September 2004

9-30-04

I got up at 8:30 this morning and went to school early because I needed to print my group project about Chinese music out before class started. At 11 I went to the class and someone there smelled so bad that I could hardly stand it.
In my next class, international business, we had a guest speaker who was a management consultant from Japan. During the presentation I watched Lisbeth eat a giant carrot. Most of the grocery stores here sell these and Lisbeth often has one in her hand. Every time I see her with one she reminds me of Bugs Bunny.
My next class had previously been cancelled, so I went to the canteen and ate with Santiago, Anders, Lizbeth and a Swedish guy. We ate in the cafeteria area and I ordered the soup of the day along with a rice dish. The soup of the day was a bowl of slightly greasy water with 1 pathetic looking little carrot in it.
After lunch I went to the computer lab until Mandarin class started at 5. Afterwards I was walking down the hill with a group of exchange students and I found a full can of beans on the sidewalk. There was nobody coming up the hill so I set the can on its side and released it down the sidewalk. At that time a scooter came around the corner and began coming up the hill. The can was accelerating fast and it turned towards the street. The small scooter had two people on it and was now heading directly towards the can. All the exchange students and I stopped and prepared for the worst. The can and scooter remained on a collision course and the driver appeared not to notice. When they met, his tire missed the can by about an inch. He didn’t even notice. The can continued and rolled for almost a minute before it came to a stop at the bottom of the hill.
Afterwards, the German guy that was walking next to me, Ooly, mentioned what had happened to a French student two years ago. He had gotten drunk and jumped of the bridge between Taipa and Macau, which is tall enough to let big ships pass. He belly flopped and was knocked unconscious, but was saved by another French guy who had also jumped with him, but in the correct way. The injured guy almost died from a bleeding liver. The headline in the local paper the next day read “French Lose World Cup”, and the sub-headline underneath it was “French Jump off Bridge”.
So, Ooly told me that tomorrows headline could have read, “American Rolls Can of Beans Down Hill and Kills Scooter Driver”.
When I got home Raj cooked some more of his Indian food. After dinner I cleaned up the kitchen, then spent some time using my computer, and I am worried because it has started to give me some problems. I don’t have a warranty.

9-29-04

I got up at 11 today and walked Park-N-Shop with Raj. He bought some food to make an Indian meal(his dad is from India), and we shot some video in the store. Click here to see it Back at home I used my computer to prepare some videos for the Internet, then went to the computer lab. Kaisa asked me last night to put a video message to her friend back home on my website, so I made a page for her (you can’t see it because she made me censor it on October 12). All the Finnish girls left today for 10 day vacations, which I don’t have the money for, so I have to find new people to spend my time with for a while. Will everyone please deposit a few dollars into Old National Bank account # 120400020, seriously, I might run out of money here and have to start eating the stray dogs.
At 5 Lisbeth came over for the Indian meal that Raj was working on. I talked to her while Raj slaved over the hot stove. Delphine came over at 6 and the food was done shortly after that, and it was excellent. It was white rice and drumsticks cooked in some kind of mildly spicy sauce. After the meal we sat around and drank a bottle of wine.
The last few years I have had good luck at finding some roommates who cook very well, and ironically it has never been the girls. I fear that things are changing, and in 100 years guys may do all the homemaking. Maybe they will even be able to get an operation that allows them to have the babies. The women will go to work, then come home, get drunk and beat us.
When the girls left Raj and I walked to the computer lab for an hour. Lizbeth came to the lab shortly after us and I walked home with her. As we were walking down the hill she slid on sand and fell into a woman that was coming up the hill. Lisbeth’s hand came down on the lady’s purse and she though Lisbeth was trying to steal it until she realized what had happened. In the elevator, Lisbeth told me a story that took place when she used to be a mail carrier in Denmark. She rode a large bicycle and one day she saw a man run out of a business with people chasing him. She realized that he had just stole something, so she got her mail bike going full speed and used it to run the man over, which resulted in his capture. I will never look at Lisbeth in the same way.

