Dear Friends and Readers,
Please forgive me for having neglected my blog for so long. I started writing pretty frequently in my personal blog, so I kinda gave up writing detailed entries here (In case you haven't noticed from the many video posts). But now I am back!
And I'm in Korea!
I arrived yesterday afternoon in Seoul and have been spending all my time with the beloved Min! It's been really great.
Here is the play-by-play, more for my sake than for your's.
I woke up at 4am on Saturday morning, to take a van to the airport at 6am for my 8:50am flight. The new Terminal at the Beijing airport is really impressive. It's quite pretty and clean-looking. It took an hour to go through check-in and security. I'm a dummy; I got my hand sanitizer and my hand lotion confiscated. I hate how paranoid airports make me feel. I also have this weird phobia that people won't believe that my passport actually belongs to me (since I don't really look like my photo anymore).
Smooth 2 hour flight. Passed out and scarfed sandwiches. Arrived in Seoul at 12pm, and took a bus to a hotel. Quickly realized that I did not understand what anyone around me was saying. Passed out on the bus too. Was able to make my way to the hostel without any problems.
Dropped my stuff off and tried to get in contact with Min. Again I was a dummy and didn't write down his cell phone number so I had to go on the internet to find it, and then find a phone to call him. Ended up making 2 trips back and forth from the hostel to the pay phone a block away because I couldn't figure out how to use the pay phone and I wasn't sure if I had the right number.
Finally reached him and found him at the subway stop. HEART skipped a beat when I saw Min in a corduroy brown blazer and brown leather dress shoes. Ate a delicious lunch of shrimp omelet rice at OmutoTomato. Went back to the hostel to drop Min's stuff off and pass out for another hour.
When we finally decide to pick our asses up off the bed, we walked around the college town area near my hostel and scoped out different restaurants. This place is super trendy (the area near Hongik University), well trendy, hipster, artsy, punk all mixed up. There were lots of bars, lots of street vendors, lots of college kids with great looking hair and even better looking accessories. We saw this rock band perform in the park.
For dinner we had noodles cooked in a giant pot. Then we roamed the streets looking for Krispy Kreme (my idea). After stuffing our faces, we decided to eat more, so we ate deep fried squid and drank beer at a street stall. Then we met up with Min's cousin Andrew and went to this bar called Ta (in Chinese characters, it's Da). Saw some cool kids perform, and some not so cool expats dance shamelessly. Then Min and I migrated to Con Bar and I had a little "Iced Tea" action. Made it home at 3am. Sounds like a great first night in Seoul.
DAY 2
Slept in till 10:30am. Woohoo! Picked up some sweet potato raisin bread from Paris Baguette for breakfast. Took the subway over to City Hall. Saw tons of Chinese people waving giant Chinese flags across the street at a concert for the Olympic Torch Relay. Felt oddly comforted. Then Min and I went inside City Hall, took some great pics, and frolicked.
Next, we headed to the National Palace. Walked, a lot, and went into the Folk Museum. Saw parts of a funeral procession. Also got to see the changing of the guards outside the palace. I got really scared by the giant drum. BANG BANG BANG (does a drum go bang?) Afterwards we went to Dongdaemun Market, where we ate this deliciously yummy Korean stew and a soft-serve cone that was at least 8 inches high (no joke. Pics to come).
Soon though, I had to say good-bye to Min since he needed to go back to Ochang to teach tomorrow. So I stayed around the market area and bought myself eyeliner, a cell phone dangly in the shape of a mini-Soju bottle and bottle opener, and charcoal soap (yes, I am equally intrigued). Afterwards, I took the subway (by myself!) back to the Hongik area.
I was in search of food, even though I wasn't hungry since Min and I ate "lunch" at 4pm. I ate an ice cream hot dog (a hot dog bun filled with ice cream, berry sauce, and sprinkles/nuts). It was an accident. I thought I was ordering a regular hot dog. Then to balance the sweet with the salty, I ate some street food, rice cakes and bean curd on a stick. DELICIOUS!
Tomorrow I explore Seoul, solo. I am finally getting over my nervousness about speaking English to people. I mean, I have no choice really, but for some reason I almost feel disrespectful speaking to people in English. As if, I should be making some effort to learn and speak their language. I've been asking Min how to say some stuff in Korean, but I think he gets annoyed with me for getting the pronunciation absolutely wrong. I think he also gets annoyed that anytime he tells me something about Korea, I immediately answer, "Well in China, it's like this...." I feel bad making him my Korean native informant, but I want to know more about the place I'm in, and it seems more efficient to just ask him instead of reading about it online or somewhere.
