Appreciate Suzhou Month

I decided, at the beginning of the month, that my time here in China has passed quickly - too quickly? Well, quickly enough that I still have many goals left unaccomplished, places left unvisited, stories left untold. For this reason, I unofficially deemed November “Appreciate Suzhou” month; I will spend (and have been spending, for the past week or so) my remaining days seeing and doing as much as I can and making up for any lost time. This means, for me, going to a few of the dozens of world-renowned gardens, further wandering the streets, and exploring the area surrounding Suzhou. Stay tuned for more!

Cool Breeze and Autumn Leaves

I think that fall has arrived in Suzhou - but I don’t want to speak too soon. The temperatures have cooled down this week to highs in the low 70s. (It feels cold, alright?!) Days are often breezy. Students have broken out jackets. However, beyond this, fall in China is...anticlimactic.

It doesn’t smell the same as back home. The leaves are not changing. There are no apples, pumpkins, or bonfires - or at least, no more than usual. There are no Halloween decorations, no leaves to rake, no back-to-school clothes. I miss these things! This week is Homecoming/Spirit Week at both my high school and college back in the States, and those both carry happy memories for me. There is no such celebration that I know of here at SuDa.

As much as I don’t look forward to autumn each year (because I know that it means that winter is coming, and I do not particularly care for winter’s cold, barren, dry months), I find myself really missing home during this time when the only reaction that I see to the change in weather here is people wearing more clothes.

My Last Two Weekends

Just because I haven’t blogged about any events these past two weeks doesn’t mean that I haven’t done anything blog-worthy. No, I haven’t jumped from the highest bungee jumping tower in the world or anything (YET!), but I’ve done a few interesting/fun things:

The weekend before last started early, on a Thursday night. Even though we had class the next morning, Kathleen, Karim, Caitlin, Yonathan, and I finished our homework early and went back to Zapata’s, our favorite quasi-Mexican restaurant in SIP. We really just wanted some good food, but near the end of our meal, the owner came around to our table and asked us if we wanted to participate in a game of bar trivia that would be starting about 20 minutes later. We still had some time before our curfew, so we obliged and began to think of a winning team name.

Well, our name - “Beer and Skittles FTW” (it’s an inside joke) - came in second in that contest, and we actually placed third in the trivia competition - not bad for some first-timers, we thought! Question categories included food and drink, movie posters, sports movies, flags of the world, caricatures, and true or false. We vowed to brush up on our knowledge and return soon!

The next evening, we took a class trip to see the Suzhou Opera. It was short, but none of us (not even our Chinese teacher) could understand anything that was being said - it was all in Suzhou dialect. That being said, I liked it much better than the Beijing opera; the music was soothing and had a bit of a bluegrass feel, to put it in American terms.

After the show, we convinced our professor, Xu Laoshi, to come out to a hookah bar with us. It was a tad disappointing, because the place was out of the cheesecake and tiramisu that we had heard about online, but Kathleen and I passed the time there by making up our own board game with provided pieces. It was a chill evening, and for the rest of that weekend, we all slept, studied, and did little else.

That week passed with classes and few notable events. The next weekend, which is last weekend, was slightly more eventful, as we again started off the weekend on Thursday, celebrating Mexican Independence Day (September 16!) at a different SIP Mexican Restaurant, Casa Zoe, followed by a trip to our favorite, Cold Stone Creamery (yes, they have one here!!) We took another class trip Friday afternoon to the Suzhou City Wall: it was most enjoyable, as the walk through the surrounding park was peaceful and gorgeous and Xu Laoshi then led us in a rousing Chinese language game atop the ancient bricks. Yonathan, Karim, Caitlin, Andreina, and I tried out a new bar/club Friday night (FAIL) and then Caitlin, Karim, and I wandered the streets of Suzhou for SIX HOURS Sunday evening (WIN). Most exciting for me, though, was meeting Wil, the editor of More Suzhou, the website that we refer to for EVERYTHING in this town! Andreina, Caitlin, Karim, Kathleen, Cao Chi, and I had just gone to get some food on Sichuan Jie when a white guy casually strolled by and murmured “That smells good” about our cooking food - and voila! We struck up a conversation. I was in awe.

Last week passed relatively smoothly, as well, with a few events meriting blog entries. However, they will just have to come at a later time, as I have yet to complete tomorrow’s homework.

Church: A Gateway to the Suzhou Expat Community

I went to church last Sunday with Geena, Staci, and Robert. I had initially been looking to get the experience of Christianity in China. To my disappointment, I found out that it was actually an international church - and Chinese citizens were not allowed to go, per local government regulations. I’ve asked around, and I now believe that it has to do with funding. Still, my roommate was interested in coming with us, but she couldn’t, and once we got into the service, it didn’t even feel as if we were in China. I’m not sure whether I like that or not. It’s not that the service itself was not good - everybody was nice, welcoming, and international; there was a lot of music; everything was in English - but I’m just not sure where to direct my frustration now.

