Travel Log

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Sun, 1 Aug 2010 23:41:37 -0400

While Jet-lag is going to take a while to get over, China is still on my mind. The summer has been full of ups and downs, amazing sites, interesting people, and many thoughts. I’m still processing the experience and how I’ll use it. I expect I still won’t understand everything and a year from now I’ll have a great epiphany about the meaning of life.

That aside, China will be a trip I always remember and hopefully one day I can return.

I think the last of the pictures have been posted. I tried taking pictures of the various places we visited, but alas I ran out of time for everything.

Pre-Predeparture Nostalgia

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:00:02 -0400

It’s been a crazy day of last minute bargaining and packing chaos (which is about 80% complete). Fitting in the things we had no time to do all along, with the things that need to get done in order to leave the country.

It’s that time when most people seem to have finally settled in the country. Where ordering isn’t a problem, negotiating with sellers in the market, finding food, shopping, etc. It always happens the last few days of any trip. It’s sad to have to leave BeiJing and all the new friends we’ve made. It’s sad to think that we may never come back (after all the Government has been paying for our trip). Some friends we can see again when they visit in the states, others will never get the chance to visit the U.S.

It feels like just yesterday I was obsessed with Baozi and very timid when speaking Chinese. I honestly feel like I’ve grown up in some of the areas that were lacking. Living with 6 other people teaches you patience as you try and not kill them over the billion things about them that annoy you. But I digress.

While there are many parts of the trip I would change, given the choice to have stayed in the US vs. come to China, I’d gladly choose China.

My plane leaves at 6:30pm (China Time) on Friday. I arrive in the US (Washington, DC) around 8pm (EST) Friday and am back in Charlotte by 1am (EST) Saturday morning.

This will be my last post in China. I’ll post new pictures on Saturday and may write a summary post as I reflect during the 14 hour flight ahead of me.

Chinese Acrobats

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:02:40 -0400

No, not the ones in the picture, but professional ones. We attended a acrobat show with dance, bending, yo-yos, hat twirling, and motor-cycles. They were really good and very strong! The stuff they did was crazy. One guy was walking almost sideways as he swung on a tight rope. Another guy juggled like 8 balls off the floor at a height of about a foot.

HouHai

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 07:11:50 -0400

Post Temple of Heaven, we visited the area of HouHai (probably misspelled). The goal here was to EAT and take in the site. The area is mainly a small-lake surrounded by all sorts of shops, bars, restaurants, trinket places, etc. There’s even boats you can take out on the water (which we did). The water isn’t clean but the area is spectacular to see, especially at night when all the lights are on.

They also have love-boats, where you can crop candles into the water and make wishes. Being male, I often targeted the little candles, upsetting the girls. But alas, the little buggers are hard to hit in the dinky battery-powered boat they gave us.

The food was interesting. Cow intestines and stomach, some weird cabbage (which they joked was Cow brains), stripped pork, peanuts, peas, and Sour Plum Drinks! It’s definitely a place you can visit over and over...

Temple of Heaven

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 03:58:20 -0400

Okay, so I finally went to one of the very touristy and “Chinese-looking” places in China. A friend of Michael’s got us in contact with some locals who showed us around town.
The place we went is called the Temple of Heaven, where the king would go to pray to the heavens for a good harvest. Of course these temples are completely restored to be pretty and tourist friendly. Though they go to great lengths to make it seem like everything in just as the king left it.

The artistry is really pretty, with some stone still left un-retouched. The building however are too colorful to not have been recently repainted. The pictures from the week tell most of the tale of our adventure. (Or rather I just dislike babbling when pictures are so much cooler.)

Solid Again!

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:33:58 -0400

Today we celebrate, for what was once a watery mess has finally become solid. I’m not sure what I ate last week, but my stomach was not doing well this weekend. Thing about bacteria in the belly is that is could be same day, the day before, or more. Could be they switched my bottled water with faucet water. Meat that wasn’t fully cooked. Breads prepared where raw meat sits.

Lucky for me I couldn’t pin point what food it was. I love the food too much to think any of it was tainted. After lots of “going” eventually I got hold of some ginger ale and a sandwich. Add in a few other local items and boom I started feeling better.

