Qinghai青海: Beauty, food poisoning , and a very curious "magic" trick

Hello everyone it has been quite a while, I just got back from Qinghai, which is a western province of China that borders Tibet. It was an extremely interesting trip filled with plenty of exciting and bizarre experiences.
The first day I was in Qinghai I decided to go for a run, it was 6:30 in the morning and raining but I was itching to get some fresh air, well at least more fresh than Shanghai. I soon found myself running in a park seeing the typical pockets of people doing their morning tai chi, absorbed in my own little world I was thinking "yes! hotel has free breakfast". I ran past a lady performing tai chi when I was suddenly shocked out of my musings to a loud battle cry which sent me flying off the path into some nearby bushes. Recovering from the initial shock I realized it had been the little old lady performing her morning tai chi, I soon herd similar cries throughout the park and accepted the fact that I was not going to have to protect myself from a senior citizen . Upon returning to the hotel I found out that some people who practice tai chi accompany each move with a shout, so its a normal everyday thing in China.

Qinghai is a beautiful place to visit, barren grasslands extend for miles and are only interrupted by the stunning snow capped peaks that abound in the region. The scenery is complemented by the beautiful Buddhist monasteries that are tucked into the mountain sides near almost every town. It was in one of these towns where my friends and I had a very interesting bar experience. It was a Monday night and we decided to see what kind of night life the small town in which we were staying had if it had any at all. We soon walked into a disco bar, not expecting much since it was a Monday night, but to our surprise the place was packed. It seemed like every young man in the village had turned out and not taking note of the lack of women, which should of been a warning sign, we sat down. It turned out that this was no ordinary bar and after the opening song, which was Gangnam Style, the performance began. At first it was just singers the bar had hired to sing Chinese pop songs which in fact was really cool, but then things changed when the singers stopped singing and started "dancing" if you catch my drift. After the last singer/dancer left the stage it was time for the final act, and what an interesting and bizarre act that turned out to be. The act started with a guy dressed as, well the closet description I can think of is a clown draped in Maoist era clothes. After performing a series of juggling tricks and acrobatic stunts, interspersed generously with lewd gestures, it was time for his pièce de résistance. This consisted of him placing a condom over his head and inflating it with his nose, and that was our cue to leave. Now I am assured by my German couchsurfing friend that in fact this is quite a common performance and he has seen it many times in Europe. So I don't know I guess the U.S. has to get with the program. It was a very weird night, one I most likely won't repeat, but if you are interested I have been told that there are similar variety shows in bars all over China.

Food in Qinghai is great! Meat, more meat, and if you have not already guessed it, even more meat. Predominately it is yak meat, every part of the yak is used in some way. There is yak milk tea, yak butter, which is also used to make candles, yak cheese, and a couple of my friends bought a certain part of the yak anatomy that supposedly treats impotence when put in tea. It was the second to last day of my trip in Qinghai when after eating a large amount of Yak cakes I suddenly began to feel a little bit under the weather, I then preceded to spend the night and a good part of the next day praying to the porcelain god. This was the first time I got food poisoning in China and I have to say it was not one of my favorite experiences, images of the movie The Exorcist come to mind when recalling it, but all in all I feel like this was yet another part of my initiation into life in this country and I will always remember the experience.

Qinghai has been one of my favorite experiences in China and would certainly recommend the trip to anyone who wants to leave the beaten tourist track for something more authentic. Qinghai was very beautiful so I took about 200 pictures here are a few of them.

Prayer Wheels: People walk along these walls spinning each wheel as they pray

Qingahai: Had a lot of these three wheeled vehicles. These vehicles brought back childhood memories of that most efficient means of toddler transportation, the tricycle.

Clay Model used in the casting of Bronze Buddhist statues.

                                                                Yellow River 黄河

Dining outside

Mountain Temple

Mountain temple: inside

Good Translation

Tibetan Mastiffs: Status symbol in Qinghai

Tibetan Thangka painting

More Tibetan Thangka paintings

1000 hands and eyes Buddha

Incense Burner: By the end of my trip, all my clothes had the smell of these incense burners and yak butter candles

Prayer wheels

Sheep Herding in Mountains

Qinghai Mountains

Solar Cooker

Qinghai Nomad Meal

Nomad winter housing: During warmer months Qinghai nomads travel with there flocks living in tents

Qinghai School Children wait for diner

Yaks: mmmmm dinner

View from Mountain Temple

Mountain Prayer Flags

Mountain Temple

Meditation spot 

Qinhai Lake

Very Cold

Sand dunes near Qinghai lake

Sand Dunes

Desert Nomad: White skin reflects sunlight and is useful in signaling to other nomads

五角场 Wǔjiǎochǎng

Shoppers use ramp escalators to navigate the four story Walmart in  Wǔjiǎochǎng, Shanghai. The shopping carts have special wheels that prevent them from barreling into unsuspecting shoppers   

Jew's ear, and an interesting haircut

Wow what a week. Classes began on Monday and so did the pile of homework.  The Chinese classes are challenging and require a lot of out of class work but the teachers are very interesting and so is the material.  In fact I really enjoy the nine hours a day I spend in classes and working on Chinese homework because I know that each new character or grammar pattern I learn brings me one step closer to that far off dream of fluency, well I hope it’s not too far off.

