Back in Nanjing!

It feels like home here, which is stranger than I've been able to put into words.

Coming back was another adventure, of course. Christian taxi'd with me to the airport around 7:30 in the morning on Saturday and we had breakfast in the airport before I went through security for my 9:05 flight. I flew up to Seoul, took a 10 minute shuttle bus loop from the domestic airport to the international one, re-checked my duffel bag and flew to Shanghai (the first flight was only an hour long, the second was two hours. Both uneventful).

China makes itself known pretty quick. I stood in line for about half an hour after getting off the plane to go through customs and then picked up my bag and walked out the airport doors to find myself, along with two or three hundred other people, standing in line for a taxi. the line swept along the curve of the airport building, narrowing by means of a canvas rope from being sidewalk-wide, to a three people across, to two, and down to single file before winding back and forth in a metal queue six or seven times. The wait was only about half an hour, despite what the taxi driver who accosted me as soon as I came out of the building looking foreign assured me would happen. "You want taxi? Come with me. Here you wait two hours." "NO." I didn't even ask him how much he would have charged to take me to the train station, but probable 200 or so yuan. The drive on a meter cost me 53 yuan (just under 8 dollars), and my driver refused even to keep the change from the 55 I gave him.

The taxis were lined up eight in a row. One wave would drive up and the worker standing at the front of the queue directed whoever was next to the first one to stop, and so on until they were all taken. As soon as a taxi drove away another would zoom up to take its place, the driver hopping out to expediate luggage moving if necessary. My driver took me on an expressway through downtown Shanghai and it was wonderful to be moving so fast so close to the ground and see the buildings. The sky was clear and it was sunny and warm. My hair was messed up from leaning on my seat on two planes and blowing in the wind from the taxi's open window by the time I got to the train station, but sometimes I like to give people something to stare at me for other than my skin color.

I got a train bound for Nanjing with less than an hour to wait at the station. There were three or four stops on the way and Nanjing was the end of the line, and miraculously no one got joined our car after we left Shanghai, so the car emptied bit by bit until I was left with a table and five foot window to myself watching the sun set over Chinese cities and hills and fields and factories. It was beautiful.

I took the subway from the train station to the Gulou stop, just a ten minute walk from campus. My duffel bag was feeling pretty heavy by the end (I wouldn't have this probably if I didn't travel with more books than clothes) but I made it back cheerfully and found the German bakery down the street was open and gratefully ate a sandwich.

I am currently trying to decide which classes to take. I think it's going to be Religion Systems in China, Environmental Law, and East Asian Economies, but Chinese Interpersonal Relationships and International Political Economics were both pretty interesting today.

Love from China!

Wrapping up Jeju thoughts

I had grand plans of writing while I was on break in Korea. Of emptying all the cluttered thoughts out of my head onto paper (or my hard drive), organize them, and be able to start this semester focused and fresh.

The writing part didn’t happen, as you’ll notice by the slim blog post pickins, but I am feeling so much better for my time in Korea and so much more confident about my semester.

I spent a lot of time in Korea doing little to nothing, which seemed to confuse and perhaps frustrate Christian who felt it was his duty to show me the island and keep me entertained. I had a marvelous time lying around watching old Poirot episodes and reading.

We also did have PLENTY of adventures. During my last week I went to class with Christian and made some buddies, particularly in the third grade (It was one of the days when he’s on his own, with no Korean co-teacher to translate and help him, so I’m pretty impressed that he has had any kind of a first grade class. The kids have plenty of energy but don’t understand any instructions that can’t be mimed). At one point Christian was asking his class to sit down and they were too busy talking about their last activity and/or not really understanding, so I sat down at one of the student tables and two girls shrieked and ran across the classroom to sit next to me. It was very sweet, and pretty hilarious.

You don’t wear shoes in school in Korea (or homes). When we walked in Christian led me to a set of shelves with extra plastic slipper-sandals and gave me a pair before going to his cupboard and taking out his own personal pair. The sandals were the kind with lots of almost sharp plastic bumps on the bottom, which I suspect are good for reflexological or circulatory reasons, but made my feet feel awful weird and tingly by the end of the morning.

We ate (twice) at a restaurant that served pie-sized Herb Burgers, cut into eight pieces and requiring the help of at least two friends to consume.

We played a lot of games with friends, most notably Settlers of Catan and Warcraft III (I’m expecting my Huge Nerd badge to be upgraded to a Super Huge Nerd badge any day). We ate pancakes and broccoli (not at the same time) and I think I made up for all the cereal I had not eaten all semester in Nanjing.

