Say what? SayTAIWAN!

Did you miss me?

Well, the adventures of Carlos in China continues... Although this time there is democracy involved! I have been selected to participate in the program called SayTAIWAN, which is a celebration of the 100 years of Taiwan. Check-out the link to the program here! SayTAIWAN. (My name is there! I'm like famous or something!)

Finally have my plane ticket, host family, and city location figured out. All I have to do is prepare for the HOT & HUMID weather of August in Taiwan. I will be hosted for two weeks in Kaohsiung (Actually pronounced Gao1 Xiong2 高雄), Taiwan. Kaohsiung happens to be Tulsa's sister city - that's right, Tulsa has sister cities! This will be my second Asian sister city to visit and I am so excited. Today, I met with Sharon Hwang from the Tulsa Global Alliance and she told me all about Taiwan and gave me lots of travel information and tips - THANKS Sharon. I'm getting more and more excited as I type, I MIGHT EVEN HAVE TO START USING ALL CAPS TO DEMONSTRATE MY EXCITEMENT!!!

After talking to Sharon I realized I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT TAIWAN! Here is a list of the things I knew about Taiwan:
1. It is an island.
2. Capitol in Taipei
3. Tulsa has a sister city there. That's all.

I am kind of freaking out though because Taiwan is awesome, but they use traditional characters! WHY? WHY! For those of you who don't study Mandarin Chinese, it's kind of like have learned the alphabet (You know, ABC's and such) and then all of the sudden going to a country that only uses hieroglyphics! HIEROGLYPHICS! Can you image that!

Anyway, I am really excited about this opportunity and can't wait to share all my experiences via this wonderful blog. I hope you will read and ride along with me on this roller coaster of excitement, food, people and TAIWAN!

Things I am most excited about:
1. THE FOOD - I hear their fruit is as fresh as it comes! The have awesome sea food (it's an island for goodness shake!)! And the Taiwanese food, oh the food!
2. I might meet the president! Yes, the president of Taiwan!
3. Lucy and Carlos reunion. My friend Lucy from the Gansu Fellowship Program will also be in Taiwan when I am there! Wow!

Taking Candy From Strangers.

Halloween is by far one of the most amazing and coolest American holidays. What is there not to like about eating candy, dressing up in costumes, bobbing for apples, and bumping in the night? At first, I was rather sad because I would be missing Halloween, but instead of being sad I decided to bring Halloween to China.

… And boy was that a good idea! Lucy (Kiwi Girl) or Luc (pronounced ‘Luce’) was my partner in crime for the Halloween planning. We have actually started to refer to each other as Luc and Los cause we make a really good team. We can even have conversations in Chinese! Anyway, the first challenge was finding a legitimate pumpkin to carve. Our search started at the supermarket, but they only had some really long, off brown pumpkins, which they called ‘south melons.’ You can image my panic when I couldn’t find jack-o-lantern quality pumpkins for my Halloween party. I was devastated and decided to substitute watermelons for pumpkins – as soon as I made this decision the Halloween goblins were watching over me cause Luc and Los went to another supermarket and found the most amazing ORANGE, REAL pumpkins! Although, they were a little too small, they would satisfy my pumpkin dreams.

The pumpkins were done and the invitations had been sent. After an early morning panic call to Whitney (party-planner extraordinaire from America), I decided that we would also bob for apples, play ‘pin the wart on the witch,” have a costume contest, and dance all night. All the invitations were beautiful and indicated that COSTUMES WERE REQUIRED! I was actually quite surprise by the effort and the awesome costumes the delegates put together. We had pirates, vampires, fairies, pandas, women (yes, at least two boys decided that they would be girls for Halloween – typical!), trolls, skeletons, and many other scary creatures. There was a tiny Halloween shop we found at one of the market with over priced Halloween items. I negotiated with the lady and told her that they face paint she was trying to see me for 30 Yuan (about 5 dollars) was worth about 1 dollar in the USA and that she was ridiculous. After some haggling and more conversation I got the face paint for about 15 Yuan (2 dollars). Yes, I know that five dollars doesn’t seem like much, but you can always get things cheaper in China – you just have to be really good at the art of negotiations (Which I am!).

