River Watching 朝天门

(My friend Jane contemplating the level of pollution she is breathing in while sitting on the steps of Chaotian Men.)
(The docks at dusk at Chaotian Men [chow-tyen muhn] .)
(Sunset on the steps of Chaotian Men.)

One lazy Friday afternoon my friend Jane and I headed down to the tip of the Chongqing Peninsula. Chaotian Men [chow-tyen muhn]. Jane lives about an hour away from me, we hadn't seen each other for a while so we decided to meet up and have a chat. As we walked down the sloping streets of Chongqing, we passed tons of vendors. Selling pineapple on a stick, mending clothes (operating antique-looking sewing machines), minding drink stands, chatting with other vendors. Chongqing is most assuredly not a quiet place, but definitely not a boring one at that.
While we sat on the steps of Chaotian Men (which means "see the king/heavens gate" according to my Chinese friend) gazing at the river, and the boats that were docked near by.
The boats docked there are quite old and run-down. They are rusty looking, decked out with neon lights, and boast free karaoke on board. They look tired.
Jane and I sat there 'til just before sunset. Talking, commenting on the other people around us, exclaiming about the boats. Two (other) foreigners came round, we got all excited! I had never seen them before, she had not either. They too were there to take pictures and chat. After a bit we figured we should meet our other friends for dinner on time. Chaotian Men is one of the best places to chat idly in Chongqing.

Art District 黄桷坪艺术街道

(An old tank factory converted into an art space. Russian portraits were on display when we went.)
(A wall in the courtyard of a tank factory that had been converted into a museum.)
(As we followed the signs from art place to art place we came across a load of elemtary school students going home for the day.)
(Chongqing people meet art.)
(Colorful old highrise that has been overtaken by ART!)
(A hotel, with panda!)
(A painting from the Chongqing Museum of Contemporary Art pictured below.)
(The Chongqing Museum of Contemporary Art looks like it too was a factory of some sort. Not many staff were about so we didn't really have an opportunity to ask.)
(Grafitti-ed highrise.)


One lazy Thursday afternoon my friend Ben and I decided to explore the 艺术街道 （Art Street, ee-shoo jyeh-dao) of Chongqing. I had seen it before but only once and I was in a crowded bus. Ben is a spoken English teacher at my school, he has Thursday afternoons off.
The neighborhood of Huangjue Ping [Mandarin: hwang-ju'eh ping, Chongqing Dialect: Hwang-goh-ping] surrounds Chongqing's art school, it looks as thought it has been taken over by an army of grafitti artists!
Sure enough it has! We didn't see any up to any mischief though. The place is quite remarkable. It's so unique compared to the boring white-ish greyish high rises that can be seen throughout Chongqing. Multicolored, artistic buildings are really a relief! Just our luck! There was an art festival going on! Many studios, galleries, museums, and old factories were open displaying art. But! We were a little too late in the day and were only able to see a few.
Many of the highrises have art supplies stores below them. I would have liked to meet some Chinese art students, or some of the artists that had their work on display. When we finished looking at the paintings in the museum, Ben and I snooped around the Chongqing Museum of Contemporary Art's back studios. Unfortunately no one was to be found!

On the way back home Ben and I were happy to know that Chongqing has a cool place like this.

Xinjiang 新疆

(Snow capped mountains outside the plane, somewhere near Urumqi. I couldn't take my eyes off these until the plane was slowly enveloped in clouds.)

