I just got back from Shanghai, for the billionth time. I call it my second home in China, and not in jest. I met two friends from UNC there, one who lives in Shanghai and the other who flew in from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. We had a FANTASTIC time, despite the horrible weather (cold and rainy.) Among the many adventures we had: the Shanghai Literary Festival to hear Junot Diaz give a talk, the Shanghai Museum to see some incredible pottery (my weakness,) and a Southern restaurant for some great biscuits and blueberry pie. I kid you not- biscuits in China!
My schedule this semester is beyond wonderful - I only have class Wednesday-Friday, so I can easily travel on the weekends. My friends in Shanghai are going to grow sick of me before I even get the chance to actually move there.
Right now though, I'm back home in Quanzhou, planning classes and trying to stay warm. It was incredibly warm and humid until a few days ago, when the temperature dropped, and I started piling on the layers. I look like the Michelin Man as I putter around my apartment, but at least I'm warm.
Look for more posts from my travels soon!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Why I Like Wearing the Veil
Like any mosque, women must veil their head to go inside. At the Hariri Mosque - as the Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque is called by most people - I was given a full length robe and veil to wear. And, simply put, I liked it.
In Islam, the veil is called the "hijab." Outside of Iran and Saudi Arabia, women are not required to wear the veil. However, a woman's choice to wear the hijab has become rather controversial in some areas. The most well-known example lately has been France's banning of the veil in public schools.
Many people see a woman wearing the veil and think she must be oppressed, by the men in her life, or her culture, or her religion. While this is the case sometimes, it's also certainly not true for all veiled woman. Many women choose to wear the veil as an independent, personal choice. It might be to honor her religion, to force people in society to interact with her on the basis of her personality and intellect instead of appearance, as an affirmation of her identity, or other reasons.
Why do I like it? It makes me feel comfortable and secure. I am stared at each and every day wherever I go here in China, and often judged (positively, I must admit,) purely on the basis of my skin and hair color. When I wore the veil in the mosques in Lebanon and Syria, limiting the ability of people to judge me based on my appearance was very attractive. It's not that I'm considering wearing it in my daily life, but that I appreciate the experience.
Besides, the concept of covering one's head has appeared in different cultures and religions all over the world:
For more on the veil, read one woman's explanation of her decision to wear the veil here.
Act II: Beirut
"Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. "
-Khalil Gibran
I flew into Beirut on Jan. 23 to visit my friend Tyler who is doing graduate school at the American University of Beirut. Fortuitously, he had break at the same time, but it didn't start until a few days after I arrived. It gave me time to get over the jet lag and explore a bit on my own though. We left for Damascus soon after he finished his exams, but not before seeing some sights around the town.
Beirut is an amazing city. It was engulfed in a civil war as recently as 1990, in addition to the war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, but the city has bounced back to become a bustling, cosmopolitan city and all-together wonderful place to visit. Great restaurants, shopping, and beautiful sights to see. And incredibly fashionable people! I felt like such a bum there. Lebanese people seem to dress up to the nines just to go out for coffee.
Even now, as the city thrives in many ways, one can see bullet holes and shelled out buildings around the city. There are also policy check points on many roads, and occasional tanks maintaining a presence in the city, as a preventative measure. It doesn't faze anyone in Beirut, much like the frequent power outages. Having much more to do with Lebanese politics than a direct result of the civil war, power outages are extremely common. There are rolling blackouts, three hours every day at a shifting time, so most people have generators.
The gorgeous Pigeon Rocks (above) are within walking distance of Tyler's apartment - lucky!
They're even more beautiful at sunset.
The Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque (pictured below) was built by the late Lebanese Prime Minster Rafik Hariri. Haririr was assassinated in 2005, before the mosque opened. It's a beautiful building, and its striking blue dome was the first thing I saw as we drove through the city center the first time.
For more information on Lebanon's civil war, I recommend Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation. I managed to read a little more than half while I was visiting Tyler, and it was well worth the effort.
-Khalil Gibran
I flew into Beirut on Jan. 23 to visit my friend Tyler who is doing graduate school at the American University of Beirut. Fortuitously, he had break at the same time, but it didn't start until a few days after I arrived. It gave me time to get over the jet lag and explore a bit on my own though. We left for Damascus soon after he finished his exams, but not before seeing some sights around the town.