The next day we went for massages (again). Which was much needed for my lower back. When the guy asked me wether to focus on the upper or lower back, he was surprised I said lower. He has worked on my shoulders earlier and I could tell he saw some problems. Once he started on the back I could tell he saw problem after problem. He beat the heck out of my lower back, swinging it around, pushing the spine inward, elbowing various areas. He did all sorts of weird things in an effort to “correct” me.

While working on my foot, he noticed a certain spot where I yelped or (ugghhed). He’d look at me, then push again (punk!). After a few yelps, he pointed to the stomach. He has figured out I was having stomach problems. Woah! It’s voodoo magic!

Totally need a few more treatments before I leave, maybe they’ll finally fix my back!

Seeing through my eyes

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 02:25:06 -0400

One of the other students today made a complaint about how he feels he is treated in China. He’s a white american and we’ve hung out a lot over the last few weeks. Chinese like to stare (it’s not impolite here) and he’s often run into problems with some of the locals. Here’s more or less the complaint:

“I’m tired of always being stared at and people thinking I’m a criminal.”

To which my reply was: “Welcome to my world.”

Like a ton a bricks, I could see his heart sink. I wasn’t trying to be mean, just introduce him to what Mexican American’s often have to deal with in the United States. He’s complaint soon turned to compassion (or sympathy?).

To me, China is no different than the United States. Everyone looks different than me. The food and culture are foreign and not what I grew up with. How people talk is different. Values differ, etc, etc. One of the main reasons I’ve had little trouble adjusting to the culture here is that I’ve spent my whole life living in another culture (White American Culture). It’s not a plea for pity, complaint or a desire for people to feel sorry for me. I’ve risen above road blocks society has put in front of me. I use my experience as a bi-cultural individual to be a person of understanding. As one of my colleagues put it last night, people open up to me easily.

My toughest task in China has been adjusting to the other Americans, not to the Chinese. Same thing happened on my trip to Egypt a few years back. I tend to be more frustrated with American culture than other cultures. But, my task is not to be filled with disgust or hatred for Americans, but to use the knowledge and experience I’ve gained to improve American culture. America is a good place with many opportunities, but it has plenty of room to grow. We each have a responsibility and a stake in that growth.

Cupping?

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 06:57:26 -0400

We don’t know the name but it is a Chinese diagnostical treatment involving cups that suck your skin up and tell you about your body. It’s a strange experience that leaves marks on you back for days. They found shoulder issues and stomach issues (which I was having that day). The women comes at your back with a flaming torch that she sticks in the class cups (hence the name we gave it “cupping”). Then she places the cups on certain spots on your back and the cups begin to suck up the skin. After a while, some spots turn black, this indicates a problem. They have a chart where spots on the back reflect problem areas. So lower-right-side is the spot for stomach. Chinese alternative medicines are crazy! Check the pictures page to see the out-of-this-world marks that were left on my back. Yes they do fade over time.

Fun Chinese Eating

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 09:22:49 -0400

Parent Advisory on this post as I talk about stuff you may not want your children to hear about just yet.

So Michael and I have been a bit more adventurous with eating. Finding odd Chinese restaurants in strange locations. We were getting along fine with menus that at least had pictures until we decided to venture off from the Foreigner-Friendly places. This place in particular had no picture menus and no english speakers. They gave us an order form entirely in Chinese. We began looking and couldn’t figure out if something was a chicken breast or chicken toes (which they do serve). We did notice one of the menus was already used, so we added a few items, changed some numbers and gave it to the waitress. Blind ordering is fun, because even we they brought the food out, we still didn’t know what it was. For the most part it was good and well portioned.

Only problem was the last thing we ate. At first I thought it was a slice of meat on a stick. Then as I began to eat it I notice some rib like quality. The decided to remove the skewer at which point it went limp (see image). At which point I’m like “I think it’s a penis.” We played with it a bit: analyzing how it moved and bent, discussing the possibilities of animal from which it came (we were thinking donkey), and eventually agreed to believe it was a spine, not a penis. Unfortunately for Michael he hadn’t started eating his yet, so I’m not sure what he was thinking it was. Poor guy.

