1) No, you don't actually want to know what that is... just eat it.
2) Bring toilet paper, napkins, and hand sanitizer everywhere.
3) No, you probably won't fall into the squat toilet.
4) Breakfast should either be random street fruit or some sort of fired dough. Period.
5) All of the drivers are insane, but almost no one gets into an accident.
6) Yes, constant honking is necessary.
7) So is constant spitting.
8) When crossing the street, it is always best to stick your hand out and hope for the best.
9) Unless there is a taxi coming towards you, they don't usually stop.
10) Don't step on the dirt patch surrounding the trees.
11) Ditto for puddles of water, manhole covers, or sewer grates.
12) Cheap street food is just as good, if not better, than any food you get at a sit down restaurant.
13) Never ever pay full price for something you find at a street vendor.
14) When in down, nod and smile, often that will help get you out of many situations.
15) Smile for the inevitable pictures with random Chinese strangers.
16) Always reply whenever someone says "Hello!" to you. Either they are incredibly brave and using the only English word they know, or you are in for an interesting conversation.
17) Chinese women will always be more stylish than you. Get over it. At least you can walk quickly in your flat sandals.
18) If someone offers you Chinese wine, be careful...
19) Take some time to get a little lost in whatever city you wind up in... often you find the most interesting places that way.
20) That being said, always either know the name of your hotel, or carry their card.
21) When in doubt, ask a local, and see what they think.
22) Those little Chinese grandmothers are much tougher than they look, especially when they are racing up the Great Wall.
23) If need be, take a nap. If you are exhausted you will not enjoy whatever you are supposed to be seeing.
24) But also, don't be afraid to stay out late. Beijing at night is not something to be missed.
25) Bring your camera and umbrella everywhere.
26)Try everything once, but don't feel obligated to eat it again.
27) When a host offers you food, you must eat it. No matter how full you already are, or how gross it may be.
28) The random people sitting in the streets wearing red armbands are extra police forces.
29) Pack shoes that fit.
30) You will very quickly figure out how to most efficiently wash your clothes in the sink.
31) You don't have to like all of your travel partners all of the time, but you should at least make a consistent effort to polite and considerate, otherwise you are simply bringing everyone else down.
32) KTV may be an awesome karaoke chain, but it is also a front for prostitution... which is sad.
33) The massage parlor is also a brothel.
34) Nothing sold on the side of the street is real, so don't pay real prices for them.
35) Although something may be considered cheap by American standards, you need to think in terms relative to the Chinese currency.
36) You should be able to get a good meal for about 10 yuan.
37) Don't be afraid to walk away from a deal. China is a big place, and people are selling the same crap everywhere.
38) Get used to drinking boiling water. At least you know that is safe, and is generally much cheaper than the luke-warm bottled water for sale elsewhere.
39) Eat things that you think are too spicy for you. At the very least it will help your tolerance.
40) If at all possible, rent a bike. You may feel that you are close to death a couple of times, but it is a wonderful experience.
41) Don't be afraid to hate a huge tourist attraction, but also don't be afraid to love to most cheesy and Westernized things in China.
42) Yes, KFC is everywhere, and so is McDonald's... but they are considerably more expensive that the street food.
43) The ice cream does not taste the same.
44) The dogs are all super well behaved, from the best-groomed poodle to the mangiest mutt on the street.
45) Drink more water than you think you need. Yes, this may result in you needing to use the squat toilet, but at least you won't be sick and dehydrated.
46) Be prepared to be completely overwhelmed by the crowds, sites, smells, and sounds at least once per day.
47) Make sure you take some time out of your day and really think about everything you have seen and done.
48) When covering over 5,000 years of history in 4 weeks, there will be times where you simply cannot absorb any more dates, names, facts, or artifacts. That is okay.
49) You will see people living in absolutely terrible conditions, barely making a living, and struggling through each day. Think about this, and how it relates to your own life.
50) You will also see miracles and incredible generosity and kindness everyday. Think about this, and let it change your life.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Beijing Part 1
Hey everyone! Sorry for the radio silence, apparently this site is also blocked in China, and it took a little bit for met to get it to work.
Anyway, today is officially my last day in Beijing, tonight we will hop onto a sleeper train and travel to the city of Xi'an. I could write about a one hundred page novel on everything I've seen and done in this city. But I don't really think that anyone wants to read it. So, instead, I will post a bunch of pictures and some of the key highlights!
Anyway, today is officially my last day in Beijing, tonight we will hop onto a sleeper train and travel to the city of Xi'an. I could write about a one hundred page novel on everything I've seen and done in this city. But I don't really think that anyone wants to read it. So, instead, I will post a bunch of pictures and some of the key highlights!
The old Summer Palace, which was destroyed by the French and British during the Opium Wars.