9-28-04

I got up at 10:30 today, then took a shower. My business communication class was previously cancelled, but I walked to campus to use the Internet. As I was walking up the hill I passed Johanna, Riitta and #2. Johanna was headed to a photo store to get her picture taken for a chinese visa application, so I walked with her. The picture took 30 minutes to get developed, so we sat at Mcdonalds accross the street and ate.
We then walked back to campus, where Johanna met Kaisa and took her passport. She then asked me if I would go to the travel agency in Macau with her to apply for a visa. Johanna, Kaisa and Riitta are all planning a 10 day trip to Shanghai starting tomorrow. I wanted to go with them, but I don’t have enough money.
Johanna and I took a bus to Macau and walked to the same travel agency that I had used to apply for our group visa 2 weeks ago. It only took a minute and then we headed back towards the bus stop. We took our time because neither of us had anywhere to be for an hour. We looked at some fish in the window tanks of a restaraunt and discussed the true definition of an ugly fish, which we debated in previous days. Next we walked into a department store and laughed at the things that are sold as home decorations here, such as a big pink ceramic elephant, a giant cat covered in gold glitter and pigs wearing lingerie. I did see a fan I liked and decided to buy that. I have often been sitting at my hot apartment alone at night, fantasizing about being with the perfect fan.
I found a store employee and pointed at the fan, expecting her to go to the back and get one for me, but she just took the display model to the front and started wiping all the dust off it. It was funny, but I didn’t really care because it was big and cheap, just like in my fantasy. She plugged it in and the blades turned….perfect. When I checked out there was no bag big enough to fit it in, so they put in in a small bag and tied another bag around the handles so I could carry it that way.
Next, Johanna and I walked back to campus and I carried the fan there with me. She still had some time before her class started, so we sat outside in the garden on campus. It was hot out and I tried to find a place to plug my fan in, but the outdoor outlets were too far from the ledge that we were sitting on. At 2 Johanna went to class and I went to the computer lab. At 3:30 we went to the canteen where she got some food and I got a strawberry frozen yogurt shake. It was the best shake I have ever had. After the meal I went home and worked on deciphering the rest of the english in the paper that my group members had given me yesterday. It was again difficult, but once I can understand what they are trying to say, it can be very interesting. For example, one of thier papers discusses what happened when western music was banned during the Cultural Revolution of the 60’s and 70’s.
At 5:30 Johanna and I went back to the computer lab to send some emails. On my way back home I stopped by the store to get some beer for the party tonight. I went home and took a shower. Before Raj and I left for the party, two French stopped for a few minutes and asked about our trip to Shanghai, as they are planning one also. At 9 Raj and I walked to Mcdonalds for dinner, then to the party, which was for an exchange students birthday. Week 3 of the international fireworks competition was taking place during the party and the apartment we were in had a full view of it. click here to see At 1 the party ended and everyone decieded to go to nightclub DD. There was a live band playing and we surprised to learn that one of the French guys has a boyfreind in the band. At 3:30 Johanna went outside for an hour and talked, then took a cab back to Taipa.

