July 21, 2007

July 21, 2007

So a lot has been happening I guess. So late last week I got pretty dang sick. Basically, for the whole week, I felt like butt. I had a freaking sinus infection in China. I didn't really like feeling going into work or doing much else. I thought it was surprising though how easy it was to get amoxicillin. My mentor just took me to the university nurse, and she just gave it to me. I think for two boxes, it was about 15 RMB. That's about $2! So cheap. So because of that fever I didn't get much done.

Even though I was sick, I did a surprisingly stupid thing. I went to a freaking weekend trip to Bei Da Hei. Pardon my spelling but I'm not quite sure how to spell it, and I don't think it really makes a difference. What we did there was go to a "beach amusement park" and ate shellfish for one day (yum!), and on the next day we went on another tour to another beach, a chinese aquarium, and to fake parts of the Great Wall. I feel that criticizing this trip would be too negative, but I feel that some things were quite eye openers to my culture in China. So first of all, I got to say, the train ride was really nice. I honestly think I would prefer it to flying; it was that nice! When we arrived at the Bei Da Ha train station, we were supposed to meet our hosts (family) that we were living with. Immediately, we got some problems since apparently foreigners were not allowed to stay with them and only at hotels. I thought this was quite B.S. honestly, but from what I understand, the reasoning is that the Chinese government only lets foreigners stay at hotels and not with families since they want to control the flow information. And to enforce this desire, the Chinese government has imposed a 50000 RMB fine to anyone that violates this rule. I think it's quite interesting how easy it is for the Chinese government to control things if they really wanted to do, like control of information but not safety. I don't know, maybe it was just me. So when we got Bai Da Ha, we immediately came up with some problems. The family was quite interesting honestly. They lied on the most random things I think. Like, apparently they wouldn't get us beer for dinner because they didn't want us to get drunk. They used the excuse that the shellfish that we were eating, which was quite good, would basically make us sick if we drank beer. This is something I never heard of. Another thing that happened was how a freaking tour guide tried to freaking cheat us by saying the price for one place was expensive so that she could get a kick-back (commission) for bringing people to a similar place. I find it interesting how untrustworthy so many people in China can be so that they could make a buck. Oh, and what else happened was that the tour guide scolded us for being late and threatened to leave us behind when it was the boat driver's fault that she chartered for us. And to add onto that, we had to wait about 1.5 hours for some people at a beach. HAHA You know, I think it's quite interesting how Chinese people try to make money when in a tourist area. They'll do anything to make money. I don't see this really as a bad experience with nothing to learn, but I saw that I began to understand the mentality of many of these people. Since many of these people don't make much money, they do anything they can to make some. And I guess this is how the culture is set-up based on the need to cheat one person so that they could be cheated also. It's an endless cycle and I laugh at it. haha I guess this entry about this trip should also be taken with a grain of salt since I was already in a bad mood since I got bit twice by a spider and I was pretty sick with my sinus infection. Didn't get any sleep for 2 nights since been coughing the whole time.

On the bright side though, I did have some good points on the trip. So I mentioned earlier how we went to the beach. Supposedly, this was a really nice beach for China, but too me it was disgusting. I have pictures of it in my pictures section; so you can see for yourself. So why do I think this was actually something good for me. Well, I was able to see how lucky and spoiled I was. I mean, I've been living in San Jose for my whole life (a 40 min. drive to Santa Cruz) and lived for 3 years in San Diego. I got to say, our beaches are spectacular compared to theirs. No competition. And by see this, I feel I have gained a new appreciation for what I have been blessed with. Another experience which I enjoyed quite well on this trip was the train ride. It was amazing how smooth and comfortable it was. I swear, I would possibly rather take a long, comfortable train ride than fly. It was really convenient and really comfortable.

Well I think that was it for the trip. So what else have I seen that was worth noting. Oh, I saw naked boys and girls (not in the pedophile sense) at the beach. i thought it was really interesting how again I was blessed with so much to be able to simply have swim suits on the beach in America. Ummmm..... The shellfish was really good and fresh. I went swimming with some of my co-workers on Thursday. I realized there that many people in China do not know how to swim. And most of them first learn a form of breaststroke, which I consider the 2nd hardest stroke to learn. I mean, I think I am credible on this topic since I've been teaching swim lessons for about 5 years. So when I was there, I tried teaching one of my co-workers, Sun Yuanhua, how to swim freestyle. Oh another thing. Many times when I walk along the street I see girls holding hands. At first I saw this as a display of affection and homosexuality. I was so surprised to see this since I always thought that the Chinese people were so conservative and not allow such public displays of affection. When I saw this, I immediately went to my roommate, Ryan, about this since he knows so much about this topic of homosexuality, for him being one also. And I learned that being queer is actually very horrendous for many people in China. Holding hands was more of a different form of showing friendship. This was quite interesting how different our culture was from the Chinese culture.

Other than that, I don't think there's much else to talk about other than I'm getting my Harry Potter book later today! Woot woot! So goodbye y'all and I'll fill you guys in later with what I've seen and learned.