The old Summer Palace was internationally known for combining Western and Eastern design elements, into an architecturally stunning complex. This is located at the very center of a stone maze.
Every stone surface was beautifully carved, and there were so many wonderful trees planted throughout the grounds.
This is the new Summer Palace. It is absolutely huge, and amazing. What you can't see in this picture is the giant lake and grounds in front of the building and several temples located behind the building.
Behind the Summer Palace was a stunning Buddhist temple, which was completely covered in dozens of these ceramic sculptures.
This is at a local temple and stone carving museum that Natalie and I stumbled across on our first day together.
The courtyard was filled with giant statues of animals and important historical figures.
There were also countless slabs of stone inscribed with famous sayings, government reports, and obituaries for some of the priests buried there.
And finally, the Great Wall. No picture can truly give you an idea of how truly massive this structure is. It is absolutely mind boggling that the ancient Chinese managed to build such a huge structure on some of the roughest terrain in the world, using limited technology.
Obviously, this not all I've been up to. The next post will contain even more pictures and descriptions, and I will have that up just as soon as I finish editing the photos.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Heading Out!
Hello everyone!
First off, in case you didn't see the news on Facebook, the wonderful people at the UW-Madison International Internships office found me an internship! I was honestly completely blown away with their generosity and effort on my behalf. My advisor worked endlessly with a million different agencies, working every connection that UW-Madison holds throughout China, and even covered all of the application costs for me. And so, thanks entirely to the wonderful people at UW-Madison, I will be spending the second half of my summer at BioFarm outside of Shanghai.
BioFarm is one of the thriving organic farms in China. They began in 2004, working to rehabilitate a poor stretch of land just outside of Shanghai and distribute vegetables and agricultural awareness to Shanghai business people and children. Since then, they have worked extensively with a local agricultural college to develop new methods for growing a variety of plants, increasing sustainability on the farm, and participating in outreach for schools all throughout the area. This farm is known for distributing delicious seasonal produce to residents of Shanghai through their incredibly successful Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and their participation in farmer's markets throughout the city. Beyond that, they also engage in agricultural outreach to students, by inviting them out to visit the farm, providing schools with organic seeds to start their own farms, and doing exchanges with students from two local universities and Jane Goodall's Roots and Shoots volunteers.
Whatever your personal view on organic agriculture, CSA's, or the locavore movement, I think that we can all agree that BioFarm is providing a truly unique opportunity for countless people who may have never really thought about where their food came from. Agricultural outreach and education will become increasingly important as our agricultural industry faces the problem of feeding an ever increasing population with decreasing amounts of land and diminishing profitability.
As for my contribution to the farm... well... I'm not exactly certain yet. I have been accepted as an intern for the coming months. I presume they are going to train me on the specifics of their farming methods, what research projects are currently underway, and how to help out with the daily chores on the farm. Beyond that, I think I am either going to join in on a specific research project, or possibly develop my own. From what I've read, past interns have had a variety of experiences on the farm, but they all seem incredibly positive about whatever experience they have had.
BioFarm's website link
First off, in case you didn't see the news on Facebook, the wonderful people at the UW-Madison International Internships office found me an internship! I was honestly completely blown away with their generosity and effort on my behalf. My advisor worked endlessly with a million different agencies, working every connection that UW-Madison holds throughout China, and even covered all of the application costs for me. And so, thanks entirely to the wonderful people at UW-Madison, I will be spending the second half of my summer at BioFarm outside of Shanghai.
BioFarm is one of the thriving organic farms in China. They began in 2004, working to rehabilitate a poor stretch of land just outside of Shanghai and distribute vegetables and agricultural awareness to Shanghai business people and children. Since then, they have worked extensively with a local agricultural college to develop new methods for growing a variety of plants, increasing sustainability on the farm, and participating in outreach for schools all throughout the area. This farm is known for distributing delicious seasonal produce to residents of Shanghai through their incredibly successful Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and their participation in farmer's markets throughout the city. Beyond that, they also engage in agricultural outreach to students, by inviting them out to visit the farm, providing schools with organic seeds to start their own farms, and doing exchanges with students from two local universities and Jane Goodall's Roots and Shoots volunteers.
Whatever your personal view on organic agriculture, CSA's, or the locavore movement, I think that we can all agree that BioFarm is providing a truly unique opportunity for countless people who may have never really thought about where their food came from. Agricultural outreach and education will become increasingly important as our agricultural industry faces the problem of feeding an ever increasing population with decreasing amounts of land and diminishing profitability.
