Alex in China

May 31st, 2009- It’s pretty crazy to think that exactly one year ago, today, I was flying across the ocean to China. The time I was able to spend over there was definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my life so far, and I’ll never forget it. I’m definitely starting to feel a bit nostalgic as I think about all the good, bad, crazy, challenging, rewarding, tiring, overwhelming, exciting times we had there. I realize that I never really wrote a “closing post” for this blog, and I apologize for that to anyone who was hoping for one. I kept thinking about it, meaning to do it, and then BAM! …the next thing I know it’s been a full year.

A lot has happened over the past year as far as my life goes. I could probably write pages about all the minor details, but I’ll spare you the novel and skip right to the good stuff. This past spring I was accepted into Texas A&M’s Public Policy Internship Program (PPIP). I’ve been hoping to apply for this program for over a year now and I can’t even begin to describe how excited I am to have been accepted! Let me give a brief background on what PPIP is exactly. To make things easier, I’ve organized the next section into a spiffy FAQ style format for your viewing pleasure

So Alex, what exactly is this PPIP you speak so highly of?

PPIP is an internship program at Texas A&M that selects a group of students every semester to be sent to Washington DC for a political internship. Cool, right? It gets even better!

Better? How could a semster in Washington DC get any better!?

To help fund the students who are chosen, the Association of Former students provides each intern with a scholarship to pay for housing while in D.C. If you’ve ever lived in D.C. then you know how expensive living there can be…I doubt my bank account could have handled a single month there by itself.

Neat-o! So what exactly are you going to be doing over there?

Hm….that’s a good question. I wish I could answer it!
The way PPIP works is that once the students are accepted into the program, they must then go and apply for individual internships seperatly. Luckily, the PPIP has many connections in DC which will help some of us in getting an internship. The program also reviews all of our application material before having it sent out to prospective internships to make sure that everything is ship shape.

Unfortunately, it’s still early summer and the people over in DC are just starting to read over our applications so I’ll probably start doing phone interviews and other fun stuff over the next month. We’ll see what happens

Hm, well where do you want to end up?

Ideally I’d like to end up in a government agency, department, or ogranization that deals with international relations or something along those lines. I’ve applied to a wide variety of places, all of which I would be honored to intern for

Wait…so when do you leave? (I’m gonna miss your sweet smiling face)

And I’m going to miss yours too! (Is it weird that I’m talking to myself like this?)

I got accepted into the fall program which means I don’t leave until August…August 24th to be specific. I’ll be in DC from then until mid December.

What are you doing this summer then? GOING BACK TO CHINA!?!?

Unfortunately, no. Since I’ll be missing an entire semester in order to do this internship, I need to take class’s this summer so that I can still graduate on time when I return.

But of course, I couldn’t just settle for taking summer classes…that’d be way to boring. So to make things more exciting, I’ve also managed to score an internship with Congressman Chet Edwards this summer! He has a local office in college station so I’ll be interning for that office part of the day while taking classes the other part.

Congressman Edwards is an amazing man, one of the few Democratic congressman in Texas, and I’m looking forward to everything I’m going to learn from being a part of his staff for the summer. You can find out more about him and what he stands for at edwards.house.gov/

Anything else?

And lastly, since this post will bring a close to my blogging experience in China, I’ve decided to upload and post a little something I created during my last few days abroad. I made this video as a project for the Institute of Asia to use as an advertisement for students thinking about studying abroad in China (Qingdao specifically). It’s a collage of my favorite moments and pictures, I think you’ll probably recognize a few of them.

Thanks to everyone whose read this blog, I hope you’ve enjoyed it!

Back in the day (“the day” being about 7 weeks ago) I saw something interesting that caught my eye while walking the streets of Tian. We had just walked down into a plaza type area where there was a group of elders practicing a Chinese dance that resembled something along the lines of Tai Chi. No more than 20 ft to right of the elders was a group of youths skateboarding a makeshift skate-park. It was an odd sight to behold. On the left was an activity full of Chinese culture and history…on the right was an American sport that had probably only become popular in China within the last ten years. Two different cultures, two different age groups, one piece of land…a perfect analogy of the current situation in China.

