All posts by AbandontheCube

skinned frogs

We arrived in Chongqing at 19:49, twenty minutes off schedule. I was handsomely impressed with their time management skills. On a 31 hour journey the train managed to cross the majority of the nation and arrive nearly on schedule. On train trips in the US I planned to arrive over four hours late, per leg. When we stepped of the train we were greeted by a throng of locals screaming “hotel” in Chinese. We bypassed them, knowing they are regular scam artists, and stepped into a small shopping booth where a young woman charged us an unheard of 7RMB for a two minute phone call (normal price: 50 mao (12 cents). We stood in line for a cab for nearly ten minutes before noticing the line stretched around the block, and cabs were arriving only rarely for the line of over 100 tired passengers. We went around the train station and found exactly what we were looking for. Illegal cab drivers who charge double the fare to take you half the distance. After negotiating for over half an hour we agreed on a 40Rmb fare. 25 for the driver, and 15 for the bridge toll. Needless to say there was no bridge toll and the greedy driver pocketed the money with a smile as he said “all foreigners have money. no problem.”

A bit irate, we walked around the river where the crook had dropped us of. Our hostel was nowhere in sight. After another overpriced phone call we spotted our contact, John, a Chongqing local who runs a friendly home hostel. He took us up to his three bedroom apartment (converted into a hostel) and showed us our tiny room. The spartan and deserted, it was a decent place to stay. We left after dropping off our bags and washing our faces, and found a local stall to eat dinner. The outdoor dinning consisted of plastic pink chairs and a piece of plywood over a bucket for a table. A worker in the ‘cafe’ plucked a large fish out of a tank in the front of the store, and lifted it high above her head. Smiling shyly at me, she slammed the poor fish against the cement, splattering foul water, blood and scales across our table. I shrieked in horror as she laughed and picked it up and again smashed the squirming beast into the cement. She did this several times as I staggered away from the stall and Mike paid our waiter (a drunk man with one leg of his pants missing). The fish-torturer began scaling the fish, which began to flop hideously about in the sink. She lifted it and smashed it against the ground one last time, now covered in petrol, dirt and dog shit. She smiled, finished scaling the poor swimmer, and then began to heat a pan. A cop and his ugly girlfriend watched the whole scene, applauding how fresh the fish at this stall was.

In the morning John promised to help us book tickets on a cruise ship up the Yangzi for 580Rmb. We were thrilled, having investigated and found the average booking agent was charging over 1000Rmb. We fell asleep optimistic, but awoke to the thunderous sounds of horn honking at 5:00am, to which mike mumbled through tired eyes, “did you know honking is illegal in Chongqing” (and indeed, it was outlawed in 1997. Obviously no longer enforced). We stumbled out of the room, dizzy from the overkill John had done on month balls in our tiny room, and hungover from breathing poor air for the whole night listening to illegal honking. Sitting on the living room couch, John made a proposition to Mike. He proposed they go into business together ripping of western tourists. The key was that foreigners had money and did not mind spending it. John and Mike could split the profit they earned by overcharging unknowing tourists. Sick at the thought of ripping of friends and fellow travelers, we politely declines. John then began talking about how much money he was making in Tibet on foreigners who would agree to pay any ridiculous price he demanded to see China’s Tibet. At this point we were sure ready to flee the hostel, and Chongqing for that matter for all the unpleasant people we had so far encountered. On the excuse of hunger we left John sitting on the couch talking about his pyramid scheme. Walking around a local street market, we gnawed on lamb skewers and dined in a local street stall with a cold beer before strolling arm in arm down the stepped alleys.

The bathroom

We were set to meet John at 17:00. He was massively late and the cruise, we were told, would leave at 18:00. Finally he burst nonchalantly through the door, took our money and told us to follow a random woman to the cruise. We followed her after several rounds of negotiations and swears, and she led us to a dock several hundred yards away from the primary port. The main port held beautiful white ships with lavish decks and gold dining halls. We were led to an underground passage to a hidden terminal. Trying to cheer ourselves, we opened a few beers and snacks and watched a movie on Mike’s laptop in the waiting room (after being informed our boat left at 21:00). A friendly man riding his bike across China joined us. He spoke little English, so we talked in Chinese about his trip, and got to know him as best we could with limited language skills. He shared a few beers and before we knew it we were smiling and boarding the gangplank to the boat.

The ‘cruise ship’ was probably condemned, it leered to one side and stunk of diesel and fish. Fake plastic grass covered parts of the deck, and the exhaust pipe for the engine (itself a relic from earlier times) sprouted black smoke and coughed up flakes of engine onto the passengers on top deck. Our shoulders slumped as we were ushered to our room by a rude and almost unbearable man. Angered and nearly in tears, I collapsed against the door of our room, waiting for the floor attendant to unlock our door (no passengers were allowed to keep keys and had to track her down each time to enter the room). When the door was finally opened, we saw two bunk beds, a soiled chair and a tiny yellow stained bathroom. The bathroom deserves more description: It was a plastic square with a drain, a toilet and a sink. A large shower head was fixed to the ceiling. If one showered, the water would fill the room (nearly a quarter of a foot)before slowly draining. The water was a strange brownish gold color. We put our bags down and slowly sank to the beds as we talked about our options. We could chase John down and demand our money back, or we could make the best of it. We decided on the later.

After deciding not to jump overboard we went on to the top deck where a young attendant demanded 60Rmb to sit on the deck. Another fee, and no surprise. We felt we existed in China only to provide money to everyone we met. We sat under the billowing diesel exhaust coughing and silently watching other passengers look around in dismay. We were the only ‘foreigners’ on board. Once the whistle blew we snuggled into the corner breathing through our clothes. After some time, and I do not remember how or why, we both started laughing. Out of the black cloud of smoke emerged to pale faces that belonged to a Swiss couple on a whirl wind tour of the world. We talked well into the night. When we returned to our rooms, full of laughter and smiles, we had black streaks coming out of our noses. Our ‘roommates’ were in the room when we got back (four bunk beds). The wife was a pretty and thin woman, she was wearing nothing but neon red lingerie with matching nail polish. She had her purse on her arm (neon pink) when we walked in for some reason. Her husband was in a black button down dress shirt and nothing else. He sat on the bottom bunk eating oranges and staring at Mike. We fell asleep in silence, me on the top bunk reaching down, and Mike on the bottom bunk reaching up holding my hand.

-posted by Lauren.

Mountains rose up from the land like rude interferences to local farming as hills were chipped away into terraces in a massive attempt to convert the fertile soils of the hillsides into useful space. We gazed out the windows of the slow train, watching the landscape change from the water-logged and soggy Shanghai flatness to the mountains of South-Western China. The train ambled slowly and comfortably along under 50mph, a speedy pace for the relaxed passengers on board.

Mike resting on the train

We watched small, gray and brown towns of under 20 houses pass by surrounded by fields of growing food and flooded rice fields. Suddenly, bright yellow and blue buildings with steeples on each rooftop rose out of the shrubbery to confuse us. The lavish colorful villages were mini Disney lands for the peasants on board used to stucco and mud buildings. We saw no people in these Disney-like towns, and no farmland surrounded the towered buildings. I wondered how they paid for their odd architecture, and where all the residents were, and how they had come to chose small church-like structures for their homes. Without a source for answers, we shrugged and resumed watching. The landscape quickly returned to the traditional gray and brown houses and fields, leaving us wondering if it had been an aberration.

Before leaving Shanghai, Mike and I both bought matching ridiculous pajamas. In the city, many people wander around at all times of day in full pajamas, we thought we would join this culture of relaxation, and donned the PJs before stepping onto the train. On board we purchased pomegranate, oranges, pistachios, grapes and noodles and, of course, a few bottles of beer. We sat playing cribbage on a small wooden peg board as we watched the scenery swoosh past. By 20:00 I had won three games to Mike’s zero, so he left the table to chat with a young Chinese man also traveling towards Chongqing. They dined on rabbit leg together as they chatted about women, jobs and China while I read in my bunk. Our six bed cabin was shared with a silent young woman in neon pink who said not a word for 31 hours, and a family of four (a couple, their 8 year old son, and a very limber 90 year old woman who bounded around the cabin grinning with her few remaining teeth). The small family shared three beds, and they spent their time entertaining the spoiled young boy, who spent his time irritating every breathing soul on board with screams, jeers and cries for candy.Throughout the train car, other children ran around quaintly playing with small paper toys while adults chatted with each other and socialized. It was a moving sewing circle, playground and men’s smoking card house all in one.