I will note that it possible to get animal penis in China. Will Berto find and taste one? Stay tuned.

Great Wall of China

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 20:07:04 -0400

With the help of some local friends, we booked a tour guide to a “not as touristy” part of the great wall. There’s some restoration but many parts are authentic (with grass and trees growing in the middle of the wall. The tourist parts of the great wall have been completely restored to how they originally looked, but the “un-touched” parts of the wall look amazing as well. Climbing around was fun and only mildly dangerous. We climbed farther than I think the tour guides thought we would. They were probably thinking: 
“oh lazy Americans, they will barely survive the trail up and will probably only spend 30 minutes on the wall, complain and want to come down.”

We shown him as we spent about 2 hours on the wall and only left because the driver pressured us to so we could be rush-hour traffic. The Aussie people who were also on the tour failed as they spent a lot of time sitting. America Wins!

There’s plenty of photos, but unfortunately it was a bit cloudy and “smoggy” so the breath-taking-scenic-views don’t look as good.

Sickness be upon us...

Fri, 2 Jul 2010 04:11:44 -0400

This week - Video Log! Berto in all his delirium [sick] glory.

Notes: Video is hosted on my personal webspage (Youtube is blocked). If downloading or watching is taking too long (or you run into problems watching it), e-mail me and I’ll find another way to post it.

Edit: And then I realize it won’t even play on my own computer. Will fix after dinner.

Update: Fixed. Uploaded to Vimeo. Should play now.

Spain for a day

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:59:15 -0400

We managed to find some local artists from Spain. Apparently they rent a studio out in China, do their thing for a year, then return in Spain to sell their work. Had me thinking about doing my dissertation here in China. I mean cost of living is much cheaper, I can be secluded from everything and just do my ‘thang’. Alas, I’m sure it won’t work out.

We met a good local girl named Zhang Dan (Pictured Above), who makes and paints pottery and glass. Her English was not very good, but much better than our Chinese. We laughed as we taught each other some words and phrases. She was surprised at how well I was getting the tones. She kept forgetting that I did have a little bit of formal training.

We also met ALOT of other Spaniards who were living in China. Some of them for a quite a few years. There’s even a local bar where it’s just FULL of Spaniards. I’ve been trying to find Mexicans but they are few and far between. Rumor is that in Building #1, there are two Mexicans living across from Kris.

It was loads of fun and we got to experience the joys of not knowing where the Cab driver is taking us or if he even knows where he’s going. Go Beijing!

8 pounds

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:48:00 -0400

It’s either the amazingly good food or the fact that I’ve been eating meals 5-7 times a day. I weighed myself today and I’m 8 pounds heavier. I will note that I lost 8 pounds in April, but still I weight 159 prior to leaving and three weeks later, I’m 167. Luckily I got a GYM membership on Sunday, so I’ll be going there daily. Or maybe I’m just using the GYM as a way to make room for more food. I mean the more I burn, the more I can EAT!

We can’t figure out if it’s the “bao zi” I’ve been eating every morning or the whole pizza’s I sometimes have for dinner. Could also be the fact that for less than a US dollar you can get a large bowl of meat & veggies and another large bowl of rice. They also have awesome meat filled veggies. Maybe it’s the little cream filled croissant rolls I keep going through (9 per bag). Could also be the fact that I haven’t gotten sick yet (thank God). Avoided non-bottled water and ice, and only eating fully cooked items helps a lot. One guy got sick from a tuna-fish sandwich. Staying clear of the tuna!

Update: Weighted myself on Wednesday: 169 lbs. That means 10 lbs gained so far. Hope that makes you happy Mom! (Proof that I’m eating well).

ZOO!

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:37:57 -0400

Today we visited the Beijing Zoo. Oddly enough the first exhibit is just a bird pond with no cage. Swans come right up and say hello (or Ni Hao since we’ve confirmed with locals that the animals speak Chinese). We saw monkeys, tigers, pandas!, bears, pythons!, and chickens. There was a complete section in the zoo dedicated to “American Wildlife”. Sadly, I didn’t see any squirrels. I’ll post pictures of the things we saw at the end of the week. Pictures are much better than my blog ramblings...

