Year of the Pig

My Blogger account is broken! I tried to upgrade it to a newer version, but apparently Blogger has decided that old version worked too well and this needed to be remedied. I was barely able to post this...then again, I was able to post this.

I'm not sure if you all knew this, but China is currently engaged in a week long celebration of the new year. It's the year of the Pig, which is my year actually, and everyone keeps telling me that I will be lucky. The streets are plastered with pig paraphenalia, including pig balloons, pig outfits for children, and pig posters on every wall. My personal favorite are t-shirts worn by teens that try to make this tradition "cool" by featuring Hip-Hop pigs.

This holiday is actually a lot like the 4th of July. It's very family centric and revolves primarily around food. Also, there are more fireworks involved than you could ever imagine. Instead of public showings, every family puts on their own fireworks display. These shows might not be as grandious as the American version, but this measurment is overshadowed by the fact that the bombs bursting in air are bursting ten feet away from you. It's hard to explain, but it feels both spectacular and insane to roll up to any old corner store in China, spend less than 5 dollars, and walk away with enough firepower to send you to prison in most countries.

Also, you have to remember that massive amounts of fireworks are being launched by hundreds of families surrounding you. It honestly reminds me of World War II movies I've seen, where a platoon is marching during the night. While they themselves are in a safe zone, the night sky is lit up by a massive bombing campaign many miles away. In China, I stand outside and hear pops and bangs from unknown locations and the sky flashes like a strobe light. Words fail me as usual.

Three paragraphs devoted to fireworks? You bet your sweet ass! I've got to talk about how dangerous this all is! The first night of the New Year celebration, Beijing reported ungodly numbers of firework related hospital visits. I can almost garuntee you this is due to how casual everyone is with the fireworks and how drunk everyone gets. I've seen 6 year olds (6 YEAR OLDS) with lighters, throwin heavy hitting crackers into the air, moments before they explode. I myself almost blew my hand off. I was launching balls of fire into the sky by holding onto a tube the size of a rolled up poster. We had never used this particular cannon before, so we didn't know what happened when the the fire balls ran out. After 10 balls lit up the sky, making a "Dung-Thwap" noise as they exited the barrel, the tube went silent. I assumed this meant that the show was over, but what it actually meant was that the fire ball failed to project out of the tube. The next thing I knew, red sparks shot all around me, a huge bang left me deaf, and my hand went completely numb. It took me close to 4 whole seconds before I realized that I still had a hand and another 5 minutes before I could safely say that no significant damage had been done. I hope you find this firework talk interesting, because if you don't, I probably sound a huge nerd.

I'm in Xi'an now. It's not a well known city outside of China, but it's probably the third or fourth most prominent city in China. What really makes this a special city is that it retained much of its original architecture after the Communist revolution. I'll try to show you some pictures, but Xi'an looks the way I imagined a Chinese city "should" look like. Also, it's home to the Terracotta Warriors, which I'm going to see tomorrow.

I'm staying at the COOLEST youth hostel. One of the teachers I'm traveling with used to work here, so the owners have really taken us in. This means we have lots of new friends to talk to and all the free alcohol we can handle. Hostels are amazing in China. Everyone chats with everyone and there's always something new to raise your glass to. An old woman kissed me last night. That doesn't really follow the flow of this paragraph, but it needed to be said.

Peace, peace.

Tommy

Helgens, Russians, and Old Friends pt.2

Now where were we? Ah yes. I just got back from Beijing. Two days later, I was on a plane to San Yan, in the Hainan province.

Hainan is basically the Hawaii of China. It has great beaches, an active night life, and caters to tourists quite nicely. You never forget you're in China, but this China has palm trees and Pina Coladas. The sand was warm, the water was refreshing, and the naked children...well, there was a lot of them.

One thing that took us by surprise was the fact that much of the city devoted itself to Russian tourists. Dinner menus came in Chinese, English, and Russian. Most of the bars held up the word "Pectopa" in glowing neon, which we are almost positive means "bar" in Russian. Most of the crackers that we saw at the beach were Russian. The city was downright saturated in Russian-ness.