In the evening the lights were turned over at ten and we all climbed into our bunks for the night. Below Mike’s bunk a man snored louder than a chainsaw, and I worried for his health with such a strange and noisy condition. If he was asleep, then no one else in the cabin was. I lay awake all night, relaxed but tired, and listened to the helicopter-like noises of the fat man below Mike’s bunk. In the morning, noise and motion resumed at 6am when the lights promptly snapped on. The smell of instant noodles filled the cabin, as did the sounds of slurping and spitting. After trying to sleep for several more hours, we finally gave up and snacked on nuts and berries as we played a few more hand of cards. I won all but one game, leaving Mike quite dejected. Having tried train food the previous day, we were determined not to ever order it again, and listened to our stomachs growl as we traveled.

It was national day, Oct 1st, 2008. In 1949 on the same day the communists had officially come to power and announced the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong. To commemorate this occasion, all of China is given a week holiday each year in early October. For one week, all of China’s railways and highways are crowded with loud travelers eager to reach their families. It is known as the worst time to travel in China; an equivalent to Thanksgiving in the USA. We went anyways, eager to be a part of the hustle and noise. On the train, a more relaxed form of travel, we were surprised at how smoothly everything fell into place. We napped, gamed, read and blinked back the sun as we watched the scenery change. In all, it was a pleasant trip to Chongqing, and we arrived 31 hours later, a little tired and smelling of noodles, but quite relaxed and eager to start our tour of the city.

-posted by Lauren.

The financial world is a bit of a mystery to me. I view it as a completely made up profession. Perhaps there were not enough other jobs in the world, so a group of enterprising folks banded together and said, “lets make a whole occupation wherein all we do is talk about money.” And these innovators do not just talk about money, they actually made up a whole new list of things to do with money. Hence, the stock markets were born. Stock markets, in my mind, are necessary for only two things. To help companies who cant make a profit the old fashioned way (hard work) and to give thousands of people across the world a reason to buy a newspaper.

Its a fact that the largest newspapers in the world are the ones that cover financial new. Look at the Wall Street Journal, for example, or Reuters. Note that Michael Bloomberg (creator of the bloomberg analysis machine for finance) is now mayor of America’s most powerful city, New York. To me this is evidence that this made of profession is like a union, they vote for each other, read each others news, share in each others trials and tribulations and, most importantly, pretend to be friendly with each other when secretly each wishes the other’s portfolio would collapse so he could snatch up cheap shares. Yes, the financial world is an interesting thing. And a very easy study on human nature. If you ever get the opportunity, go spend a day around Wall Street. Notice how everyone in the made up profession is seriously over serious, self absorbed and usually walking around with a newspaper in one hand, a Starbucks in the other and a bluetooh in one ear (if not both, the ultimate status symbol!)

Shanghai Financial Tower

The company I currently work for will remain nameless, partially because I fear our compliance department scours the internet for company mentions and would not look favorably on my unfavorable view of the industry, but also because it is a British firm, and I worry that perhaps my perceptions of the financial world are really just perceptions on the British, who as a nation exhibit similar characteristics with everyone I’ve ever met from the US involved in stocks and trading. However, my nameless company employs a multinational crew, perhaps to balance out their views and give a more accurate perception of global market trends? Perhaps, also, because they can sell the image of a “multilingual, multinational staff” to clients as a marketing tool. I suspect the later, having learned that there are not truly good deeds (at least when it concerns money.) The company’s goal is to sucker investors form the UK into buying stock in Chinese companies. Its a wonderful idea, except that the global economy is crap at the moment, and there is really nothing worth putting money into. As the editor, every report our analyst write comes across my desk, and to date I have not read one report I would put even a dollar of my money on. For this reason, I have come to see investing as gambling. I have a better chance of striking it rich in Las Vegas, in my mind, then by investing. Every morning I watch the analysts scurry about with worried looks on their faces as they open the bloomberg to see a ton of charts that all show what looks like a hill, the downside being the day’s share price. They gather like flies outside the building on the marble entry way and look across their cigarettes at each other and shrug, “cant control the markets!” But, the most fascinating and horrifying aspect of all of this is, in the last several months of reading reports I have rarely seen a SELL recommendation. No, these scared and worried analysts are advising clients to BUY! “Hey, prices are cheap, why not buy now?” they suggest, and yet the hill on the bloomberg continues to go down. Do they feel guilty for asking someone to put money on their way of thinking? Perhaps, but more than likely they are thinking about their end-of-the-year bonus, and wondering if they wrote enough reports to get a great bonus, despite market performance.

In this made up industry there are loads of made up people. People who feel like they are the most important beings on the planet, and radiant information as well as hold the key to information that could (if they were so kind as to reveal it) make you a millionaire. When the phone rings in the office the analysts will snatch at the receivers and drone on as if bored, when really they are beaming at being noticed, at being inquired upon. They have knowledge to impart, and finally a student has called for a lesson. Such is the mentality of an analyst.

Perhaps it is unfair, you think, that I chide these poor, hard-working analysts so. Let me give you some industry-specific info. These people are the kings of faking it until they make it. Many of them do not have degrees, or any basis from which to be so knowledge imparting. No, they entered the firm as an editor (why, that’s me!) or as an assistant, and then, over time, they worked their way up by coming in at 7am and leaving at 9pm and generally learning the art of google hunting and Reuters coding. These people deserve credit, don’t get me wrong, but on the inverse I really do not trust them with financial information. Take, for instance, Steven Hawking. If he said tomorrow the world was flat I just might believe him. Having never been to space, the roundness of the earth it just as likely a myth as its flatness, as far as I personally know. In the financial world there is no one I really trust, especially given the recent collapses in the US markets and the overall decline in global stocks (with massive small-cap de-listings) in the past year. Case and point– experts always point to a bubble after it has burst. Not very helpful. Why then are these people called experts when all they can do it point out the obvious and then debate what will happen (not even suggesting ways to mend things, but just how to benefit and when to sell before the other guy does). Again, not very helpful, in the grand scheme.

Forgive the cynicism, reader, but unless you have spent months on end listing to pointless financial banter, then this diatribe (nay! this monologue) will seem as pointless as the occupation in berates.

-Posted by Lauren.

Pudong district, in Shanghai, is viewed as the financial hub of mainland China. Fully suited businessmen scurry beneath steel high rises from coffee shop to news stand to marble offices with crystal views of the Huangpu River.

Amid this jumble of activity a startlingly Freudian phenomenon is occurring. Eleven years ago the Jinmao Tower was erected. It was hailed as the tallest building in China, unique in that its 88 floor design was seen as distinctly Chinese. The building held prestige in the mainland for over ten years with over 5000 visitors a day. This year, however, a bigger building has emerged.

A hard job

The Shanghai World Financial Center was erected directly across the street from the Jinmao Tower, and surpasses Jinmao’s 88 floors by extending the panoramic viewing center to the 100th floor. Instead of charging 100, which Jinmao charges, the SWFC charges 150. At a height of 1,555 feet, the viewing hall is the highest in the world, and offers a nearly unbroken view of all of Pudong which includes a view of the tip of Jinmao Tower.

I wonder, however, at the childishness of erecting ever-taller buildings in the middle of a global market recession. Roomers in the financial hub suggest that the SWFC is having trouble stocking their office space. Small wonder when they demanded only full-floor tenants at outrageous prices. At least four new office buildings have opened in Pudong this year, and companies are growing wiser and buying space while property prices are low in other towers. Now, this 100 floor monstrosity sits nearly empty. At least they have a great view!

Despite the apparent ill logic, some companies have taken up residence in the SWFC. This is the Freudian phenomenon I mentioned earlier. Companies are showing their power and might by lodging themselves in the tallest phallus in China. Despite being overpriced and a massive tourist trap (meaning, the food court will be impossible over lunch breaks) a select few companies have decided that prestige can be gained by being on the 30th floor of a 100 floor building. I’ll never understand it. On which note, my company operates from one of these two towers (not telling!) and I look out my office window every day at a stream of tour buses and wonder if sitting in a giant Chinese phallus is really helping the company’s image.

-Posted by Lauren.

At 6am we heard a knock at the door of the Mansion and Mike went in his boxers to see what the ruckus was. Ana and Dale, with bottles in hand, were just coming back from the bars. The sun was peeping over the trees behind them and they covered their eyes from the light. We all went to sleep and at noon, we were all on the couch again laughing, hydrating and looking for tickets on craigslist. Luckily the mansion had a cleaning lady who showed up shortly after we all awoke and began collecting bottles and sweeping up chips.

Train travel

Personally, I think having a cleaning lady is morally and ethically awkward. Another human being comes to clean up after you—I find it hard to digest. In China a cleaning lady is called an Ai’yi. Ai is the same sound as the word for ‘love’ in Chinese, and many expats living in China do indeed love their ai’yis, and would hardly survive without them. The mansion was just such a place, and the ai’yi looked at home amid the boy’s jokes and half nude greetings of hello.

Dale had to prepare for a party he was throwing that evening, so Ana, Mike and I set off to see what had changed in the past two years in Beijing. This turned out to be a far bigger project than we could manage in one day. First we went to eat lunch at a small side-street café. It could just as well have been Pairs for all its charm. Afterward we went to see the now famous CCTV building, which is shaped like a moibus strip.