During the travel back, I found a 4 story McDonald’s FULL of people. It’s surprising because for every 1 McDonald’s I’ve seen, there are like 3 KFC’s nearby.

I also managed to have my first Mall experience. It’s intense. People everywhere, nothing familiar, except for a SEPHORA (a place girls get make-up). Every floor usually followed some theme. Clothing, food, female clothing, EXPENSIVE clothing. And there were plenty of side shops with people who stare at you and hope you’re a rich American. (Or course relatively American’s are rich when you compare, but that’s a rant for another time).

Ass for Dinner

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:19:18 -0400

Ass is the appropriate word to describe dinner. Donkey meat takes mostly like beef, is easy to chew, and really good in a sandwich. I would not have imagined that Donkey could take good. I mean just look at the animal, it doesn’t look appetizing at all. The restaurant can serve donkey on a plate, a sandwich, or as a soup. They also serve Donkey intestines and tongue, but we were not that adventurous. And while you are eating you Donkey, there are pictures of Donkeys you can stare at. If I go again, I’ll take some pictures.

We found the place through our new friend Chris. She from Ohio and works as a school teacher here in Beijing. She also lives in one of the buildings on our block. We met her in one of the local foreigner establishments earlier in the week. She’s been teaching us where foreigners shouldn’t go. Example: Don’t try to get a hair cut from any run-down looking places with Christmas lights in the window, it’s a whore house.

She’s taking us to get Brick-Oven Pizza tomorrow (post zoo)

Chinese Herbal Remedies!

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:08:31 -0400

Unfortunately, I’ve developed allergies from the air here. I only brought a handful of allergy pills. So I went adventuring to the local pharmacy. The closest thing to Claritin is 鼻炎片 or NasoPass, an herbal chinese remedy. The ladies at the pharmacy are funny, especially since none of them know english. They kept insisting I buy the nasal spray, and were surprised I wanted pills. She probably thinks American’s are silly for wanting to swallow pills, when one can just ram a bottle up the nose and squeeze. No thanks.

They look like M&Ms and are not that hard to swallow. They have a nice menthol kick and make you a bit loopy. The box says “Side Effects: Not yet determined”, so I’m not sure if these pills would be FDA approved. Especially since I just found out you can get the date rape drug over the counter. That’s crazy!

We also took a stroll to the Charlie Brown Cafe (see photos). The coffee was nothing special and it was obviously just a set-up to attract tourists. Regardless, I got my photo taken with Snoopie.

We (or rather I) tried the two person bicycle riding. In America, the 2nd person usually rides on the handlebars. Here, there’s actually a small back seat, where passengers sit sideways. Balance is key and remembering that the other guys legs are sticking out so you can’t get close to curbs or other bikes. We had several close calls and one minor incident.

Finally Working

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:57:34 -0400

Most of Thursday was spent getting on track with working in the lab, which is rather difficult when every day I wake up at a different hour. (5:30, 7:40, 6:00) I swear the sun comes up way too early. There are more daylight hours here than in the US.

I’ve been helping Rodney get his computer up and running, which failed, so now he’s using a windows virtual machine on my Mac and logging in via VNC. Translation for non-tech-nerds: he is basically sharing my MacBook.

Most of my “work” is reading papers, and I’m sort of jealous of the guys who have programming projects. I have been doing a lot of theory based work for the last 6 months that I really just want to do some grunt work.

But I’m starting to figure out a schedule:
6am-8am -- Wake-up at some point and shower (maybe)
8:30am -- Find breakfast bao
9:00am -- Lab Rat Time
11:00am -- Dinning Hall Lunch (Entree & Rice < $1)
12:00pm -- Lab Rat Time again
5:00pm -- Find Dinner
8pm-12am -- Sleep at some point

BIKES!

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:45:27 -0400

We did some awesome haggling today. And by awesome, I mean the best we could do with very little experience in negotiations and speaking Chinese. The guy was great, and we had a laugh at my desperate attempt to negotiate in Chinese.