Being on Jeju felt WAY more like home than my time in Nanjing has, and while I think Christian “Chuckles” Yetter (only super special people get obnoxious nicknames, dude, trust me) was definitely the main reason, it’s made me think about changing the way I structure my life in Nanjing. I’m going to try to read and maybe write every night, and spend more time just talking to people. Basically, I’m going to do less homework. Probably this is a good plan.

a rainy day for thinking

Christian has been sick today, so it's been about the quietest day we've had here so far. We walked to a grocery store down the street to pick up apples and broccoli and kimchi and rice, and have been lazing about since then. Well, I have been lazing about and watching movies. Christian has been reading and sleeping and recovering from illness. I rewatched The Dark Knight and then watched 3:10 to Yuma for the first time. I recommend them both.

Since landing in Korea almost three weeks ago, I have spent a lot of time sitting around, some time reading, many evenings eating out with Christian and other friends, a lot of hours on buses around Jeju Island, and generally had a good time.

Christian and I walked down to the ocean another day, to Jungmun Beach. We walked backroads and got a bit lost on the way, ending up on one of Jeju's Olle trails, long wooden-planked walking trails that snake their way around the Island. We took a lot of pictures. Once we got to the beach we took off our shoes and socks and walked in the surf, chilly though it was. That was one of the warmest days we've had, it got up around 60. I made Christian laugh by standing ankle deep in the water and shouting "Hit me!" at the bigger waves as they came in, and then shrieking when they obliged and soaked by jeans up to the pockets. My lower half was pretty thoroughly drenched, and all the local high school boys working out on the beach had their belief in the weirdness of foreigners reinforced, by the time we left.

We went with three other friends to see a "Mongolian Horse Show" depicting the life of Genghis Khan. There were a few acts, with Temujin as a boy on the Mongolian plains, a youth in battles, and as King. There was soundtrack and narration provided over loudspeakers, but it was in Korean so I got very little out of the words.

Hmmm. Christian's feeling well enough to watch Eddie Izzard, so I'm gonna join 'im.

"There's so much more to get than wronged"

I have been trying to take a step back from the expectations I have of myself and see who I am and where I am and should be going.

I have been praying more. I have been trying to make my days expand into tapestries of things learned and seen and loved and not just the passage of the sun over my head. I have been trying to look around more.

I was almost overwhelmed in Nanjing. Not quite, I struggled through my classes well enough (I think. My civil law professor has still not told me if I passed or not) but had a hard time reaching out to the people around me. I'm hoping I can change this when I go back; that I can let people matter to me. Of course, half our time will be over, so everyone else's focus may not be on forming friendships, but I do the best I can.

I have been realizing that it might be okay for me to get used to things being alright. Not that I'm never going to have to face anything difficult again. I'm sure I will. I will be miles away from you when bad things happen. I won't be there to hug you or for you to hug me. I will be confused and in over my head and helpless. I will be human. But it will be okay. I will rely on the knowledge that I am not the most important thing in existence. I will call this knowledge "God" and scratch the surface. I will rely on the beautiful people I have in my life, all over the world.

The title is from "Earth to Bella, Part 2" by Incubus

Jeju Island

I flew into Jeju a week ago today. I stayed at Melody’s the night before and stayed up until 3am watching movies (Time Traveler’s Wife and The Lucky Ones) before getting up at 4:45 to get to Hongqiao airport in plenty of time to check in for my 8:20am flight. My flight was delayed for an hour and a half because of bad weather (a blizzard) in Seoul, exactly the length of my intended layover in Seoul Gimpo. I sat by Gate B11 half asleep, a curiosity to the Chinese vacationers and Korean families returning home.

There was one family, one middle aged woman, who kept speaking to me in Korean. I smiled and nodded sleepily. An older woman, either her mother or mother-in-law, could speak Chinese and we communicated simple things: I was traveling alone, I was from America. Her husband ( I assume) was Chinese. She spoke Chinese with him. This family ended up surrounding me when we actually boarded the plane. The enthusiastic Korean woman sat across from me and up a row, she kept turning around and smiling and speaking Korean and patting my knee. She had a very motherly feel to her, or that probably should have bothered me. The elderly Korean/Chinese couple sat next to me, and the wife sometimes translated what the younger woman said. The man across the aisle from me listened stoically to his headphones the whole hour and a half flight, but lent me his ball-point pen to fill out my customs forms. I don’t think he knew what to think of me. I couldn’t understand most of what was being said around me, but I was polite and deferential in Chinese and not English (as pretty clearly no one but the recorded safety instructions had any grasp of my native Western tongue).

