Whatever, Y.O.L.O., Crocs

Typically you travel to a place, observe the clothing, think "cool" or "weird" or whatever you think, and then you get on a plane and go home. Besides the fact that I still haven't gotten on a plane and gone home, I've also thought "hmm, that makes a lot more sense than what I'm wearing right now." And so I started wearing... (In order of my decision to start wearing them)

Sombrero and Man Purse

Sombrero - Month 3

This was an awesome unexpected gift from my host dad. I'd say in a store, it would have cost about $70 which is a pretty legit sombrero. Sombreros are pretty popular in many formal events such as dances, work meetings, etc. and I've used it on many occasions. Also important is the fact that I have a huge head and I've avoided hats in the states almost completely. However, this sombrero was custom made, as are all sombreros, and fit me perfectly.

Man Purse - Month 3.5

My neighboring volunteer during training lived just behind my host family's house. We'd typically have over the fence conversations, similar to Home Improvement, after classes ended. One day he arrived home with a man purse. I'd never imagined wearing one even though many Panamanian youth about my age wore one. I was jealous of his bag so shortly thereafter I purchased my own. It was amazing. Women, I need not explain to you, but men, oh my. Imagine all the things you need, in a bag!? For those times you don't have enough crap to fit in a back pack but don't want to fill all of your pockets with clutter, there's the man purse. The photo above has my first man purse.

Cutaras - Month 5

These are basically fancy sandals made of leather that are used in formal settings for Panamanians. For a while they were my default shoe. I went to shower, hiked, visited the Peace Corps office (Which is crazy strict about dress attire but these were cool, as well as most sandals), and walked around town with them. Socks suck. Also closed shoes suck. You have to wash the socks, by hand, and critters like to hide in closed shoes.

Man Purse Version 2- Month 12

I got myself a much cooler man purse while working in a friend's community. They are known as chacaras and typically they're woven together from a cloth-like material or old plastic sacks are torn apart and woven together. They're great since they never mold and if they get wet, no worries. They've served quite well for my work days on the water system where I'm typically getting pretty dirty.

Knockoff Crocs - Month 15

I swore I'd never wear Crocs. Until my flip-flops broke one day while I was away from home. I went to the store and I could get another pair of flip-flops, which were bound to wreak havoc on my feet, or buy a pair of crocs. Of course the only pair that fit me was pink. Whatever, Y.O.L.O. (you only live once), crocs. I instantly fell in love with them. They had cushion, didn't easily allow rocks to get trapped between the shoe and my foot (like cutaras did), offered more traction than flip-flops when walking back to my house after a shower, were great to hike in, etc. Besides the fact that they're not acceptable in the Peace Corps office, I wear them all the time.

Thinking to the future now, I’ll probably never wear this stuff after Peace Corps, but you never know, Crocs are just so damn comfortable.

[Insert Job Description Here]

During training, we are told, “your service is what you make of it.” If you want to be out of site all the time, hanging out at the bar, sure, you can do that. Or you can make something amazing of it. To remove any doubts that last sentence might have created; almost all volunteers opt for the latter.

I opted for the latter as well and there are days where I'm out and about in Panama, living another day of my Peace Corps service, and it will dawn on me that, I get paid (as little as I do get paid haha) to be doing what I'm doing. I had one of those moments today when I was in the middle of the jungle hiking up to a water source. A fellow volunteer, in a different sector than water systems asked if I could come and take a look at his system. After that simple interaction, I was now out hiking with him in his community, which is about twenty times larger than mine, to offer what experience and knowledge I have to help assess the water issues being faced by the community. I'm going on a tangent too far, let's steer this back in with some pictures of where I was working today:

Crossing a stream on the way to the water system.

Finally arriving to the water source.

I've also had other amazing work experiences such as when I helped my regional leader deliver some documents to a future volunteer's community. Besides the fact that the area was absolutely beautiful, we got to eat lunch and hang out with the future host family for a bit. The father of the household told us a very interesting story about the roof tiles which his grandfather had constructed over 100 years ago and still survived to this day.

Passing a large orange farm on the way to the community.

The rainy season is in full swing and mud is everywhere.

After taking public transportation to the end of the road, hiking an hour into the community,
we  now have a guide to take us the rest of the way to the host family's house.

Look at that beautiful roofing.

Then there was the time that Engineers Without Borders (EWB) visited a fellow volunteer's site and cultural/language facilitators were needed. I got to spent a few days hiking about my friend's community assisting EWB in their trip.

Community guide leading the way to the next house.