Construction was not yet finished, but we took pictures and walked around marveling at the rate of development in the area. We headed off towards Tienanmen Square after the CCTV tower, eager to revisit all of our very first hostel in China—the Far Eastern Hostel near the square. A great place, which I highly recommend. However, the area around the hostel (though not the street itself) had been completely leveled and rebuilt in the past two years! People were everywhere, the street looked like a movie set where the buildings are only real on one side. Mike was visably distraught while Ana got extremely quiet and contemplative, musing at the intricate yet plastic light posts meant to resemble the Qing dynasty.

At a small tourist-trap stall Ana spotted children’s T-shirts for RMB10, or about a dollar. She tried it on and it barely fit. We both purchased them and went to a nearby bar and requested three beers and a pair of scissors. We cut the necks lower, the waists higher and the sleeves off, and then we put the shirts in our purses and headed for the subway—the athletics final would begin in less than an hour.

The Beijing subway has been greatly improved in the past two years, however, it still leaves a bit to be desired in that an exit from one line may be a good half mile underground from the connecting line. Meaning, we were extremely late getting to the Bird’s Nest. We popped out of the Olympic metro rail into the Olympic park, a massive cement field with flashing colored lights, statues and a massive walkway that truly was, dare I say—Olympian. We rushed towards the stadium, completely in awe of its glowing red design. Finding our sector we climbed a massive set of steps to the third tier and found our seats. I remember very vividly the very first glimpse I had in the Nest, we were walking up the steps to the entry way and I heard a roar so loud my feet trembled. I looked up and saw thousands of people, it looked like a vermin-infested bird’s nest alright, only humans were the vermin. I was shocked to see so many people in one place. Ana and I pulled on our modified kids T shirts, which read across the chest, “I Love China.” We pulled out American flags and sat them on our lap, and pulled out our cameras and poised them for the first spectacle.

Looking down on the field, it felt too close, like we could spit and hit a world class athlete. We all sat silently in our seats for a few moments before bursting into screams the moment our first relay began. Ana and Mike were jumping and screaming, I was half crouched under their waving arms, urging our runner to pick up the pace. This continued for a half an hour before the first beer run. Beer, as I may have mentioned, was less than a dollar a glass at the Olympics, and truly a gift from the government. When Ana got back we all sipped our beers and watched a new Olympic record in javelin. Afterward we saw several men sprint 12 laps, an Ethiopian runner took first and looked excited but not the least bit tired as he sprinted across the finish.

The night wore on amid pictures, races, throws and more pictures. Anthems were sung, medals were given, and beer was accidentally kicked all over the back of my I Love China T-shirt.

-posted by Lauren.

Canadians

I’ll never forget the women’s relay race where the US was in second place in the final 100 yards and then, with some unknown superhuman strength the US runner pulled past her opponent and barely made it across the finish, but did indeed come in first. The whole of the Bird’s Nest was in a frenzy and people were hugging and jumping around like madmen. A whole row of Jamaicans in front of us were on their feet as well. It was a truly universal moment, a single tear kind of moment.

Ana has long blonde hair and is a very attractive young lady. Several people in the stadium came up to her with their children or their husbands and took pictures with her. Though a shy girl, she could shine in front of the lens. After the games ended, we sang our anthem loudly, cheered all the drinkers in our area, and had our arms around each other as we marched out of the stadium and into the night. It was near 11pm. We saw a concession stand near the Water Cube and wanted to take a closer look at both. Mike bought beers while Ana and I danced around the cube singing our anthem. With beers in hand we decided to have our own mini photo shoot and see if we could get a shot of Ana and I in mid air, jumping in front of the Cube.  Nearly a full 50 pictures later we had yet to get one with both of us in aviation. A group of Canadians watching the spectacle introduced themselves as a wandering trio. We had more beers, talked about Canada, had more beers, took more pictures and then all left together for Dale’s party.

The Canadians were travelling around the world together and had just come from the Trans-Siberian Railway, which they said was amazing and well worth putting up with Russia over. We boarded the subway, and then split into taxis and finally found Dale’s mansion in full party mode. Poker was being played, people were dancing, food was everywhere and beer flowed like water. I played a game of poker (all in on an A,7 to an A,2,4,5,2 flop) which I lost in a late round before heading off to find a nearby McDonald’d at 3am. When we returned with our tasty burgers the mansion was silent. The poker games were over and the music was off. We ate, chatted with the winner of the game and finally fell asleep around 5am.

The following morning we needed to find a way back to Shanghai. We visited the train station to discover the entire train was sold out—and all subsequent trains for three days. We stood in shock, who was fleeing Beijing before the closing ceremony that evening? Why was the train booked? Dismayed we took a quick subway up to the airport and watched the basketball gold medal match from the subway’s TV. What an amazing game! We finally found tickets on a plane back to Shanghai two hours later, though they may have been the last two seats out of the city for all the trouble we went through to get them. We grabbed a quick bite, talked about the amazing weekend, and boarded our plane home. After two hours of terrible turbulence we landed back in Shanghai, exhausted and all smiles. We’d never been happier for acting on a whim.

-posted by Lauren.

Vince Vaughn

We finally arrived at the baseball stadium, though an hour and a half early. There were over forty volunteers checking tickets and working security machines. I took out my camera, aimed it at the volunteers and was instantly tackled by a young man saying in broken English, ‘no pictures!’ I laughed and said back in English, ‘no pictures at the Olympics. Are you serious?” He was not laughing.  I put my camera back in my purse, shrugged and walked towards a metal detector.  Another volunteer yelled towards the back of the procession in Chinese, “hey, can we let the foreigners in yet?” Mike and I looked at each other in awe. Chinese visitors were already streaming into the area, why wouldn’t we be allowed in. Someone in the back yelled an affirmative and we went through security. Mike’s cargo shorts beeped each time the volunteer swept the wand over his legs. It would beep and Mike would say, “keys” and the volunteer would not and sweep another beeping area, “belt,” “camera,” “sunglasses,” “change.” This went on for quite a while, the volunteer never asking to actually see inside the cargo pockets to see if Mike was telling the truth. He was. But naturally it was funny because it just as well had been “knife” “gun” “mace” and the guard would have nodded and moved on. Meanwhile, an aspirin container in my purse was being emptied onto a metal table. I explained that they were vitamins. He asked why some were red and some were white. I explained, without batting an eye, that they were A and B vitamins, and possibly C in there somewhere as well—have to keep the body healthy! Aspirin is prescription only in China and one cannot carry pills without prescription.

The baseball stadium was a small assemblage of temporary scrap steel twisted into the façade of an arena. We walked along the outside for a long while until we finally found out sector. Outside the heavily guarded entrance was a concession stand. Beer was less than a dollar! We loaded up on beer and sugar popcorn and headed for out seats. The whole area was empty so we sat together. After a few minutes two Americans showed up and sat next to us, one was from Boston and looked like Tony Sapprano. The other was from New York and looked like he might have been a club bouncer. Mike offered to  buy them a beer and boom, we were on the good graces of the American mob, which was comforting. We wished we were sitting somewhere else.

Tony Soprano yelled at the Cuban team as it took the field. Naturally, we yelled along with him after he nudged me with his elbow and gave me an urging look. We drank our beer, cheered for the good ol’ boys and generally had a great time.

Olympic baseball

After a few disappointing innings we found ourselves in the unfortunate situation of being out of beer. Mike made the trek to the nearby concession. While he was away a familiar looking gentlemen sauntered by us and sat towards the back of the stadium. I recognized him from somewhere but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then Tony Soprano stood up on the bench and screamed, “we fucking love you Vince Vaughn!” I was astonished! Not only did Vince turn, but seeing the giant and the mobster, he smiled and cheered on the American team in unison with the mobsters. I sat petrified, meanwhile, at being in the middle of such an awkward and embarrassing scenario, and I wished Mike would hurry back with the beers. Liquid courage. After another round Mike and I went up a few steps and talked to Mr. Vaughn. I had my picture taken and Mike shook his hand and he instructed us to enjoy the rest of the game. I felt bad for the man, who was sitting alone and would have liked to ask him to come sit with us if it didn’t mean including the mafia. We were all smiles as we sat back down. Neither one of us had ever met a celebrity—he was amazingly normal. Totally drunk, though, as one should be at a baseball game.

-posted by Lauren.

After a while it was obvious we were not going to win the game, and in fact it was 10- 2 Cuba when we walked out of the stadium with our heads down. We caught a cab and met some friends in SanLiTun, the infamous bar street in Eastern Beijing. The street is notorious for heavy parties, drugs, illicit film stores and hundreds of foreigners and very few local Chinese. It was, basically, what Chinese locals thought of America—dirty, drugged and laughing about it. We met up with our already trashed friends in a bar called the Q Bar. A young Chinese lady in the tiniest shorts and smallest shirt came up to Mike and took off his baseball cap and put it on her head.