China is going through some strange times right now in the culture department. On the one hand it has a history of over 5000 years under it’s belt, not something to be taken lightly. On the other it has an booming economy that is turning the nation into a sponge for western culture. And by western culture, I mean American culture. Times are changing in China and they are experiencing an exposure to western culture that they have never experienced before. As the economy continues to grow and the common Chinese person earns more money, China is turning into a prime market for American companies. So what happens when these two cultures clash?

That skateboard scene I mentioned above isn’t the only instance of culture clash you can see, it’s all over the place. In almost all situations there is also the age gap present. The youth have adapted to western culture much more so than the older generations. A good, simple example is shoes.

The youth? They love all the same brands I do…Adidas, Nike, etc. The elderly? They tend to stick with the more traditional black slipper type shoes that you can buy off of any street corner. Aaron and I call these shoes “Shaolin monk shoes”…they really do look like something you’d imagine a Buddhist monk running around in. (we actually bought a few pairs)

I’m really not sure where I see this “culture battle” going but it’s interesting to see in action. Who knows, maybe the tables will turn one day and we’ll find our own nation being influenced by Eastern culture. It’d definitely be ironic and I can’t pretend like I wouldn’t be interested in seeing the results! -a

We’ve got internships! I’ve been meaning to write up a post about this since we got back from Xi’an but somehow I always mange to get distracted by…well, by China.

But yes, I have been working these last two weeks. Where? Well, let me answer that question with the name of a place that I am not working at.

Hisense.

As you may (or may not, if you didn’t read the "about me" section) know, my original plan upon coming to China was to be working for a company called Hisense. Hisense is considered by many to be the second biggest electronic distributor in China. Hisense has plans to go abroad and needs to start preparing it’s employees for the American market.

-And that was where I was supposed to come in-

My job, along with four others, was to take in groups of employees on a weekly basis and train them in American business English. We were pretty prepared and excited for the challenge, but unfortunately things did not go to plan. Upon arriving at Hisense we immediately had a meeting with our Director to discuss what exactly we would be doing at Hisense.

But wait! Didn’t Hisense already tell us what we would be doing before we left for China? Apparently not!

During the meeting we were split up from each other and assigned different departments to work for. I managed to get into import/exports while the others ended up in areas such as "legal", "domestic market", and "customer relations". At this point I wasn’t too concerned with the changes since "import/export" had sounded pretty interesting to me. I started to daydream about making connections and heading up big deals as I was walked to my department. Upon arriving, however, I was sorely disappointed to discover this wasn’t what they had in mind.

I was put in a small empty cubicle where I sat for several hours with nothing to do. In between intense sessions of counting roof tiles and thinking of words that rhymed with Alex (there aren’t many) I was only given one assignment. One of my superiors, James, came to me and told me he needed me to explain something about American culture. I perked up at hearing this and prepared myself for a series of intense cultural questions.

"What percent is used to decide how many replacement parts of a product should be stored in warehouses…in America?"

….really?

I told James I had no clue but he wouldn’t take no for an answer and pointed out that I was a finance major which meant I should know this stuff. I quickly countered that argument by explaining that I had just entered upper level finance and hadn’t "studied that subject yet". In the end we compromised and I said I’d bring my laptop the next day and google it for him.After that I went back to my cubicle, thought about what I wanted for dinner (for an hour), and called it a day.

Upon returning to the University I was relieved to hear that I wasn’t the only Hisense person who had had a less than thrilling day. We were all disappointed at our new positions as "office interns" and decided as a group that we would not be going back to work tomorrow…it was an American labor strike! (sorta…not really)

*This is the part of the story where things get better and Texas A&M saves the day*

After relating all our stories and concerns to Tio and Carmen Suen (who flew up for the week just in case something like this happened) they were extremely understanding and immediately got to work. Within twelve hours the duo had called all their Chinese connections, pulled some favors, and managed to come up with a list of new interships for all the Hisense people. A few hours after finding out my new internship I found myself in a taxi, on my way to start work at the Qingdao Olympics call center!

