Doing things that matter

One of the writing prompt questions from WordPress this week is “how long could you live without the internet?” Even though I’ve been using the internet regularly since I was ten years old, I could live without it for a pretty long time. I think its best use is cheap communication like through e-mail and skype (but I would be much happier receiving phone calls and written letters). The truth is that the less time I spend on the internet, the better my day is. When the computer stays off, I have time for things that matter.

Take a minute to write down all the things you would do regularly if you had the time. Go!

practice piano

study Chinese

yoga

sew my own clothes

cook fresh dinners daily

watch movies

take my dog to the park

go swimming

There’s never enough time in a day to accomplish everything, but I think cutting down on time online can help. Graduating from graduate school can also help big time. Note to anyone considering grad school: you will be able to keep up maybe one activity like this during school. Maybe. But probably not.

friends at the park matter a whole lot (fall 2010, schenley park)

 

United States of Adjustment

It’s been almost two months since I left Beijing. Leaving was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. But looking back, getting on that plane alone in Pittsburgh back in May with the destination of Surabaya, Indonesia, was pretty freaky as well. In both cases, I had to just shut off my brain and go where my plane tickets told me. If I had let myself think about it, I probably would have never gotten on that flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo, or from Shanghai to San Francisco. Clearly I get way too emotional about coming and going. Stop crying. Turn off brain. Look at flight time. Proceed to airport. Don’t think about anything.

I only lived in Beijing for 10 weeks, so to say that I’m homesick and still not adjusted to being back in Pittsburgh seems absurd. But the way I lived in Beijing felt so comfortable that I could have very easily stayed there permanently. I hated leaving Beijing because I was literally leaving behind a life that I had made: a neighborhood, a job, a school, and incredible friends. Living there was so invigorating that I nearly forgot it was temporary.

But it was temporary. And I can’t complain. My time since China has been full of great people and places. Jon met me when I landed in San Francisco and we visited with my cousin Brady and his family and my good friend Lauren in Berkeley. We rented a cute blue beetle bug for a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway to Los Angeles. I was a lame-o and slept through a lot of it, because a 10-hour road trip the day after flying through 9 time zones is not a good formula for staying awake.

 

within the first day of being back, i got sunburned

 

We made a few stops along the way, most notably Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. Santa Cruz was one of my favorite cities when I made this trip with my family years ago. We stopped there for breakfast this time, and I imagine very few of the city’s wacky residents were actually awake that early.

 

alone on the santa cruz beach

 

 

california is pretty, blah blah blah. there was a hostel at this lighthouse!

 

We stopped in Santa Barbara because a very rare and crazy thing happened. We were passing through that lovely city at the exact moment that my friend Stephen arrived there by bicycle after riding across the entire United States. Yup, he biked across the country and just happened to end his journey at the same place I was ending mine. He rode for this awesome organization called Bike and Build. He and his team rode from Boston to Santa Barbara in 68 days, stopping to build houses along the way. They were celebrating their achievement in a beach-side park when we found them. Congrats, Steve!

 

on the beach with the very accomplished cyclist

 

 

their trailer full of supplies. yeah they stopped in st. louis!

 

Santa Barbara was not the end of the fun for Jon, Stephen and I. We met up again in LA before Steve got on his plane back to South Carolina. We also got to meet up with my cousin Nick who lives in San Diego and my cousin Mike and his wife who live in LA. We stayed with Jon’s best friend Heinz and ran around the city with Ashley, the newest and fanciest resident of LA. We also had a Korean dinner to die for with Jon’s wonderful aunt Zooza. Now that was enough to keep me awake.

 

i'm being mistaken for sushi

 

 

nevermind. these guys all just have a licking problem. poor ashley.

 

 

chinatown LA: where i am officially allowed to be cheesy

 

Since I’ve been back in Pittsburgh, I’ve tried to get my head back in the graduate school game. It’s been a lot harder than I expected, and I’m still not totally focused. My thesis topic is… to be announced very very soon! There have been other important things going on, like my first trip home to St. Louis in 2010. Jon and I spent a couple days in St. Louis and a couple in Oktoberfest-ing Hermann, Missouri, for my good high school friend Alex’s wedding. We got to ride along with the wedding party on the Hermann Trolley, so I got to take some pretty cute photos. Congrats, Alex and Nick!

 

photog action! alex and nick lookin gooooooood

 

 

falling off the swings is bad luck (they didn't fall)

 

 

me, alex and nat for alex's last moment of singleness

 

And finally, my parents got the silliest dog ever. Meet Clancy:

 

Clancy joined the family in May. He's 3 years old, cuddly, adorable, and ridiculous.

