(this picks up from people part 1)

The other funny thing is how the Chinese worry about health.  The Chinese people want to be as healthy as possible, but they can never seem to carry through with their intention. Some examples…

-on one side of the street you will have a coal power plant on the other side the environmental department with a  special renewable energy building.

-  In the grocery store, there are more aisles of processed foods then I have ever seen, stuff like over six different flavors of Oreos (Chocolate, birthday cake, grape, strawberry, green tea, original, double stuffed, and more..), but then they have to have fruit, tea, and a balanced meal every day. Not to mention they have no idea what it means to be vegetarian.

-(There is an old man about 70, from the graduate side, who walks down my hall every night after dinner with a very slight flopping of his arms up and down.  A slow shuffle and movement to aid in the digestion of his dinner. Without fail every night at 8 he is there going up and down the halls.)

-You can see other stuff like offices having personal room air purifiers, but then they leave the window open or don’t wear a mask outside.

Its confounding, but what I find worst is their effort to work out. First they don’t change into workout cloths, they wear their every day cloths. This means you can see people running on the track in jeans, going to the local jungle gyms in slacks and collared shirts. (since there is no gym, they have these playgrounds for adults to work out on. They are composed of the simplest weight machines; squats, crunches, bar lifts, and bench press. All covered in a bright plastic color with about 10 to 15 pounds permanently attached.  They also have varying monkey bars and pull up bars. A jungle gym for grownups.) Once at this gyms they do a few lifts and then stand around.

 At the pool the Chinese only do one stroke, breast, and they only go down one length at a time. They stop at the wall and will wait for a couple of minutes after this one length.  Part of this is swimming being a very social event here and not just a work out. The wall sitting is not that annoying. What’s annoying is that most Chinese can’t really swim. I have never seen such bad swimmers, they swim so slow I can walk in the water faster than their breast stroke.  To swim in the deep end of the pool you have to go through a swim test because without this standard, there would be problems with people drowning. 

The pool is a nice Olympic size and very clean. In fact everyone who swims in the pool is required to wear a swim cap to stop hair from falling into the pool. (I choose a nice school spirited cap. My cap is  zebra striped in the school colors of purple and white. I also bought a new swim suit today decorated with flames. Cost $5 )  However I am worried the pool auditorium does not have filtered air, because at times I can see a fine haze near the sealing.  Plus while the water is clean it tends to have this weird mixture smell/taste of chlorine, lotion, and cigarette smoke.

I have joined the swim team/club. Not surprising, this club is mainly for teaching people how to swim. No one in the club can swim the same level I’m on. Since I already know how to swim, the admins leave me to do as I wish.  Being in the club reduces my entry fee (on club days) from $1.50 to $1.00, plus gives me access to less crowded times.  Which makes the club worthwhile despite the lack of interaction.

Of course, I also joined the running club.

Like the swimming club, the level of ability is low. However there are a few people who can keep pace with me on easy runs and the club members do have some experience running. They are not like the swimmer who don’t know how to swim. They can run.  Everything else about the club is just awesome. Everyone is very friendly. Many of the members can speak English and practice Chinese with me. They always, always invite me to have meals with them. They are very encouraging of running and have a great group atmosphere.  When I first went to the club, I was introduced to everyone and everyone introduced themselves to me. Now whenever I’m out, doing whatever, I always find one of the runners yelling “hi nick.” They invite me to none running activities and running actives. They already have me signed up for several long distance races (one of which is a 10K on the track, 25 laps ugh).  Today (3/17/13) we went to a mountain race called Xiang shan (good smelling mountain).I  did not have to pay any entry fee, got a free shirt and a nice 7 kilometer race. It was a little weird because I had no details about this race before hand. It was called a mountain race, but its more a race to the stop of the mountain. Yes it was 7K of up hills, no down hills.  And the change of elevation was over 700 meters or 2,500 feet.  This is a race I will never forget. I had to walk for short period about 3 times!!! It was a strategy to plan your walks on the steepest hills, because you walked as fast as you ran.  This is the first I ever doubted my ability to finish. I literally ran up a mountain. The effort was extreme. I started wearing a face mask but had to quickly rip this off because I feared I would pass out. And this race being 7K had every kind of uphill you could ever imagine, switch backs, long gradual, short steep hills you couldn’t see the top of.  The only thing that matched the effort this race required was the scenery. It was beautiful, I loved it.  You were on and surround by mountains. A never ending sea of steep slopes.  All of which was covered in a think and strong forest.  Looking down, you could see a small town that’s built into the feet of these mountains . A little further up you have the local temple, with its towers dwarfed by the towers of nature surrounding it. The only way the views could have been better is if there had been no smog. I can only imagine how far you would be able to see. That said, there was also a great sight of the mountains with the fogs. Peaks hidden from view, running with no end in sight. The other mountains to your side wrapped in the same white shrewd.  I’ve never seen a better image of the old and mystic.  Peaks you know have stood and watched Beijing for centuries.  Who will continue watching even through the smog.  I won third in the race, only because I didn’t know where the finish line was and some kid dashed right past me at it. My time was around 30 minutes and for third place I received a pair of shoes, a pair of tights, a red bull, and a trophy.  I was very popular as the only foreigner at the race. I was even popular for being a Tsinghua student. Tons of pictures were taken and I will send them out as soon as I get them from the other club members.  After the race I spent a little time in the town at the bottom of the mountains. It was almost as old as the mountains itself. I loved this town. All of the streets where very narrow, steep and old. There was a crumbling look to the town, but this was not a crumble of neglect. More of a long and continued use, worn aesthetic.  There were so many small alleys that spanned and interconnected the main street. All lined with old, small homes.  A few student got lost down these alleys.  It was an awesome town, a place you could only find in China.  All of it made for an amazing race.