As for my contribution to the farm... well... I'm not exactly certain yet. I have been accepted as an intern for the coming months. I presume they are going to train me on the specifics of their farming methods, what research projects are currently underway, and how to help out with the daily chores on the farm. Beyond that, I think I am either going to join in on a specific research project, or possibly develop my own. From what I've read, past interns have had a variety of experiences on the farm, but they all seem incredibly positive about whatever experience they have had.
BioFarm's website link
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Internship Woes
Hey everyone! Thanks for checking out my first blog post, but don't be afraid to leave comments! :D
Anyway, I love the Chinese History and Modern Development of Environmental Health study abroad program, because it allows us to have a genuine experience abroad by forcing us to interact with native Chinese citizens throughout the country. Additionally, this program offers and optional internship session that begins immediately after the month-long class ends, and runs throughout the rest of the summer. This factor is what truly sold the program to me, not only would I be able to study and travel throughout China, but I would also have time to settle into one location in China, really connect with the people, develop some more useful skills, and be able to really dig deep into the culture.
In years past, students were offered two separate internship opportunities; one oriented to business majors, and one oriented to science and humanities majors. Business majors had the option of being placed with one of several Chinese companies based in Shanghai or Beijing and working for as long as they were able. The second program was in conjunction with the United Nations' Panda Mountain conservation project. Students were sent to rural China to the UN's village and base, and could work directly with villagers to implement various measures to preserve China's panda population, teach the villagers about conservation and environmentalism, or participate in an oral history project where stories from the villagers are recorded and preserved.
When I first began researching study abroad programs, I got really excited about potentially being able to save pandas while in China. I mean, it doesn't get much more Chinese than pandas! And so, I was kind of counting on using the internship program to round out my study abroad experience. However, when I began talking to my East Asian Studies advisor, who runs the classroom portion of the program, he mentioned that the Panda Mountain program might fall through for the next year, due to some bureaucratic mess with the UN. But he assured me that there would be an equally amazing opportunity available, and that the UW International Internships office would be able to help me find something.
Fast forward to earlier this year, after weeks of emailing back and forth with the department, I finally finished filling out an internship application to work on the Hua Xia dairy farm outside of Beijing (see the link at the bottom). I was applying for one of three internship positions. The first involved directly working with the cattle and learning how the farm is run, the second was to help work with Monsanto representatives while ordering organic forage for the cows, and finally the third option, the one I most wanted, involved researching the USDA's organic certification requirements and potential green energy technologies that could be implemented on the farm. I will admit, the irony of leaving Wisconsin to go halfway around the world to work on a dairy farm is not lost on me, but I was truly excited. It would be an amazing experience, and the farm is located extremely close to Beijing, so additional travel on my off days would be fairly easy.
However, it is exactly one month before I leave for China, and I haven't heard back from the owner of the farm. No one in the International Internships Department can get into contact with him to get an answer. And I'm not entirely certain what is going to happen. I have been promised a definite answer at least five times over the past few months, but each deadline came and passed without a word. Yesterday was the final deadline, when I was supposed to hear from my International Internships advisor about what is going on, but I still have yet to receive any word. As a type-A person who has spent over a year planning and anticipating this trip, this is beyond frustrating. I understand that communication back and forth between China and America is slow at best, however this seems ridiculous. My advisor has promised to help me try to find something for the rest of the summer, and to help cover application costs. However, applying for a summer internship across the world about two months before you would begin working seems a little fraught.
And so, I am frustrated. I will keep you updated with any new developments. I love the idea of this opportunity, however, having two internships fall through in the course of a year is awful, and I don't really have enough time at this point to line up another option. Out of the entire process of preparing for this huge adventure, this has been, by far, the most infuriating thing I have come up against.
Here's a link to the farm's bio: http://www.huaxiadairyfarm.cn/about.asp
And here's a link to the Panda Mountain project: http://www.uscef.org/about-panda-mountain.html
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Introductions and Some Rules
Hello! I can't really even begin to describe how excited I am to finally be beginning to get ready for this trip. I have been dreaming about traveling around the world for... well... my entire life.
When I was younger, I always assumed that I would first have a grand tour of Europe (like, you know in the 1800's when parents sent their children off to tour Europe in order to finish them, or get them out of the house for a while). But when I got to college, I randomly took an introductory Mandarin Chinese class, and I kind of fell in love with the language and the people. Since then, I've taken three more Chinese language classes, a Chinese design class (where I mostly painted crappy blobs and ate amazing food), and added the East Asian Studies major.
However, now that I've added the East Asian Studies major... my schedule for the next two (and a half) years is going to be packed. Which, I'm fine with, I love my biology and cultural studies classes, but it does make studying abroad a little difficult. I knew that it was pretty much impossible to spend an entire semester away because 1) science classes abroad are tricky to find 2) it is really expensive to spend an entire semester in Beijing or Shanghai 3) I couldn't find any programs where I would actually spend time with the locals, rather than other American students.