I can’t even begin to explain how amazing this internship is. First off, I never thought I’d find myself involved with the Olympics so I’m pretty grateful for the chance. Second off, the call center is much better than any internship with Hisense would have been. Aaron, Trey and I are in charge of training and testing call center volunteers on how to handle Americans and other English speaking nations. The call center has been set up as a place where all the incoming foreigners can call to have their answers questioned about the games, the city, or just about China. There are volunteers who speak over eight different languages and starting this week they are on call 24 hours a day. We’ve made lots of friends so far and really enjoy working with all the people. Whenever there isn’t much to do, our boss (Sunny) sets up meetings for us with influential people around the city so that we can build connections in China.

We’ve also been given a second job of sorts while we’re in China. The three of us are putting together promo material for the Asia Pacific Institute to use for advertising the trip next year. There wasn’t really much material out this last year so we’re hoping the stuff we come up with can be used to expand the trip over the next few years. Right now I’m working on a promo video and it’s coming along quite nicely. I’ll make sure to post it when it’s done.

As much as I enjoyed flying and traveling all around China, I must admit it’s nice to be settled into one location now. The weather has been getting warmer lately we’ve had a lot of time to explore and plan our own mini adventures (like playing Chinese hackysack in the middle of the city!…pic below)
-a

We Americans love our free speech. Even though it’s not always as free as we claim it is, we still consider it one of our greatest attributes (and rightly so!). However, we’ve never really been content with keeping this freedom to our selfs. Having “seen the light” we usually feel obliged to try and spread this right to other nations as well. It makes sense…we have something that we know is good and we want to share it. And of course, we are always appalled when we discover a nation that has not given this necessary freedom to it’s people. We start protests, write accusatory articles, watch our celebrities pound their chests, and demand that our government do something to right the wrong. But is this really the best way to handle an international dilemma?

Now, let me clarify myself, I am not saying that freedom of speech is unimportant or that is shouldn’t be given to all people. I am not saying that we should ignore the many nations who restrict their people’s right to free speech. I am saying, however, that we should make sure we fully understand the culture, history, and situation of other nations before we blindly charge forward into the battle of human rights.

I’ve been living in China for over six weeks now and I’ve had the opportunity to observe the culture, talk to the people, and get a brief glimpse into their expansive history. This, in no way, makes me an expert on China or qualifies me to make a concrete solution to their problems. It has, however, opened my eyes to some different point of views that I had not previously been able to see regarding the issue of censorship in China.

So why does China continue their censorship of news and media? Clearly the US has made their opinion on the subject apparent. We have given China more than enough reasons (in our opinion) to loosen their grasp on information and permit more freedom of speech. But there in lies the problem, China doesn’t need us to tell them what to do…and they certainly don’t want to hear us say otherwise.

It’s almost ironic. Here we are, the good ‘ole US of A, trying to make suggestions and improve an ally nation but it’s these very suggestions that are causing much of the tension between us.

To understand why this is so, there is a very simple point that must be made. The Chinese don’t forget their history. I realized this after listening to one of our directors, Randy Kluver, give an in depth lecture on Chinese history and how it shapes the way they think today. China was not always the powerhouse that it is today. During both WWI and WWII it struggled as many of the more advanced nations began to carve away at China and claim parts of it for themselves. China was very limited in power compared to the rest of the world and found itself being changed and molded by the more powerful nations.

Obviously China is not in that situation today but that does not mean that they have not forgotten it. They remember how it feels to be controlled by a powerful nation. This is most likely one of the key reasons they respond so coldly to the constant US attempts at stopping censorship. Having them watch us run around chanting “Free Tibet” has only caused more problems than it has solved. The true problem we need to be worrying about is finding a way that we can communicate our ideas to China while being culturally sensitive and understanding of our differences.

One of the main things that seems to be misunderstood about censorship in China is how it works. We were at lunch recently with one of Tio’s previous Chinese students, Liu Yang, and the subject of censorship eventually made its way up. Liu Yang runs a Chinese political blog so I was curious to see what he had to say on the subject. I told him about how frustrated I was that I had to work through proxies to access my blog in China. Was this because the government wanted to block outside opinions and truths from the people? No, was his reply. Of course not. Any Chinese citizen who really wants to know American opinions or world news can easily get around the “Great Firewall of China” the same way I had been doing it myself, through proxies.