Originally the party was going to be hosted in my dorm room (Highly illegal), but then Julia (Foreign Affairs Office) got involved and a room at the International Legend Hotel was booked for the party. Luc and Los arrived at the party to find Julia with her daughter and niece running wild and yelling in the microphones. We decorated the room with pumpkins, flags, balloons, and candy (I found some Snickers!). The guest started to arrive and everyone brought food, drinks, candy, and more drinks. The party was off to a great start with the pumpkin carving and the Chinese guest really enjoyed it. After the music started playing everyone forgot about all the other activities that I had planned and ‘cut the rug’ (There has been some debate about what the proper idiom is for this, but I don’t really know). After some Waka Waka, Party in the USA, and Dynamite the party ended and we were off to GAYA (Refer to my previous post for information on Gaya). Got home around 2 am and it was one of the best nights in L.Jo by far!

PS: My costume was a panda! I had bought an awesome Panda hat in Beijing so I just added to the already awesome accessory. I wore a black sweater and then cut a shirt to make it look like a panda belly. I stuffed the shirt and looked extra GIANT, but I still didn’t have black pants. I was going to buy some, but then Theres said she had a pair I could borrow. Yes, Theres is a woman and I borrowed her black Nike sweatpants. Let’s just say that my booty looked extra juicy at the party, but still panda like!

PSS: I had so much candy left that I started to and it out to strangers. I just went down the halls of our dorm building and many people took the candy. Some how in China they were not told to not take candy from strangers. Although, who wouldn’t except candy from me?

Carlos’ Guide to Chinese Hotels

Being the fancy dude I am, I would never stay at a hotel if it weren’t four or five stars! Well, my dreams came true in China, for our weeklong trip around Gansu Province was full of fancy dinner, hotels, people (me in particular), and visits! Below you will find a personal scale of different aspects and qualities to judge a Chinese hotel by:

1. Can the Hotel spell ’extinguisher’ correctly?
Through out my journey I have learned many different spellings for the word(s) fire extinguisher. Usually the Chinese seem to think that ‘extinguisher’ is actually two or sometimes three words. Example: Fire Extin Guisher. This is an easy mistake to make, but when the simplest words are misspelled such as ‘water’ (often spelled Watel – I doubt any of you would drink cold watel), then that is bad news bears.

2. Ice availability.
Ice is such a luxury good in China. For some reason the Chinese are weird about eating, drinking, or creating anything that is cold (Maybe because they aren’t as ‘cool’ as the US). Something about ice being bad for the body or carrying germs (Who knows why, really?). Ice in the hotel you are staying at has ice then you have really found a good one. Don’t be fooled though, many of the hotels will have ice containers, but it may just be a trick to make you think they have ice. Example: When I sprained my ankle on the trip the doctor recommended that I put ice on my foot. I called the reception desk and asked for ice, to which I was told that they didn’t have ice just cold water.

3. Bedside weather report.
Whenever you visit a city don’t you always want to know what the next day’s weather report is going to be? Well, in China only the god hotels give you a little note card on your bedside table with a detailed weather report. It should include temperature highs and lows, sun forecast, wind speed, and rain chance. The catch to whether your hotel is five star of not is whether you see the attendant slip the note card into your room. If you do, then that is bad, but if it seems to magically appear in your room without you noticing then that is five-star-service.

4. Internet access.
There are four types of hotels when it comes to Internet access and I stayed at all four. One, no Internet, two, Internet that you must pay for, three, Internet access that is free, and four, Internet access and a full on computer in your room! You can probably decide for yourself, which is the five-star hotel!

5. Fifth and final - amenities.
Is there a pool, a bar, gym, spa, massage room, ping pong room and VIP massage room. The catch is to look for what is free cause most of the three star (or below) hotels will charge for all of these things. We thought we had hit the jackpot in JiuQuan City because there was a pool (and then the Foreign Affairs Office convinced then to keep it open late for us), but little did we know that there was a catch. One, we had to wear a swim cap (which meant that we had to buy it from them, 30 yuan), two, you have to pay to swim! Yes, 68 yuan per person for an hour of swimming. Ridiculous!

So there you go, next time you travel to China and are looking for a hotel make sure to check this list to ensure your stay is five star!

Updates on L.Jo.

Nothing too exciting (besides the fact that I am living in China) has happened in my life here in Lanzhou since my last blog post, but I thought I would update you on a few interesting happenings.