Pollution

Naturally I was furious, more because it was actually my hat, not his, and I didn’t want it getting an STD. She giggled and fell down on a padded sofa lounge, pulling another of our friends down on top of her. This went on for quite a while, until after some time it seemed normal and we forgot all about her presence.

At the Q Bar a friend of ours from Shanghai showed up with tickets to the athletics finals which he had scalped earlier that day from a Finnish soccer player. He sold us the tickets for only RMB200 more than face value—an unheard of deal. We happily paid our friend, who was unaccustomed to the lady rolling on the sofa and therefore uncomfortable, and he left. He was Australian.

The finals were the next evening at 7. We had four tickets and it did not take long to convince our friends Ana and Dale to go with us. They were more than happy to oblige. After a bit we left the Q bar and sat around outside on a park bench marveling at the clear sky.

Pollution in China is a massive problem, and one without an obvious answer. Development and industrialization is their right and aim, yet to achieve this is it really necessary to go through such a period. Already China’s progress has mimicked Americas in that we had out industrial revolution and then, when wages were high in the US and manufacturing was not really economically feasible—we outsourced our factories and became a service society. China was already following this trend in outsourcing to India. Soon, would it be a reality that all the factories in China would move outside the nation and it would too become a service industry. Meanwhile, pollution in China was rampant as most factories remained in the mainland. The next phase in a free market economy is not yet fully underway and the pollution from factories, and 1000 new cars a day added to the streets of Beijing, has left the city permanently under a heavy grey cloud. We lay on the park bench in SanLiTun and marveled at the clear sky because it was not more than two years ago we lived in Beijing and had chronic coughs, blew our nose into white towels to reveal black goo, and generally could not run more than 100 yards without collapsing. Now, looking up at the full moon we were astonished at what had transpired. Would Beijing go back to its shitty air and poor traffic and collapsing citizens after the Olympics? Probably. We got in a cab and headed back to Dale’s mansion.

-posted by Lauren.

Scalpers in Beijing

I woke up at 6am, still on the train in my mini-bunk. I rubbed my eyes and, out of the corner of my sleepy vision, saw a Chinese local with a business suit on standing in front of Mike’s bed—watching him sleep. Somewhat startled and unsure of how to react, I simply watched the man silently. Eventually he bored of his voyeurism and wondered down the hall. I rolled over onto my stomach and washed my face with a napkin dampened in bottled water, then finished my book. When I was done I looked over and woke up Mike and told him about his on-board fan club.

We arrived in Beijing two hours behind schedule, and happily so. We were on our way to drop off our backpacks at Dale’s house. Dale recently took a ‘real’ job where he previously played a certain card game for income. His roommates all made money in a similar fashion. Needless to say, they lived in the penthouse of a downtown Beijing apartment, literally a two story (with two balconies and four bathrooms) suite. The fish tank in their entry way was larger than the walking area of our entire apartment.  At 11am, when we arrived, no one was awake—having suffered a serious night of drinking and playing the previous evening. We knocked to the sound of our own echo.

Eventually a very friendly hangover answered the door. We were later to learn his name was Ben. His girlfriend, Kristy, was sleeping soundly—unamused perhaps at our ‘early’ arrival. We set down our bags and hooked up Mike’s laptop to their Wi-Fi to search for tickets. The games, sadly, were sold out. We wondered if coming to the city on a whim with no plan was a bad idea….. and then we found online scalpers.

Online scalpers are a strange lot. They openly advertise aspirations for an illegal transfer of money for tickets—something the Chinese government fought earnestly against. Craigslist.com and other social selling spots were brimming with tickets to every possible event—though at a markup, of course.  We quickly found tickets online for a reasonable fare to the Cuba vs USA baseball quarterfinal game. They were RMB 300 each, not bad.

After calling the ticket holder on the craigslist posting we were advised to trek to a specific street corner near the subway, once at that street corner we were to call the ticket holder again and he would deliver further instructions. Now, we had been watching the hit TV show The Wire, and were amazed at the similarities between dealing drugs and dealing tickets. The phone rang as we stood at the street corner, dripping sweat and wonderment. We were to head into a nearby building and await further instructions. We did do, giddy at such a silly secretive illegal dance for something that was blatantly posted all over the web (with IP tags).

A kind, overweight Armenian man came out of a nearby elevator and spotted us on the phone. He marched over and made small talk—making sure we were in fact the saps who were overpaying for baseball. We assured him we were. He produced the tickets in a sealed envelope with Mike’s name written on it. Very subversive! I put the tickets, labeled with Mike’s name, into my purse. Meanwhile Mike reached for his wallet. The Armenian screamed and then looked around the lobby. “Not here!” and then he marched off down an unlit hallway. Confused, and somewhat too honest for our own good—we followed. In another lobby, with CCTV coverage of the whole area staring back at us as the Armenian put his palm out under Mike’s nose and looked around suspiciously. A real pro.

Tickets

With the transaction complete we sat in the cab silently blinking away amusement at what had transpired. I pulled out the envelope with the tickets. Despite having watched The Wire, we had not checked the ‘purity’ of the goods. I starred at our seat assignments- the tickets were not for the same row or aisle, though they would be in the same general area. At least, we sighed, no stadiums had appeared full on TV—maybe we would be able to swap with someone?

-posted by Lauren.

We went up to the Beijing 2008 Olympics on a sudden impulse. It wasn’t because we were so much swept up in the fervor as just tired of feeling left out. On a Wednesday evening we were watching the Olympic men’s gymnastic team competing and looking at the crowd of screaming, crying fans wondering if we’d ever be so gullible as to scream for nationalism.

Apparently we are. Thursday morning I told my boss I was thinking of vacating the office early that day. I called Mike and propositioned. Naturally with a little sweet talk and some womanly maneuvers I had him agreeing to an overnight train ride to Beijing in no time.

I left work that same evening at 4pm on an excuse of packing and passing out business cards. I jogged to the Shanghai subway and boarded the metro—itchy and anxious for another adventure. It felt like I had been stable for far too long (though it had only been two weeks!).

When I got back to the apartment I was ecstatic with energy and adrenaline. I walked in the door, and embraced my baby.

Beijing Bird

After a shower we realized we had no time to properly pack, and each threw a few shirts into separate backpacks, grabbing toothpaste and random accessories as we reached for the door. We were nearly late getting to the Shanghai rail station because our cab driver (an over-weight smoker from south China with a thick local accent from years of fitting in) pretended not to know the fastest route north.  Eventually, and several mini- panic attacks later, we arrived just in time to race down the tarmac to our train car.

Boarding our car, we were encountered with a stench that can only be described as ‘travel smell,’ it’s a disgusting mix of body sweat, excitement and laziness. I love it. Imagine sawdust and a urinal, mixed with egg whites and a bit of bark.

Our bunk (it was a sleeper car) was in the middle row, car 6, bunks 3 and 4 to be exact. Bunks come in rooms of 6, with one and two on the ground level with two above that and two more hugging the ceiling. The middle row has a nice view of the scenery.  I lounged in my mini-bunk, reading ‘Men without Women’ a Hemingway book my father had recently sent me from Afghanistan where he was working. I nearly finished the book when exhaustion and excitement mixed inside me and made me fall asleep, the book resting on my chest.

-posted by Lauren.

The next morning we awoke to the sounds of horses. Billig had brought in a rather large brown horse for the evening, and he had strolled around the yard all night eating every blade of grass and then leaving large piles of evidence strewn about, which the two dogs were rolling in when I stepped out of the yurt. I walked near the horse to say hello, sleep still in my eyes. The horse pivoted with such grace and speed that I hardly had time to react before it shifted all its weight to its front legs and kicked ferociously back with both hind legs. Mike was just stepping out of the yurt and yelled a too-late warning. The back leg kicked millimeters past my fragile skull and landed harmlessly back on the grassless ground. Startled, I realized that this was the second near-miss by a horse in as many days.

Trans-Siberian railway

Nevertheless, we asked Billig for horses for the day and walked into town while we waited for our mystery meal and for Billig to collect the horses from a friend. In town (which was a good mile hike) we bough the necessary provisions for a long ride, namely, a giant bottle of vodka and some orange juice to mix it with. On the mile walk back, we split the two bottles half and half and set about emptying them into our bellies. We were starving, our stomachs were raw from devouring mysterious substances for the past several days, and in town we could not find anything other than a large round loaf of bread to purchase for sustenance.

Back at camp we had carrots and noodles spiced with a tar-like substance I can only imagine was reheated dog. We chewed on wild onion shoots and looked across the kiddy table at each other. Mike looked ragged, tired and diseased; dark circles nearly eclipsed his blood-shot eyes. Still, he was an attractive man and I could not help but smile at what he had gone through the previous night for me. Wife had served a bowel of raw yogurt to the both of us, being lactose intolerant Mike slyly ate both his and mine, and as a result had spent the evening frequenting the outhouse via flashlight. Romance at its finest– or at least, romance on the steppe.

