Week
6
This
week my friends Penny and Chen Rong introduced me to the Chinese version of
Ebay called taobao. The stuff sold on taobao is not high quality nor is it
always authentic. But it’s dirt cheap. Basically it’s an evil website that will
eat all your money if you allow it. Ryan and I have wanted to play soccer for a
while now but neither of us brought our gear from home. So Chen Rong and Penny
offered to help us buy new stuff. For me, I needed some shin guards, a jersey
to protect my arms from the coarse Astroturf, and (of course) some gloves. In
total I spent around $25 on all of this via taobao. Normally it would have cost
me over $100 with about $80 for the gloves alone. The shipping is incredibly
fast too. I got everything I ordered within days (not weeks) of ordering it.
Unfortunately, since there are so few girls playing soccer in China, it was
hard to find gloves in my size. The ones I ordered came in and they were twice
the size of what I needed. Even though I specified the size I needed, the
gloves themselves were fake and thus did not meet the sizing criteria of
authentic ADIDAS gloves. I had to send them back and order a different pair.
The
weather is warming up and I’m starting to realize that I did not bring a
satisfactory amount of warm-weather clothing. Also, I’m bored of wearing jeans
and a shirt every day. I want to make an effort to be more presentable and more
fashionable every day. To do so, I need to revamp my wardrobe. I may buy some
new clothes through taobao since I can’t find any size larger than a small in
the local boutiques. I should mention that I don’t want to spend 300 yuan on a
shirt when I can spend 50 instead. I really only intend to buy a couple sun
dresses and maybe a skirt or two. I hope I can find something that fits me.
It’s not that I consider myself fat (I’ve actually lost a lot of weight since
I’ve been here) it’s just that the female Asian body type is very different
from my own. Also I’ve noticed that Asian fashion is quite different than the
style of clothes I’m accustomed to wearing. That could either be a good thing
or a bad thing. Either it will give me a fresh new look for my wardrobe OR I’ll
look like a damn fool. I’m willing to take the risk because you never know… and
besides, I’m on an adventure anyway, it’s only fitting that I be a little
daring!
Li
Laoshi is out of town for a couple weeks so she can attend a conference back in
Iowa. This means that we have a couple free weekends to do whatever we want.
Courtney, Nicole, Jamie, Lars and I wanted to go to Suzhou this past weekend.
Only Jamie and Lars ended up going, however, due to some complications that
occurred while the rest of us were in transit. Allow me to explain: Courtney
and I have our ESL class till 5:00 on Fridays. It normally takes about 40
minutes to get to the long distance bus station. The bus to Suzhou was set to
leave at 7:00, so we figured we had plenty of time to get there. However, we
were traveling in the middle of rush-hour traffic. When the three of us found
ourselves stuck down town at 6:45 with 9 stops to go, we gave up on our travel
plans. Instead we treated ourselves to a nice dinner and went back to help
celebrate Lily’s 20th birthday. The three of us agreed that even
though we couldn’t travel we would still make an effort to explore Hangzhou on
our own.
Some
of the things we considered doing were: visiting more gardens so we could enjoy
the plum flowers while they lasted and going back to the traditional street to
shop. On Saturday (Lily’s birthday) Courtney and I went with Lily and our
Chinese friend Felix to the traditional street so that Lily could find a good
birthday present. I found some postcards that had pictures from the Cultural
Revolution on them and even some slogans which I thought were really cool. I
didn’t buy them though because I still haven’t used all my postcards from
Shanghai. Instead I bought myself a journal with Zhou Enlai on the cover. Zhou
Enlai is one of my favorite figures in Chinese history, and I used his last
name in my own Chinese name (Zhou Kailin) for that reason. Lily wanted to go to
a garden after dinner, but the three of us got lost in the dark and before we
knew it we found ourselves under the overpass of the highway. We decided that
we should just take a taxi back to campus since it was already 9:30 and that we
could visit the garden another time. Hailing a taxi was harder than I thought.
In the past, Li Laoshi has been able to find open taxis very easily. We were
not so lucky. I learned that just because their green light is turned on, it
doesn’t always mean that the taxi is free. It was frustrating trying to get
what a thought was a free taxi to pull over just to discover, as they drove
past, that there was someone already in the car. Eventually we found a spot
were the taxis could safely pull over and stop for us, that wasn’t already
congested with people trying to get a taxi themselves. One taxi we tried to
hail slowed down and started to pull over like he was going to stop for us, but
then, at the last second, it swerved back into the street and sped away. Talk
about disappointment… Fortunately we were able to get the next one that came
our way.
Nicole likes to ride horses and even has a
couple of her own back in Virginia (where she’s from). Li Laoshi found her a
place in town where she could go ride. Courtney and I wanted to accompany her
to see the horses and maybe even ride the horses ourselves. That was our plan
for Sunday but it, again, failed to happen. The bus we needed to take was too
crowded for us to ride. Buses in China can get crowded fast. Riding on a
crowded bus is something I haven’t grown accustomed to yet. Personal space is
non-existent, so it’s common for you to find yourself pressed up against a
complete stranger with someone else breathing down your neck. Sometimes there
are enough people that you don’t have to hang on to anything because if the bus
suddenly stops, the people are packed in so tight there’s nowhere to fall. Anyway,
bus Y5, the one we needed to take to get to the horses was so full the driver
didn’t even open the doors to let more people on. People were already pressed
against the windows and doors so it was clear that there was just physically no
room for any more passengers. We waited for three bus cycles and each time bus
Y5 was equally as crowded. We gave up on that route and decided we would try to
take a taxi instead. It was impossible to find a taxi in the middle of the
afternoon. Every time we spotted a free one, a Chinese person would beat us to
it. It’s a lot easier for them because they know exactly where they’re going.
We, on the other hand, stumble through the pronunciation a couple times before
the taxi driver can understand what we’re trying to say. There was no time for
stumbling that day though and in the end, we had to admit defeat.
Even
though we didn’t have the weekend we’d originally planned, I was able to learn
something important about the Chinese public transportation system.
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