Beirut is an amazing city. It was engulfed in a civil war as recently as 1990, in addition to the war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, but the city has bounced back to become a bustling, cosmopolitan city and all-together wonderful place to visit. Great restaurants, shopping, and beautiful sights to see. And incredibly fashionable people! I felt like such a bum there. Lebanese people seem to dress up to the nines just to go out for coffee.
Even now, as the city thrives in many ways, one can see bullet holes and shelled out buildings around the city. There are also policy check points on many roads, and occasional tanks maintaining a presence in the city, as a preventative measure. It doesn't faze anyone in Beirut, much like the frequent power outages. Having much more to do with Lebanese politics than a direct result of the civil war, power outages are extremely common. There are rolling blackouts, three hours every day at a shifting time, so most people have generators.
The gorgeous Pigeon Rocks (above) are within walking distance of Tyler's apartment - lucky!
They're even more beautiful at sunset.
The Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque (pictured below) was built by the late Lebanese Prime Minster Rafik Hariri. Haririr was assassinated in 2005, before the mosque opened. It's a beautiful building, and its striking blue dome was the first thing I saw as we drove through the city center the first time.
For more information on Lebanon's civil war, I recommend Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation. I managed to read a little more than half while I was visiting Tyler, and it was well worth the effort.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
道县
"What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?"
-Marcus Tullius Cicero
First stop: Daoxian to visit my friend Jason. He's a teacher there, of course Teaching is far and away the main occupation for foreigners living in China, from my experience.
I'd already been to Daoxian for October break. A dumpy small town it may be, but I like it nonetheless. It's friendly, and easy. No extensive bus system to navigate (there were two routes? I think,) no place to spend lots of money (see: Shanghai,) and, in my case, no responsibilities. It was a great place to unwind after the stress of exam week. (Did you know exams are just as much work for teachers as students? Yikes, did I learn that quickly...)
Of course, all this means that one would go stir crazy living there, but for two weeks it was just fine for me. There's a video game arcade, skating rink, and stores with cheap distractions to buy - my darts skills are much improved after nights of practice. We also discovered that a rice cooker is excellent for making mulled wine, the perfect drink on frigid nights with less than optimum heating indoors.
Small town China is very different from living in a "big" city. Dirt roads, people wearing pajamas as daily clothing, no one who speaks English, and lots of families with 2 children. (Since Daoxian's residents are considered rural residents, they're allowed to have a second child if their first child is a girl, and minorities are generally allowed to have unlimited children. I don't know how big the minority population is, but there are definitely some in the area.)
I had lots of time on my hands while Jason taught, so besides working on my Chinese and reading some old New Yorkers my cousin Amanda brought from the States, I practiced taking pictures with my new camera. A few of the results are below:
I don't know what they were playing, but it looked really neat. They ended up with a sort of mosaic on the pavement in the end.
The coal truck.
(Note that one dart is actually stuck in the other. If you play enough, I think it's bound to happen, and we definitely played enough.)
-Marcus Tullius Cicero
First stop: Daoxian to visit my friend Jason. He's a teacher there, of course Teaching is far and away the main occupation for foreigners living in China, from my experience.
I'd already been to Daoxian for October break. A dumpy small town it may be, but I like it nonetheless. It's friendly, and easy. No extensive bus system to navigate (there were two routes? I think,) no place to spend lots of money (see: Shanghai,) and, in my case, no responsibilities. It was a great place to unwind after the stress of exam week. (Did you know exams are just as much work for teachers as students? Yikes, did I learn that quickly...)
Of course, all this means that one would go stir crazy living there, but for two weeks it was just fine for me. There's a video game arcade, skating rink, and stores with cheap distractions to buy - my darts skills are much improved after nights of practice. We also discovered that a rice cooker is excellent for making mulled wine, the perfect drink on frigid nights with less than optimum heating indoors.
Small town China is very different from living in a "big" city. Dirt roads, people wearing pajamas as daily clothing, no one who speaks English, and lots of families with 2 children. (Since Daoxian's residents are considered rural residents, they're allowed to have a second child if their first child is a girl, and minorities are generally allowed to have unlimited children. I don't know how big the minority population is, but there are definitely some in the area.)
I had lots of time on my hands while Jason taught, so besides working on my Chinese and reading some old New Yorkers my cousin Amanda brought from the States, I practiced taking pictures with my new camera. A few of the results are below:
I don't know what they were playing, but it looked really neat. They ended up with a sort of mosaic on the pavement in the end.
The coal truck.
(Note that one dart is actually stuck in the other. If you play enough, I think it's bound to happen, and we definitely played enough.)