9-27-04

I got up at 9 this morning and went to Park-N-Shop to buy some groceries I needed to make dinner tonight. I agreed to cook a “typical American dinner” for the Finnish girls. I found some Tuna Helper, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and corn.
At 11 I went to consumer marketing class and we worked on our group projects there. The teacher was not there today, but had earlier agreed to give us this free day. My two group members gave me thier part of our paper and I gave them mine. We were suppost to talk about it in class, but I could not easily understand exactly what thier papers were saying, so I told them I would get back to them after I read it more slowly. I still had 45 minutes before my next class, so I walked to the computer lab with Johanna.
During international business the teacher asked me if it was really true that people in America did not know how to cook. I told him that most young people do not know how to cook really good food and it is considered very attractive if they do. He then asked me if I had come to China to find a wife that could cook. I said “yes” and looked at all the chinese girls who sit at the back of the class, who avoided looking back at me. One of them then said that she was looking for a man to cook for her. It looks like the stereotype about submissive asain women may soon be changing…..so if anybody wants one, you better get here fast.
In statistics class I had a quiz that I probably did not get anything right on. After class, Dash called me and asked if I wanted to go to Mcdonalds with him. I met him and he took me there on his scooter. We sat there until my next class started. He is also in the statistics class with me, and he said that we were allowed to look at formulas during all tests and quizes. I asked the teacher the first day of class about this and she said “no, never”. I sit in the front of the class, so I had not noticed that everyone else behind me was looking at formulas.
At 5 Dash took me back to the campus and I went to Mandarin class. At 6:30 class ended and it was time to cook dinner. After class, Kaisa told me I could stop by her place and borrow a pan from her roomate. I went all the way up to the 23rd floor and rang the bell. I heard her roomate watching TV and I heard footsteps to the door, but it didn’t open. I rang again…….nothing. I walked downstairs 5 floors to borrow the pan from Johanna’s roomates, but nobody was home, so I went back to the 23rd floor and rang the bell longer. All I heard now was the TV so I decided to leave. As I was getting on the elevator I saw Kaisa’s other roomate getting off. I asked her about the pan and she said she needed it tonight. As I was waiting on the elevator I heard her open the door and say hello to the other roomate, who really had been sitting there the entire time.
I could manage without the pan so I went on home, just stopping at the store for some disposable plates. When I started preparing the food I soon realized that I had forgotten the can opener, so Raj and I walked back downstairs to the store and bought that. I didn’t have a potholder either, so I used a teeshirt and burn’t myself, which caused me to spill half the macaroni in the sink when I drained it.
After 8, the Finnish girls, Kent, Lisbeth and Johan all showed up for dinner. They brought 2 bottles of wine and dessert with them. Raj put on some 3 Tenors music and we had a very sophisticated Tuna Helper meal. Everyone asked me alot of questions about the food and I was surprised to hear that they had never had anything like it before. I would have expected these foods to be as popular in Europe as they are in the US. For dessert we had mooncakes, which are the traditional chinese food of the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is going on right now.
We all sat around for an hour after dinner, then everyone left. I decided to try and descipher the english on the papers that my two group members had given me in class earlier today. It was so painful that I drank an entire bottle of wine that was left over from dinner.

9-26-04

I got up at 11 today. After I had a shower, Raj and I went to Mcdonald’s and Park-N-Shop. Back at home I spent some time on my computer creating some new videos for the Internet. Johanna called me early in the afternoon and I met her in front of her apartment. The two of us went to the computer lab and worked on our project where we have to analyze Chinese music. We have the same class, but could not be in the same group because exchange students are not allowed to work on projects together.
After leaving the lab we called Kaisa and met her in front of her apartment. We walked to a restaraunt called “Macau Kitchen”, but it was closed, so we went exploring for something new. After a bit of a walk we found a place that looked clean. We sat down and they brought us hot tea(as most restaraunts in China do). We asked for an english menu and they shook thier heads no. Most places in this city have english menus, so we were surprised. We were too hungry to be brave and just point at something on the Chinese menu, so we found another restaraunt down the street. We again asked for an english menu and again we were denied. The waitress asked us if we spoke Cantonese. Thinks looked bad, but then she started speaking to us in descent english, and we were all able to successfully order. When she brought our silverware, I said “Mgoy"(thank you), and she said “Oooh, Powerful”. Our food turned out to be very cheap and very good.
After dinner we went to a park across the street from the restaraunt. It was the space of about half a block and was walled on all sides There were kids playing on the edges and a garden in the middle with a pond. Bridges went over the pond and when we stood a bridge turtles crowded underneath us and waited for a meal. We sat there and watched these turtles for a while, then went to Mcdonalds for desert. There I learned how to say “You are very sexy” in Finnish. After this we walked back to our aparments.
I used my computer for a while, then Johanna called and asked if I wanted to go on a walk with her and Kaisa. I joined them in front of thier apartment and we walked along the shore behind the universtity. We found a park about 30 minutes into our walk and sat there for a while. I pushed Kaisa and Johanna on a merry-go-round and then they pushed me. We found a path that went a few feet into the forest where a waterfall was located. The path was very dark and we could hardly see anything. All of the sudden, toads “attacked” from every direction. We had not realized that they had been quietly sitting on the dark path the entire time. As soon as we disturbed one it made a sound and caused all the others to start jumping around. The girls didn’t like this and quickly moved back to a more well light area.
I was back home about an hour after our walk had started.

