Day 11

Church this morning was at Hengshan Church, which means 'eternal mountain' in Chinese.  We had our headphones again, and the English section where we sat was in the balcony.  The back balcony extended along the sides of the sanctuary as well, so the second level could hold quite a few people.  After church a man came up to us, I was standing next to Tim who is 2.07 m tall, and remarked in very broken English about Tim's height.  That is becoming a very common conversation starter for pretty much anyone Tim meets.  We talked a bit, but his English was very difficult to understand because it was mixed with Chinese.

For lunch we found a food court near our hotel.  In Chinese food courts there is pretty much no place to sit and eat because of all the people.  There is a cashier that you order from, but it's all in Chinese, with only barcodes to identify the foods.  We had to order with the cards that were by the sample plates because it would have been impossible otherwise.  When we finally ordered and got our food there was still no place to stand, so we walked around a bit looking and finally found a place, standing in the middle of the busy, crowded room, along a column with a small ledge for the trays.

The dishes the food was on were large and made of metal, insulated by a chunk of wood; they were not to be picked up and held for long.  Three of us ordered the same thing, some pork with vegetables, but Will had noodles.  Our dishes came with a bowl of rice that we could place some food on to bring to our mouths.  No such luck for Will.  That might have been the most awkward meal to eat ever.  He had to bend down and grab noodles, with chopsticks, each time he wanted to eat anything.  We're getting good with the little buggers now, but not that good.  Lunch was good, and afterwards we went back to the hotel for a bit of writing and reading for our journals.

Now I know you're not supposed to venture out into the unknown alone, but that's exactly what I did.  You can tell that since I'm writing this that everything turned out ok, so don't worry about that.  Marshall was feeling pretty tired, so he wanted to rest and pack his clothes for our travel tomorrow.  Initially at about 1:15pm, I set out to find English corner in People's Park.  That's where you can go to speak in English with others in order to practice.  I didn't really know where it was, but I set out anyway.  There are many nice parks nearby, so I went through one and took some pictures.  From that park, I could see the People's Park, so I headed on over there.  On my way there I heard some English: "Hallo, excuse me, how are you doing?"  I turned around, and there were three Chinese, a guy and two girls.  I started walking and talking with them; I can't remember what it was about, but we just made the normal chitchat.  We talked about where we were from, what we were doing in Shanghai, that sort of thing.  Eventually they asked me where I was going, and I said nowhere, just looking for English corner.  They were going to a tea presentation.  You go and taste several types of teas, and there is a lady who tells you about the history of the tea.  When I asked about price, they said it was free, so I decided to go with them, suspecting a scam, being very cautious.  We walked for a bit and then entered what looked like an old mall and went upstairs.  We went through a glass door, then into a small room with an ornate wooden table, made out of the root structure on a tree.  It was varnished and very smooth.  We sat on small benches and eventually the lady came in.  She spoke only Chinese, but they translated a bit for me.  Right away there was a menu, and boy was I surprised at the prices--that there actually were prices.  There were many teas, but they cost money.  Apparently there was also a sitting fee that everyone had to pay, just for being there.  I kind of stammered some things about wanting to speak English and going to the English corner, and telling them that I had no money, but I did stay and had one kind of tea with them.  I guess I thought they tricked me into coming and spending money trying teas, when they had said it was free.  So after trying one tea, a ginseng tea, I made it clear that I would only be having that one tea, and then I would leave.  They wanted to stay, but they had the lady give me a bill for the tea.  I cost me 79 RMB for the tea and sitting fee.  That's pretty close to $12 that I was not planning on spending.  I didn't want to be impolite, but I also didn't want to stay and have more tea, and even still I wasn't sure if it was a scam or not, so I just left.  The tea was fantastic though I will admit; it was sweet in the throat and smelled wonderful.  The smell and taste stayed with me and in my sinuses for quite a while.  I'm have no idea if it was a scam or not, but the people were very nice and I did enjoy talking with them.

I made my way back from the tea place, to the park where I had been.  Kind of aimlessly, I wandered through it, taking some pictures and just looking at the people.  There were large groups of men gambling and playing cards along a small pond.  People were playing games, including badminton sans net, as well as just sitting around talking.  The park was very beautiful and had trees, rocks and water everywhere.  I came across a very large gathering of older people with signs in Chinese.  They were all talking with each other and showing pictures.  I knew from our GM meeting (we talked about much more than just cars there) that they were parents trying to find dates and arranged marriages for their children.  People I talked to later said that it is a new thing, for the parents to find mates for their younger, working children.  They were in Chinese, but they showed birth date, height, weight and interests that they had, usually accompanied by the salary that they earn.  Apparently it's not too common; there were many people there though.