When we landed in Seoul I asked the woman at the desk right outside to help me re-schedule my flight. I started explaining my situation in Chinese (因为我们从上海的飞机迟到了，我现在没有时间到我去济洲岛的飞机， 来不及。。。) when she stopped me with “I’m... sorry, I don’t speak Chinese.”

“Oh, sorry sorry sorry!” I cried. I didn’t mean to assume she was Chinese because she was Asian. I was flying China Eastern Airlines, so I think it was a forgivable blunder. She helped me reschedule my flight with no questions. I had been worried because my second flight was with a different airline (Asiana, though I think they are partnered with China Eastern) and I had booked them online through a third party. She did give me a flight that left only 45 minutes after I got there, but I made it! I scurried off as soon as she wrote my new flight number on the sheet I had printed my travel info on- through customs (delightfully painless! So much more friendly than China!), to grab my luggage, to the English-less shuttle (luckily a couple of students boarded just after I did and confirmed that this was, in fact, taking me to the right place), to the domestic airport, to check-in and give back my duffle bag, up the stairs to the gate. The flight left at 1:20, I got there at 1:14. But I made it.

Luckily the switched flight only landed 40 minutes after I was supposed to land, so Christian wasn’t too worried yet. I walked out to find him (holding a sign which said “Kara Poop,” I might add) and then went back for my luggage. I dozed through the 40 minute bus ride from the airport to Jungmun where his apartment is, and then fell asleep at his apartment and didn’t do much other than sleep and eat the curry he made the rest of that day.

On Monday we went into Jejuxi (Jeju City) to have dinner with Jei (our classmate from UIowa) and Tom (Christian’s friend from home, since fifth grade I think?) and Thai-An (another teacher friend of theirs in the Teach and Learn Korea- TaLK- program). We ate at Crazeburger, right on the coast, and watched the waves crash as we walked up. It was hard to see much once we were inside, it was already dark, but I’m hopin’ we’ll go back sometime during daylight.

The next day I FINALLY finished my anthropology paper. I wrote it on the Women’s Script (女书) of Jiangyong County. Women were not allowed to attend school or taught to read and write in traditional China, and women’s social roles were quite limited. A community of lower-class, rural women created a script, probably sometime in the 11^th or 12^th century CE, which was written in embroidery and illegible to literate men. They composed poems and songs and recorded personal histories and classic tales. It was used until the Cultural Revolution (from 1966 to 1976) so there are still a handful of elderly women who can read it.

We ate at a Mexican place and hung out with folks the next day, and had a reading and chilling day after that. On Friday Christian and I walked over to the shore. There’s a rocky area a 20-or-so minute walk from his place. I climbed out on the stones and let the surf splash my hand (and less intentionally a good portion of my coat sleeve). We climbed around on some craggy rocks nearby. I found shells! And a couple of urchins, and some clam-bits. I didn’t bring them all home. Just a couple.

Yesterday we went back to the city and walked around. We went to the coast again (there’s a lot of coast on this here island) and eventually to a supermarket and dinner. We bought waffles on the street for dessert.

Today we’re in a coffee shop on the main street in Jungmun, a couple blocks from Christian’s apartment. Christian’s writing fiction I assume, and may assume that I am doing the same. haHA! Fooled you, sir. I might, yet, I might. First I’m gonna keep reading 《明朝那些事》, a book that Xiaoxuan helped me pick out. It’s about the end of the Yuan dynasty and the beginning of the Ming (明). I’m definitely not understanding all of it, pretty much every sentence has words I don’t know and I’m not allowing myself to look them all up. I’m getting the overall picture and looking up words when their pivotal, so I don’t get bogged down in flipping through the dictionary.

Okay, this has been your weekly (ish) update! Love!

Safe inn Jeju!

Hello all!

I just wanted to let anyone who may pass through know that I am safe in Jeju. I will post again soon on my adventures getting here, but first I need to catch up on some sleep.

love!

Getting there!

I turned in my Environmental Econ (in English) paper last week, just need to edit my Civil Law (民法）paper once more, am halfway through both my International Politics (国际政治) and Anthropology (人类学) papers.

and I'll be in Korea in 5 days! And will give you a better update then :)


EDIT: I got an A in Econ! We'll just see about these Chinese classes...