(Aerial view of Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang. I took this on the flight to Nanjing.)
(This is what the apartments looked like that Jesus's host grandmother lived in.)
(Family portrait with foreigners! When we visited Jesus's host grandmother's house. Someone decided that a photo was in order. The grandmother [maternal] is seated in the middle, with her youngest grandson in front. Her son is to her left and so is her daughter in law.)
(Jesus served as my loyal bodyguard. Don't I look the part of a Middle Eastern King? At touristy stops (like this) one can have their pictures taken in great costumes for a small fee.)
(For about $1.50 I was honored with the privilege of wearing clothes not unlike the king who once lived in this "historic" palace.)
(A REPLICA [super disappointing that it wasn't authentic] of the palace where the king of Hami once lived. He had visited the Forbidden City and liked it so much that he had his palace made in the style of the Forbidden City. However there is a mosque up there.)
(The aftermath of the fireworks in the little alley outside of Jesus's paternal host grandfather's house. People still continued to light fireworks for about 2 weeks after New Years. LOUD fireworks.)
(You can buy fireworks like these on the street, I think in the USA you have to be specially trained to light these? Or have some kind of permit maybe? Oh well who needs regulations!)
(Making Jiaozi [dumplings] in Grandma's kitchen. Chinese traditionally make Jiaozi [jee-ow zuh] on New Year's eve. It sort of brings the family together as they sit around and pinch the dumplings together.)
(Fireworks anyone? All kinds! And the tradition is to leave the red wrappings on the street after you have finished with the fireworks...it has something to do with keeping the luck from leaving, or keeping the demons away.)
(We killed some time by ice skating on nature-made ice! Okay for those of you who have skated on real ice, leave me alone! I am from California!)
(The kitchen of the house we were to celebrate New Year's in.)
(The first meal we had after arriving in Hami, unfortunately the main dish was mutton. Which tastes like vomit deep fried in expired curry and then dipped in some kind of oil. That is Mr. Gao, Jesus's host dad, behind us! He is really nice!)
( I thought it was really interesting to see this really bright and clean picture above a gas pump. It talks about cleanliness etc.)
(Roadside 清真寺 [ching-juhn sih] mosque on the way to Hami.)
(rough translation: Let's both participate in the prevention of AIDS. [below]:(This) community is my home, prevention depends on everyone.)
(By far the filthiest gas station toilet in the whole world. Or at least in the whole of Xinjiang! There was poop all over the floor and god knows what else! Jesus and I just decided to use the gravel piles around the back and take a rain check on the exposure to several diseases.)
(I thought this was interesting, if you look carefully you can see that half of the mountain has been sliced off!)
(We passed a Uighur graveyard on the way to Hami, the pictures would have been better if we had actually stopped. But a 7 hour drive is a 7 hour drive and we had to keep moving!)
(On the way to Hami we stopped for pictures at Asia's largest "Wind Farm." Sort of reminds me of the drive to Palm Springs. It was freezing, and definitely windy!)
(Jesus's host father teaches Uighur students Chinese Literature in Shanghai. One of his students heard that he would be going to Xinjiang for the New Year so they invited him to see their home. However! Uighur students aren't allowed to leave school until the summer months, the student wasn't even there. They were very nice people, very hospitable. The little cakes and nuts on the table were delicious! The Father spoke English better than most Chinese people, but he was shy about it. He doesn't have much trouble with the pronunciation because his mother tongue is more related to Turkish, not even related to Chinese.)
(Two little girls playing in a village that we stopped in on our way home from ski slope.)
(Me, Jesus, and Gao Chengyu [Jesus's host brother] getting ready to slide down the slope. It was different at this ski slope, there were no ski-lifts. There was a special cable that you held onto to be pulled up the slope.)
(People getting ready to go skiing, I chickened out and just decided to sled down the hill in an inner tube.)
(Road to the ski slope. Snow!)
(Having famous Xinjiang beef noodles for breakfast before departing for Jesus's host dad's ski slope.)
(Ice sculptures of Santa Claus in front of the Uighur [say wig-uhr:Uighur people are the native minority to Xinjiang] market. we thought it was odd that Santa Claus was out here considering most of the people practice Islam.)
(Jesus and his host dad in the living room of our flat in Urumqi. The floor was heated, despite its white-wallness it was a very warm and cozy place.)
(The apartment complex we stayed in while we were in Urumqi. Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang province.)