Back when I was a member of EWB at Rutgers University, I had seen a GPS map that was constructed by a group member and I was interested in making my own. As part of my first three months in site, I was required to make a map, so I ended up making a GPS map.

...and then writing a guide for other volunteers to do the same.

I also had interest in solar panels and the neighboring community's health post had some problems with theirs...

These are just a few examples of the many cool work opportunities that Peace Corps offers. Of course not all of my cool opportunities revolve around work. I also give myself some breaks to...

Attend the Black Christ festival.

Party at carnival.

Spend Christmas in Santa Fe with other volunteers.

Travel to Peru.

Watch the US-Panama soccer game.

Attend the Sombrero Festival.

At times it’s hard to justify my time here, typically when I'm sitting at the lowest of lows of a slump in my service. But when I'm not sitting there, life is pretty awesome. Of course you cannot have the bad without the good and the same carries over to life in the States. However, Peace Corps has some pretty awesome good times to offer and I think it has been well worth it. (And for you too if you're considering joining!)

Hot Girl Seat

Apologies for dragging my feet with posts as of recently. I've been occupied with my photography as of late and haven't had the energy out of site to make blog posts as well. I'll follow up soon with some of my photography.

This post was inspired because I found myself sitting in the hot girl seat on my way home from Panama city. What is the hot girl seat you ask? It's one of the many peculiarities of the country I've called home for over a year now. I'd like to take the time to introduce a few of my favorites.

Hot girl seat: There are many types of public transportation offered in Panama, several of these have a seat next to the driver. This seat is typically surrounded by the only windows of a vehicle that haven't been tinted so that outsiders can still see in. Who better to put here than the hot girl to keep the driver company, or show her off as a trophy, or use her as a siren to lure men in. I'm still not exactly sure why this happens. Every so often I end up sitting here, because others don't seem to want it and I enjoy the spaciousness it offers. One time, the driver opened up the passenger side door of the pickup-truck-with-seats-in-the-back style transportation and beckoned my girlfriend and me to sit up front, probably due to the fact that, besides she's hot, I was decked out in Panamanian clothes, rocking my sombrero. Damn it feels to be invited to hot girl seat.

Forever lonely on the bus: If I'm not sitting hot girl seat, I'm usually sitting in the back of the bus where there is not enough space for how big I am. Luckily, for whatever reason, Panamanians refuse to sit next to me until the bus is completely full. Luckily, I'm not a leper or something and this happens to many other volunteers as well.

There are no Walmarts or Starbucks in Panama. The former is probably due to the fact that the former president owned the largest would-be competitor to Walmart.

Water quality: Surprisingly, for all the warnings I've been given about water quality and drinking untreated water, it's really not that bad. I've been to several volunteers' communities and never had an issue with the water. Nowadays, I'm actually more worried about treated city water which in one city is found to have chemicals that cause infertility, and I recently read about some place in Louisiana finding a brain eating amoeba in their water. As a final note, think about where all those medicines, cleaners, vitamins, etc. you pour down the drain end up? Not all of it gets filtered out.

Sunday not so Funday: What a clever rhyme. Keep it in mind if you ever think of doing anything besides relaxing on a Sunday. Just about everything is closed.

Panamanian Hour: Set all your watches an hour ahead so that you'll always show up an hour late to meetings. But it's cool, because Panamanians living outside of the city will typically arrive an hour late as well.

All Asian people are Chinese: If you're Asian, you're going to be called Chinese. My hypothesis for this one is that Panamanians do not know that all Asians are not Chinese (or they're racist). If I was to make a guess, outside of people I've met in hostels or through Peace Corps, I've yet to see a non Chinese Asian person in Panama.

The Small Differences

There are differences between Panama and the United States that make my days more enjoyable, drive me nuts, or I've been here so long I've stopped paying attention to them. This is a random list of things I thought would be interesting to know is different here in Panama. It's hard coming up with the list because a lot of differences fall into “I've stopped paying attention to them” category. If I remember more, I'll follow up with another post.

Checking bags: This was the original inspiration for this post and will probably continue to drive me nuts until the very end. When visiting shops, anything larger than a convenience store, you're generally required to check all your bags. This would be fine if I was just carrying groceries but more often than not, I'm carrying my life with me including clothes for a few days, my laptop, and other expensive stuff. More than once I've walked away from a store not wanting to risk having my bag get stolen.

American currency: Surprisingly, Panama's currency is the US dollar. This isn't like Cambodia where people prefer American money to Cambodian money, Panamanian bills just don't exist. However, there are Panamanian equivalents of each of the 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, and $1 coins.

