ok so it's been too long and i regret not writing sooner. I have a lot to share. I hope I don't forget anything.
So I left off last weekend just before I took a weekend trip to Harbin with almost 30 people from my program. The train ride was an 8-hour overnight, "hard-sleeper" train. The beds were stacked three high and we managed to get just about everyone from our group into our car by exchanging beds with some chinese people. I doubt they would've wanted to be bunked between two of us anyways. Everyone was dreading the hard-sleeper beds (they're about 3 inches think and only slightly softer than ply-wood) but it actually ended up being a great ride down. It was kind of a big train slumber party where we played catch phrase and chatted with a few of the chinese riders.
I woke up early the next morning and when I noticed that icicles had formed all along the windows, I knew we were close.
As soon as we stepped off the train we felt the blast of Harbin winter. Harbin is located in the northwest corner of China just south of Russian Siberia. You can imagine how cold it gets.. One of the guys on our trip was chatting with his taxi driver on the way from the train station to the hotel and we managed to set up a little bus and guide for the weekend that actually would save us from spending a lot on taxis. Once we checked in, I went to my room and threw on every piece of clothing I had to keep me from freezing. After that we all got on the bus and went to the tiger park.
The tiger park in Harbin was the most unique "zoo-like" experience I've ever had. There were over 800 tigers, lions, and ligers in the park. We all boarded a small armored bus and got a tour of the whole park.
Something special about the park... You get to watch the lions eat live animals. Some of the students who were in Beijing last semester told us to pool our money and buy a donkey but the driver advised against it saying its too slow and gets boring after a while. He pointed out that we could get two lambs and five chickens for the same price so we took his advice. This probably sounds really weird and disgusting... I can't explain it and its weird talking about now but as soon as we stepped on the bus ALL of us were ready to have a live animal planet experience. There's no need to go into detail. The pictures speak for themselves.
Afterwards we headed back towards downtown Harbin and got dinner. We waited until evening set in to see the Harbin International Ice Festival. I have some pictures above of the park. Absolutely everything was build with ice. It was really cool because they put all these colored lights in them and created a city of ice. A lot of the structures were replicas of real chinese monuments and buddhist temples. The best part was that they built ice slides into some of the structures that you could go down. Lots of fun despite freezing temperatures. My group of friends rented a slay that took us around the whole park.
Later that night after we had gotten back from the ice festival a bunch of us went into downtown Harbin.
The next day I grabbed breakfast with some friends and walked around the city a little more. Apparently Harbin used to have the largest Jewish community in China and there is a Jewish museum there that a bunch of us wanted to check out but we couldn't find it or get any information on it. I was getting restless and wanted to do something worthwhile to finish up the Harbin trip so about 10 of us decided to check out this Chinese bathhouse in Harbin. For under 30 dollars we got to spend around and hour chilling in the bathhouse and getting 45-minute massages. None of us knew the chinese word for massage, steam room, bath, or anything so it took a little while to actually get in. There's a famous chinese movie called "shower" that I watched in a Chinese culture through film class. It was pretty much exactly like that. You walk into a room about the size of a gymnasium and there are steam rooms and saunas lining the walls. In the middle is a circular pool that's divided into quarters, one cold, one hot mineral, one hot, and one with these reclining chairs in the water. It was a very chinese experience.
The next week of school went by pretty smoothly. Lots of chinese work. We also got assigned tutors. Mine's english name is Kimi. She's my age and studying at Bei Wai to become a chinese teacher for english speakers. We meet with them for one hour four times a week. It brings the language intensity up even more but it's really great to just be able to spend an hour talking to someone one on one in chinese, practicing new material, and getting help on homework.
Also, the Bei Wai chinese roommates living in our dorms are finally starting to get back from break. They don't start classes until the beginning of March so they've just kind of been hanging out. My roommate is not here yet but I've gone out to eat with some of the other chinese guys in the dorm. All of them are also studying to teach chinese to english speakers. Their being around now will just be more chances to practice chinese and talk to people more casually. Also, they're quick references when you're not sure if what you're saying is right or if you want to know how to say something.
This past weekend I went to the silk market to do some shopping. The silk market is floor after floor of little stands selling knock offs of brand name shoes, wallets, clothes, suits, jackets, toys, mp3 players, etc. A lot of them look very very real too so its worth checking out. I've done some shopping with my friend Bo, a chinese-born American kid in our program who goes to Tulane, so I've learned a lot about bargaining with chinese people. When they see Americans they see an opportunity to rip you off for cheap stuff so you really have to be stubborn. I successfully bargained for 2 pairs of shoes, one fake pair of new balances and diesel shoes.
1 Bargaining in Silk Market Story
First off, they show a little more respect to you if you speak Chinese. At this point I've become confident enough in my skills to do that so that helped a lot in bargaining. The first price they give you is a complete joke. I dont know how they keep a straight face when they show it to you. Good tactics I learned from Bo include starting with an extreme low-ball price. This girl tried to convince me to spend 500 yuan on this pair of shoes. I told her 60 (a very low price, especially considering I'm obviously not chinese). They usually get all offended and cut it town to 320 which is still a joke. My friend Liz is with me holding her pair of converse shoes she just bought. The woman asks me how much she spent on the converse shoes... I say 30 (she really paid 60... it was a mistake on my part that paid off). The woman freezes for a second, lowers the price a good amount but still at "rip-off the foreigner" rates. I say "no, too expensive, I can look somewhere else" and start walking away. She stops me and lowers it to 100, I say 80. She whines and whines and I say forget it I'll look somewhere else...she caves. It was my first time really bargaining and it was a RUSH.
After I paid the attendant told me I did a good job and that I sounded like a Beijinger. Bo taught me well. Even though the whole bargaining process is exhausting and you and the sales person get really aggressive with each other, when it's over they're very light-hearted about it. I walked by the store again later on and the sales lady smiled and waved and asked if I wanted anything else for a deal. I felt accomplished not only with the price but also because I was using a lot of Chinese during the process.
After a successful run in the silk market my friends and I found the DVD salesman outside our campus bookstore. This guy frequently comes by and lays out a collection of bootleg DVDs. some of them have just come out in theaters. I bought 4 for under $10. I don't really know how it works or how he gets the "for screening use only" DVDs but they're great quality.
I have to start working on some homework but I'll write again tomorrow to add some pictures and talk about pre-Yunnan trip stuff. I'm very excited to see some of rural China, spend time in minority ethnic group villages, get some much-needed fresh air and warm weather.
I leave you with a chinese lesson:
不三不四 － Bu4San3Bu4Si4 (BOO-San-BOO-SI) - means literally "not three, not four" but is a common slang used to describe someone or something that's a little sketchy or suspicious.
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