Hello again Everyone!
It’s Saturday morning on July 11th here in tropical Suzhou, so that means it’s time to update the blog! This past week was the halfway point in our time here, so it was planned as a vacation. For the past 5 days we have traveled around different cities in the area with the big ones being Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Shanghai. I know many of you haven’t heard of Hangzhou or Nanjing, but they are famous and important cities here. Hangzhou is home to West Lake, an absolutely beautiful lake that has been there for centuries. Nanjing was the capital city of China a couple of times, most recently for the KMT. It is most famous for being invaded by Japan, their military went a little overboard. By the end, the soldiers there had killed around 300,000 people in about 1 month. If you want to know more about that, you should look up the Rape of Nanking (same city, just a different way of romanizing Chinese). However, the city holds a special place in my heart because that’s where I lived when I studied in China for 5 months (feel free to check out my old blog which goes into my time there).
The trip was a lot of fun, but it was tiring too. We climbed some mountains which were all absolutely beautiful (even though I was sweating like crazy by the time I reached the top). The first mountain we climbed, Daming Mountain (大明山) was surrounded by fog so you couldn’t see anything past the mountains. It made it feel as though the rest of the world didn’t exist making it quite peaceful. It was also raining a lot, which made the normally small waterfall quite large. We all got soaked from the rain and waterfalls, but it was worth it. We climbed up, but we took a cable car down. It was a lot of hiking, plus it involved 2 suspension bridges which were very high up, one was 48 meters (157 feet) above the rapidly moving waterfall. On the way down we had to walk on a path that extended out over the side of the mountain. I’m not a fan of heights, so this wasn’t the easiest thing for me. The second mountain was a little different because it had multiple ways to get down. You could ride a slide down (like the previous mountain) or zipline down, or you could just walk down too. They also had a waterslide that took you out into the parking lot. It was a beautiful mountain and I found it to be quite peaceful.
Then we went to Hangzhou, which is famous for it’s West Lake. The lake is so famous that it is actually on the back of the 1 kuai bill here. The highlight of Hangzhou was riding a boat across the lake. You could see the ancient city and architecture in the lake, but off in the distance you could see the modern city and it’s sky-scrapers. That night we found a jazz bar and hung out there while listening to a band perform. The band didn’t play for very long, but they were pretty good and it was a nice evening.
After Hangzhou we went to Nanjing, my favorite city. Unfortunately, what I wanted to see and do didn’t really line up with the tour guide’s plan. It was alright though, the first night we went to Fuzi Miao (夫子庙). If you have ever talked to me, pretty much ever, or read my old blog then you know that Fuzi Miao (夫子庙) is one of my favorite places in Nanjing. It’s right on a river, they have beautiful lights there at night, and they had an absolutely amazing fake market there where you could find literally anything you wanted (like the first time I was there, my group was offered a live owl; another time a tazer). However, in the four since I was last there, it had changed a lot. Gone was most of the fake market, leaving only the tourist trap stands. In their place were new buildings with legitimate businesses. It had become a tourist trap. Needless to say, I was a little down about that because this was the part of the trip I was really looking forward to. It ended up being alright, I still had some fun and there were still some of the stands that I remembered. Plus some of the new stuff wasn’t bad. We ended up playing cards in a room that was open to the outside and overlooked the river. Unfortunately though, I had no chance to go to Ellen’s, a bar and grill which I used to go to the first time I was there because our hotel was so far away. I have multiple maps of Nanjing and the hotel that we stayed at isn’t on there. It was a 45 minute drive, so I wasn’t willing to pay for the taxi to even get to the nearest subway station, it would have just cost too much. I plan on saving all of my favorite things for when I go back in a couple of weekends to see my host family from the first trip.
The next day we went to the tomb of Sun Yat Sen and then the Presidential Palace. Sun Yat Sen’s tomb is on a mountain and is quite pretty. Sun Yat Sen is important to Chinese history because he led the first rebellion against the war lords that took power after the emperor was dethroned. He is remembered fondly by both the people and government of China even though he brought democracy to China. The thinking is, without first going through a democratic step, it would have been impossible to start the Communist revolution. The same is not really said about his successor Chang Kai Shek, but the thought process is that his rule was a necessary step towards Communism.
After there we went on to Shanghai. We went to the Bund when we arrived there that night, but it wasn’t all that great because there was an insane amount of fog due to the two typhoons that were coming in. You could hardly see across the river and most of the sky-scrapers were hidden in the fog. It was so thick that you couldn’t even see any of the light from the building. We ended up going out that night to a cool place called Windows. We had some fun and played some darts and pool. It just had a really fun atmosphere.
The next day we went to the Shanghai Museum, which I found to be fairly interesting. I spent my limited time there looking at the exhibits on the evolution of Chinese money and also the one of Chinese paintings. While looking at the exhibit on the paintings, one of the TA’s and I started discussing art, and by discussing I mean she was teaching me all about the paintings and the different styles of the painters. It was one of those conversations that I would have had difficulty following in English, but it was even more difficult because we only spoke in Chinese. I did manage to learn something about Chinese art though, so I’d call that a win. After the museum, we had lunch and then had a couple hours to explore Shanghai. A few of us and our professor went to a fake market and then hung out in People’s Square. The fake market was a little too sketchy, so we left and just walked around. When we got to our meeting point, we got back on the bus and returned to Suzhou.
When we got back, we were all tired and hungry. We relaxed a little and then got some food. This weekend shouldn’t be too bad. Today I’m going to try and get a large chunk of my homework done, as I have a paper due tonight and then a rough draft of my research report and power-point due Monday night. This time around I am researching how college age students watch movies. It may seem kind of simple (and admittedly it is), but it is important to understand how our generation watches movies. I also think that this research might tie into future research. I really want to talk to people about piracy, but it’s such a grey area as it is and my Chinese isn’t quite good enough for such a complex topic.
Scary thought though, I’ll be home in exactly three weeks. This time in Suzhou is kind of weird because it feels like it’s going so fast but it also feels like I have been here for a while. It’s hard to explain. As always, feel free to contact me by email if you ever want to talk! Maybe one day I’ll stop being lazy and put some pictures on here, but we’ll see. See you all soon!