jang-yeongbin in Korean). The Korean friends I've made said they can help teach me Korean so in return I can teach them English. So far everyday has been an adventure here and I have been loving every minute of it.

Hi there!

Leaving Shenyang 再见

Spending the last ten weeks in Shenyang is now becoming bittersweet. Next week I'll be going to Nanjing to attend Nanjing University. I'll spend the next four months enhancing my Chinese while I am there. While being in Shenyang I've really learned a lot about adapting and realizing how easy life is back in the states. As I mentioned in a previous post, it's the small things that count. While being here I have not had the simple luxuries of a microwave, laundry machine, fridge, or kitchen. Appliances which are typically always available back at home. For those of you who know me pretty well you know that I really enjoy cooking Korean food. Unfortunately, since I didn't have access to a kitchen, I resorted to eating out every night. Over the course my time in Shenyang I tried various restaurants. Around week four I found a nice Korean/Chinese fusion restaurant. I eventually became a frequent every single night and became friends with the staff. The Boss recognized me every night and so did all of the staff. Now that I think about it, I'm quite grateful that I did not have a kitchen. I formed a strong relationship with the workers here and was treated well by them. Near the end of my time in Shenyang they began giving me free dishes. I found myself talking to the staff for over thirty minutes every night. Wether my food got cold or not I truly enjoyed speaking to everyone. No one could speak any English and I believe this was the best part. I think my Chinese is quite awful, but having these conversations every night helped me more than I could ever imagine. I believe the relationships I formed from this restaurant will be one of the biggest parts of Shenyang I will miss.

I've grown accustomed to hand washing all of my laundry for ten weeks and air drying all of it as well. If you're Korean and reading this you will probably know what I'm about to say. Have you ever had that story from your parents where they always told you they carried all of their books to school, hiked miles to go to school in a blizzard, lived on a farm, "hand washed all of their clothes", and told you time and time again that you don't know how fortunate you are to be living the life you are? Well guess what! I can cross one thing off that list now! But in all seriousness, I respect the hell out of my parents for growing up in the aftermath and devastation of World War II and imperialistic rule in Korea.

Shenyang has left a strong impression on me. Opposed to other cities I've visited so far, Shenyang appears to be years behind in innovative technology, and the culture appears to be quite different as well. Although the city is lagging behind, I truly have come to love the city and region. Shenyang is located in northeast China or also know has the Dongbei (东北）. Just like the North and South is different is America, so are various regions in China. People in the Dongbei remind me of people from Texas, loud and proud. Although I've been here for just two months, I believe I'll always be reppin' the Dongbei even when I head south to Nanjing for four months.

It's the small things we take for granted

I was informed of what "culture shock" would feel like before I left China. The truth is, upon arriving in China I didn't experience a large amount of cultural shock. I guess growing up in a Korean family has already thought me a lot of oriental family behavior, so observing that on the streets wasn't out of the ordinary for me. But this is only one of a few things that I was already accustomed to. The initial shock of being in a new country did not hit me like a ton of bricks, instead, it decided to creep up on me.

For many of you who don't know me too well, I am an American born South Korean. I can't speak Korean, but can understand it more or less. I hope that I can become fluent in it someday, but at the moment Chinese has become a priority on my list. I've never been to South Korean, but I plan to go there in the near future. Also, I have never been out of the United States, until now.

"Let's all play nicely now, single file..."