Bike Man： “280元 for 1 bike”
Me： “Throw in another bike for 500元”
Bike Man: “540元”
Me: “500元”
（He grabs a cheaper bike）
Bike Man: “This Bike is 200元”
Me: “All three for 60元”
（Shocked Look and Awkward Pause)
Me: “Ah I mean 660元”
（laughter)

In the end we got three new bikes and U-locks for around $100 US Dollars. Campus travel will be much more efficient from now on.

A little relaxation and reflection...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:25:50 -0400

Who says we can’t have a little pampering. What should have been a simple foot massage ended up being a full-body massage. It was awesome! We’d been walking for 4 hours looking for used bicycles, to no avail. Needless to say my feet hurt by the time we got back home. We always pass by this little foot massage place on the way in, and we figured what the heck. I managed to catch the characters for student (学生) and for 58元 we got 90 minutes, including a full-body massage. Being my first ever massage, I was making all sorts of uggghs and ahhhs. Never felt so relaxed afterward.

The nice thing about our time there was the time to reflect on the days events. Michael and I went adventuring and found ourselves in a poor neighborhood: garbage on the streets, broken walls, uneven walking ground, ungodly smells. We spent a good 10 minutes there. It was a little less poor than the Egyptian Garbage Village I had lived in several years ago, but regardless it brought back memories. Especially when I saw two girls playing with mud near a pile of garbage. Shortly after we left, I had to return to the reality that I’m on a business trip, where my priorities have to be else-where.

We did manage to take a nice stroll through the park-ish areas of Tsinghua University. (New Photo Album will be posted at the end of week.) They’ve really put a lot of effort and it seems a like a great place to just sit around and a not-so-hot day. Maybe later on when the weather is not a wonderful 95 degrees, I’ll try studying over there.

Hopefully tomorrow we can find some bikes...

First Day of Work

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 08:16:38 -0400

Actually slept and had a much better morning. For breakfast I had some bao (包）and pancakes (see photo). The lady at McDonald’s laughed at my combination of Chinese and American breakfasts. But at 1元 (7 US cents) a piece, those little white buns are amazingly good for being so amazingly cheap! Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner I’ll eat them! 
Today we got settled into our work spots (cubicles) and then the Internet at Tsinghua University died (or rather broke to where only local sites were available). So today was spent writing emails and blogging. I did manage to get my cell phone unlocked, so hopefully I can start making local Beijing calls. Funny how I want my cell phone to work in a country where I don’t really speak the language.

Crazy? No.
Materialistic? Maybe.

Zzzzzzz.....

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 23:28:31 -0400

I’m starting to wear down. I’m crabby, my feet hurt, and sleepy. Some of it’s Jet Lag, but Rodney points out that my brain has had to work harder than everyone else’s. When we don’t have a native translator (which is 90% of the time), I’ve been the one spear heading most of our purchasing and travels. He explains that having all of that extra brain work has been taking it’s toll on me. Hopefully I can get some rest tonight.

We had an official meeting with our advisors today. I introduced myself, with my Chinese name: 郭彬 (Guo, Bin), and spoke a little bit about me and the work I do in America. I also gave an overview of my proposal. HCI doesn’t have a perfect fit into what they are currently working on, but they gave me some new ideas for better incorporating my work into theirs. Doctors can spend up to 40mins inputing information on patients. If there was a way to reduce that time with better input mediums. Different from my proposal, but sounds like an exciting challenge (somewhat similar to what my students do in the HCI class).

Mon-Wed next week is the Dragon festival, so I’ll be working this weekend. Yeah!

我們累了！ (We’re Tired!)

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:01:47 -0400

Up at 6am, breakfast at McDonald’s (again!), and 2nd breakfast at the bakery for a donut and a pig-in-a-blanket. We helped the students who came in late to get pictures and get registered. More broken Chinese from the mouth of Berto, but we got through.

All the electronics in the apartments are in Chinese. The air-conditioning, the TV remote, and the washing machine great... We managed to translate most of the washing machines functions after an hour or two. Apparently the button to start the machine says: “AWAKEN MACHINE”, scary.