Billig returned with two horses, a small brown one which I presumed was mine and a large glorious grey one which could only, in this male chauvinist culture, be meant for Mike. Billig was not alone; he had a rather cheery Asian accomplice with him who he introduced as his Japanese friend. The two had met while Billig was looking for gold with the American. I wanted to learn more about the gold hunting, but would wait until later to ask.

Billig and the Japanese man (who was in a purple track suit) pulled out several bottles of beer and poured glasses for the men. Mike interjected and calmly and politely explained that white women also drank. Everyone in the yurt thought this was amazingly funny, and the Japanese man laughed as he poured me a full bowel of beer. We clinked and clanked bowels and all downed our drinks. Wife sat in the corner laughing and batting her eyes at Billig. He asked her to drink, but she said it was bad for her skin, and declined.

We drank several beers before another strange man arrived. This man was clad in traditional Mongolian gear, with a large cloth jacket tied on with a sash belt that also held a giant dagger. He wore a cowboy hat and had a long blade of grass between his teeth. He was fairly handsome, and Wife blushed as he walked in. Billig introduced him as the horse man, the until now supplier of our previous day’s brutes. Billig also explained that his wife had a massive crush on the cowboy, and he poured the man a bowel of beer and joked that his wife would someday ‘change to the other one,’ meaning the handsome cowboy. I thought that if Marlboro could have signed this lad, they would have won as many hearts as smokers. The man had brought the horses for us while we were off gathering booze, and had returned with saddles. It had started to rain and he and Wife went out and collected the saddles and set them in the yurt.

We drank a bit more, chewed our dog meat, and then the Japanese man in the track suit asked if white women also gambled. Mike assured him that they did and I found myself playing a very confusing local Mongolian variety of poker. Somehow I managed to beat Billig, though with the Japanese man’s help and constant cheering to assist me.

Tipsy and a bit lethargic, Mike and I mounted our horses and decided to go as far into the valley as we could before sunset. Already it was 11am and we were on the verge of being useless thanks to the endless bowel clanking. Wife set off across the fields with a bucket and the cowboy, Japanese man and Billig all got in a small white car (when had that arrived?) and took off spinning in circles, across the fields for town.

-Posted by Lauren.

Lady on wheel

Tipsy and aboard a very stubborn and slow horse, I became angry at the brute for not obeying my drunken commands to go faster. Mike laughed at me and my silly little horse while he strode confidently atop a giant beautiful stallion. We carried on in this manner for about an hour before the beautiful scenery sobered us up and we sat in awe of the majestic mountains and streams that surrounded us. Taking it slowly to absorb the view, we headed deep into the rugged valley, the horses stepping over corpses of horses along the way.

We passed several other yurt camps, some with as many as twenty small felt yurts in a circle around an open fire, some as small as a single yurt and a lean-to shed for the goats. We trekked up several rather large hills before finally spotting our turn around point—the largest hill in the distance, its top covered in fog and invisible.

Mike took the hill at a jog, my stubborn ass-like horse ambled up slowly behind and I arrived atop the hill a full ten minutes behind Mike. When I got off my inbred horse, I tied the brute to a tree and looked around for Mike. In the distance I saw something out of the ordinary and walked in that direction. Mike was lying on his belly looking over the edge of the hill. Upon hearing me approach he rolled over and pulled me on top of him, all smiles. “Would you look at that!” he quipped, pointing down the opposite hillside. A large herd of wild horses were grazing slowly up the valley, herding their young fawns in the middle. Mike’s tears were moist, though he tried to hide that fact from me, and I was amazed that such wild things still existed.

After stalling on the hillside long enough, we set off back towards camp at a slow jog. Mike switched horses with me after a bit and I took off at a full sprint atop the beautiful stallion, I turned him quickly, had him chase goats, ran him towards yurt camps and then away, raced up hillsides and generally had the wind blowing back every strand of my hair. I made a wide circle and raced back towards Mike, who was sitting grumpy atop my stupid half-donkey horse. He cheered up as I approached; apparently I had a splattered bug on my forehead. I didn’t care. I steered the giant horse and ran in circles around Mike. After a while the horse and I tired of the charade and Mike tired of the ass. We switched again and I felt trapped atop the slow pack animal. Finally we reached the camp, exhausted and sore in the hind regions from bouncing in the saddle. Neither of us knew how to ride properly, and we had bounced around for the past two days pulverizing our rear ends.

When we reached the camp we had to pack. Today was our last day in the national park. It was a sad packing session, and we hurriedly threw everything into bags so we could spend the last few moments saying goodbye to the dogs and horses before heading to town to find Billig and Wife. We set off across the field and saw the couple flirting in the distance as they headed in our direction. They were tickling each other and laughing as they approached, unashamed to be so affectionate in front of us. Billig asked Mike to step into the white car with him, it was 100 or so yards back in the field. Mike and Billig set off while I waited on a bench in town. Wife had gone back after a cheery goodbye, to make more yogurt because her mother was visiting the camp that afternoon.

Mike and Billig sat in the back of the car while the cowboy and the Japanese man sat up front. I was extremely worried that something scary was happening inside the car, and I was terrified for Mike. After about ten minutes Billig jumped out, yelled something into the car and jogged away. Mike came over and sat on the bench with me. The cowboy sat guarding us while the Japanese man idled in the driver sat of the car. Mike was contemplative and looked tired. I asked what had happened, but just then Billig appeared holding three beers. He smiled and downed a beer, sharing it generously with an elderly man sitting on the bench near us. We all drank our beers, exchanged addresses and the Billig set off across the field waving goodbye. Mike explained that he had paid a bit more than he was comfortable with for the use of the horses to the cowboy, but that Billig was reasonable and fair, and the whole trip had cost a fraction of what we had budgeted.

We boarded a bus and prayed it would hold together. It jumped and creaked the whole way back to Ulan Bator, where we said goodbye to the driver and jumped on a plane back to Shanghai. It was another tumultuous flight that left me gasping into a barf-bag and ecstatic when we finally landed back on the ground—where humans are meant to be.

-Posted by Lauren.

The next morning we awoke early and asked Billig about borrowing a few horses. He pulled out his cell phone and made a few calls as he paced the yard, the dogs close behind. ‘Wife’ was gone when we awoke, but she appeared after a call from her husband, from across the field, carrying a bucket of sloshing milk, again dressed in high heels and a skirt, and a low-cut shirt. She made the milk into yogurt and made Mike and I a nice breakfast of noodles, meat and bits of carrot. It was strikingly similar to the previous nights dinner. She pulled out two reeds of wild onion and showed us how to nibble on the end of it between bites for added flavor.

Teeth brushing

Billig said it would be a few hours before horses would arrive, as he needed to secure his horses from a friend who was using them for work that day. We decided to climb the nearby hills while we waited, and set off towards the tallest hill. Walking vertically among pine trees we marveled at the amount of skeletons we crossed, some horse but mostly cattle. Had they perhaps slipped on the slopes and broken a leg? Was the meat devoured by Mongolia’s infamous wolf packs? We side-stepped piles of dung and bones to reach the peak of a rather massive hill overlooking the valley. Small yurt camps were visible in the distance as well as Billig’s three-yurt camp at the base of the hill. Smoke was already pouring out of the tops of several yurts in the distance and it was a truly calming and beautiful sight.

We descended when we saw Billig return to the yurt with several horses in tow. Once back at the camp, Billig showed us how to get on a horse form the left side only, and to pull back to stop. He said the word ‘chir’ meant ‘go’ and that we should cry that word authoritatively and kick with our heels to make the beast run. I did as instructed and my Mongolian mustang took off at a gallop, nearly leaving my pelvis in ruin. Mike’s horse was not far behind. Billig slapped his hand against his forehead, shook his head, and went into his yurt with his dogs. I’m sure we looked ridiculous, having only ridden a horse on a few occasions in the past.

We walked our horses down a green fertile valley. It was, perhaps, too fertile, and the river overtook the valley leaving no room to ride. We backtracked up the hill and went the other way, past the yurt camp. Up a soft, rolling set of hills we saw a herd of goats, and decided to round them up, cowboy style. We yelped and rushed, but the goats were not frightened, and after a bit we gave up the silly task and decided to scale the hill on horseback. From atop the hill we could see an entire new section of the national park. It was all forests and lakes, with the aforementioned river parting the valley. Birch trees spotted the green with dots of white, and a clear blue sky was spotted with hawks.