9-25-04

I didn’t get up till 11:30 this morning because I was out until almost 4 last night. I took a shower then took my laundry out of the washing machine. Yesterday when I paid the rent, I complained that our stove and washing machine still did not work, and someone had come to fix them while we were gone. Last night I put clothes in the machine for the first time. It is smaller than an American washing machine but does not have that plastic piece in the middle, so there is enough space to wash a descent amount of clothes. All chinese washing machines in homes look like this. Yesterday I watched it start the cleaning process and I though that it looked like it was being too gentle and would never get my clothes clean. But now I think that it uses razor blades later in the washing cycle. Some of my socks had big holes in them that hadn’t been there before, and one of my shirts was stretched beyond repair. It was amazing that something as durable as a sock had holes, while the thin teeshirts were mostly OK. All the clothes were also full of little peices of sand. I shook each item as I took it out and there was a thick layer of sand on the floor when I was finished. There is no dryer in my home(as in most others here), so I hung some of my clothes on the balcony, which made me feel chinese. You can see laundry hanging 40 stories in the air at most of the highrise apartments here.
For lunch Raj and I went to the restaraunt on the corner and I ordered a very spicy dish with rice, porkchops and a black pepper sauce. We then went back home and I used my computer to prepare some things for the website, then I went to the computer lab to upload my work.
At 5:45 I went to a supermarket to get some beer and I then met Raj and other exchange students at the bus stop. We went to the beach in Coloane for a party there. We threw a football around during the few minutes of daylight left, but I got two eyefulls of sand early in the game and had to quit and recover. At dark we walked to the party, which was at a park further down the beach.
The park was one of the greatest places I have seen here and I was surprised that I had been to this beach before without ever noticing it. It covers an area of shoreline that is about a half mile long, and there are cement picnic tables and barbeque pits along the entire length. There were thousands of chinese at the park and each table had dozens of them. Each group had thier own gas lantern at the table, which they rent from the park for the evening. Every BBQ pit was in use. In the middle of the park is a basketball court with several hoops on it. There were a couple hundred kids playing there that had been brought in on buses.
We found the party at one of the tables at the very end of the park. There were at first about 20 exchange students and within an hour there were 30-40. Raj and I went to the basketball courts and found a team that would let us join. The chinese probably thought I would be good because I was tall and white, but I missed every shot, so I just started passing to Raj, who made most of his shots. It is easy to pass over the heads of the chinese, because most of them are shorter than me, but it is impossible to contain them when they have the ball. They moved like lightning, but luckily they missed most of thier shots. There was one tall guy wearing a basketball jersey that got all the points for the other team.
After about 30 minutes of basketball we went back to the party and helped to get the fire going. I was getting some dry leaves at the edge of a forest and I found a big frog. Raj is as scared of frogs as most people are of spiders and snakes, so I saw an opportunity. When I picked up the frog it surprised me by inflating itself into a round ball that was twice its normal size…..perfect. I tapped Raj on the shoulder and he looked at the frog in my hand, then took a few steps back into the shadows. I showed a few others the frog then put it back in the forest. A couple minutes later I realized that Raj remained in the shadows because he thought I still had the frog.
While the fire was getting hot we unsucessfully tried to play rugby in the sand. At 9 the Portugese exchange students came with enought food to feed everyone. They had about 50 pounds of meat, bread and 2 giant salads. Others cut up fresh fruit and made Sangria. Everything was great and the meat was especially good.
After dinner I found a glow stick and was talking to Pedro and Raj while I had it in my hands. I was tying it in a knot, but not really paying attention to myself do this. I then hear Pedro gasp and I see that he is covered from head to toe with tiny glowing green dots. The glow stick had exploded all over the 3 of us, but Pedro got the worst of it.
At 11:30 Raj and I took a bus back to Taipa.

