Reporting from Seoul, S.Korea!

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!!!

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.

My life does not exist in a vacuum

It's been over a month since my last post. A lot has happened since, and I've been trying my best to process all that is going on around me. I have to admit that I've been silent for a while because I have been struggling to find the words to describe the amazing experience I had last month, when I connected with distant family in Southern China.

But today, I decided that it's important for me to brush off the laziness, and write.

If you've been following the news, you'll know that starting last Monday, there were anti-China protests going on in Tibet. The protests have escalated into rioting, and the Chinese government has issued a curfew in Lhasa, warning people to stay indoors for the next few DAYS.

But what you probably don't know, is the Chinese government's spin on this whole thing. First of all, the coverage of the protests is extremely extremely minimal. The story is briefly mentioned and is talked about as if the situation has been completely resolved (the few stories recently published focus on the cleaning up of debris in the streets and the reopening of shops, as well as quotes from residents expressing the sheer normalcy of their lives).

Not only that, but the news reports also put all the negative focus on the rioters, portraying them as unreasonable, lawless individuals whose only motivation is to disturb the peaceful lives of those living in Tibet. There is no discussion of the protesters' political aims, and absolutely no mention of the aggressive actions of the Chinese military force. In fact, the Chinese police force are seen as innocent victims of the unruly protesters/rioters.

Probably the scariest part of this situation is how absolutely powerful the Chinese government is. The government announced that all protesting in Tibet and neighboring regions must end by midnight on Sunday (or else). (The "or else" is of my own adding, but it is very obviously implied by the decree). This really frightens me, because well, 1989 has already shown us what the Chinese government is capable of when they threaten "or else." They ain't bluffing; that's for sure.

So in my attempts to educate myself further in this topic, I've encountered as many problems as I expected to. Surprise surprise, all pages regarding Tibet are "inaccessible."

I've often talked about this casually in the past, but as you know, China has got a national firewall. This means, the Chinese government is constantly monitoring internet usage and actively censoring websites they deem inappropriate. I am not even exaggerating when I say that I am legitimately scared about what I write in this blog. (I guess the only thing that makes me feel better is knowing that all blogspot web addresses are already censored anyways! Though I really shouldn't joke about this. In the past, Chinese bloggers have gotten in serious serious trouble for criticizing the government in their personal blogs. So yes, I am actually a little scared.)

So what are some websites that are blocked in China, Wendy? Well, BBC News, youtube (sometimes), xanga, blogspot, all pages related to controversial Chinese topics (I won't list them here, since obviously the searches are keywords based, but I feel that they're pretty obvious) (and when I say all pages, I mean if you went to Google and searched for a controversial topic, you wouldn't even get any pages related to that topic in your search results), and most notably, Wikipedia. Access by anyone to any information, for free?? The government knows just how dangerous that can be.

And nearly every day I am reminded that I absolutely do not understand this country. And I make no claims to even begin understanding China. This country just functions on a completely different level than the U.S. It's something that cannot be put into words; it's just something that needs to be experienced.

I guess my conclusion to all this is that when it comes to authority in China, there is definitely an absolute right/wrong. And those authority figures really do take a "by any means necessary" attitude when it comes to enforcement. It's a kind of unwavering, clear-cut, and narrowly defined concept of right and wrong, of actions in violation and actions in obedience with the law (social laws and norms included). Based on history, and based on my own experiences here in Beijing (with security guards and police officers and domestic violence), I will say that I am deeply frightened by the amount/strength of force this country can inflict on human beings, simply in the exercise of power. I am even more frightened by the fact that I wholeheartedly believe that this country will really do whatever the fuck it takes to keep its people in line.

I'm not really sure what flavor kool-aid I was sipping when I went through my Chinese nationalist phase, but it's definitely worn off. And now for the first time, I'm taking a real hard look at all the issues China has in regards to violation of human rights. And I've got to say, I don't entirely know how I feel about being in this country. But who am I to talk really? I am a citizen, after all, of a country whose president recently vetoed a ban on the use of torture in CIA interrogations.

**Crossing my fingers hoping I seriously won't regret publishing this post when the Chinese feds come knocking on my door**

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.

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!

Currently 25 degrees Fahrenheit in Beijing

But this past weekend, I was in NEGATIVE 15 degrees Fahrenheit weather. That's right people, wayyy below freezing temperature.

I spent the past two days visiting Harbin, which is a city in the way northeast part of China (in Heilongjiang Province). Every winter, they have the famous snow and ice sculpture festival (and China is one in only 4 countries in the world that has the biggest snow and ice sculpture festivals).

I wore ski pants over jeans and long underwear and I wore 5 layers of jackets under a down coat the entire weekend! And I felt fine (not too hot, and not freezing). The city was wonderful. We visited a park with giant sculptures made entirely out of snow. And at night we visited this area with buildings made entirely out of ice. We could climb up the structures and slide down. It was so slippery (duh, it's ice) and the pieces of ice are each made with a hole in them so that fluorescent lights inside can shine out brightly colored lights. And uh, the ice doesn't melt cuz it's so freaking cold all the time.

AND I went to a bar made out of ice! ICE BAR! And we went to a Siberian Tiger park, and I saw a real live LIGER!

Below is a video I took at the snow sculpture festival where some people are working on building some snow sculptures. They're literally breaking the snow away in blocks, leaving behind gorgeous shapes in snow. It's amazing.



This is another video I took while at the Snow Sculpture Festival. You can't tell in the youtube video (since the quality is so poor), but my cheeks are bright red from cold windburn (since it was the only part of my body not covered in 5 layers of clothing).




This last video was taken at the Siberian Tiger Park. Here they breed Siberian tigers since they're an endangered species. They have about 300 in the park, and they claim that they're preparing them to be released in the wild, but I don't believe them. It's pretty much a tourist spot, and you get taken around the park in vans, and people can pay money to buy birds or cows to feed the tigers. Here is a video of the tigers preying on some birds.





Pictures on facebook!

Whose sister is so thoughtful it hurts?

That, would be my sister. Check out the spread below of the awesome goodies my sister sent me in a care package, only the best thing I've received in the mail, ever.


FOOD! She sent me food! I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I was actually really really craving that microwave cake thing. If you didn't know, I have a majorly soft spot for super disgusting processed junked food; I'm kinda obsessed. So tonight for dinner, I had mac and cheese, canned tuna salad, and hot chocolate. Mmmmmm. I'm going to save the cake for a special occasion.

My sister is way thoughtful. I mean who would read an email from me saying, "It's so cold here and my skin is so dry that my hands are actually starting to crack and bleed," and think, "Send that woman some hand cream!" And who would webcam with me, see a disgusting cold sore on my upper lip, ask, "Ew, what's that on your lip?" and then send me some ScarZone! to reduce scarring on my lip. And who would send a portrait of themselves, in fact the same portrait that covers our entire refrigerator back at home? Yep. Only my sister. :)

Oh yeah,. I forgot to include this in the photo, but I also got different kinds of Chinese medicine with post-its on each one. Each of the post-its had things like, "Mom says buy this for colds," "Mom says buy this for sore throats." That's right, my mother sent me Chinese medicine from the States, to me in China so that I can show the packaging to someone in a store to buy it for me.

Are we noticing a pattern here? Yes, my family thinks I get sick a lot. And it's true.

They also love me a lot, which makes me happy. And makes me miss them a lot.