So, I asked my EAS advisor about programs that would be a good fit for me, and he recommended the Chinese History and Modern Development of Environmental Health. This is a four week program focused on studying ancient and modern Chinese history, by visiting the locations where history happened, reading texts about the changes, interviewing rural residents about contemporary issues, and listening to lectures from academics at Chinese institutions. Additionally, students have the option of enrolling the in the internship program, where they will be placed with a Chinese company that matches their interests for the remainder of the summer. Doesn't that sound awesome?
Starting May 18th, I will be embarking on this great adventure. I am starting this log a little (or a lot, depending on your views) early, because I want to record everything about this trip. As of right now, it seems that simply getting into China is half the battle. I will be writing about how to pack, what to expect when applying for a visa, how terrible the plane ride will be, and more details about the trip as these things come up, but first I would like to set up some ground rules for when I am actually in China.
1) I will try to post once a week... For the most part I will be staying in hotels or dorm rooms, which provide internet access, but it will be spotty. Also, the great Chinese firewall is still up, so I will not attempt to use Facebook at all over the summer, it simply isn't worth the trouble. Also, I will be busy, and tired. I can't guarantee that I will always be in the mood to upload my pictures and type up descriptions... plus, I have homework to do!
2) I will try to take cool pictures, but I won't be constantly taking pictures. I love photography. I really like my camera. But this is not a photography trip. I'm here to experience China, and I know that sometimes the camera lens gets in the way. I will be taking pictures of various things I see, but don't expect them all to be great, and don't expect a photographic record of everything I see. It simply won't happen.
3) I won't post about absolutely everything that happens. Quite frankly, if this trip is anything like I expect it will be, I won't have enough time to write about everything. You guys will get the highlights. If you want more details about something, save your questions until I get back. Most likely, I will have written about it in my personal journal.
4) I will try to share some fun facts about Chinese history, language, or culture that I pick up along the way, simply because I love little facts like that.
When I was younger, I always assumed that I would first have a grand tour of Europe (like, you know in the 1800's when parents sent their children off to tour Europe in order to finish them, or get them out of the house for a while). But when I got to college, I randomly took an introductory Mandarin Chinese class, and I kind of fell in love with the language and the people. Since then, I've taken three more Chinese language classes, a Chinese design class (where I mostly painted crappy blobs and ate amazing food), and added the East Asian Studies major.
However, now that I've added the East Asian Studies major... my schedule for the next two (and a half) years is going to be packed. Which, I'm fine with, I love my biology and cultural studies classes, but it does make studying abroad a little difficult. I knew that it was pretty much impossible to spend an entire semester away because 1) science classes abroad are tricky to find 2) it is really expensive to spend an entire semester in Beijing or Shanghai 3) I couldn't find any programs where I would actually spend time with the locals, rather than other American students.
So, I asked my EAS advisor about programs that would be a good fit for me, and he recommended the Chinese History and Modern Development of Environmental Health. This is a four week program focused on studying ancient and modern Chinese history, by visiting the locations where history happened, reading texts about the changes, interviewing rural residents about contemporary issues, and listening to lectures from academics at Chinese institutions. Additionally, students have the option of enrolling the in the internship program, where they will be placed with a Chinese company that matches their interests for the remainder of the summer. Doesn't that sound awesome?
Starting May 18th, I will be embarking on this great adventure. I am starting this log a little (or a lot, depending on your views) early, because I want to record everything about this trip. As of right now, it seems that simply getting into China is half the battle. I will be writing about how to pack, what to expect when applying for a visa, how terrible the plane ride will be, and more details about the trip as these things come up, but first I would like to set up some ground rules for when I am actually in China.
1) I will try to post once a week... For the most part I will be staying in hotels or dorm rooms, which provide internet access, but it will be spotty. Also, the great Chinese firewall is still up, so I will not attempt to use Facebook at all over the summer, it simply isn't worth the trouble. Also, I will be busy, and tired. I can't guarantee that I will always be in the mood to upload my pictures and type up descriptions... plus, I have homework to do!
2) I will try to take cool pictures, but I won't be constantly taking pictures. I love photography. I really like my camera. But this is not a photography trip. I'm here to experience China, and I know that sometimes the camera lens gets in the way. I will be taking pictures of various things I see, but don't expect them all to be great, and don't expect a photographic record of everything I see. It simply won't happen.
3) I won't post about absolutely everything that happens. Quite frankly, if this trip is anything like I expect it will be, I won't have enough time to write about everything. You guys will get the highlights. If you want more details about something, save your questions until I get back. Most likely, I will have written about it in my personal journal.
4) I will try to share some fun facts about Chinese history, language, or culture that I pick up along the way, simply because I love little facts like that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)