The 705 Reunion Tour
"So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be."
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
6 and a half weeks, 8 different beds, and over 1000 pictures later, I have finally returned home! This February 14 was Chinese New Year, and the break between semesters for a Chinese university for the holiday is unimaginably long. It's been forever since I've posted, but I've got lots to share. Right now: what I call my 705 Reunion Tour.
My last semester at UNC, I lived with three of my friends in the loveliest house in Carrboro (705 Davie, hence the title.) It was the loveliest house not only because it had a front porch, a piano, and bookshelves spilling over with books, but because it was occupied by the loveliest people. My friends Jason, Tyler, and Zach lived with me there (plus a constant stream of welcome houseguests,) and life was good. Very good. So much so that I miss living there and my friends.
Therefore, given that I had almost 2 months of break(!), I took the opportunity to see my former housemates, now scattered all over the world. Jason lives in China too - Hunan province, actually. I visited him for October break, and if you look carefully, is in pictures as far back as my time at Xiamen University, where we studied abroad together. Tyler is doing a program in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University in Beirut (Lebanon,) and Zach is working for a doctor's office in Hawaii.
I know - Hawaii! Sadly, I did not get the chance to visit Hawaii.... yet. The trip worked out like this: I spent two weeks in Daoxian, a small town in Hunan province where Jason was teaching last semester. Then off to Beirut to visit Tyler for almost 3 weeks, and back to China, where Zach flew in to Shanghai to meet Jason and I for a week of shenanigans. (Not really, but Shanghai shenanigans has a nice alliterative quality.)
I have, therefore, a bazillion pictures and stories to share. Watch for frequent blog updates!
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
6 and a half weeks, 8 different beds, and over 1000 pictures later, I have finally returned home! This February 14 was Chinese New Year, and the break between semesters for a Chinese university for the holiday is unimaginably long. It's been forever since I've posted, but I've got lots to share. Right now: what I call my 705 Reunion Tour.
My last semester at UNC, I lived with three of my friends in the loveliest house in Carrboro (705 Davie, hence the title.) It was the loveliest house not only because it had a front porch, a piano, and bookshelves spilling over with books, but because it was occupied by the loveliest people. My friends Jason, Tyler, and Zach lived with me there (plus a constant stream of welcome houseguests,) and life was good. Very good. So much so that I miss living there and my friends.
Therefore, given that I had almost 2 months of break(!), I took the opportunity to see my former housemates, now scattered all over the world. Jason lives in China too - Hunan province, actually. I visited him for October break, and if you look carefully, is in pictures as far back as my time at Xiamen University, where we studied abroad together. Tyler is doing a program in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University in Beirut (Lebanon,) and Zach is working for a doctor's office in Hawaii.
I know - Hawaii! Sadly, I did not get the chance to visit Hawaii.... yet. The trip worked out like this: I spent two weeks in Daoxian, a small town in Hunan province where Jason was teaching last semester. Then off to Beirut to visit Tyler for almost 3 weeks, and back to China, where Zach flew in to Shanghai to meet Jason and I for a week of shenanigans. (Not really, but Shanghai shenanigans has a nice alliterative quality.)
I have, therefore, a bazillion pictures and stories to share. Watch for frequent blog updates!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
中秋节快乐！
"Friends are the family you choose."
-Anna Doherty
Happy (late) Mid-Autumn Festival! During my October break, there were not one but two holidays: National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival was October 3, so I celebrated it in a small town in Hunan, where I was visiting a friend. We had the good fortune of making friends with some locals who invited us to celebrate the festival with them. That meant playing traditional Chinese music, singing, drinking tea, and eating moon cakes.
The Mid-Autumn Festival centers around the moon. One traditionally gives "moon cakes" to one's friends. Moon cakes are little cakes filled with different flavored paste fillings: fruit, bean, meat, peanut- you name it! Many of them have an egg yolk in the middle, to symbolize the moon. I'm not such a big fan of the egg yolk; I like the plain fruit-flavored ones the best.
One is also supposed to gaze at the moon on this night, and think of friends and family in other places who are also staring at the same moon. This festival then was particularly poignant for me, as I am separated from most of my friends and family right now.
Below I've posted a video from our night. You can see and hear the traditional Chinese music - be forewarned! It's very different from Western music.