[For those of you who may have questions regarding China and religion, I can give you my very limited understanding: China is often deemed a “Communist” country because it has a system of one-party rule, and this party is currently (and has been since 1949) the Chinese Communist Party. The official religion of the party is Atheism, so government officials and all hopefuls may not practice religion of any kind - at least, not legally. However, there are five religions that are recognized by the government, and as long as said recognition is granted, believers are allowed to practice in peace with I think relatively few restrictions. You want to know the five religions? I knew that you would ask...I believe that they are Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism...and I can’t remember the last one. They’re major religions, anyway.

In addition, China is 92% Han nationality and also home to 55 recognized minorities. The qualifications for approval of a minority group include a unique culture, which often includes dialect, dress, religion...so traditional religions are practiced, as well.]

So, this visit to the international church opened my eyes to what I’d been hearing is a fairly sizable expat community in the city of Suzhou. More on that is surely to come...

Summer China Experience, Pt. 1 - Suzhou

Why didn't I write about this the first time? Honestly, I think it's because I have yet to finish my actual assignment from this trip, which, coincidentally, is transposing my travel journal and submitting it to my professor. Oh, well, maybe this will get me in the mood...

As I ready myself for my second yard sale of the summer, I am feeling rather disgusting. I think that a shower would do wonders. I often felt this way whilst in China.

June 26 through July 13, I was in a near-constant battle with heat and humidity. This grapple started, as I said, on the 26th, at which point the sixteen-person Furman delegation (consisting of twelve chosen freshmen, two political science professors, and an older couple who paid for everything) had yet to leave Greenville and were instead bonding on the FU ropes course. After a 15-hour plane ride followed by a 2-hour bus ride, we finally thought that we would get some time to relax in Suzhou, our destination and base for the first seven days of our three-week journey. Alas, our evening was filled with foreign meal customs and awkward moments between us future Furman students and our assigned Chinese roommates. To make matters worse, I would not find our dorm room's air conditioning unit until days later.

Let's fast forward through a week of sweating - my days consisted of meals and classes, much as I imagine my Furman ones will, also; though my nights were marginally more exciting (this is not to say that my days were not interesting; I was fascinated by what both Furman and Suzhou U. professors discussed with us and took diligent notes), they can generally be summed up by saying that our roommates were desperately studying for their final exams, so we mostly found our own fun. I will note three highlights of my time in Suzhou, though: Magnum bars, karaoke, and July 4:

1. Magnum bars (right) - Dr. Brent Nelsen, chair of the Political Science department at Furman, introduced us to these rich, creamy ice cream bars within a day or two of our residence in China. He had apparently spotted them at the local supermarket, and from that day forward, we were hooked. Too bad they are not sold in the United States...we're looking into franchising opportunities, though ;)

2. The karaoke bar - Wednesday evening, July 2, we went to a karaoke bar in town. I had been SO stoked, only to find that it was not what I had expected - but it was a load of fun, nonetheless! All 24 of us students plus Harrison, our pseudo-guide, and his wife, Sharon, were crammed into a dim, red room with a large TV on the wall in the center and tables and block-chairs on the opposite wall. In the corner was the operating computer system that let us choose our songs (in either English or Chinese). We stayed for about 3 hours, I think, and took turns singing everything from New Kids on the Block to Savage Garden to Britney Spears to some names that I can't spell or pronounce.

3. Independence Day (U. S.) - This was our last day in town, which culminated with an extravagant farewell dinner and light show. Before all of that happened, though, I'd like to relate a memorable Fourth of July moment: in the afternoon, after our required class, we had some free time in which we could relax, go shopping, or attend a lecture led by Dr. Hong, the man who had taught us that morning (left). I, Dr. Nelsen, and three other American students decided to attend, escorted by Harrison. When we arrived, Dr. Hong took a moment to introduce us (the class had already started), and then we took a non-committal, demure seat in the back - or so we thought. All of a sudden, the Chinese professor stopped his talk completely and called Dr. Nelsen up front. Dr. Nelsen, being as quick on his feet as he is, went up, gave a bit of background about our program, and then stated that he was a professor of political science and would be glad to take any questions that attendees, who were big-name diplomats and business leaders in China, might have. They asked some tough stuff, including how we felt about China-Hong Kong relations and who would win the upcoming American presidential race, before Dr. Nelsen's time was up. At the conclusion, we three students were introduced by name and asked by Dr. Hong to write our names on the whiteboard up front. He then asked us to share something about our home state - mine being West Virginia. I told everyone that West Virginia is known for its mountains, but I live on the river, and then, to my astonishment/amusement, Dr. Hong asked me with a smile about the song about my state. He wanted me to sing it, and everybody else did, too! So, on the Fourth of July, in front of uber-important Chinese businesspeople and leaders, I sang a rousing rendition of "Country Roads" by John Denver. (Dr. Hong asked me for an encore that night at dinner (below.)

Stay tuned for "SCE, Part 2: the National Tour" (top right)!