1. Singing and Zumba! So, there is going to be an international student festival where we are suppose to perform something. The University has decided that we learn a song to perform – little did they know that everyone in the program has no singing skills at all. Also, as class leader I was instructed to come up with another performance because as Iris (Chinese teacher) said “one song just isn’t enough.” Then, my hips spoke to me and said, “You should teach some Zumba!” So I did, a total of six delegates are learning a zumba routine to Shakira’s waka waka and it’s amazing.

2. Halloween! I’m going to miss Halloween, but I decided to make up for it by throwing a Halloween party here. Costumed required! I can’t wait to see what everyone will wear because I set some rules on costumes already. (1) No dressing up as a person from your country, such as, “I’m a Romanian.” (2) If you don’t wear a costume then I get to paint your face however I want and dress you however I want. (3) Don’t be lame cause I will be so upset.

3. THERE WAS AN EARTHQUAKE IN OKLAHOMA AND I WASN”T THERE!

4. We are going on a weeklong trip next week to explore the Silk Road and other parts of the Chinese desert (desert, not dessert as much of the other delegates refer to it) area.

5. It is so hilarious to hear everyone speak English. I am constantly correcting people because it’s so funny. Here are a few examples of common mistakes:
-- The pronunciation difference between ‘corpse’ and ‘crops.’ You can image my surprise when Theres informed me that the villagers keep their ‘corpse’ on the roof of their house.
-- The Amazon verses Amazon. There is a restaurant named Amazon that we go to when we are tired of Chinese food cause they have Italian food. Well, many of the delegates refer to it as ‘The Amazon.” “Do you want to go to The Amazon tonight?” “No, I hear that jungle is dangerous these days.”
-- Persons and people. Do persons really use the word ‘persons’ ever? Thanks to Whitney for the clarification on this subject.
-- Have you ever been to the “obstetrician” to get your eyes checked? Last time I checked that was the “optometrist.”

Love you all and miss you so much! Happy Fall!

…And the cow would never give milk again.

Yes, English is officially my second language, but that doesn’t mean I can’t teach it to 45 Chinese middle school students. This past week has been full of excitement and one of the highlights has been visiting the local middle school to teach English. I originally was going to help with the sports activities (because I am so athletic apparently, right????), but then after some discussion about who would be the English teachers of the day I was kind of voted to teach instead. (According to the group, singing children’s songs to try and cheer people up is a sign of a good teacher – I was just trying to not be bored)

Boy, I’m I glad I did teach! The lesson plan given to be by the director of the middle school’s English department was titled “A Night the Earth Didn’t Sleep” and it was all about EARTHQUAKES! At the beginning of class I was supposed to introduce myself and answer questions about myself. This got boring after a while (especially cause I hate talking about myself) so I decided that maybe it would be better if all 45 students learned the song ‘Oklahoma’ from the musical. It was such a magical moment hearing 45 Chinese English students sing Oklahoma at the top of their lungs – this might go down as one of the greatest moments in my life! There favorite part was at the end when you spell out Oklahoma and yell Yeeeow!

After some great entertainment it was time to actually learn the lesson. Again 45 students, in unison, read the lesson aloud (again, goosebumbs!). After that we recreated the story of an earthquake – they really loved this too cause some people got to be ‘a scared pig,’ and “a running mouse!’ I asked them questions and then explained some new concepts such as: “The water rose and fell, rose and fell” and cows that “would never give milk again” and “as if the world was at an end.”

The Chinese students were so willing to participate and really enjoyed having me as a teacher. Every time they answered a question they would stand up. They asked me questions about Obama, the war, Michael Jackson, China, and many other subjects. It was a great experience and I hope to be back soon!

Choo Choo to Xian

My first time on a passenger train was quite an experience. These past three days of vacation the group and I took a short trip to Xian (or Xi’an – don’t really know why they put in apostrophe on it sometimes). The train was quite an experience and thank god for my ipod! On the way there we discovered how to actually read our train tickets. After are adventure at the ticket office – we bought tickets, then they were the wrong date, had to get a refund, and then stand in line to get tickets again – we really didn’t care which seats we had as long as we could get to Xian. There are three types of seats and we chose the ‘hard sleeper.’ This meant that each grouping of beds consist of six beds facing each other in stacks of three. The bottom bed is the best to have cause you can actually sit upright on your bed – well, I had the middle seat.