Dorms and Foreigners

Besides meeting lots of Chinese people and students, I have also come to know a very wide range of international students. From Colombia and Brazil to Germany and France to Iran and Kuwait to Ethiopia and Kenya to Russia and Japan, to Australia and New Zeeland. You name the country and there is a very good chance I have come across one of their students. Strangely enough I have only come across about 10 students from the states. None of these American students go to private university. Everyone I have meet goes to a public university (Virginia, Wisconsin,  Georgia).  The nationalities you do see the most here is South Korean, Malaysian, and surprisingly French.  

My roommate Li and I even had a run into one of these French girls.  A couple of Saturdays  ago, I came back to the dorm around 8pm and found Li gone. Knowing Li , I guessed he was at the nearby Café studying . He was there but with him was this French girl, whom he was helping with Chinese. I sat down and began to study myself. At this time the French girl (Li nor I ever found out this girls name) was nothing to special. She was just a little overbearing, but in a way that fulfilled my French stereotype.  All three of us studied for about an hour and then the French girl left with 4 other Frenchmen for dinner. At the mention of dinner I talked to Li about getting a pizza. A couple more hours of studying go by and the French girl shows back up at the coffee shop without having had any dinner.  We are just leaving to go back to the dorm and order the pizza, so Li invites the French girl to come with us and have a slice. We get to our dorm and the first signs of trouble start to show. Right away, without asking, the French girl lays down on my bed and begins to spread out all of her study materials. I just ignore this as Li and I order the pizza.  The pizza ends up taking an 1 and half to arrive. As we are waiting the French girl notices we have a bunch of hangers in our room without any clothes on them.  She asks why we have so many and if she could take a few.  Li ( who owns the hangers) says he doesn’t care and to go ahead and take a few.  So she ends up taking eight. Finally the pizza arrives, now originally the French girl was only going to have one piece of pizza, so Li and I split the bill for the pizza. But when we start eating the French girl eats three pieces. Now Li is very nice and is ok with paying for her pizza, but at this point I’m starting to get little tired of the French girl. Anyway after we finish the pizza it is 1am and both Li and I are ready to go to bed.  We make the proper, but not rude, implications that its time for the French girl to leave.  And she days “NO, I’m going to sleep hear tonight. You two can share the other bed. Your boys.”  I’m not having this, I am going to sleep in my bed.  But just to get a clear picture I ask her where she lives. She says the building next door.  I respond “You need to leave” and Li asks politely please leave.  Still she refuses.  Li thinks its improper for a boy and girl to share a room so he decides to not sleep tonight and just stay in the study room.  As he leaves he tells the French girl she can have his bed, but she still refuses to move. Li leaves, I decided its time to use force.  I lay in my bed next to her hoping my presence will make her move. She stays put.  I push her out of my bed and then take up the whole bed. She tries to move me fails and then sits on the biggest open section she can find, ending up half sitting on me.  I ask her why she is doing this, just leave or at least sleep on Li’s bed, but she just mummers in French.  We sit this way for a couple of minutes as I think about physically forcing her out of my room. I don’t won’t to use force but its looking necessary. Finally I say “if you don’t  get off of me and this bed, I will flip this bed over and no one will sleep in it.” She says “try”. Ok, I get out and start to lift the bed with her in it. She then ask me to “stop stop stop”, If I can get Li to come back to the room so he will sleep in his bed she will leave. I agree, but she is leaving after I get Li. Yet before I go I think, better take my Keys and wallet just to be safe.  I come back with Li and she is finally packing up to leave and finally leaves at 2:30am. The last thing she says to me right before she leaves “smart to take your keys.”

With her gone, I asked Li “how do you this girl and why would she not leave?” Li says “I don’t know her, I meet her tonight through a mutual French friend. I don’t even know her name.”

Salesmen

A couple of weeks ago I looked at  buying a phone but decided to try and go without one. Today, I broke down and  tried to buy one.  But the man at the electronic store wanted 250RMB for a phone without a phone card. While I have seen phones for 200 RMB with phone cards.  So I walked out.  The electronic store happened to be by the grocery store. I went in to get groceries. On my way in  I saw a newspaper stand that sold phones. Without evening looking at the man behind the counter I asked about the phones.  When the man started talking, I realized it was the same guy I just saw in the electronic store, but this time he wanted only 150 RMB for the phone! How crazy, I was being followed by a salesmen store to store.

The other thing about salesmen is when they see your foreign. They either offer you a really good deal or they try to scam you. The phone man was clearly over charging, but often I have gotten very fair and cheap prices for food without even having to barter. Other times people will try to over charge you or give you the wrong change.  A couple of times this wrong change has been a large amount 20 RMB or $3. But most often your change will be 1 RMB short of what it should be, which I tend to never argue about since this sums to about a dime.