Now back to my point about culture shock creeping up on me. The biggest shock to me was not my incapability of speaking to people, but a culmination of several things. The truth is I was prepared for this and already accepted that communication was not going to be easy, so it didn't bother me too much. The fact that I was in a different country didn't really occur to me till much later. Although small, one of the first things I learned about not being in America is that drinks are not served with ice and that meals are not always eaten with a beverage. The next factor was order. When I say order, I'm referring to order in behavior, specifically lines. Whether it be a two person line at a convenient store, a bus, bank, or whatever, you will be skipped... accept it. I know in America it's pretty common to wait for the person in front of you to finish paying for something or finish what they are doing, but seriously, I mean seriously, is it so hard for someone to wait behind me to pay for my damn goods?! Okay I'm getting angry without explaining the situation... I've been to convenient stores to buy whatever it is that I needed for that day. You know, what you go to a convenient store for, right? Anyways, on more than one occasion, I've been at the counter with my supplies on the counter ready to pay to have some lazy, impatient, and ignorant fool literally hand their goods to the cashier over my shoulder behind me. Seriously?! I'm looking at them right in the eyes and they have the audacity to skip me like that. What makes these individuals think their time is any more important than mine? Okay, well... this frankly just irritates me so I'm going to move onto the left thing, drinking water.

"Water water everywhere"

I didn't realize how valuable water was until I no longer had complete access to it from my sink. If you read my previous blog post, you would understand why I value water so much now.

Next on the list would have to be laundry machines. I've been living in a hotel room ever since I have been to China. I do not have a mini-fridge, microwave, or access to a laundry machine. To be honest, all of these items are luxury items and I've learned that I could easily live without them. You would think that China is filled with laundry mats right? Hah! Wrong!! China, unlike America, is not filled with laundry mats, instead it is filled with dry cleaners that charge you a pretty penny for every article of clothing. If I were to get every piece of clothing dry cleaned I would be broke in no time. In order to deal with my dilemma, I've resorted to hand washing all of my cloths. Also it's pretty common for local people to hand wash their cloths in many areas as well. It's a lot easier to throw in all my clothes into a washer and walk away then come back and throw everything into a dryer, but I guess I was just spoiled with access to a washer and dryer. Now I result to hand washing what can fit in my sink and air dry all of my clothes. I know it's a bit of a change but I've grown accustomed to doing this. It's not so bad once you get used to it, and it's debatably better for your clothes too. For those of you who are reading this, you're starting to get jealous of me right?

"No holes. Looks like it was a good day."

Another thing I would have never expected was a privileged is take out boxes. In China it's pretty common to get a bag instead of a takeout box.... "Wait...What...?" you might be saying. Well I'm so glad you asked! On my first weekend in China I had to go out and get dinner for the first time on my own. I was hungry so I needed food. To make things better, I had no idea where any restaurants were and if anything was safe to eat. Also, it was the rainy season and it was pouring outside. After navigating through many alleys and streets and getting a little lost for about forty-five minutes, I gave up and decided to eat at a hole in the wall. I ordered some noodles and asked to have it to go. The man walked out with soup and noodles, not in a box or container, but literally in a bag. It was my first experience getting food on my own, and I honestly could not stop smiling on the way back to my hotel room because I couldn't believe it. I had nothing to eat my soup and noodles in a bag in other than my hotel room's tea kettle, so I got a little creative and poured everything into the kettle and had a wonderful meal for one. I recently made an investment is a large bowl. They're kinda useful if you ask me.

"Mmmmmmmm"

As a result of writing this, I've realized that there is a lot more I want to say. I'm sure the list of things will also continue to grow so keep following me if you have some free time and would like to know how I am doing. I think I'll save the rest for a "Part 2" post.

Although a lot of this seems to be different, I'm enjoying every moment of it. I love being in a new country and adapting to my surroundings.

Don't drink the water.... whatever you do, do NOT drink the water!


 If you've ever met someone who has been to China, they will typically tell you to never drink the water. "Psh...." I thought, but I was extremely wrong....


Gotta get my drank on


Living in Memphis my entire life, I never realized how fortunate I was to always have clean drinking water in reach. In China it's a different story. Just this morning I almost panicked because I didn't have water to rinse my mouth out in the sink. Luckily, I found a half empty bottle at the bottom of my backpack. Now this may make me sound a little skeptical just because I'm rinsing my mouth out with bottled water. Well, I have my reasons and I refuse to go against them after my first weekend in Shenyang.