Fruit trees: Fruit trees are everywhere! I've had oranges, mangoes, bananas, and several other fruits I cannot remember their names directly off the trees. It will be a sad day when I have to buy fruits from the store again.

Speaker mode: It's not uncommon to walk around blasting your music through your phone speaker instead of using headphones. This is quite enjoyable on my walks in and out of site as well as around site.

Non-refrigerated foods: You'd be surprised how long stuff will last even though it says “refrigerate after opening.” I'm slowly pushing the boundaries on this and so far I've realized American cheese, BBQ sauce, mustard, and hot sauce don't need to be refrigerated. The cheese only lasts a few days but it's still edible. Eggs are pretty awesome in that you don't actually have to refrigerate them. And milk, if you buy it in small cartons, can be used individually for macaroni and cheese and cereal!

A True Test of Patience and Related Matters

To set the stage for this post, we must go way back, several months before travel began. Way back when, during my planning for travel, I had read about the Tet Holiday. It was one of those things that required caution, except it occurred for a week and since the year was filled with 52 weeks, the chances of arriving during this time was slim to none. The Wikitravel article about Vietnam states "...Then a few days before Tết the pace begins to slow down, as thousands of city residents depart for their ancestral home towns in the provinces." The grounds for a terrible situation slowly start to materialize...

China celebrates three week-long holidays throughout the year. One of these is Chinese New Year and this is the week we planned for our travel. The thing about the Tet Holiday is that it is very similar to the Chinese New Year in various aspects, including the dates on which it occurs. Instead of having a 1 in 52 chance of ending up traveling the same week, our odds had been narrowed down to 1 in 3 weeks and of course we arrived during that time.

This was great during our time in Hanoi, a little annoying during our time in Nha Trang, but now... we were in for an interesting journey. The preceding story had taken place in Hoi An, just a little ways outside of Da Nang, where we would be taking the train from. At the train station in Da Nang, we went to purchase tickets and our original desired time of travel was completely booked. Uh oh. I inquired about the next train and was told that only "hard seats" were available. Due to the time constraint of my friend needing to get back to Hanoi in only a few days, we had to pick these seats. For those that don't know, hard seats are wooden seats that have backs that are nearly vertical. The trip was only seven hours and I'd dealt with challenging bus rides before so I figured this would be a non issue. 

Thank you to Vietnam Online for this picture of a hard seat. 

We boarded the train and it was almost empty, not bad. My traveling partner and I took opposite seats and prepared our space of four total seats for the long journey ahead. After two or so hours we rolled into the next station to pick up a few more people. The two seats extra in our group of four seats were not taken by anyone boarding at this station so we retained our spots. After a few more hours, we rolled into the next station. 

There was a massive crowd waiting to board the train. I figured we would depart at the next stop and so I was not worried by the mass of people that was about to join along my journey. I pulled out my map of Vietnam, looked outside to find the name of our stop, and then looked back at the map to figure how close we were to our destination to Hanoi. Panic shot through my body as I realized we were not in for a seven hour ride but closer to a seventeen hour ride... seventeen hours of nearly vertical wooden seats.

As the situation rushed into my consciousness, so too did the passengers waiting to board the train. What was once an empty train, comparable to the picture of above, was now completely filled with people. The workers of the train started pulling out plastic chairs out of the closets for people to sit on. Instead of four seats between two people, myself and my friend, there was a family of three sitting within our section. That brought the body count up to five people for a group of four seats. 

This madness propagated throughout the train and a heap of people, bags, pillows, and blankets formed. At this point, myself and my friend were sitting straight up in our wooden chairs, expecting little sleep due to the situation that was presented to us. In my head, I realized if I didn't bite the bullet and sleep on the floor, neither of us would get any sleep. And like that, I found myself sleeping in the fetal position underneath a seat that was only a foot or so off the ground. 

I've got the Adidas pants and blue shirt to the left

In the morning, I woke up, surprisingly well rested, with a greater sense of patience about the madness life throws at you. Over the coming weeks I would travel several more times on comparable overnight trips and they barely affected me. 

The Ups an Downs of the Tet Holiday

One of the great things about a country with a widely used public transportation system is that the system is generally pretty awesome. Vietnam is one such country and trains that have beds are readily available for the booking. When you've only got twelve days to get through Cambodia and Vietnam, as we did, overnight trains manage to cut travel and sleep time in half by combining them together! 

We left Hanoi on an overnight train to Nha Trang and arrived before the sun had risen. The goal of the day was getting to the beach and so we found a taxi driver who understood our desire, and we headed off directly to the beach. The sun began to become visible during the drive and so did our appetites. 