I got up at 10 and took a shower, then went to the 7th floor to give my rent money to the property manager, Yolanda. She was not home, but her maid was, and we got her on the phone. Yolanda said I could give the maid the money. I went to Business Communication class at 12:30 and we talked more about writing english sentences. Johanna called when class was over and I agreed to meet her at 3:30. In the meantime I went to the computer lab and I found my neighbor, Milan, there. I talked to her and used the Internet for an hour, then met Johanna at the 9 Dragon Wall. We took a bus to Macau and had lunch at KFC. There are lots of extra employees there that just stand around and smile at you while you eat. If you need a napkin or something, they notice and bring it to you.
After lunch we walked to the book store. They had both the books that Yohanna needs, but only 1 of the 2 that I need. They promised it would be in next week, as they did last week as well. Next Johanna and I walked through a park and to the shoreline. We sat on a bench there for a while, then decided to explore the area by the water. There is a stairway that goes to the bottom of the floodwall, which leads to a narrow path that runs between the wall and the water. The bottom of the stairway was littered with trash and dead animals, but the path looked clean, so we went ahead. The further along the path we walked, the worse it became. It degraded from descent to just piles of rocks. We thought that there would be another stairway somewhere that went back to the top of the floodwall, but we came to a dead end. There was a huge pile of rocks there and huge rats ran everywhere when they saw us. Johanna did not care for the rats and we turned around to go back. At this time a big ship went by really fast and waves crashed over the walkway. There had been a dry green layer of moss over the walkway and when the water hit it it became as slick as ice. The water got our pants and feet wet and Johanna’s sandals did not have any traction, so she almost fell several times.
We made it back to the stairway and then looked for a cab. The driver of the first one that stopped let us in then told us to get back out, but we don’t know why. We found another cab and went back to Macau to dry out. I went home, then went back to the bus stop at 7:30 to meet all the Finnish girls, Anders and Bora. Anders is almost a foot taller than me. We took 2 cabs to the area in Macau by the gold statue. Click here to see the gold statue We walked to an Italian restaraunt and sat there for about 2 1/2 hours. I had the best lasagna ever. After dinner I rubbed the top of my wine glass to make it hum. Everyone at my table looked at me like I was crazy. None of them had ever seen anyone do that before and they acted as if it was magic. I taught them how to do it and they all learned quick and kept practicing. Within about 5 minutes an employee came to our table and said “shhhhhhhh”.
After dinner we walked towards the bus stop. We walked through the park that I had been to with Johanna earlier in the day, but when we tried to leave we found that the gates were locked. We found a guard to let us out and then took a bus back to Taipa. We then walked to the Irish pub and and played 2 games of pool. Noone had hardly ever played before, so each game took almost an hour. I met an African lawyer there that had worked in Macau for 15 years. He told me his biggest cases had involved drug smuggling and that all major drug offenders on the mainland are punished by firing squad. He told me that they keep you in jail for up to 1 month, then put you against a wall facing several soldiers with machine guns. Only one of the soldiers has real bullets, so they don’t know who it was that killed you. How considerate.

9-23-04

I got up at 10 and went to the computer lab til my first class started at 11. When I went to my 12:30 class I found that it had changed rooms. Johanna called me after my 3:30 Statistics class and I met her at the 9 Dragon Wall(a wall on campus with nine dragons sculpted on it). We walked to the canteen and Kaisa called me on the way there and said she would meet us. Johanna joked that she was jealous that Kaisa had called me and not her. We sat at one of the booths with couches and all had something to eat.
At 4:30 we went to the computer lab, then we went to a new class that started today, Mandarin Chinese. A beginning level chinese class was not planned by the university, but was organized at the last minute because of complaints by the exchange students (last week they told me I had to pay $130 for this class and another student later told me they were taking it for free, so I called the FBA office they said I could get my money back, but why did they take it in the first place?) Almost every exchange student was in class and they were all laughing at the strange sounds of the language.
At 6:30 I bought a flashlight after I left Mandarin class. Raj was home and he was playing some new computer games that he had just got. At 7:30 I met Riitta, Johanna and Kaisa at the bus stop. We walked up the mountain behind my apartment to search for the trail we had seen there 2 weeks ago. We found a stairway next to the road that goes up the side of the mountain. There was so much moonlight that I did not even need my flashlight. There was a pagoda at the very top of the mountain and a trail around the top of it. The mountain is big and it took us about an hour to walk the entire trail. We saw and heard lots of unknown creatures on our journey. There was a small park along the trail and we tried out the swings, and there were other acrobatic structures along other parts of the trail. We tried hanging from hoops and walking across beams. At another area we saw a gate with a radiation symbol on it and a guard shack next to it. The shack had been abandoned for a long time and it looked like a homeless person was living in it. The girl got scared and ran away from it and I told them that a radioactive man with 3 eyes lived there.
When I got back home Raj was there with Santiago(Columbian). I decided to go with them to the Macau shoreline and have a drink. We went accross the street to wait on others to meet us, but the others were taking thier time meeting us, so I decided to get some dinner at Mcdonalds and go home.