 

Mourning and marketing

These have been an interesting couple of days for China. Yesterday the government declared a national day of mourning for the nearly 2,000 victims of the mudslides in Gansu Province. This meant the flags flew at half-staff, all things fun were shut down for 24 hours, and the TV stations were only allowed to play footage and news from Gansu. Apparently everyone was also supposed to wear black and white, but I didn’t get that memo until around dinner time. A friend of mine had his birthday on August 15 and really wanted to go to a local amusement park. But of course, that was closed for mourning day. Clubs closed at midnight on Saturday night. Any planned concerts or entertainment venues were shut down. But for some reason the zoo was open. I don’t get that.

I spent the day at a friend’s apartment learning how to cook Chinese vegetables that have no proper English translation. She flipped through all the channels on her TV to prove to me that no other shows were on all day long. None of the Chinese people I spoke to seemed very surprised about the national day of mourning. It has happened before, they said. I think as an outsider it is fascinating to me because it is an example of how strong the central government really is here. This country is enormous, and the government was able to shut down EVERY form of entertainment (except zoos – must keep pandas) and EVERY TV show for an entire 24 hours. Can you imagine if the United States government did that on the anniversary of 9/11?

This makes me wonder about the motives of this kind of thing. Of course I have no answers. But I wonder, what does the government get out of a national day of mourning? What does it do to the population’s psyche? Why go to such great lengths to make people think about a mudslide disaster? Is there an environmental message here? A rah-rah government message? Please tell me if you have thoughts.

The other interesting day is today, Chinese valentine’s day! Also known as Double Seven Festival, for the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. Basically there is an old Romeo and Juliet type story of forbidden love, and it ends tragically of course. Death and sadness. Oh, love. Anyway, traditionally this story teaches women how to be good wives, but that kind of message just won’t do in modern China. Hell no! Instead they take on western qualities: buy some roses, some stuffed bears, and go have dinner.

It doesn’t seem like the Chinese valentine’s day comes with the pressure and loneliness that a lot of Americans associate with 2/14. My single friends didn’t really care about today. The couples went out to dinner. That’s that. But the displays of love that I did see on the street were certainly entertaining. The flowers were beautiful, and the ratio of men holding their wives’ purses was higher than normal. But the real gems were the odd-ball and way-too-large gifts. I was pushed out of the way in line for the bus by a man carrying a teddy bear the SIZE OF ME. You know that bear is taking up a bus seat during rush hour, right? I hope the bus lady made the bear pay the whopping 0.4 RMB bus fare (about 6 US cents). The other charmer sped by me on a motorbike: a giant framed photograph of two pinkie fingers locked together…enclosed in a giant pink heart, of course! I am sure this will hang in their dining room forever, reminding them that true love comes already framed.

Again, do I really have to leave this place?

Have you seen this wall? It’s great!

The Great Wall at Jiankou

The Great Wall of China is something I will never get tired of. Last year I went to the Mutianyu section of the wall in March, when the sun was shining but the wind was cold. The trees were just starting to bloom, so the mountains were more brown than green. Mutianyu is beautiful, but it has been restored so that you can walk across it comfortably. This time, I wanted to see a part of the wall that was not so restored.

me at the restored part, Mutianyu

Luckily my classmates feel the same, so a group from the Hutong School went out to the Jiankou section of the wall, very close to Mutianyu (just north of Beijing city). I had been looking forward to a rugged hike in the Beijing mountains, plus I had a friend visiting me from Korea. But the day before the hike, I got the cold that seems to be making its way around the school. I am still fighting off the cold today, so a five-hour trek in the mountains probably wasn’t the healthiest decision. But it was so worth it!

hutong school sittin on the wall

We began in a small village at the foot of a mountain. We made our way up, up, up for what seemed like forever, but was probably just an hour. It was exhausting! When we reached the top of the first peak, we could see towers of the Great Wall all around us. A bit more hiking on the ridge, and we were on the wall. But the wall was not very defined anywhere at Jiankou. At times we were walking on stones, but at other times we were on dirt. Sometimes the trees and plants were so thick that we got smacked in the face as we walked through them. We didn’t see anyone else on our hike the entire morning, which is why the plants are so overgrown.

hard to stay on the wall...

The part of the wall that we hiked has not been restored for 500 years. The Great Wall is huge, stretching across most of this country. But only one-third of the wall still exits today. Some parts of the wall were built over 1,000 years ago. Some parts were restored every few centuries. Jiankou is so much fun because no one has touched it for so long, but it is still walkable (in most parts). There are actually some horror stories of people not knowing where to go on Jiankou and getting badly injured when they meet a quick drop. There are other reports of people getting struck by lighting on the high peaks. We had a guide with us who walks Jiankou four times a week. Without him, we would have never known that a left turn would be safe, but a right turn would take us to a crumbling cliff with a 100-foot drop.

the man on the wall was just hanging out in the tower. maybe he lives there?