The taxi dropped us off right next to the beach. Conveniently located across the street was a hotel offering an appetizing looking breakfast, so we made our way there first. (Also to use the restrooms to change into our bathing suits, ha!) After breakfast, we walked back across the street and found ourselves a pair of beach chairs that had been conveniently set up by the hotel. In no time, our heavy backpacks were dropped to the ground and we set about relaxing for the day. 

About an hour past noon we had grown bored of sitting on the beach and decided to head into town to find a tourist agency and see what they had to offer to occupy the several hours until the departure of our train. With not a clue what there was to see in the city or where there was to go, we walked towards the most important looking road and continued along it, stopping at each intersection to see if this newly found road would be more interesting than the road currently being walked on. We quickly realized that there were no tourist agencies open, or much anything for that matter. This city was not as important as Hanoi and almost everybody had closed up shop for the Tet Holiday. 

This time, the Tet Holiday got the better of us and had left us without an excitement filled day. What the day did leave us with however was terrible sunburn. Luckily our train for the night was air conditioned  otherwise I'm not sure how an ounce of sleep would have been achieved. Next stop, Da Nong.

Tet Holiday

After a long night bus ride we arrived in Ho Chi Minh... or so we thought. What happened to the border crossing, why didn't we get awoken for that? Why were we getting dropped off next to a random coffee shop? Then I realized that we'd only made it halfway through our bus ride and we were awaiting another bus to take us to the border and then on to Ho Chi Minh City. 

Several hours later we arrived. Since the day was almost over and the sun was setting, we headed straight to the hotel, dropped our stuff off, and then headed aimlessly out into the night. 

When originally planning the trip  I read about the Tet Holiday which is the Vietnamese version of Chinese New Year. This meant a rather chaotic atmosphere would fill the entire country for almost a week. This also meant that some cities were overwhelmed with crowds while other were left vacant. Being in the capital, we lucked out and ended up walking right into the middle of the Tet celebrations in a giant park in the middle of the city. 

Since neither of us spoke the language we decided to continue aimlessly walking. I became intrigued by a vendor cooking some sort of omelette with pigeon eggs (I think...I hope). Since I was growing hungry, I placed an order for one.

It was a whole family operation where the mother cooked the egg and the daughter added the ingredients. The father and other daughter were responsible for selling souvenirs for the holiday.

After some walking around we began to grow more hungry and so we headed off down a side street for some dinner. My friend pointed out a restaurant selling phở and so we stopped to have a bite. I had no idea what this was due to the fact that I ate almost nothing prior to my living and traveling abroad. My friend corrected my ignorant food ways and educated me on the joy that is phở. 

After some more aimless walking we started making our way back to the hotel since we had a large day of tours ahead. On the way back we came across this intersection:

Looking at this chaotic mess from the sidewalk, as we were, you would think, why not wait for the red light or use the cross walk? That is generally not a thing in Vietnam. To cross through this, you simply walk straight ahead into the crowd. So long as you walk at a constant speed, not speeding up, slowing down, or panicking  you'll be fine. Of course, I panicked and was nearly hit by a scooter. With nothing else interesting to tell once we crossed the road, I'll leave you with a life lesson for Vietnam:

Walk strong and be confident or you'll get hit by a scooter. 

Jia you chao ren!

Within weeks of my arrival in Shanghai, I was informed that there would be a half marathon occurring in early December and it would be nice if I attended. Feeling that I could totally run 13.2 miles to complete a half marathon, I began training. I managed to run two to three times a week averaging about two to three miles for each run. 

About two months into training, I went out for my usual nightly run. When I’m running, I do so rather absentmindedly, making each turn without thought. As I rounded corner after corner, I noticed that a man on a bike seemed to be keeping pace with me. To double check, I sped up and so did he, I slowed down and he again followed suit. A plan formed in my head to beat him. Obviously this was not an achievable goal but I decided to push myself to the limit anyway. I finished a mile run in the six to seven minute range which I’d never been close to achieving before. 

The next day I decided to time myself to see just exactly what my limit was. Off I went on my run. It was just a typical night with a little weaving between people and cars due to my increased speed. I kept watch on the time and was very pleased with my rate. As I came up to the last corner I pushed it into overdrive, determined to impress myself. I reached the corner, hit a rough patch of dirt, twisted my ankle, and fell into a pile on the ground. I got back up, limped home, and proceeded to be overly dramatic about my injury and ran once in the next four months. 