So if it’s so easy to break through and get outside information, why even bother with online censorship. Liu Yang’s next answer surprised me. “The point of the firewall is not to block outside information, but to stop the people inside from sharing information”. The biggest fear of China’s government right now is mass assembly. This same fear appears to be the underlying cause of most censorship in China, including what many people consider to be religious persecution in China.

For the most part, it seems that the Chinese government does not care what religious beliefs the people follow, however they do care about the mass assembly that comes along with religion. Religion can become a very powerful tool when used in a political environment. In a nation of more than one billion people, large assemblies of believers can pose a threat to the government if religious leaders decide to get political. While it is true that China is able to restrict religious organizations, I don’t think it’s as extreme as some people imagine. Christians certainly aren’t being as persecuted in China as I had been told, in fact in the cities it is almost the opposite. There are churchs, there are “I love Jesus” shirts, and it is not hard to find a Christian. I will say, however, that I haven’t been to much of rural China so I can’t speak for the situation there-

…

I feel like I’m starting to ramble and that’s no good. There really is a lot to be said about censorship in China, in fact whole books have been written on the topic. But this isn’t a book, it’s a post, so I think this would be a good point to cut myself off.

A little side note though:

As I’m sitting here typing this I can’t help but feel that this post has a slightly controversial feel to it. That wasn’t my intent but I think there is always that kind of feel when you discuss something that is a “hot topic” at the moment…especially when it involves politics and religion. This post is really just what I’ve seen from my point of view with a little bit of opinion thrown in to spice things up!

To even things out, maybe I’ll make my next post on a lighter topic…like why all the babies here have holes in their pants instead of diapers. I guarantee it’ll be a real page turner! -a

I knew it would happen, I’ve fallen way behind on my postings. So much has been going on and I haven’t had the time to sit down and recap it. I panicked recently when I thought about how much I would have to write to catch us up. But really, a lot of we did this last leg of the trip was sightseeing so I think the best way to catch up might be through a series of pictures and videos.

“Sightseeing” has such a boring connotation attached to it. I really wish there was a better word I could use. These are the places I’ve dreamed of visiting and they were everything I imagined they’d be. Our group has certainly had to deal with a pretty intense schedule but we’ve managed to hold our endurance and I’m glad we did. It’s so tempting when you’ve been trekking across a foreign country for days on end to just give up and sleep through it all. But I think I can honestly say that we held on until the end.

So, to make things simple, I’ve uploaded all my favorite photos that show the remainder of our time in Beijing and Xian. And of course there’s some videos thrown in! (side note: this wasn’t the end of our time in China…just the end of our “traveling tour” of the country. Next up we’ve got internships!)

If I’m not mistaken, this was at the temple over looking the forbidden city. The forbidden temple wasn’t nearly as “forbidden” as you would think it would be. In fact, it was bustling with people. It was full of history though, which I can appreciate. When ever our tour guide started to get a little boring, I would try and imagine what the place was like during the dynasty times. But most of all, I enjoyed the giant portrait of Chairman Mao dominating the front entrance. Egocentric? Just a little.

I think I’d have to say the Great Wall was my favorite part of Beijing, hands down. We showed up on the foggiest day possible which, in my opinion, made for a nice effect. After wading our way through the families who only wanted to walk 1/2 mile we came upon a stretch of the wall that was an extremely steep downslope. Holding onto the rails, we half slid half ran down the wall, making a few stops to take pictures with various groups of giggling girls.
And to explain the banana picture…Derrick and I just thought it’d be hilarious to say we ate a banana on the Great Wall of China. We bought a few the night before at the market and packed them in my backpack just for that picture. I think it was well worth the effort.

I honestly can’t remember which temple this was exactly. A Tibetan temple maybe. It’s pretty beautiful though, right?

After day’s of walking, Aaron felt like he had pulled something in his right foot. Being the great friends that we are Clark, Trey and I agreed to go get a foot massage with him. You know…for moral support.

There are cats all over China, especially on our university campus. This one we found at a Muslin mosque in Xi’an.

Outside the Great Wall there were pits with black Chinese bears. These guys knew how to catch my attention as the danced and bowed on the poles.