This festival was a good time not only to think of loved ones in far away places, but also to appreciate the people I have around me here. For example, when my 2 day stay in Shanghai turned into 2 weeks, I felt like such an imposition on the friends I was staying with. They honestly didn't think anything of it though. My friend said to me, "So many people have helped me. I'm happy to help you out too."
I think that when you move so far away from everything and everyone familiar, you have to construct a new support structure, one that plays the role of "family" in your life. So all of us ex-pats support each other whenever we can - when I needed a place to stay, my friend in Shanghai opened her home to me without a thought.
Similarly, when I traveled to Guilin (on my way to Hunan,) a friend there let me stay with him. And when his money ran dangerously low because his employer was a week late in paying his (first!) salary, I was happy to cover meals. And when I arrived home in Quanzhou at the end of break, though they were both 2 provinces away, it was my friends in Guilin and Hunan that checked in with me to make sure I'd gotten home okay.
So don't let me fool you into thinking I'm too brave or independent, because I've got lots of help.
-Anna Doherty
Happy (late) Mid-Autumn Festival! During my October break, there were not one but two holidays: National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival was October 3, so I celebrated it in a small town in Hunan, where I was visiting a friend. We had the good fortune of making friends with some locals who invited us to celebrate the festival with them. That meant playing traditional Chinese music, singing, drinking tea, and eating moon cakes.
The Mid-Autumn Festival centers around the moon. One traditionally gives "moon cakes" to one's friends. Moon cakes are little cakes filled with different flavored paste fillings: fruit, bean, meat, peanut- you name it! Many of them have an egg yolk in the middle, to symbolize the moon. I'm not such a big fan of the egg yolk; I like the plain fruit-flavored ones the best.
One is also supposed to gaze at the moon on this night, and think of friends and family in other places who are also staring at the same moon. This festival then was particularly poignant for me, as I am separated from most of my friends and family right now.
Below I've posted a video from our night. You can see and hear the traditional Chinese music - be forewarned! It's very different from Western music.
This festival was a good time not only to think of loved ones in far away places, but also to appreciate the people I have around me here. For example, when my 2 day stay in Shanghai turned into 2 weeks, I felt like such an imposition on the friends I was staying with. They honestly didn't think anything of it though. My friend said to me, "So many people have helped me. I'm happy to help you out too."
I think that when you move so far away from everything and everyone familiar, you have to construct a new support structure, one that plays the role of "family" in your life. So all of us ex-pats support each other whenever we can - when I needed a place to stay, my friend in Shanghai opened her home to me without a thought.
Similarly, when I traveled to Guilin (on my way to Hunan,) a friend there let me stay with him. And when his money ran dangerously low because his employer was a week late in paying his (first!) salary, I was happy to cover meals. And when I arrived home in Quanzhou at the end of break, though they were both 2 provinces away, it was my friends in Guilin and Hunan that checked in with me to make sure I'd gotten home okay.
So don't let me fool you into thinking I'm too brave or independent, because I've got lots of help.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
国庆节快乐！
Happy (belated) Chinese National Day! October 1 was the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Not long after was another important Chinese holiday, so I had a long break - October 1-8. I used my time to do a bit of traveling and visit a friend in Hunan province, west of me.
He lives in a very small town in Hunan though, so the nearest airport is five hours away by bus in a city called Guilin. Guilin is pretty famous for being beautiful, and all the pictures in this post are taken during my brief tour of one of it's parks: the Seven Star Park. I had the chance to see a little of Guilin before heading to Daoxian, the city in Hunan where I was ultimately headed. Unfortunately, all the best sites in Guilin require at least a day, if not more, to travel to and see, but this park was a good sampling. It really was quite beautiful, but it's hard to tell in the pictures, as the day was overcast and my photography skills are amateur.
Even in this little bit of preserved greenery in the middle of Guilin, there were signs celebrating the 60th anniverary. China was quite proud, and the celebrations in Beijing were very impressive. It was similar to the scope and beauty of the Olympics' Opening Ceremony. China certainly knows how to put on a show.It struck both my friends and I as a little odd though to be celebrating the 60th anniversary of a country that was first unified in the third century BC, and has had a continuously used writing system and recorded history and culture ever since, but as it is, China is celebrating its anniversary as a nation less than half as old as the United States.
Pictured above is Camel Mountain, typical of the karst formations in Guilin (and neighboring, even more beautiful, Yangshuo.) If you ever get the chance to see a Chinese 20rmb bill, you will see Chairman Mao on the front, and Yangshuo's river on the back.
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