Jew's Ear
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/471459

The kitchen I share with my roommates is quite sparse at the moment so my roommates and I have been eating out a lot.  I enjoy this because I don’t have to cook and also it increases my chances of experiencing something new.  This week the “something new” was Jew’s ear.  What is Jew’s ear you may ask, well I was asking myself the same question the first time I saw it on a menu.  Jew’s ear, Auricularia auricula-judae, is a type of fungi that is used in many Chinese dishes and is quite delicious.  Now at first my curiosity was sedated with discovering that Jew’s ear was a mushroom, but then time and time again I kept seeing Jew’s ear on the menu and I started to wonder at what was the history of the mushrooms namesake.  Was the mushroom’s naming the result of anti-Semitism, coincidence, or some unfortunate mistranslation.  Finally my curiosity got the better of me and I did some research. The etymology of the Jew’s ear mushroom is as follows.  The mushroom got its name from the folklore that after Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus Christ’s disciples, hung himself from an elder tree because of the guilt he felt from betraying Jesus Christ the ear shaped mushrooms grew from the elder tree as a piece of Judas’s spirit and a reminder of his betrayal.  The original name for the mushroom was Judas’s ear but was then shortened to Jew’s ear. I apologize for the long explanation but I found Jew’s ear very interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auricularia_auricula-judae

Another exciting thing I did this week was get my first Chinese haircut.  Now I did not know what to expect, I had heard and read many “horror” stories about getting a haircut in China, one author said that anytime she left a hair salon in China not crying was a win.  With those encouraging stories under my belt I brushed up on my hair related Chinese vocabulary, asked for a recommendation, and set out down the street.  I arrived at the barber shop it’s entrance flanked by two 1950s style barber shop poles and entered.  The interior of the shop was simple, a long mirror with equally spaced chairs facing it flanked one side of the room, while the opposite mirror less wall was covered in pictures of models with ridiculous and impossible looking hairstyles which almost distracted the costumer from the peeling wallpaper and exposed pipes that persisted throughout the shop.  I was greeted by one of the stylist and after I enquired about the price, 20kuai which is only $3.15 U.S., I was ushered to a washing stand where my hair was washed and my head massaged.  Next I was taken to a chair where I told the stylist with my limited Chinese and some hand gesturing that he could do as he liked 随便你(Suíbiàn nǐ) with my hair, just not to short and to shave the sides.  The haircut had begun “there’s no stopping now” I thought to myself as I saw the stylist grab the just used unclean razor from his coworker, the razor moving from one head of hair to mine in little more than a second.  The buzzing of the razor came to a stop and I looked up into the mirror expecting the worse only to be pleasantly surprised with a great looking fohawk.  I got up and paid for the haircut and while doing so heard the only word of English uttered during the entire event and that was a very enthusiastic “Helloo” from the man behind the register.  Getting a haircut in China has been one of my favorite experiences because not only did I get a great haircut, seriously I will be returning to that shop in the near future, but I was placed in a situation where I was the only one who knew any English and so was forced to really on my Chinese.

That’s all for now

Cheers!

The Bund外滩(Wàitān) -Model View

Despite it's large size this model of Shanghai, in Shanghai's Urban Planning center, only shows the interior of the city, giving the viewer a humbling idea of the cities actual size.

The Bund(Former British Concession)

Part.1 Shanghai

After a twelve hour flight I landed in Shanghai's Pudong International Airport on a Wednesday afternoon, very tired and in serious need of a shower. It had taken three days to get there due to a very long layover in Vancouver Canada, where I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Vancouver has a large Chinese population which allowed me to practice a little more Chinese. I walked in a daze through baggage claim and customs and met up with my fellow classmates gathered in an island made up of luggage and sleepy, but enthusiastic introductions. We boarded the bus to Fudan University and I got my first impression of driving in China. Now I am from New York and have driven many times in the city, so I have seen my share of aggressive and crazy driving but none of my past experiences compare to the level of crazy driving that I have witnessed everyday in Shanghai.  The first taxi ride I took through the streets of Shanghai felt as if I was an actor in an action movie, swerving in and out of ongoing lanes of traffic, dogging pedestrians and scooters alike, all the while a Chinese version of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" blaring through the taxi's radio acting as theme music to this bizarre voyage to Héngshān Lù 衡山路 a popular bar district. Getting around in China is an experience whether one is trying to cross the street, which is quite harrowing, or in a vehicle.

During the bus ride to Fudan University I also was astonished by the sheer amount of construction that was occurring in the city. Everywhere I looked a building was either being torn down or built up, Shanghai is definitely a growing city.  Anyway on the subject of construction during my second day in Shanghai I visited the Bund with my classmates. The Bund is the site of the former British concession, spheres of influence, in Shanghai and if you have ever seen a picture of shanghai’s skyline it is most likely the site of that picture.  The bund is the background picture of this blog.  The Bund was a nice place to visit but so far I have found the former French concession to be much more exciting, especially for night life.          

The area where I am living near Fudan University is very interesting, has great food, and most importantly easy access to the subway, the subway system in Shanghai puts the one in New York City to shame.  It has been a very interesting first week. I have a lot to look forward too with classes starting tomorrow and an exciting weekend ahead. 

So until next time

Cheers!

-WW