We got to spend the afternoon with one of Tio’s previous Chinese students out by the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was built by a crazy empress who wanted a “vacation palace”. She told the people she was building a naval base as she poured all the nations money into the palace. I’m sure they were pleasantly surprised by the outcome!

We were able to tour the number one university in China, Peking University, while in Beijing. And wouldn’t you know it, it also happened to be graduation day! We grabbed a few of China’s best and managed to get this picture with them.

Ever since the Temple of Heaven, we’ve all become addicted to Chinese Hackeysack. It’s way more entertaining than that boring old American hackeysack (and it looks cooler too). Basically, you put together a stack of metal pongs with four feathers sticking out the back. Whenever there’s a few minutes in between activities we pull it out for a quick game. This game was right after meeting the Peking graduates.

Probably the best form of transportation China has to offer, the sleeper train. You get your own bed…on a train! There’s nothing better than falling asleep to the sound of train tracks and waking up to a beautiful view of the Chinese countryside. My only complaint was the forced wakeup by some Chinese train attendant over the speakers in our room. “Prepare to be awaken for glorious morning by beautiful Chinese music”. Any wake up message that asks me to “prepare” to be awaken can’t be a pleasant experience!

Ah, the Terracotta warriors. I remember reading about these guys back in High School. China considers the warriors their “8th Wonder of the World”. It was definitely an impressive sight to see the hundreds of stone soldiers in the original underground vault they were discovered in. We even got to meet the old farmer who stumbled upon the relics. I actually feel bad for the guy. He’s basically a prisoner of the museum , forced to sign autographs for the rest of his life. I guess that’s what you get for discovering an invaluable piece of your country’s history!

In Xi’an we were able to bike around the ancient city walls early one morning. Xi’an is China’s original capital, and also one of the hottest places in China. I don’t blame the Chinese for moving their capital away from the city of infinite heat. It made for a good opportunity to sweat out any sickness we were feeling and get back into shape. Also, it was just plain cool to be able to bike around the wall of one of China’s oldest cities. I even have a nice blister on my hand to remind me of the experience!

So after being delayed five hours at the airport and flying in at 3am we’re finally back in Qingdao. It’s great to be back, I’ve definitely missed the ocean breeze and our a/c! We’ve got our internships now for a nice change of pace…expect a post about all that very soon -a

I think the title explains it all, I’ve finally taken the plunge and eaten a scorpion! We’ve been talking about doing this as a group ever since we saw those live scorpions on the street (look for a picture of them in one of my first posts) in Qingdao. Well, it turns out there’s a street in Beijing known as Wang Fu Jing that is famous for being filled with the kinds of food that you see in Fear Factor. Sea snake, starfish, testicles, dog, sea urchin, scorpions and much more!

Being the good professor that he is, Tio wasn’t very happy to hear about our scorpion-eating plans. Apparently there is a large number of tourists who end up at the hospital every year after eating scorpions. Sometimes the poison doesn’t completely cook out and can cause a wide array of painful side-effects. The logical thing to do after hearing this would have been to cancel our scorpion dinner and go visit a noodle stand, but since when have college students been logical? We assured Tio everything would be “ok” and took off for Wang Fu Jing.

Trey and Aaron took the plunge first and ordered a skewer of scorpions to share. A few minutes later (almost) everyone was biting into the crunchy shell of a fresh scorpion. We were the center of attention as we chowed down, every tourist in the area stopped to get pictures of the Americans eating scorpions. Even a Spanish news crew filmed us for some story they were doing on the area.

To put it simply, scorpion tastes like popcorn. Once you get past the idea that you’re consuming a very well-feared insect, it’s not too bad. Actually, the only thing that stopped me from getting more was the price. For 18 kuai there was a lot other disgusting foods I wanted to try before the night was done.

Luckily I had my eating partner, Derrick, with me to split all our exotic foods with. We went ahead and continued on to try starfish and sea snake. Starfish…not so good. Combine bad sushi with dirt and you’v basically got starfish. Sea snake on the other hand is amazing, a very light fish taste similar to eel with lots of tiny bones thrown in.