This was a suprise to us because we haven't seen this anywhere else in China. It makes sense, I guess. Russia doesn't have any beaches of its own and before the 90's, I imagine it was difficult to hop over to Thailand, ect for political reasons. That probably set a precedent that keeps bringing people back year after year.

The first night we went out, we came across a bar/grill named RAINBOW. I insisted we check it out, but Phil and Andrew were convinced that it was a gay bar and that our drinks would be filled with gay pills. Yet, as I shouted on the streets of San Yan, "GAY BARS DON'T ADVERTISE HOW TASTY THEIR DOUBLE CHEESEBURGERS ARE!"

After much prodding and poking, we checked RAINBOW out, it was sweet, and we ended up spending a minimum of a few hours each day there. Sometimes I wonder if it is a curse to always be right. This place had a menu full of chicken wings, onion rings, cheap drink specials, and 20 kinds of cheeseburgers. I know, I know...I talk about Western food more than I should on this blog, but stumbling upon a menu that has potato skins is like striking gold here in China.

Rainbow is also the place that Phil and I were able to watch the Super Bowl at. They opened up the bar at 6:30am for the many Americans that were pushing for such a showing. It was great. The Yanks that were in attendance bonded over their collective love for football and getting tipsy before the sun rose. There was, however, one annoying girl that showed up who was born in Chicago, but currently lives in Indianapolis. As you might guess, she brought this fact up 32 times before the kickoff. "OH MY GOD! I don't even know what to do! I mean I LOVE the Bears, but the COLTS! I MEAN Payton is like totally due, you know!?" This went on for the entirety of the game. She would loudly cheer for whichever team was losing at the time and then celebrated like she was on fire when the Colts won. Ah well, I guess it wouldn't be the Super Bowl if there wasn't at least one annoying person there with you.

On one particularly invigorating night, we ended up forming an international coalition of the willing (to party) with a bunch of random foreigners. The Scottish, the English, ze Germans, the Russians, the Americans, even some god damn Kyrgyzstanians...all united in conversation, drinking, and occationally song. We stood outside this posh bar and sort of converted the street into "the place to be". Better yet, we picked up some beer at the local market for about 40 cents to the bottle, nearly 1/6 of what we were paying inside.

We talked about Hitler, we talked about democracy, we talked about Bush, we talked about how everyone besides France seems to hate France. It was sweet. Also, among the 20 or so people who filtered in and out of this group, there didn't seem to be a dick among them. Around 5am, someone decided that we needed go swimming in the ocean, so that happened. As I sprinted into the sea, surrounded by people I just met, from different corners of the world, I couldn't help but feel like this was the "good times" scene in some movie. You know the kind; where everything connects and the main charachter forgets himself. It was special, and I get the feeling that if I can add up as many of these night as possible, I will have used this life wisely, or at least my youth wisely.

So here I am, having traveled many places, still trying to decide where I'll go next. Life seems to be about collecting stories right now and if that's true, then I'm living well. The pressures of becoming an affluent adult may crash down on me as soon as I get back to America, but for now, I'm just going to enjoy things.

-T

Also, who are these mysterious acronyms that fill my page with comments? Even worse, "anonymous"? Who are you sneaky people?

Helgens, Russians, and Old Friends

There is simply too much to talk about. I've been trekking all across the Red nation for the past three weeks or so. I don't have a single obligation tying me down until March and that has proven to be a gift that doesn't stop giving.

I got off a plane this morning and am currently scratching my head, trying to decide where I'll go next. Life is pretty sweet right now.

My travels started with an 18 hour train ride to Shanghai. This seems like a daunting way to travel, however there is a certain romantic edge to a train. First off, there is an abundance of fascinating images that fly past your window. Farmers wading knee deep in rice paddies, wild dogs roaming the town alleys, crumbling buildings, mountain-top cottages, endless landscapes, and people living lives that are totally unrecognizable to your own...all passing by so quickly that you can barely grasp their significance. I sometimes sit for hours, listening to my iPod, and staring out the window.