I kept walking for a bit, taking pictures and just looking around at everything and everyone.  Inadvertently I found a sort of lover's lane.  It was a small stone path leading up to some rock outcroppings that I thought looked cool.  I left there pretty hastily.

Eventually I found English park.  There was a very tell tale sign: Cedric's dreadlocked head.  There were some other Calvin students there talking, so I walked up slowly, just kind of looking around.  A Chinese man came up to me and asked me if I spoke English.  I replied, "Yes" and he asked me where I was from.  We kind of kept talking for a while, just the two of us, until some other people walked up, and formed a circle.  That's what English corner is, people form groups and just talk about things.  As the American, native English speaker, I was the center of attention.  The talk went from me back to the Chinese, then to me and back and forth and back and forth.  I think I talked there for several hours.  There were men and women, young and old.  At the beginning a child came up a said hi.  I really wanted to talk to him, but the man I was talking to would not stop, so the boy walked back to his parents eventually.  We talked about so many things.  Usually when a person first came to the group, they would ask me about why I was in China and for how long, and then they would ask what I am studying.  I brought up my Chinese sister and uncle, and they were very interested in that.  At one point one of the men who spoke the best English said, "So she's just a banana."  I asked him what he meant by that, and he said yellow on the outside like the Chinese and white on the inside.  Katie however is not just a banana; she's a very beautiful one-of-a-kind banana.  I really enjoyed talking with so many people; it was very new to me and very exciting.  They came from all walks of life, and two of them were even chemists working in the pharmaceutical industry in Shanghai.  There were some very interesting personalities there: an economics professor, a small soft spoken lady, a taller well spoken man, a loud boisterous skinny man, two young girls an old GM factory manager and some young professionals.  When I left, there were four Chinese left, and at one point there had been probably 12 gathered around me.  I could not have enjoyed this afternoon more.  A little after four o'clock I told the rest of them that I had to go for dinner.  I didn't know what time it was, but I didn't want to check my watch and risk being impolite.  Though it was four, and I could have kept talking I decided to head back and see what Marshall was up to.

On the way back, two more Chinese walked up beside me and started talking to me.  They wondered if I was Russian, but I said, no, that I was American.  They apparently were in Shanghai on holiday also.  We only talked very briefly, but the tall man and short woman were very nice to me.  It's really great to be able to talk to people there and not have them sell you things.  It really is.  After leaving them, I headed for the underpass that would take me to East Nanjing road.  Right before I crossed the street, four students said hi to me.  I said hi back and kept walking, but then turned and decided to talk to them for a bit.  They were from a Qingdao, right along the Yellow Sea, between Shanghai and Beijing.  They were university students.  There were a brother and younger sister, and what I assume were friends who were a couple.  The couple was studying English as well as the older brother was also studying economics.  The younger sister was studying traditional Chinese medicine.  We talked for a bit about what we were doing in Shanghai.  The four of them were visiting the sibling's older sister who worked there.  Like most of the other Chinese I've met, they were nothing but hospitable.  They mentioned that tea show like the first group did.  That kind of made me think the tea house thing was a scam because both groups had gotten my attention and not me theirs.  However, I asked Yang over dinner and he said that it was actually a real thing, and even more common and cheaper in the south where he was from.

My final Chinese contact on the way back to the hotel was a young woman who accosted me briefly.  She started out very similarly to the others, then called me handsome, which made me immediately suspect that something was up, because let's be honest…  She asked if I would like her to accompany me for the day.  Luckily I politely declined, citing a dinner I had to be at, which really was an honest excuse.  I learned an important lesson today: trust no one who calls you handsome.

Our group had dinner in the hotel's private room.  There were three guests: a couple who was teaching English in China (one Calvin grad) and a business man who helped businesses move to China to access the market here.  There were some good conversations with two interesting different perspectives about living and working in China.

Tomorrow will be busy as we have to check out early and be ready for a business meeting.  Bristol Myers Squibb is the second company and probably the most interesting for me.  It will certainly be the most relevant in light of my internship in Germany this summer.

Good night.  By the way, I don't have time to proof read these much, so sorry about any errors in grammar or spelling.  I am trying to limit stream-of-consciousness writing though, attempting to follow some kind of chronological order.  Also, sorry for the long post, but it was an exciting day.