Not only can you not sit up on your seat, but also you have five other roommates who snore, fart, laugh, and wake up early and look at you while you sleep. (The foreign factor sometimes is good, but not when you are in a train car with a lot of Chinese cause it’s hard to hide if you want.) Long story short – I didn’t sleep much. We arrived in Xian after eight hours and ran into our guide Melanie. She took us to the hotel and then we were off to tour Xian. We hit all the popular tourist spots such as the Bianpo Village, Terracotta soldiers, Hot Springs (some house the Chiang Kai-shek lived at), and the terracotta soldier factory. The terracotta soldiers were definitely the highlight of the trip! Visiting the museum has been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember! Seeing the ancient soldiers in such great condition for miles and miles was truly amazing. You get to the museum and you really get a grasp for the deep culture and long history the Chinese have.

We ate lots of foreign food while in Xian – which was nice for after three weeks of Chinese, Chinese, and Chinese our stomachs were ready for some western food. Subway was the first stop, followed by Starbucks, and some McDonalds before we returned. Service is bad in Chinese though, and fast food is not fast at all.

The second day in Xian was free time. We explored the city wall and did some shopping. Bought some shoes and ate some crazy Japanese style food. Walking around the city was fun because Xian is huge in comparison to Lanzhou and there is a lot to do. The city felt so alive and you could tell that people were excited to be there. We ran into lots of foreign and Chinese tourist (I followed a Spain group to hear the Chinese girl speak Spanish to them on their tour – so cool). They charge for everything though! Every place, even the parks, charged an entrance of 30 Yuan or more. Overall it was a great trip and I can’t wait to visit Beijing, for it is a LOT bigger than Xian. I bought lots of souvenirs and I can’t wait to share more details and pictures with my 13 loyal followers!

Complete! Complete!

Last night was our first banquet of the conference (I will probably refer to the program I am attending as a conference because that is what the Chinese call it. Don't be fooled though, it is more of a study/vacation because we only have one presentation and the rest of the time we are in class or touring the city). Anyway, back to the banquet.

Walking in the banquet hall, I peer across the room to try and find some of my delegate friends to sit with - WRONG, we all had assigned seating with Chinese Officials at each table. As soon as I arrive at the table I notice two bottles in the middle. One is wine (okay, I can handle that!) and the other is something they like to call bai jiu (or as I like to call it poison/nasal passage way decongestant). I also realize that I am sitting next to the Deputy Director of the Gansu Provincial Foreign Affairs Office. We exchange business cards and he losses interest in me until his translator (whom is one of our guides) decides to tell him that I can speak Chinese. Well, the rest is history and we are now best friends. He decided to talk about the one topic that I know the most vocabulary for, FOOD! Then, Mr. Fang (yes, fang like Fang Pi) decides that I will be his English teacher for the meal and he will be my Chinese teacher for the meal. Every time they bring a new dish out he tells me what the content of the meal is. For example, FISH (he says in Chinese of course Yu), to which I repeat FISH. Then is continues on through the duck, lamb, watermelon, squid, some weird green thing that I translated as cabbage (it wasn't cabbage, but he didn't know that). Mr. Fang was a great host and constantly refilled my wine cup until I learned that is I didn't finish my wine then we couldn't pour more.

GanBei - means cheers in Chinese. This was probably the most popular word used at last night’s banquet. Every five seconds one of the officials decided to ganbei with another official at another table, which meant that everyone at the table had to GANBEI! This wasn't a problem until Mr. Pushy (the Director of the GSFAO) decided that he would come cheers are our table ten times in one hour AND we all had to COMPLETE, COMPLETE (I believe his English vocabulary consisted of ‘complete,’ ‘hello,’ and ‘thank you.’) our drinks. What he meant to say was "get drunk our of your mind and drinking the clear poison we can Bai Jiu!" Sheesh.

It was super though! All the foreign delegates decided we would start a conga line (under the influence of BaiJiu) and dance around the room as some crazy Chinese man who definitely had had too much BaiJiu as well sang a song! After the banquet we went out on the town to a bar and drank some gross Chinese beer, got caught in the rain, took a taxi home, and then went to bed!