With the lack of exercise looming over my head, the registration date for the half marathon decided it was a good time to make itself known. With still a month and a half left for me to train, I decided to register. And so I ran a few times and then got on a plane for a three week vacation to America. Take a guess what I didn’t do a whole lot of in America. 

While at home one night my sister decided a run was in order for her half marathon in a few months. Against my lazier judgment, I decided to join her. What started as an easy two mile run turned into me pushing my limit again and running seven and a half miles. My longest run at that point in time was about three and a half miles. This made me confident that maybe I could in fact complete a half marathon. 

In a matter of moments I was on the plane again to China. I sent a text to my friend announcing my return and he inquired back if I was ready for the marathon this Sunday. This Sunday… ha ha ha. I’d managed to run about four times in the last three months and the marathon was this Sunday. I mustered up the willpower to run two more times to “prepare” for the half marathon. 

At first I decided to exclude this next portion but of course, there’s never a dull moment in China and this is without exception. Friday night was check-in and gear pickup. The rest of the people I came with had registered in person so it was off by myself to find online registration. I got my number and went to pick up my stuff. As I walked and looked at the numbers I came to the realization that I was registered for a full marathon. I clearly remember scoffing at the idea of me running a full marathon when registering so clearly this was a mistake, an easily fixable mistake. Wrong. With the general flexibility of China, I assumed a quick switch was in order. That day, for whatever reason, insurance said “no, this is not possible” and therefore no switch is allowed. After ten minutes of tense discussion in Chinese and walking from booth to booth, it was decided, not officially of course, that I would run as the guy in our group who had paid his fee but could not run. No complaining if I fall and break my leg or something along those lines. Whelp. 

If it wasn’t already shameful enough that I’d probably get about half way through and fall over from exhaustion, it was requested that I wear a costume. I mulled the idea over in my head, not quite excited at the prospect of looking like a complete and utter mess. Against my better judgment, and since my friend was going as Spiderman, I ventured out Saturday afternoon to a costume shop and found myself presented with a pretty limited selection. In the end I decided with Superman, cape and all. As a note, bargain always. I didn’t realize until later on like a stupid laowai(foreigner), that I got suckered into paying about $30 for something that a Chinese person would pay $5 for. 

Saturday night consisted of a rather uneventful pasta dinner along with booking my ticket to Cambodia for vacation (maybe I lied). Thanks to jetlag still hanging around, I was asleep by 9:30. This also made getting up at 5:30 that much easier. I got dressed, walked out into the living room and laughed that I was the first one awake. Then I checked the time, smacked my head, and went back to bed for another hour. 

After an hour nap, I returned to the living room to find the others getting ready. Spiderman would be concealing his identity until the start of the race, then donning a mask and staying anonymous for the duration of the race. This was somewhat frustrating as Superman just has a stupid hair curl that somehow hides his identity. I possessed no such curl and therefore was going to be known no matter what. Deciding that a good confidence boost was in order, I wore the costume with false pride from the apartment door to the end of the race. 

Typically as a foreign white person in China, I tend to stick out and get a few inquisitive stares on the regular. I’ve gotten comfortable with this and tend not to notice unless I’m actively trying to catch people staring, which I sometimes do when I’m bored. Today though, I felt the eyes of everyone on the subway. Upon arrival at our subway stop, we remained at the exit as this was easier to locate our friends instead of trying to walk through the massive crowd of runners. This involved watching group after group pass by as they were released from the train. It was almost like a safari where groups would pass by, stare at the wild creature, take a picture, and continue on. 

Maybe you think of my example as an exaggeration. You’re wrong. People did in fact take pictures. Some were secretive and I would catch them out of the corner of my eye. Others would try and catch me without looking and then run away once eye contact was made. This bothered me somewhat but I tried to be a good sport about it since it’s not everyday Superman stops to run a half marathon. 

We remained stationary for about fifteen or so minutes. During this time I started counting the amount of pictures being taken of me. At this point, the count was already up to ten. About this time, the first person asked to take a picture with me. This picture brought a genuine smile to my face and managed to destroy a large chunk of insecurity present within my head. Finally, our group had assembled and we emerged from the subway. 

I was greeted by 25,000 runners, their fans, security, event organizers, and anyone else who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. One cannot quite comprehend what such a large number of people looks like until you see it. With this large number came an equally large number of cameras and I gave up attempting to count the pictures being taken of me. 

Finally, Peter Parker decided to transform and Spiderman and Superman got to hang out together. We walked along to drop our bags off, stopping about every minute to pose for a photograph. As we made our way through the crowd, I realized I’d been tricked, or maybe I just didn’t know marathons very well. Nobody else was wearing any resemblance of a costume. However, contained within one opening of the crowd stood two Johnny Depp Characters, one from Pirates of the Caribbean and the other from Alice in Wonderland. Of course a picture was in order. 