During my first week in Shenyang I got a gym membership at a place called Balley Total Fitness. It's a pretty nice gym with a lot of good equipment...... Now I'm sounding like an advertiser. Anyways, I was told before that the locals don't even drink the water. At the gym I saw a lot of locals drinking from the water fountain. I assumed the water was filtered since so many people drank from it. I was horribly wrong. Over the course of two days, a Thursday and Friday, I had drunk about 5 liters of local tap water. When you're huffing, puffing, and sweating in the gym the ice cold water from a nicely chilled fountain taste like Fiji on the lips and throat. Moving forward, when the weekend hit I realized that I had got water poisoning... I was wrapped around a toilet bowl for four days straight and barely had an appetite! I won't elaborate of the details of my relationship with my bathroom, but I will say "Never ever ever ever ever eveeeer drink the water!" After about three weeks of my tragic mistake I finally regained my appetite. I lost about 5 lbs as a result of my diet shifting and not eating as much, but I'm feeling a lot healthier now and glad to be alive!

Changbaishan 长白山

Changbaishan Waterfall

This past weekend I visited Changbaishan. This is a famous mountain located in Northeast China. A group of Americans I work with have been wanting to visit Changbaishan for a while so we finally put something together in the last second. We had two options of reaching the mountain, we could choose to go by standing up in a train for fourteen hours or we could rent a van for 4,000 RMB ($626) that would take seven hours. We decided to sleep in a chair and not stand up on a train for obvious reasons. Between eight people we split the cost.

Changbaishan is a famous mountain that is owned by both China and North Korea. It's quite beautiful and an amazing place to see. When we arrived at the mountain it was pretty hectic, and like most places in China, extremely crowded. Getting to the top of the mountain was quite interesting. We took a shuttle that sped up the mountain. As we ascended the mountain, we ended up driving straight into a cloud because the mountain was completely engulfed by a cloud. At the peak of the mountain is the crater which is a lake. Unfortunately, when we arrived it was pouring and we couldn't see two feet in front of us. We decided to wait out the rain. After twenty minutes people began to shout because the clouds were literally be blown and lifted out of the crater. It was quite the sight to see. The sun came out and we were capable of seeing the lake also known as the "Lake of Heaven." Along with the lake, we were capable of seeing the North Korean border.

After we finished seeing the lake we headed back down the mountain where we then entered another sight. We walked a long trail where we past a hot springs and finally reached our destination. The lake becomes a waterfall and formed a river all the way down the mountain. We arrived at the waterfall. It was pretty amazing to see because half of the mountain was still engulfed by a cloud. Only half of the waterfall was visible, but I thought it was kind of cool to see it this way. After a long day of hiking Changbaishan we returned to Shenyang around 3:00 am. I've loaded pictures of my trip on Facebook and Flikr so feel free to take a look!

Going to Beijing 北京

Summer Palace



Forbidden City




Mutianyu Great Wall of China



About two weeks ago I met up with Landon Webber in Beijing. We both knew for a while that we were going to be in China this summer so we planned to hang out for one weekend. Over the course of three days we covered almost 18 hours of walking each day. Beijing was an amazing place to visit and it was impossible to see everything with the little time we had. It may have been polluted, hot, humid, and rainy, but it was definitely a memorable experience. We tried all different types of foods ranging on absolutely delicious to unbelievably sinful. We visited the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Mutianyu Great Wall (restored and unrestored), Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Beihai Park, Mao Zedong Memorial Hall, Monument to the People's Heroes, the Olympics Bird's Nest and Water Cube, night markets, and the list goes on! Overall, I will say that I truly enjoyed my experience in Beijing and plan to see it atleast one more time before I leave China.





I did not eat it...



"Walk Loudly"

If you're curious about my title "Walk Loudly" it's a little saying that was started by a Rhodes Bonner Scholar.

http://www.rhodes.edu/1718.asp

It all starts here

This is the first blog I've ever created. I was asked by friends and family to share my experience in China, but it's been pretty difficult keeping in touch with everyone and letting them know how my trip has been. If you would really like to know how I am doing and what is going on in my life, please read my blog and let me know what you're thinking.