Also, on a train, you end up meeting some really interesting people. On one recent trip I had a great conversation with a guy who wrote for a political news magazine. It's hard to imagine what this publication consists of in a place like China, but it certainly is encouraging that a political magazine exists on some level. Anyway, I spent a good four hours talking to this guy about America, China, America/China, and anything else that wetted our appetites. That's but one example of the interesting people you can meet on the railway. A Worst case scenario is that you end up exchanging silly faces with some 3 year old who can't figure out why you have hair on your face and white skin to boot!

If you're still not convinced, the train is set up in sleeper cars, so you sleep through most of the trip anyway. Plus, it's hella-cheap, as they say on the east coast.

PASSENGERS BE WARNED-- while traveling by train has many advantages, there is one cruel downside that is difficult to even speak of. The only bathroom that is available is a squatter, which is a slightly fancier way of saying that it's a hole. Using a squatter under normal circumstances is a hellish experience, fraught with questions of whether or not your pants are out of target range. On a train, however, this act requires an entirely new inner ring of Dante's hell. It's as shaky as a wooden rollercoaster and that's all I'm going to say on the matter.

Shanghai was a pretty cool city. I didn't get to explore as much as I would have liked and therefore didn't get the feeling that I "saw the city," but the parts I did see were really nice. One thing that made Shanghai a great place to visit was the abundance of Western imports, such Tex-Mex cuisine. A burrito never tasted so good. A few nights were spent with some friends of friends who either didn't speak, or didn't want to speak English. Those nights sucked. I can't polish that fact up.

The next stop on my China tour was Nanjing. In Shanghai, I was with the usual gang (Phil, Andrew, Sam, and Luing), but I headed out to Nanjing all by my self, just like a big boy! The purpose of my trip was to visit a highschool homegirl that goes by the name of Lauren Knapp. She's been teaching in that drag for about as long as I've been in Changsha. She has also been lighting the city up with her folk music frenzy. Nanjing is a huge city, so I've gotta say, it's pretty impressive that she's been able to establish herself in the music community. The first night I was there, she played a show at a cool local bar. A very tight band backed her up while she played some great covers, such as "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits. It's hard to explain, but something really clicked for me during her performance. Maybe it was the combination of only hearing crappy Chinese pop music for the past 5 months and the fact that it was my friend on stage. Throw in a few beers to the equation and I was floating by the end of her performance. It was spectacular to see Lauren. For anyone who knows her, she's doing great and has probably forgotten all about you.

Upon returning to Changsha, my family came to visit me the very next day. It was great to see them, but it was a stressful time as well. My Chinese wasn't good enough for me to act as a proper guide through the mean streets of China. I mean, I know enough for myself, but it's the difference between speaking Chinese well enough to tell a cab driver "Go Left, Go Right" and having to tell a second cab driver detailed instructions. There is a huge difference between these two scenarios and it was enough to give me a annuerism. I took a few days to fly with my parents and sisters to Beijing. One nice thing about having the family here is that I tend to save a lot of money and reap the benefits of luxury.

Beijing was cool. I've been there before, but got to do a few things that I missed the first time around. I went to the "Forbidden City", which is a gigantic palace, dating back hundreds of years, that can be found in the middle of Beijing, a huge and thriving city. It's hard to imagine such a place in New York, or Chicago. I also got to see the preserved body of Chairman Mao. I guess I just don't understand that form of memorial, or celebration. Putting aside the fact that it's fucking creepy, it also seems like the last thing I'd want for people to remember me by. I guess I just keep thinking this neo-mummification is sort of cheap, like it's a Mao mascot or something. I don't really want to see George Washington's body on display like a carnival side show.

Well, I guess that's going to be Part 1

The rest will be posted shortly. I demand to know who still reads this. You must comment.

-T