After resting atop the hill for some time, we headed back down. Now, at this point its fair to mention that I have been thrown off of every horse I have ever been on, and have always felt that horses were evil. My sister, an avid equestrian, mocks me as not dedicated to the horse’s needs, however, I think they are just unamused at being harnessed and forced to carry other mammals. As we descended the hill I was thinking that my sister would love this horse-filled adventure. Just was I was thinking about this, my horse lurched forward and I was tossed haphazardly off the horse, head-first, saddle and all.

Mike laughed and rushed over to help me up. We looked at the saddle. Unsure about how to reattach it to the beast’s belly. I remembered seeing my sister lift a flap and pull a strap, so with this motto in mind, i tried to refit the contraption. It was lose, but doable. A reign had split in the fall, so I tied off some rope and made a makeshift device to steer the brute back towards camp. When we hit level ground I switched horses with Mike and took his rather large, yellow-hided horse at a full gallop across the fields, screaming ‘chir’ as I gently tapped his belly with my heels. It was exhilarating. Mike caught up on the makeshift horse and we trotted home. Bum-bruised and happy.

Mike on a horse

Dinner was ready when we arrived and we cleaned up the horses and sat down at the kiddi table. The meat was a rather strange, chewy tasteless thing that was mixed (not surprisingly) with bits of carrot and noodles. After a long day of activity we were famished and devoured the meal. After we were finished Mike noticed that Wife’s plate was devoid of noodle and carrot, but all the meat pieces were pushed to the side and uneaten. He then noticed that the freezer that the meat was stored in was unplugged. Wife said it was always unplugged during the day, so as to save on electricity. Our jaws dropped open. Mike’s stomach began to turn and I gulped down my tea hoping it would counteract the bad meat.

Standing outside in the yard playing with the dogs after the meal, I asked Wife if Mongolians ate dog. She said, “of course!” and motioned towards the freezer. “Last year mother of Kazak die. Very strange. Good dog. Good mother. Die sudden. Much eating.” My jaw dropped for the second time that evening. We had just eaten Kazak’s mother, who had died of mysterious causes suddenly and been resting in her final tomb- an unplugged freezer– since early that year. Mike ran to the outhouse and returned with a grimace a half hour later. “Well, at least we can say we tried dog.”

-Posted by Lauren.

Our home

Once we had arrived in the capital of the national park, which was just called Terelij, a very Russian sounding name for a town full of Russian influence, we found a kind man with a boyish face named Billig who took us to his yurt camp and installed us in his spare yurt. No prices were mentioned as he called his wife on his razor cell phone and a beautiful Mongolian woman set off across a vast empty field in high heels and a denim skirt and introduced her self as ‘wife.’ The couple spoke little English, but what they could speak they had learned from a children’s English manual Billig had gleaned while working with a gold exploration company that also employed an American.

Billig’s camp was composed of three large yurts. A yurt is a round tent made of sheep’s wool with a tiny wooden door and a hole in the top for a small pot-belly stove. The floors inside were bare cement atop dirt, and the walls were pieces of wood holding up the felt. Our yurt had several wooden beds with blankets folded atop them as beds. A small stove in the center and a table that was no higher than a foot off the ground with mini chairs to match. Billig showed us the yurt with great pride, pointing out the great construction and bright colors and especially showing us a blanket from Kazakhstan, his home country.

Inside our yurt

His wife cooked the small group a nice meal of noodles and mystery meat with tiny pieces of carrot and giant bowels of goat yogurt. She talked slowly but with pride. She had gone to university in the country’s capital and studied finance. She listed the words she knew in English, “Book, eat, much, woman, husband, money, bank and food.” She was a wonderful wife, and the two were like teenagers with their constant side-long glances, giggling, kissing and occasional prodding. Billig pretended to taunt the woman by demanding she cook us a delicious meal. She responded with mock hurt before throwing a wad of noodles at her husband.

The couple had two rather massive dogs, which Billig claimed were his sole hobby and passion. A German shepherd named Bruno and a rather scary bull named Kazak. The giant dogs rested their chins on the door frame while we ate dinner, and after the meal attacked their owner with friendly play and he wrestled them in his small, fenced in yard. The yurt camp looked out over rolling hills, a large empty field lay before that and several horses grazed in the area. An outhouse lay 200 yards out in the filed, and the wife took off in that direction, throwing clumps of sod back at the dogs as she went.

That evening, exhausted form the march from the broken-down bus to the town, we fell asleep soundly in the hard wooden beds, near a warm natural fire in the cleanest and most beautiful air we had breathed in years. It was as if we were in heaven. Billig and his wife knew how lucky they were to have such a place, in such a perfect location, and the couple stood in their yard starring at the stars and smooching as we slept.

-posted by Lauren.

Broken bus

The station no longer existed but we heard a rumor that one bus a day went out to the national park. We had missed the bus for that day so a friendly lady near the bus stop walked us to her apartment, which was also a hostel, and we stayed with her that evening, watching a film in Russian and drinking vinegar vodka. She arranged for us to take the bus the next morning, and swore that a friend of her family’s would meet us at the end of the bus route and take us to her family’s yurt (ger) up in the mountains for a few days. We eagerly agreed.

We awoke early, visited Ulan Bator’s famous Buddhist temple, walked more around the depressing city, starred at the nuclear power plants and saw the Trans-Siberian tracks. After a tasty but plain meal we finally boarded the one-a-day bus to Terelj, Mongolia’s national park. We were to meet up with our contact when the bus stopped. Speaking not a word of Mongolian, we boarded the bus and sat staring out the windows as we rolled out of Ulan Bator. The bus became so crowded the the entire isle was filled with people, chickens, babies and boxes. We rode for what felt like hours until finally, after two stops in the middle of nowhere where several people had disembarked, the bus sputted, coughed and came to a complete stop amid beautiful pine trees and rolling green hills. After twenty minutes the bus driver admitted the engine was kaput, and we all grabbed our bags and began walking. Nobody knew how far until the next town, we set off at a determined march that slowly degenerated into an idle stroll, and, after a fairly decent climb, we arrived at a township in the middle of the park where we decided to grab a beer and make a new plan. Meeting up with our contact was now impossible, as the bus had broken down and we did not know where we were, let alone where the contact was.

-Posted by Lauren.

In typical fashion, Mike and I had an impulse one afternoon and decided to see if we could go up to Mongolia to renew our visas. In China on our tourist visas we could only stay in the country for 90 days at a time, and had to vacate the country every 90 days in order to stay legal. Our legal time was running out on our current stay and we needed to exit the country fast. Usually our companies sent us to Hong Kong, which is a cheap trip with a quick turn around so we can be back in the office, exhausted or not, in less than two days.

Air China flight

Our impulse was to see if we could convince our companies to send us to Mongolia instead. It was a bit of a reach, but somehow– it worked! It would be slightly cheaper to go to Mongolia than Hong Kong, so we sold them on that idea. Once I had the okay from my boss, I had my company secretary book our flights and called Mike. He agreed, told his boss he would be in a yurt in the north, and would try to be back Monday morning. We rushed home, threw a few shirts in a bag and headed outside. After a quick stop to buy hiking boots we were at the airport, maneuvering through security. We knew virtually nothing about Mongolia, nor did we have a guide of any sort.

The flight to Ulan Bator, the capital, was tumultuous and terrifying and I felt exhausted when the plane finally touched down on a sand-covered runway. The Genghis Khan airport had one entrance for planes and one exit for passengers, we exchanged a bit of Chinese currency for Tughriks and grabbed a cab to the city center to hunt for a hostel. Our cab driver had gold teeth and tried to swindle us for almost triple what the fare should have been. We paid a reasonable amount amid loud, crow-drawing complaints and entered a hostel.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Ulan Bator, sucking in the worst pollution imaginable and starring at broken down factories and dejected, sad looking locals. It was truly the most depressing city we have ever encountered. Vowing to get out as soon as possible we returned to the hostel, packed out bags and headed to the bus station.

-posted by Lauren.

We had spent countless hours in Illinois searching for apartments online, only to discover that prices in Shanghai were on par with prices downtown Minneapolis. In Saint Paul we had paid US$620 a month to live on a very happening street; in China we were not willing to pay that amount. We set our goal at US$300 a month, half the amount we paid in America.

When we woke up (around 3am due to jet-lag) we ate a hearty breakfast of convenience store food and started walking around the area. We had several things to scope during the day, several things to consider, and loads of planning to do.

East side of the Bund

While in the states we had both set up interviews for when we arrived in china. My interview was as an editor with an equity research firm, Mike’s was with an insurance company as a writer. I called my contact around 9am and set up the interview for the following day, the man on the phone had a thick British accent and said he was surprised I had actually come to China. Mike’s contact had a faint American accent and set up their interview for the same time the next day as mine would be.

When looking for apartments we were a bit torn. Should we look for a place midway between his office and mine? It was assuming a lot that we would both be lucky enough to land those jobs, our only lined-up interviews. But since we had no other basis for picking a location, we decided to roll on the premises that carrying all one’s eggs in one basket at least insured they arrive. Our friendly hostel owner helped us look online, showing us a few key Chinese characters and several great websites. After a bit of online searching and phone calling, we set off on foot to look for local real-estate companies.