As we stood counting down the minutes to the start of the race, it dawned on me just how stupid running a half marathon was with no training. However, I had invested about $60 in this race and I was already here, might as well suck it up and go for as long as I can. The race got underway with a walk for the first several minutes followed by a light jog as each runner got a chance to stretch out. I must say that I’m disappointed that I didn’t bring my camera, but that was probably for the better in the end. The first turn of the race saw the road corkscrew up one level and then straightening out into a massive bridge. The corkscrew itself was rather wide and you could see almost all the way around it and the entirety of it was covered in people. What an awesome sight to see. 

The next seven miles was filled with packets of people dressed in decorative outfits, shouting “jia you,” words of encouragement to keep running. Every so often I would hear a shout of “Superman!” and I’d throw up the peace sign, as is typical of China, at least I think that’s the proper response anyway. Some runners would run ahead of me, stop and take a picture, shout a quick thank you and continue on. Others would inquire as to why I was running to the finish line and not simply flying. This kept my spirits up and I chugged along. 

Every now and then I’d hear a person talking and attempt to eavesdrop with my limited Chinese knowledge. I heard one man say “chou yan” which is the verb to smoke a cigarette. I shook my head in disapproval wondering how a runner could smoke a cigarette now. I paid it no more mind and kept running. 

Seven and a half miles came and went and now it was time to almost double my longest run ever and finish. As is typical with my runs, the mental struggle began at about this point. I was impressed that I’d managed this far without thoughts of “Walk, who cares, WALK!” filling my head. Determined to be the victor in that battle, I used the encouragement of the crowd to spur me on. As I tuned in to the crowd, I heard “jia you chou yan” several times in quick succession and almost felt motivation, except I didn’t. Why were they encouraging me and talking of smoking cigarettes? Oh. It took me only eight miles to realize that the man talking of smoking cigarettes was actually saying “chao ren,” or as the English say it, Superman. 

As I continued to keep my mind distracted, I observed my surroundings. We we’re now zigzagging through the area that had once contained the World Expo of 2010. Every building, representative of a different country, had beautiful and unique architecture. What a sight this must have been in 2010. Today all that remains is empty buildings and vacant lots. 

My mind had recruited my stomach to take part in the battle to get me to walk. I noticed empty Snickers wrappers scattered on the ground. Oh how I could go for a snickers right now, or anything that wasn’t the sugared iced tea or water that I’d been given thus far at the refueling stations. With my snap back in to reality, I came across the next refueling station which lacked anything new besides another kilometer marker. At this point I had made it 17km or roughly 10.6 miles and more thoughts started to fill my head. Just about every body part involved in running was screaming for a break but I hadn’t given in yet and I continued on. 

Sadly, I only made it until the 19km marker or 11.8 miles and finally I had to stop. As I walked, most likely due to being dressed as Superman, I received lots of words of encouragement in both English and Chinese from my fellow runners. I gave it all my might to push on but my body said no. I’d noticed other runners stretching along the way so I decided that’d be a good idea. Five seconds later I realized that thought was wrong. A horrible pain shot through my leg, similar to the pain when you’re sitting in an awkward position and all of a sudden you’re flying into the air to get the pain to stop. 

And so I walked. Eventually a man, instead of offering a few words of encouragement and moving on, stayed with me and wouldn’t move on. I looked ahead and saw the finish line and decided to suck it up, if only for another two minutes. Except sucking it up was no small feat. At this point, the lack of training was painfully obvious. It was as if the muscles in the back of my legs near my knees had shortened by a few inches and refused greater leg movements than a slow crawl. But I continued on, cursing every step. Feet from the finish line, I raised my hands up in that typical way that Superman does, and I crossed that finish line. 

Now to locate anybody I knew, while lacking a phone, money, or a grasp of the Chinese language. I moved with the crowd of finished runners. Stuck in one line to collect my certificate, another for food, and another to return my running chip and then I was out into the masses of runners to find my friends. Luckily, within a few minutes I stumbled upon a friend with a phone and we were reunited with the group. 