9-22-04

I got up at 10 and noticed that I had missed calls from Johanna at 1 A.M. I felt bad because I was suppost to be following her to nightclub DD after the party last night, but I had never made it. Her phone was broken and I could not call and apologize, so I took a shower and went to the library cafe for lunch, where I had a chicken sandwich. I had no classes today, but I had to meet my consumer marketing group at 12:30. Summer and Martin(my group members) were late to meet me. We found a spot in the library where we could talk and I helped them fix the english they had translated from chinese songs. After an hour and a half we finished our work for the day and I went outside to call Kaisa because I wanted to see what her and Johanna were doing today. She didn’t answer so I went home and used my computer.
Johanna called me a little later and asked me to meet her and Kaisa at the square in Macau, so I went to the bus stop. I waited on a bus for a long time and then the traffic was terrible on the bridge and in Macau, so it took me almost 45 minutes to get there. See the spot I met them! I found the girls sitting on a bench by the fountain next to a drunk Australian. He told me what countries my family anscestors were from, that I had a younger brother and sister, and nice eyelashes. He paid a pedicab driver 5 Pataca to pedal him around in circles.
The girls and I walked around the city and Kaisa and I looked for shoes, but I am going to have to give up on finding any my size. We went into a grocery store and I tried to get Kaisa to try on a dog collar and she said “maybe later”. Johanna bought a KitKat-like candy that was stale. We then took a bus back to Macau.
I decided to get some dinner at Mcdonalds, then bought some beer on my way home. I stopped by my neighbors apartment to pick up my speakers and CD’s that I had let them borrow last night. Johanna and Kaisa came over at 9 and we watched Schindler’s List. The girls left after the movie and Raj came home. I talked to him for a while and used my computer.

9-21-04

I had class at 12:30 today. I had an assignment from the book due but I went to the bookstore and they still don’t have the books in. Class has been in session for 3 weeks and there are still no books for lots of classes. So I couldn’t turn my assignment in, but does it even matter, because none of my classes will transfer to SIU and my grade point average will not be affected by them. In class I am the only non-chinese and today we learned how to form english sentences. I feel like a teacher there and not a student.
After class I went to the fast food section of the canteen and got two sandwiches, an egg and a ham-n-cheese. I went to my spot on campus and I ate my sandwiches there. I found this spot a couple weeks ago and I sit there all the time now. This campus is very crowded, but my spot is at the end of a walkway that noone uses, and it is on the 5th floor with a good view. I also have another spot with is even better, because I have a view of both the ocean and the Macau skyline, but some chinese have recently been invading that spot.
Next I went to the computer lab for 2 hours, then I went home and watched 2 episodes of “24? with Raj. We then walked to Mcdonalds for dinner. Today was Lisbeth’s 26th birthday and she had a party that started at 6 birthday. Lisbeth lives in the apartment accross the hall and she is an exchange student from Denmark. Her roomate, Milan, is from Holland. Raj and I hang out with the two girls occasionally.
I let Lisbeth borrow my computer speakers and MP3 music for the party, so I carried these things there with me. When I got there I was surprised to see that Lisbeth had carfully made about 50 sandwiches, which she had displayed across the table.
Dash(Chinese guy from my statistics class) called me at 7:30 and asked me to meet him by the busstop because he could not find the party. I went to the busstop, but he was nowhere to be seen. I did see Johanna and Kaisa there and we walked to the party together. As soon as we got there Dash called again and told me he was on the street in front of my building. I went down and let him in. He brought some chicken with a good marinade on it. Dash was the only chinese at the party and he is full of energy. His english is good and he uses it alot. The exchange students at the party really liked him..
Everbody left the party at 11:30 and went to nightclub DD. I was going to go, but when I got on the elevator with everybody else, the overweight alarm went off and I had to get out. I must be fat. I went back to my apartment while I waited on another elevator. I laid in my bed for a second and fell asleep. When I got up I realized that everybody else was gone and I had noone to share a cab with, so I stayed home. Raj and I watched an episode of “24?.