After less time than one would think we happened upon an agent’s office and asked if it was possible to get a place for around US$300. They said yes, but only if we lowered our expectations substantially. We saw a few apartments in the area with that agent, then moved down the street and found a Century 21. Globalization sure has made the world smaller.

After several days of apartment hunting we found a phone number online for a Realtor and called to inquire. He had originally listed an apartment for 3000Rmb, which was near our goal. We took the bait, and he showed us several apartments before we were dazzled by a beautiful and clean, two-story apartment on the metro halfway between his interview company, and mine.

The place was all Ikea, with white flooring, a bright red cough, built in furniture and massive windows. It looked modern and very cutting edge. We instantly wanted it but felt it was prudent to sleep on the decision. The next morning when we called Benny, the Realtor, the apartment was gone. He had others he could show us though, if we were interested. I hung up the phone and cursed myself for my protestant habits. We should have jumped on it when we had the chance; instead we were back to square one. We set off again looking for apartments that day, but half-hearted and not really interested. Around nine that night Benny called sounding chipper and said another unit in the building we liked had opened and he was holding it—would we sign right away? We said we would, and jumped in a cab to his office.

-Posted by Lauren.

On February 15th, 2008 we boarded a plane, after several delays and visa problems, to Toronto, Canada. We had a ten hour layover over the night and would be catching the first morning flight to China.

When we arrived in Toronto we discovered it was frigid outside, and impossible for us to venture forth without having to go through the agony of airway security. So, we found a nice padded bench and fell asleep.

We were awoken in the night as a Canadian man approached and sat in the opposing bench, he was a government worker who would also be on an early flight. He talked with Mike about architecture and Canadian politics while I snoozed, and by morning the two had become friends. Though a good fifteen years older than Mike, the two would retain their email-based friendship throughout our stay in China, sending pictures and typing observations.

Finally at 9am we boarded our flight on Air Canada. Allow me to interject to mention that Air Canada is one of the few remaining airlines that is truly bearable. Each seat has a video screen in the back of it stocked full of recent releases. Having a mild fear of flights, I sat awake on most planes holding the arm rests and blinking out the window at the sun. This flight was more relaxing, and the constant stream of movies I could chose and control kept me entertained the full fourteen hours while Mike slept. Also worth mentioning—Air Canada has free drinks on international flights, making it the only airline worth flying on.

Shanghai, Bund

After a glorious flight we arrived in Shanghai around three in the afternoon and set about gathering our bags. I had acquired an Air Canada blanket from the flight which I wrapped myself in and snoozed by the baggage carousel. Mike awoke me with a cart full of bags and we sauntered out into the bright sun and hailed our first Shanghai cab.

Our bags would not fit in the cab, so they upgraded us to a small bus. The bus took us the forty-five minute drive to the Bund, where we had previously picked out a hostel to crash in until we found jobs and an apartment. We were excited at finally being back in China, but exhausted from jet-lag. We checked in, after much negotiation, to a hostel that was under construction and not legally open for business. The owner was a very friendly woman from Hunan province, who heaped us with cups of tea and shows us our freezing room, instructing us only to use the heater is it was an emergency. She had a baby strapped to her back as she worked.

We found a nearby restaurant and dinned on sweet and sour pork, qingcai and Tsingtao beers. We then thought it best to take in the immediate area, and headed off with our cameras to see what Shanghai was all about. We first walked to the Bund, a massive boardwalk, of sorts, along the Huangpu River, which bisects Shanghai in half vertically with the financial centre on the east bank, and the traditional old town on the west bank. We were on the west bank, looking across the river at the Pearl of the Orient and the tallest building in China – Jin Mao Tower.

We snapped several pictures of the area before turning back and passing the hostel to see what lie to the south. We happened upon a beautiful park with bamboo forests and a large moat around a grass field. We sat down and realized how tired we really were. Rather than slumber among the bamboo, we headed back to the hostel where we declared it an emergency and fell asleep to the sounds of the heater’s humming. When we awoke we discovered it had been turned off during the night.

-Posted by Lauren.

For people who have never left their home, or the area where they grew up, this post will be a bit shocking. It’s about missing things that were taken for granted when they were too obvious to observe. After living in China for seven months, I was surprised at what I missed most about America.

I missed the food. American food is truly the most versatile, and perhaps for that reason we are the second most overweight country in the world (the first being the Philippines). I miss the availability of Mexican food, Italian cuisine, German brats, French cafes, Indian buffets, Chinese delivery, hamburgers, Mac & cheese and especially walking down the isle of the grocery store and realizing that every isle is the ‘imported foods’ isle, as America is composed of so many ethnicities that we benefit in that we see more of the world’s cultures in our grocery stores than most people in the world see in a lifetime.

I missed the people. American people are an independent and stand-offish lot to a newcomer. But to a veteran of the country, they are seen as stubborn because they are proud, closed-minded because they are determined, and most importantly– they are forward looking. Perhaps because American history extends back only a few hundred years, we have not had to live through massive defeats that left the nation in shambles. We are an optimistic, fun-loving, humorous and above all, an analytic people.

Fishing

I missed green. In China and Central Asia there are massive open spaces– but they are called deserts. In America we have massive fields of grass or growing grains. We have national parks, mountains, streams, and openness in the geography that makes us feel small and yet empowered. A thunderstorm in Illinois is somehow more beautiful than anything in the Louvre.

I missed the air. We take our lack of air pollution for granted. The rest of the world suffers from pollutions that cripple their lungs and darken the skies. Smoking is not seen as a health hazard in China, for example, because at least smokers have filters for the local air. Living in China, seeing the sky was a luxury. Living in America, I could stare at the blueness of the sky for hours without being bored. Clouds have so many shapes!

I missed the culture. Americans are friendly, perhaps owing to Christianity and a fear of Hell if one does not try, with every moment, to attain the rights to heaven. Nevertheless, in American people open doors, pull out chairs, say hello or nod to acknowledge your presence, give seats to the elderly, and have ramps for the disabled and offer vegetarian selections on their menus. Though not a veggie lover myself, all of these small kindnesses add up to a place wonderfully easy to live in. These things we call manners are really cultural quirks, and do not exist everywhere.

Well, when I lived abroad those were the things I missed, and when I returned to America they were the things that made me smile on a daily basis. Wherever you call home, find something simple and taken for granted to smile about today.

-Posted by Lauren.

I wandered around the platform looking for Mike. Finally I saw a bathroom area in the far corner of the park where the dancing was going on. I walked over and waited a few minutes. After some time a strange and yellow Mike appeared from the bathroom clutching his stomach. I had a flashback to the Canadian on the bus and his coughing attack over the book Mike had been carrying.

Bell tower

We had also eaten lunch earlier at a local place where Mike had devoured spicy meatballs in oil at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, I had eaten noodles and beer. We figured it must have been the meat, as I was feeling healthy and energetic. He held his stomach, sat under a tree, and generally began to look Canadian himself. We jumped on the next bus back to the city and grabbed a hostel bunk room. I watched a film in the hostel lounge and emailed my parents to let them know we had made it safely to China and were enjoying Xi’an. Meanwhile, Mike hung out in the bathroom with a sour look on his face.

The next morning he was feeling himself again, and we decided to take the day slowly. We wandered down to the bell tower and then walked up into the Muslim quarter where I bought a compass in the shape of a turtle for my dad’s upcoming birthday. Mike bought a copy of the Little Red Book, which was a collection of quotes from former chairman Mao Zedong. The book was in Chinese and we soon discovered we could not read enough of it to be interesting. We walked around the Muslim quarter in a giddy mood, making up sayings we thought should belong in a quote book about communism’s many virtues. All of ours were cynical.

Dance for the Emperor

We decided, after the long relaxing day of joking around, walking and playing cards, to hop on another train and head for Chengdu. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan, which is the most populated province in China. They say that one in five people in the world is Chinese, and one in four of those from Sichuan. We had plans to see the massive Tibetan national park and also the Giant Panda Research Breeding Center. We had a hostel recommended to us from some folks in Xi’an, and we had heard great things about the capital city. We were eager to get back on the road, and at dusk we boarded the urine-infested train with smiles from ear to ear.

-posted by Lauren.

From Banpo to the warriors we decided to grab a cab. It was nearly 90 degrees outside and our bags were becoming a burden. Meanwhile, we were finding it a bit hard to locate food near the tourist attractions that was not encased in plastic wrap, and we wanted a solid Xi’an meal. We finally flagged a cab and scooted into the back seat. We could almost see the money symbols click into his eyes like a cartoon when he saw our foreign faces and heavy bags. We were going to be taken for a pointless and expensive ride.