We collected together to take some more pictures. Even more Chinese people stopped to take pictures of and with me. I’d thought every muscle in my body was tired already but then I started to feel pain in my face. Who knew your face could hurt from smiling too much? I wonder if celebrities practice exercising their smiling muscles. Tired of smiling and posing, off came Superman and I returned to my human.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

I’ve a Feeling We’re not in America Anymore 

There are so many similarities between Shanghai and the United states that some days you forget that you’re actually half way across the world in a foreign place. One such night I found myself with several others in my friend’s room on a Friday night following a long week of work. We were relaxing, listening to music, and talking. Around 11:30 there was a knock on the bedroom door and in walked four policemen. My mind starts racing; foreigners generally are not bothered unless they do something incredibly stupid and either get deported or sent to jail. I could not think of a single thing that would require such action. In what felt like an eternity, one of the police officers walked over, turned off the music, said something in Chinese, and then all of them walked out.

Chopsticks

Sadly there’s not oh so much to write about chopsticks but since they’re not such a popular thing in America, I figured I’d devote a third of a post to some interesting facts about them.

• Just like etiquette with American utensils, same goes for chopsticks. This means no banging your chopsticks since this is similar to what beggars do. Also, don’t leave your chopsticks sticking straight up in your food since this is similar to incense burning.
• There is a verb in Chinese for using chopsticks. 
• To compare chopstick prowess, people will see how many marbles they can pick up with chopsticks and move from one pile to another within a certain amount of time.
• My chopsticking skills have vastly improved since my arrival. I’ve been complimented by several coworkers on my technique. 

Interesting Cultural Happenings 

I never got around to reading up about China or studying the language before I arrived. Two things I regret. Along the way I’ve learned a little about both and want to pass along to you a few of the interesting things that come with a several thousand year history. 

• Writing people’s names in red is a big no-no. It means to wish death upon that person. When I was flying back from the United States I only had a red pen in my bag and had to fill out a form with my name on it. Ended up borrowing someone else's black pen.
• If a man is cheated on by his wife, he will wear a green hat. This is a dying trend since the younger generation is now wearing green hats for fashion.
• Saying thank you and your welcome is generally reserved for people that you don’t really know.
• There are many different dialects in China and many people cannot converse from one dialect to another. Personally, I believe they should be considered different languages all together. I think it is comparable to French, Italian, Spanish, English, etc people speaking together. China ended up as one country instead of a continent and thus it’s dialects instead of languages.
• Dairy is not very common in China. Therefore, almost all dishes do not contain any sort of cheese, butter, milk, etc.

A Suitable Gift: Part 1

I originally introduced this blog to talk of my interesting encounters in China. I’ve slightly staggered away from that path. To venture back on to that path, if only for a brief moment, I’d like to discuss one of my favorite experiences to date. 

When one goes to a faraway place, it is custom to return home with interesting things from the journey. This problem plagued me since my arrival in China. I ventured from shop to shop, week to week, unable to locate suitable gifts for my family. Like the United States, China is also full of cheap “Made in China” things and many of these shops didn’t offer anything of a higher quality. Not wishing to purchase such things for my family, I was stuck in a rut. As my mind wandered I thought of several potential gifts but each were quickly dismissed for various reasons. One day while sitting at my desk working it hit me. The answer had been literally under my nose the entire time, Chinese tea. 

In my pursuit of interesting places to visit within Shanghai, the Datong Lu Tea Market had continuously popped up. I’d never been but I figured it was finally time for me to make the trek. 

Early one Saturday, I located the market on my computer, 598 Datong Lu near Zhongshan Bei Lu, and headed out the door. The oh so frugal shopper that China has made me, I opted for the subway instead of a taxi, believing that Shanghai was now my city and I could easily find the market. I navigated the subway to my destination and then emerged in to a bright and busy market place. The street sign pointed me along the proper heading and off I went. 

I counted down the numbers as I walked, still a good five minutes to my destination. At about this moment I had arrived at the Zhongshan Bei Lu intersection. A little surprised that the numbers had dropped so quickly, I took a look around but did not see any signs of the tea market. To my horror, I looked across the road and found that Datong Lu was no where near the number 598 and whoever’s instructions I decided to trust were wrong. Or maybe I was. I gave my friend a call and he verified that the address I had was indeed correct. The first straw of hopelessness was cast upon the camel’s back. 

Determined not to let Shanghai conquer me so soon, I trudged on, still a slight hope that my address was correct. This could be possible with the use of the one ambiguous word contained within my directions, “near.” I crisscrossed all the surrounding intersections looking all about for any hope of a tea market. On one street, I found a giant billboard with “Datong Lu Tea Market” with an arrow pointing in “that” direction, wherever that may be I couldn’t understand because I found nothing. 