Overall, I’d say the night was a success! I’ve almost eaten as many exotic foods as my parents now (which was a goal of mine) and I actually enjoyed most of them. The only thing that I’ve held back on is dog meat and testicles… but who knows, maybe I’ll just save them for next time -a

From my last post you might have gotten the impression that I was having a rough time in Beijing. Well, I was. But lucky for me, things have been going uphill since then. I’m recovering very speedily from my cold (thanks to my arsenal of drugs) and my hotel still hasn’t kicked me out even though my real physical passport hasn’t arrived in the mail yet. I think they’re just afraid of dealing with the wrath of Tio again, which is fine by me!

Beijing is much more interesting than I originally gave it credit for. At first glance Beijing has the appearance of an overcrowded city covered in smog (which it is). But in reality it’s a city with an abundance of culture and history…and smog. You really have to get away from the touristy spots to see the real culture but you’ll still get your fair share no matter where you go.

And then there’s the shopping. Prepare to blow your life savings like it’s no one’s business. You’ll be pleasantly deceived by the fact that you can get anything you could possibly want for 1/8 of the American prices. You’ll also think that you’re a master haggler and buy things just because you think you’ve found “the perfect deal”. I know we did, and I loved every minute of it!

We’ve all been waiting for weeks to finally make our way to the mecca of all markets, the pearl market. This place is four levels of non-stop, low price, haggle till you die shopping. I’ve been holding out on buying much before we went to the pearl market and I’m glad I did. We all made a quick stop to the ATM machine to load up on cash before going in. Four hours later we came out with empty wallets and suitcases full of goods.

Of course in all the hub bub about shopping I’ve forgotten to mention our morning at the Temple of Heaven. This place is like the Central Park of Beijing. It’s beautiful, it’s big, and everywhere you go people are enjoying the day. There’s something going on everywhere. There are people dancing in groups, singing old songs, and playing games. Even the elderly Chinese are out having fun, they’re actually probably the most energetic people out there.

To finish off an already eventful day, we went to a Kong Fu show being put on by a very large theater in the city that evening. When I think of Kong Fu I usually imagine ninjas jumping around smashing cinder blocks with their heads and yelling loudly. Needless to say, the show was nothing like that, it was actually extremely artistic with lots of deep meaning.

(But they did smash things on their head at the end, so I wasn’t completely off!)

Overall, Beijing is turning out to be an amazing city. The people are full of energy and fun to watch, it’s different than what I expected.

Well, it’s getting late here and I hear Joel starting to snore so I think I’m gonna go pass out too. Expect a new post in the next few days! -a

(note: that blog title is for my parents…remember that book!?)

So I hit a bump in the road today and made a mistake that has caused today to be one of the toughest days on the trip so far. Today was the day we were scheduled to leave for Beijing and Xi’an for ten days. We left early this morney to catch a 7 hour train ride to Beijing.

No big deal, right? Wrong.

I forgot my passport.

That’s right, I broke the cardinal rule of traveling abroad. As we’re boarding the train I suddenly realize that my passport is sitting on my desk back at the university and there is nothing I can do about it. I need this passport to fly back from Xian to Qingdao so this is not good.

And just to make things more fun, I woke up with a cold this morning! So I spent the seven hour ride blowing my nose and loading myself with Tylenol.

I know I sound like a complete debbie-downer but the story get’s better so I’m going to go ahead and finish!

We get to the hotel we’re staying in which is a special hotel owned by the Ministry of Education. And they ask for our passports. Uh oh! Turns out they can’t let anyone without a passport stay in the hotel. They insist that I’m not allowed to stay here until I get a passport. We spend about an hour at this point arguing with them to let me stay. I try to produce as much proof as I can about who I am but they won’t budge. At this point I’m starting to wonder how much it would cost me to grab a room at a nearby hotel on my own when Tio comes to the rescue. Tio is able to get a hold of the passport copies from the study abroad office just in time and the hotel grudgingly accepts them.

I’m glad it’s over, thanks Tio.

But on the bright side, I managed to get some strong medicines in after that and we enjoyed a fancy Peking Duck meal (including a nice dish of duck heart). Things are running smooth again and I have my passport in the mail.

Beijing is huge, expect my more posts in the next few days about it. My nyquil is kicking in so I think I’m gonna stumble my way to bed -a