More updates soon. And in a day, I'm going to visit Min's host family and watch him teach!!!
Showing posts with label Travels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travels. Show all posts
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Weekend getaway in Tianjin
I took a trip to Tianjin (the municipality that borders Beijing, an hour away) last weekend. Here are the videos from the trip.
It all started with the madness in the subway station as I was trying to get to the railway station. Needless to say, I missed my train and had to wait for the next one.
This is Friday morning rush hour on the Beijing subway system. Notice the crowds and crowds of people. Nope, they're not waiting for tickets for the Celine Dion concert, they're just waiting for their turn to shove onto the subway. As the Chinese would say, people mountain people sea (translation: It's a sea of people, and a crowd of people as high as a mountain). Taken on March 21, 2008. Sihui East subway station in Beijing.
One of the notable characteristics of Tianjin is the construction that is ongoing everywhere! It's even crazier than Beijing!
Warning: I took this video while walking, so it's very very shaky. I take no responsibility if you get dizzy from watching this video. I mean, you probably will, so I apologize in advance. And a sidenote: The woman at the end is picking out and sorting the good bricks so that they can be used again in another building. Taken on March 21, 2008 during my weekend trip to TianJin, China.
At one of the various tourist spots in Tianjin.
Outside the Drum Tower in TianJin, I found an old man using a large brush and water, practicing traditional Chinese calligraphy on the ground. His writing is absolutely gorgeous, and I was pretty mesmerized just watching him write so beautifully with such ease. A crowd formed to watch him. The building at the end is the drum tower. Taken on March 21, 2008 in Tianjin, China.
It all started with the madness in the subway station as I was trying to get to the railway station. Needless to say, I missed my train and had to wait for the next one.
This is Friday morning rush hour on the Beijing subway system. Notice the crowds and crowds of people. Nope, they're not waiting for tickets for the Celine Dion concert, they're just waiting for their turn to shove onto the subway. As the Chinese would say, people mountain people sea (translation: It's a sea of people, and a crowd of people as high as a mountain). Taken on March 21, 2008. Sihui East subway station in Beijing.
One of the notable characteristics of Tianjin is the construction that is ongoing everywhere! It's even crazier than Beijing!
Warning: I took this video while walking, so it's very very shaky. I take no responsibility if you get dizzy from watching this video. I mean, you probably will, so I apologize in advance. And a sidenote: The woman at the end is picking out and sorting the good bricks so that they can be used again in another building. Taken on March 21, 2008 during my weekend trip to TianJin, China.
At one of the various tourist spots in Tianjin.
Outside the Drum Tower in TianJin, I found an old man using a large brush and water, practicing traditional Chinese calligraphy on the ground. His writing is absolutely gorgeous, and I was pretty mesmerized just watching him write so beautifully with such ease. A crowd formed to watch him. The building at the end is the drum tower. Taken on March 21, 2008 in Tianjin, China.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Wendy Meets Distant Family in Southern China--Thoughts, Part 1: Gender Roles
I just got back from one of the strangest familial interactions of this entire trip (possibly the strangest, but it's tough competition since there have been some pretty strange family interactions in the past few weeks).
Chinese culture is very patriarchal, as you may have been able to guess. Men sit around a table, sipping their tea, munching on snacks, while the women are in the kitchen preparing the food, pouring the tea, and cleaning up. And I am in a particularly odd situation. Would this happen at home, I'd probably be the one in the kitchen, offering to help, and definitely expected to help. But here, it's a little bit different, since I'm the guest. Not only that, but I'm the only guest, so there's no one to diffuse the good mannered-ness and politeness among (there is probably a better word for that, but I can't think of it right now. and it really seems like a chinese word would be more appropriate in this situation).
This is probably the first time in my life where I've had to act like an adult in a family situation, since I'm the only one here to represent my immediate family. Usually, as the fourth child, I get to run away from these familial obligations to the kids' room and just watch the 5 year olds play video games. And it's an especially awkward situation as I am young (22 years old as compared to the middle aged people around me) but not so young that I need someone else to speak for me (and seeing as how I'm completely alone in this situation, I literally have no one else to speak for me), and as I am an unmarried woman (I don't know how many times I've been asked if I have a boyfriend, especially when I bring up me meeting a "friend"). (And it seems so much that the defining act which makes one become an adult is, marriage.)