The camel was looking rather exhausted from the weight of the straw but I continued on. Number 598 Datong Lu must be the location. I retraced my steps back to Datong Lu and continued south. With each passing intersection the crowds died down and so too did my hopes of a tea market. The path I was on eventually turned into a tunnel, with 600 on one side. Surely my answer lay upon the other side of the tunnel! I crossed through to the other side, walked up the stairs, and as I stepped upon the last step, the camel’s back broke. I’d arrived at 590 Datong Lu.

American Vacation

The Right to Bear Arms

In the weekly English lesson/discussion with my coworkers, I’ve introduce the game of Taboo. (If you don’t know the game, look it up, it’s pretty fun.) One of the cards was “shoot.” The hint that the person used was “this can be used to kill somebody.” My brain quickly went to gun, but everyone else, being Chinese, said knife. The reason for this is not that China is stuck in the past but because guns are illegal to own. It’s got me thinking, what would the United States be like today if guns were illegal?

American Vacation

Who knew not having a single native English speaker to talk to regularly would start to get to me after four months. The twelve hour time difference and seventeen hour travel time are also having similar effects. To remedy the situation, I’ve decided to return to the United States for Thanksgiving. Not quite ready to return home for good, I’ll enjoy some good food, friends, and family and then return to China to finish my two months of work and one month of travel in Russia or South East Asia. 

Autumn Festival

The Autumn Festival is one of the few Chinese holidays I got a chance to take a part in. The holiday revolves around moon cakes, which you can see to the side. The whole family will get together and eat these tasty little cakes. They come in lots of different flavors with some wildly different than the rest. I tried coconut, red bean, and one which had a hard boiled egg inside. Each moon cake also has the hidden surprise of being 800 calories for a cake roughly three inches in diameter and an inch tall. And that’s it, that’s the holiday. In the spirit of not being so close-minded I decided to ponder this thought some more. This led to me thinking about American holidays. How exactly do you explain Halloween to someone who has never celebrated it? 

Lesson Learned: Keep an open mind, you’re beliefs and ideas may look just as silly as the person you’re guing with.

Better Late Than Lose Face

Over the two months I've been living in China, I've heard the term "saving face" several times. The definition, at least how I understand it, is that being embarrassed in front of others is something to be avoided at all costs. The only way I could relate is to my American culture in which being embarrassed is not a very fun experience. To my surprise, I realized that the relation was not very accurate at all. Yesterday, as I was walking home from the food store, I passed two cars facing each other in a one way street. It'd only take about fifteen seconds for either car to move out of the way but instead, to save face, the occupants of both cars sat and did not move. I only got to watch for about two minutes but in that time neither car moved. Makes me wonder what things we do and how the rest of the world views them.

Quiero un filete de queso.

Sitting around with my roommates one day back in the United States, discussion of Philly cheese steaks popped up and shortly thereafter we were on our way to Philadelphia to have ourselves a taste of the city's  most famous meal. After a short drive, we parked the car and made our way to spend the next  half hour standing in line, standing slave to the delicious smells of the kitchen. As the line moved, I took the chance to observe all the interesting pictures and signs that filled the windows of Geno's Steaks. One last sign stood as a warning to those about to order food: "This is America, when ordering, speak English." While such a phrase is an example is of an extreme nature, I still feel that a decent amount of Americans to some extent agree. It's almost as if the nickname the "melting pot" was given to the wrong country. 

Leaving the melting pot, I headed for a country I expected to be in a similar if not homogeneous state. To my pleasant surprise, my coworkers proved me very wrong. Every single coworker of mine speaks very good English as well as Mandarin and at least another Chinese dialect or two. Even more surprising than this was the discussion with my fellow foreign roommates. The average language count in my apartment sits at around two fluent languages with some knowledge in another one or two. It would appear as if the United States is actually looking into the melting pot, but only from the outside, not wishing to take part.

In the process of discussing language with my fellow foreigners and coworkers, I have been led me to realize just how bad the state of foreign language in America is. Starting with six grade we were sat in front of a TV for video language lessons. The only things these videos managed to do was turn me away from foreign languages. Seventh and eighth grade didn't hold much promise either. A select few managed to find their way into the Spanish or French class but the majority of students were unable to begin progress on a second language. High school followed this theme and only required two years of language for college bound students. On the other hand, my coworkers and roommates are leaps and bounds ahead.

In my attempt to search for a means by which to conclude this post, I will take the lazy way out and present you with a request. Respect others, try and understand their culture and beliefs and where they come from. Listen to what they have to say, if you disagree, feel free to offer your own thoughts but please don't try and shove it down their throats. Let us do our best to live up to the reputation and be able to proudly claim that it's just a misunderstanding and we are in fact the melting pot.