Lotus Center

Wed, 9 Jun 2010 11:02:41 -0400

Lotus Center: the Walmart of BeiJing. They had everything from Snake Cod Oil Lotion, to GoldFish Detergent, and even Seaweed Potato Chips. The workers were more than excited to help, even with my broken Chinese. Main problem was that everything looked like this “十二个卫生纸”. Our cans of tuna could very well be cat food for all we know! The prices are really low, so it’s definitely a place we’ll visit often to get supplies. A 1.5L bottle of water costs 20 U.S. Cents.

Day 1: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Wed, 9 Jun 2010 08:00:11 -0400

Breakfast: McDonald’s Egg McMuffin
2nd Breakfast: Custard filled pastry.
Lunch: An amazing assortment of “exploding fish”, “crumbled chicken”, “jalapeno green beans”, “tiger lily celery”, and “popcorn pork”. Names have been made up, but represent the gloriousness of the food; see picture above for aftermath. Thanks to Dr. WANG, Xiaoge for hosting our first real Chinese meal.
Dinner: BIG PIZZA has some really good and cheap personal pans. Ordering was an adventure, but we pulled through.

Day 0: In BeiJing

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 08:30:58 -0400

Our first meal was at a New York style restaurant, where they didn’t speak any English. All the practice paid off. We ordered pizza and we avoided the ice cubes of death (made from tap water). They really liked our (i.e. my) effort to try to speak Chinese. They speak really fast, but luckily I’m great at numbers and reading non-verbal behavior. While sometimes frustrating that I don’t understand entirely, it’s still fun speaking and exciting to accomplish tasks in a foreign language.

Touchdown!

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 02:00:11 -0400

I had forgotten what thirteen hours on a plane is like. Even with good company, it is a horrific experience. Note to self: bring a suitcase of food and snacks next time.

I’ve been studying some new words and learning useful phrases in Chinese like: “請給我咖啡” (Please bring me coffee), “我會一點說中文” (I speak a little Chinese), or “你會說英文嗎？” (Do you speak English?). It’s amazing how much is coming back to me after severals years of no practice. I’m even gaining new insight into the language, like O.K. 意思 is also used to indicate “ability to do something”. There’s so many little things that are coming up in the language, it’s amazing!

Pre-Predeparture Anxiety

Sun, 6 Jun 2010 19:04:05 -0400

At 7:15am tomorrow morning, a cab will (hopefully) come to take me to the airport. For some reason, the cab is the thing that has been worrying me the most. If it doesn’t show up, I will be in a panic and unbelievably upset. Everything else: TSA, the 14hr flight, customs, and being in a foreign country are not stressing me at all right now. The anticipation of the cabs arrive is only rivaled by the packing. Am I bringing enough? Too much? The right stuff? AHHH!   My trip to Egypt was easy: 5 pairs of everything and bare necessities (e.g. no hairgel, no ipod). Of course on that trip we were going to live amongst the poorest of the poor to serve. In Beijing, it’s more about business (with room of course for some fun and travels). I’m expecting to have to impress and be at the top of my game.

The best remedy for my worries is of course FOOD! My last meal in America is from the fine establishment known as Domino’s: Medium thin crust pizza topped with italian sausage & beef w/ a monster energy drink.

Global Scholar’s Profile

Fri, 21 May 2010 12:27:42 -0400

Stuff I need to post from the Global Scholar’s Program (for the whole world to know my business):

E-Mail Address: agonza32 [at] uncc [dot] edu
First Name: Alberto
Last Name: Gonzalez
Blog URL: http://bertogonzalez.com/ChinaBlog/
Gender: Male
Age: 22 - 28
Institution: University of North Carolina - Charlotte
Type of Campus: Four Year College
Status: Graduate
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Celine Latulipe
Study Abroad Program: PIRE
Country of Origin: United States
Country of Interest: China
Major: Computer Science
Career Interests: Research & Development
Why you want to study abroad: Experience
Past Study Abroad Experience: No
Past Travel Experience(Outside U.S): Yes