It's just been weird for me, in these interactions, because I feel very much the outsider. And I'm sure it has something to do with me being an American, and me being young, but the more I think about it, I realize it has very much to do with me being a woman. The table isn't set for me. It's set for the middle-aged Chinese men, who sit, have their food cooked for them, smoke their cigarettes around their babies who have their asses wiped for them by these men's wives, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, daughters even, I mean, any woman really, just not themselves.
I sit and observe and feel awkward and think, "Wow, this is exactly what happens in Chinese American families in the States too." I've often thought that the awkwardness of those sit-in-the-living-room-with-the-tv-on-in-the-background-sipping-tea-while-the-kids-are-making-a-fuss conversations was somehow a result of the interaction happening in the United States instead of in Asia, somehow a result of the immigration process. But it's not. It's just as awkward here in China.
Tonight I had a chance to sit at the big boys' table, to be a member of the boys' club of middle-aged Chinese men. I was given one of only 6 available wine glasses, and served wine by women my own mother's age and ganbei'd (cheers'd) glass after glass after glass of wine. I was a guest in the house, so I was served. 5 of the men in the house were guests, so they were served. But I sat silently as I watched 3 of the women in the house who were also guests, in the kitchen slicing apples, preparing tea, serving tea, wiping off tables, as I and the men sat and slowly got drunk and smoked cigarettes around their babies.
And now I feel sick to my stomach. I'm sure it had to do with the fact that the first bottle of wine we drank had gone sour (and had practically become vinegar), but no one in the place dared to admit that the wine that had been sitting for years (the cork broke upon opening = bad sign) had gone bad. Ironically, thanks to patriarchal norms, I get to pull the woman card and say that I couldn't drink that much (when quite honestly, I could probably outdrink most of these men). It's just unreal.
And moments like this make me think of my own future, and whether or not I'll have a family someday, and if I do, how I envision that family to be. I very much want to raise a "Chinese family," whatever that means. Chinese culture has become very important to me, but I do not want to be a part of the continuation of patriarchal practices (ie. I refuse to be the mother in the kitchen cooking food for my full grown son as he literally sits at the dinner table criticizing me for the food not being hot enough and requesting soy sauce for his bland chicken when he can very well cook his damn dinner and get his own damned soy sauce while slowly giving me cancer from his second-hand smoke. I bring up this example because I saw it happen).
And at the end of the day all I think is, These women are strong as hell. I hope someday to be half as strong as these women are. To be put through so much, and to have the patience for the men in their lives, and to still love and give their children all their hearts, it's awe-inspiring and a bit heart-breaking. The best that I can do is tell these women the food they've given me has filled me up but I can't ever express how much more it's provided me.
I am lucky and privileged, and sometimes I need to remind myself that.
Chinese culture is very patriarchal, as you may have been able to guess. Men sit around a table, sipping their tea, munching on snacks, while the women are in the kitchen preparing the food, pouring the tea, and cleaning up. And I am in a particularly odd situation. Would this happen at home, I'd probably be the one in the kitchen, offering to help, and definitely expected to help. But here, it's a little bit different, since I'm the guest. Not only that, but I'm the only guest, so there's no one to diffuse the good mannered-ness and politeness among (there is probably a better word for that, but I can't think of it right now. and it really seems like a chinese word would be more appropriate in this situation).
This is probably the first time in my life where I've had to act like an adult in a family situation, since I'm the only one here to represent my immediate family. Usually, as the fourth child, I get to run away from these familial obligations to the kids' room and just watch the 5 year olds play video games. And it's an especially awkward situation as I am young (22 years old as compared to the middle aged people around me) but not so young that I need someone else to speak for me (and seeing as how I'm completely alone in this situation, I literally have no one else to speak for me), and as I am an unmarried woman (I don't know how many times I've been asked if I have a boyfriend, especially when I bring up me meeting a "friend"). (And it seems so much that the defining act which makes one become an adult is, marriage.)
It's just been weird for me, in these interactions, because I feel very much the outsider. And I'm sure it has something to do with me being an American, and me being young, but the more I think about it, I realize it has very much to do with me being a woman. The table isn't set for me. It's set for the middle-aged Chinese men, who sit, have their food cooked for them, smoke their cigarettes around their babies who have their asses wiped for them by these men's wives, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, daughters even, I mean, any woman really, just not themselves.