The driver ignored Mike’s Chinese and took us into the desert. We were surrounded by sand, heat and the occasional pile of discarded appliances and trash. Finally we saw buildings in the distance, a miserable, Russian-looking oasis. The driver promised to take us straight to the warriors after we went into the building, which was owned by a friend of his—a jade merchant. We walked inside, confused and bitter; our cab was the only means of transportation so we had to do what he wanted. We looked at the overpriced jade and walked back outside and got in the cab, having purchased nothing. The driver was talking to someone outside his window, pocketed something and turned the car around and headed back towards civilization. It took nearly an hour before we arrived.

A dusty army

The warriors were a bit of a disappointment to me. They were amazing in that their craftsmanship was stellar, their alignment precise, and their purpose mystical. However, when we visited much of the ruins were under repair and we watched (remember, we are history majors) as young Chinese workers crawled all about the shafts, picking up pieces and moving them about. If a shard did not fit anywhere it was tossed in a bag and carried out of the pit to be assembled later, if possible. Looking down on the soldiers I wondered how much of each one was ancient, and how much was modern super glue. One additional aspect of visiting the warriors was that one was constantly approached by salesmen of various silly replica objects. In all, it was an interesting visit to an ancient site, but one covered in a shroud of modernity and disregard.

We boarded a bus to visit the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the mighty emperor to whom the warriors were a testament and a constant vigilant guard. The bus took less than fifteen minutes, but it was an interesting ride nonetheless. A strange Canadian man with dysentery sat next to me and asked to look at my guidebook. I handed it to him, he coughed and wheezed on the cover, crackled the pages, and nearly collapsed into my lap. He had been traveling in China for six months, and looked the worse for wear. In fact, we heavily recommended a detour to the hospital, but he took out a cloth, wiped some yellow pus from his eyes, and handed back the guide book. Mike took the book and wiped it off with hand sanitizer and put it back in his bag. The Canadian got off at the tomb and sauntered into the shade and slept. He was gone when we came back.

The tomb itself is a giant mountain with steps on one side. You climb and climb, bake in the sun, refill on water, and climb some more. Finally you reach the top to discover a platform the size of a Midwestern living room, and an old man with a wicker basket filled with ice and water. I’m convinced to this day that the old man is the best businessman on the planet. He was charging a ridiculous amount for the ice water. Looking at his aged frame I was embarrassed to realize he had not only made it up the steps, but had done so carrying water and ice, and probably did so several times a day. I paid nearly ten times the amount water should cost, and was happy to do so. I bet that man lives in a mansion today, and no one deserves it more.

Halfway down the tomb we encountered a modern ode to an ancient ceremony. Men and women in bright, replica costumes and army uniforms danced around on a large stage, waving flags and chanting to the sounds of an eclectic piano over the loudspeaker system. We watched for a bit, sitting in the shade. When I turned around to make a comment to Mike I discovered I was alone.

-Posted by Lauren.

The train from Beijing to Xi’an would be a long, overnight sleeper train. I had glorious images in my head of a large stateroom with bunks and a water closet. I skipped along with my large backpack barely weighing me down. The tickets were cheaper than we thought they would be—about twenty US dollars a piece. Mike did not tell me that they were cheaper because they were sold out of soft sleepers, and we could only find space in the hard sleeper, general population cars. We climbed aboard and stopped. Something dark flashed past our feet and into the next car. A dog? A rat, possibly? The smell of the nearby toilet stall was nearly unbearable, it burnt the interior of the nostrils so much that we were constantly inching our noses. The smell was almost a physical presence in the compartment. We moved down the narrow isle until we found our bunks. We were on the top bunk (three high) in a room with six bunks total. The room itself was the size of a Volkswagen beetle. We took off our shoes and scaled the interior of the train until we reached the top bunks. The space was so small that one could barely brace oneself on the elbows, let alone sit up. Below me was a man who must have been nearly ninety. He was hunched over, his shirt rolled up in the back and an equally ancient woman was pounding her fists against his spine. He coughed into a jar and sealed the lid. She cleaned his mouth off with a yellowed towel and resumed pounding on his back until he spit into the jar again. When they had exhausted this activity, they put the jar on the table between them and a terrified looking young Hong Kong man in the opposing bunk.

Neolithic village!

After a while I tuned out the coughing, spitting, and slurping noises and even managed to ignore the smell of urine and boiled eggs. I read a book, wrote in my journal, looked out the window and generally was as relaxed as I had remembered being in a really long time. I loved traveling by train! Every few hours a lady would come down the isle with a cart of instant noodles and milk cartoons and, to our surprise, warm Tsingtao beer. We pulled out our cards, opened a few beers, and set to playing each other in poker. We kept a tally, promising to pay out the winner at the end of the trip. By the time we got to Xi’an, a whole page of the notebook was marked in hash marks and stained with beer.

Xi’an is a beautiful city, and one that I will forever recommend. Parts of the original city wall still remain, and though we did not have time to scale the wall, it was a stately and majestic bit of ancient architecture that made one feel like they had stepped into a time warp. Xi’an is the capital of Shaanxi province, and a former capital to multiple Chinese dynasties. The city was famous for its powerful position throughout history, most notably revealed in the massive army of terracotta warriors which were created to carry the emperor Qin Shi Huang into the afterlife.
Despite all of the amazing historical sites in Xi’an, our first stop (at my incessant pleading) was to Banpo, Neolithic village! This little museum was built atop ancient ruins believed by some to be the first true village with remaining artifacts, some of which are said to date back further than 4500 BC. The reason I wanted so desperately to visit this site is somewhat embarrassing. I had played a computer game called Chinese Empire, wherein you had to build up your civilization from Banpo (the first village of huts) to Beijing (the mighty capital). It was my first computer game, and I loved building Banpo. I was not very good at the game, so spent a lot of time building and rebuilding the city, catching fish in the nearby creek and trading furs for wood. Banpo, the actual Neolithic site was not a disappointment– at all! I enjoyed every marvelous second of the tour through the ruins, starring in awe at pottery shards and looking at the evidence of an early matriarchy. Mike was nowhere as amused as I was, and was eager to get out of the village and see the warriors. Finally, after several photo ops with Neolithic fragments, we left for the main event—the 2000 year old Terracotta Warriors.

-posted by Lauren.

Chengdu’s Giant Panda Research and Breeding Center, China 2006

How We Became Cube Abandoners:

There is a certain dread that washes over a student when she realizes she will graduate within a few months. The dread starts subtly so that it can easily be ignored. It creeps up like a chilly breeze until all of the sudden you are shivering with worry and anticipation. The dread was extreme in my case because I was studying history—and therefore knew I would be unemployed when I graduated. After more than twenty interviews (brought about after sending out hundreds of resumes) I found myself lying on my air mattress in Illinois, listening to the cicadas and wonder if adulthood was supposed to be this full of rejection.

I contemplated my alternatives to the sounds of mating insects. There was always the military, and, having been a military brat I knew the advantages as well as the drawbacks.I had applied for various teaching positions with my MS in history, as well as researching and writing positions—but to no avail. With only two weeks until graduation I had no leads whatsoever.

The First Destination: A Chance of Glance

I went over to Mike’s after an evening of brainstorming possible occupations. We split a bottle of Jack, a tray of ice cubes, and watched Arrested Development as we talked about how hard it was to find jobs. Mike had a big map of China on his wall, having travelled there the previous year. I gazed at it while I chewed an ice cube. “I guess I’ll go to China,” I said. “Want to come?”

We found a teaching service in Beijing online and arranged to meet with a representative of their office when we landed in Beijing the following month. Once we’d said goodbye to our families, packed two suitcases full of snacks, water purifiers and flip-flops, we boarded a long flight from Chicago, and were on our way.

We unfurled wrinkled attire from our backpacks and rolled out of the hostel bunks, jet lagged and stunned by the brightness of the sun. We met the rep over lunch; he told us we were hired. We ate a massive lunch of chilled cucumber in garlic and fish heads in oil, drank black tea and listened to our stomachs protest as we talked contract terms. We finally agreed to work 20 hours a week for 8,000RMB a month. That was somewhere in the ballpark of 1,000 US dollars a month.

Our First Epic Adventure: Whirlwind China

Mike and I had decided to take a whirlwind month-long tour of China by train and bus before settling into teaching. Hoping to go from Beijing to Xian to Chengdu and then up through the desert to Xinjiang and then shoot across to Beijing again—no problem. We informed the school that we would be back in July, and we checked out of our hostel and headed for the long- distance train station. We left our bags with the headmaster of the school as collateral, “of course we’ll be back!”

Mike had studied Chinese in college for three semesters. I had taken one semester and earned a B (my only non A). For the first two weeks of travel Mike did all the talking in Mandarin. However, by the time we would reach Sichuan those skills would become useless, and my amazing charades skills would come into play as our primary means of communication with the Tibetans.

-posted by Lauren.