We hiked on the Jiankou wall for a few hours, and then all of a sudden the wall appeared whole again. We had reached Mutianyu. And the tourists. Summertime at Mutianyu means crowds, way more crowds that I could have imagined last winter. The views are still lovely no matter how many people are there, and the way down the mountain is still thrilling. That’s right, we took the toboggan down. I did it last year, and I just had to do it again. Cheesy? Yes. Most fun way to say goodbye to the Great Wall? Absolutely.

sliding down the great wall as the guards yell "no photo! no photo!"

What to bring on a long-term trip abroad

Before I left on my four-month trip, I read a lot of articles and message boards and wrote to a lot of people who had done travel like this before.  There were some really valuable things I gathered from that research, especially about how to pack for so many climates.  But there inevitably were some things that I didn’t realize I needed to pack until it was too late.  Part of the problem was that I never found a list on someone’s website or blog with a real list of “must haves.”  Well, here is my top ten list of things I am so glad I had, plus things I wish I would have brought with me.

1. Mini flashlight: If you are planning on doing any camping, a flashlight will be a no-brainer.  But even if you are staying in guesthouses and hostels, a small flashlight is a must.  We found all kinds of uses for it, like when you’re staying in a hostel dorm with strangers and you need to find your glasses in the dark.  The time we needed it most, however, was when the shaky electricity of Nanjing, China, went out on an entire block, including in our hostel.  There are a lot of countries where you cannot depend on electricity.

2. Playing cards: I had actually read this one before, but I didn’t listen.  But after a week on the road in Southeast Asia, Jon and I had to buy a pack of cards.  Cards are a great thing to have not only for the downtime of traveling from one place to another, but they also come in handy at bars and restaurants.  No matter who you are traveling with, you will not always have things to talk about.  So an instant, portable game is a great addition to a dinner table.  Also, cards don’t speak a language, so teaching and playing games with people you meet on the road can be a great way to make friends.

3. Laptop: One of my biggest questions before my trip was whether or not to take a laptop.  And then the question was if Jon and I should BOTH take a laptop.  I cannot emphasize enough how happy I am that we both took our laptops.  I use a very small netbook that fits in every bag, and Jon has a pretty small laptop as well.  All throughout Asia, especially, we enjoyed free wireless internet.  That means never paying for internet use and always having skype at our fingertips.  Plus, all of our photos could be instantly uploaded to our computers.  It was never a hassle to have them with us; we always found a safe place to keep them when we were out and about.  And sometimes, when we just wanted to chill out and remember something good from America, we turned on some of West Wing (Season 2) on Jon’s laptop.  Without laptops, we would have spent a lot of money sitting in sweaty internet cafes and burning discs of photos.

4. Flip flops for showers: It’s kind of obvious for anyone who shared dorm bathrooms in college.  But seriously, bring shower shoes.  Most of the hostel bathrooms in Europe are yucky.  You will find many other appropriate times to use them, like when visiting temples in Asia.  You have to take off your shoes when entering temples, so pushing off flip flops is much easier than untying shoes every time.

5. Nintendo DS: This one sounds kind of stupid, but trust me, it was awesome.  I always had plenty of stuff to read, and I had a journal to write in, but sometimes you just want to play a game while on a 14-hour flight or an overnight bus ride.

6. Quick-dry towel: Hostels and guesthouses usually provide sheets and rarely provide towels.  My favorite travel item is my quick-dry towel from REI.  It doesn’t take up much room, it soaks up tons of water, and it dries much quicker than a normal towel.

7. Thermometer: We knew we had to bring a thermometer because we are both pretty big hypochondriacs.  It’s an important item because if you do run a fever in certain countries, you should go to a hospital (malaria, dengue, blah blah blah).  And for us, it helped the other way around, too; if we were scared that we were getting sick, the thermometer could tell us we were perfectly fine and to stop being paranoid.

8. Anti-itch and anti-allergy meds: We didn’t want to go overboard with our first aid kits, because chances were that most of the stuff would go unused.  Well, most of it did go unused.  But we didn’t bring two really critical things.  When I broke out in a horrendous rash on my chest, arms and legs, I had no anti-itch cream or anti-allergy pills to ease my suffering.  This happened in a village in Laos, where I was closer to a traditional medicine man than a pharmacy.

9. Rechargable batteries: This also may be a no-brainer for some people, but I was considering just bringing regular batteries on the trip, so I wouldn’t have to buy the fancy pants rechargable ones.  But Jon convinced me to get the rechargable, and I’m so glad I did.  It would have been a big pain to buy new batteries every few days!

10. A good travel partner: Yes, here is the cheese factor.  Some people go on trips like these by themselves, some with family, and some with friends.  I went with Jon, who is a fantastic balance of adventurous, street smart, friendly, and open-minded.  He was a great comfort when things got weird and a constant source of fun when things got dull.  And most importantly, he knew how to be quiet when the sights and the experiences spoke for themselves.