I sit and observe and feel awkward and think, "Wow, this is exactly what happens in Chinese American families in the States too." I've often thought that the awkwardness of those sit-in-the-living-room-with-the-tv-on-in-the-background-sipping-tea-while-the-kids-are-making-a-fuss conversations was somehow a result of the interaction happening in the United States instead of in Asia, somehow a result of the immigration process. But it's not. It's just as awkward here in China.
Tonight I had a chance to sit at the big boys' table, to be a member of the boys' club of middle-aged Chinese men. I was given one of only 6 available wine glasses, and served wine by women my own mother's age and ganbei'd (cheers'd) glass after glass after glass of wine. I was a guest in the house, so I was served. 5 of the men in the house were guests, so they were served. But I sat silently as I watched 3 of the women in the house who were also guests, in the kitchen slicing apples, preparing tea, serving tea, wiping off tables, as I and the men sat and slowly got drunk and smoked cigarettes around their babies.
And now I feel sick to my stomach. I'm sure it had to do with the fact that the first bottle of wine we drank had gone sour (and had practically become vinegar), but no one in the place dared to admit that the wine that had been sitting for years (the cork broke upon opening = bad sign) had gone bad. Ironically, thanks to patriarchal norms, I get to pull the woman card and say that I couldn't drink that much (when quite honestly, I could probably outdrink most of these men). It's just unreal.
And moments like this make me think of my own future, and whether or not I'll have a family someday, and if I do, how I envision that family to be. I very much want to raise a "Chinese family," whatever that means. Chinese culture has become very important to me, but I do not want to be a part of the continuation of patriarchal practices (ie. I refuse to be the mother in the kitchen cooking food for my full grown son as he literally sits at the dinner table criticizing me for the food not being hot enough and requesting soy sauce for his bland chicken when he can very well cook his damn dinner and get his own damned soy sauce while slowly giving me cancer from his second-hand smoke. I bring up this example because I saw it happen).
And at the end of the day all I think is, These women are strong as hell. I hope someday to be half as strong as these women are. To be put through so much, and to have the patience for the men in their lives, and to still love and give their children all their hearts, it's awe-inspiring and a bit heart-breaking. The best that I can do is tell these women the food they've given me has filled me up but I can't ever express how much more it's provided me.
I am lucky and privileged, and sometimes I need to remind myself that.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Good-bye cold weather! Hello less cold weather!
Okay, so I'm not exactly going into the warm weather I had originally (naively?) expected, but at least I'll be leaving Beijing's below-freezing temperatures for Hong Kong and southern China's chilly, but above-freezing temperatures.
It's winter vacation time for me in China! Oh, I am in major major need of this. We spent the last week of school hanging out with the students all day, not teaching classes. I decided to teach my students how to do the electric slide, the macarena, and some random cha-cha line dance. I also got a chance to go to lots of good-bye dinners with my students. Even though I'll see most of them in a few weeks for the spring semester, I am already missing them all. I really really love some of these students. And it makes me sad to think about leaving them for good.
Tomorrow morning I leave for my Chinese New Year adventure! My itinerary: Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau, ZhuHai, ShunDe, Guangzhou, Guilin, and Yangshuo. Whew. I'm getting exhausted just thinking about it. Hopefully I'll make it to all these places, cuz I'm kinda flying by the seat of my pants with the planning of this trip. And I'm backpacking, alone, to these different cities and meeting up with friends and family.
Go Team Wendy!
It's winter vacation time for me in China! Oh, I am in major major need of this. We spent the last week of school hanging out with the students all day, not teaching classes. I decided to teach my students how to do the electric slide, the macarena, and some random cha-cha line dance. I also got a chance to go to lots of good-bye dinners with my students. Even though I'll see most of them in a few weeks for the spring semester, I am already missing them all. I really really love some of these students. And it makes me sad to think about leaving them for good.
Tomorrow morning I leave for my Chinese New Year adventure! My itinerary: Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau, ZhuHai, ShunDe, Guangzhou, Guilin, and Yangshuo. Whew. I'm getting exhausted just thinking about it. Hopefully I'll make it to all these places, cuz I'm kinda flying by the seat of my pants with the planning of this trip. And I'm backpacking, alone, to these different cities and meeting up with friends and family.
Go Team Wendy!