Pictures are meant to be viewed from the bottom of this article up! 请从下面开始读。读完了之后随便看照片

This trip was a bit of a culture shock for me. It felt like there was a seperate country inside of China, and some people actually feel it should be that way. I flew here directly from Beijing, and I noticed immediately that I wasn't in the China that I thought I'd be in. Many of the signs were bilingual. (Which I like because I support language diversity!).
The reason the signs are bilingual because the "ethnic minority" that lives in the province of Xinjiang speaks a language that is not related to Chinese at all. They are the Uighurs [say wig-uhr]. Thsi minority looks more Middle Eastern than Chinese, and their language is related to Turkish. However Arabic script is used to write Uighur.
After spending only two days in the capital city of Urumqi, [once again not Jesus the Biblical figure but my fellow American AFS'er] Jesus's host family (and some other friends) took us on a 7hr drive to Hami. Hami is a city famous for it's 哈密瓜[ha-mee gwah] melons. Unfortunately it's winter and we didn't have any! Just loads and loads of lamb.
I found it slightly off. Chinese New Year is supremely awkward. Members of the family seem extremely uncomfortable with each other. Awkward and smiling. Not at ease with each other at all! No warmth! Chinese people like to compare Chinese New Year with Christmas but really it lacks soul I felt. I felt as if the family felt obligated to be with the rest of the family. All we really did was eat and watch a very tacky Chinese TV program that just about everyone watches on New Year's Eve. I am proud to say that I understood most of it! The Chinese subtitles helped as well!
Now you're probably thinking..."Don't generalize Arthur! All Chinese families can't be this way!"
Well, after talking to my other foreign exchange student friends...it sounds like all the other families were! Most AFS students suffered extreme bordem. Thank God I was not alone on New Years, and that I went with a friend! (Jesus's host father and brother had invited me on this trip to Xinjiang because they knew that my host family isn't exactly dedicated.) This whole family-discomfortness that I sensed during the trip was a bit of "Culture Shock" for me! I thought surely people who are related would get along swimmingly...apparently not. Still it was interesting though.
The night we returned from Hami, all the friends of Jesus's host dad got together and went out to party. Jesus's host dad grew up in Urumqi. He wanted to meet up with old classmates. We "children" were sent off to a roller disco! It was awesome! All the kids on the floor just wanted to have fun! They were carefree and not as uptight as many students in my school in Chongqing.
We had so much fun that we decided to go back the next night, our last night in Urumqi.
At the end of my stay in Urumqi I realized I didn't want to leave. I don't really know why I didn't want to leave, maybe it was because Urumqi is so diverse?
Went we visited Jesus's host dad's Uighur friends I was not very comfortable at first. The Uighur people had once had their own country and society. Now they are being oppressed by the Han Chinese. Visiting houses of Uighur families with two Han Chinese felt strange. How would you like it if your country was taken over by some foreign population and then you were expected to be hospitable to them? I knew that Jesus's host dad was not oppressing them directly, but still.

Beijing Day 5: Yonghegong Lama Temple (Last Day) 北京第五天：雍和宫（最后一天）

This temple was really big. One of the biggest I have been to in China so far. But then again I haven't been to many temples. This temple was comissioned by "Dragon Lady" (a.k.a. the Dowager Empress). The weather that day was so cold! Too much wind. Before that the weather in Beijing had been only mild. It was a rude awakening. But a breakfast of hot coffee, and mantou 馒头 did the trick!
As soon as we were finished seeing the temple we hopped into a taxi and made our way to the airport. That day I would depart for Urumqi, directly opposite from Beijing. In the wild/"dangerous" west.


(Buddha in a store front that we passed on our way to the temple. He looks so happy!)

(One of the halls on the grounds of the temple.)

(It was absolutely bone chilling that morning. This is our AFS coordinator, Ms. Ma all bundled up. She is more sensitive to the cold than us it appears.)

(The main hall.)

(A prayer wheel, this is very Tibetan. Inside the wheel are many prayers, and when you spin the wheel in the correct direction the prayers will be sent to heaven. You can see that there is a little plaque telling people exactly which direction to turn the wheel.)

(The sign above me is written in four different languages: Tibetan, Chinese, Manchu, and another one that I can't remember. I can't see it quite clearly in this photo either.)

(Courtyard.)

(One of the hallways through a temple building. Photography is forbidden inside. So I couldn't take any photos.)