9-20-04

I got up at 10 today and had a Mcdonalds breakfast on my way to school. In consumer marketing class we watched a video where a middle-class Japanese girl talked about having sex with 11 men in one day so she could buy a $2000 purse that she really wanted. She claimed that she had never been a prostite before and she would never be one again, she just really wanted the purse.
I next went to my International Business and Statistics class, then I spent 3 hours in the computer lab. I worked on my group project where I have to analyze Chinese music. I then went to Mcdonalds for the second time today and got a Mcchicken value meal. When I went home, Raj and Joseph were there. Joseph is an exchang student from Holland that has spent 3 years here. When he came here he was a year away from graduation, but since he decided to stay it took him 3 extra years. He lives on 1000 Pataca a month, which is a little over $100, and lives with 6 chinese people. All this because he met a chinese girl here 3 years ago. She must be really great.
After eating my Mcdonald’s I went to the CTM phone office to try and find out why my phone will no longer let me call Johanna. They told me my phone was fine and hers was the one that was broken. I then went to Johanna’s apartment and met her and Kaisa there. We walked to the computer lab and I gave them english advice about papers that they were typing.
When I went back home Raj, Santiago(Columbia) and Pedro(Argentina) were there. The three of us sat around and talked and drank beer for 2 hours. They asked alot of questions about the government and lots of other American things. Everybody is always asking me about Bush, Iraq and religion. I think I will just start making things up. I could say that I’m a Bushologist and I support the extermination of the Iraqi people.

9-19-04

I got up at 10:30 this morning and took a shower, then talked to Johanna and Kaisa til the checkout time at 12. We then met the other girls downstairs and checked out. We left our luggage with the hotel for the day. Next we walked to a massage parlor that was next door. A girl at the door took us upstairs and there was a big room at the top with lots of recliner-style chairs and a big screen TV in the front of the room. Most of the chairs had customers sitting in them that were getting foot massages. We were taken to a private room which looked similar to the one we had yesterday. There was a TV in the room and they turned it on, but we asked them to turn it back off. The same thing happened yesterday and we asked them to turn it off then also. We were left by ourselves for a few minutes and then our 5 masseuses came in. Today I got the bad one. She talked loudly throughout the 2 hour massage and hurt my back several times times. Her fingers were small and hard and she kept digging into the same spots until was painful. After our two hours were up we walked to the front desk and paid $6 each, but today I only got what I paid for.
Next we walked across the street to E.S.Kimo for lunch. The E.S.Kimo menu in Zhuhai is different than Macau. Here I could even order beef steaks, and they were cheap. I ordered a fillet mignon dish for about $4. It was served on top of noodles and the meat was actually real fillet mignon.
After lunch we decided to go see the rest of the underground mall, as there are thousands of stores and vendors there. Johanna, Kaisa and I again separated from the other girls. We spent 2 more hours at the mall and now I feel that I never want to see the place again because I have seen everything there is to see. Many of the stores also sell products that are exactly the same. We got some KFC ice cream at 5 and ate it while we sat on the stairs at the mall entrance and waited for the other girls to meet us. Johanna #2 was the first to show up and the two of us walked back to the hotel to get the bags while Johanna and Kaisa waited on Riitta to come to the meeting place. At the hotel they would not give us the bags at first, because we did not have the receipt they gave us in the morning. They just kept pointing at a sign that said, “No bags will be released without receipt”. We told them several times that we never received one and they eventually gave up the bags.
We walked back to the border and all the other girls were there. Riitta had the receipt in her hand and said, “Did you need this?”. We walked into the border building and there was quite a long line at the China section of the border, which we had to wait about 30 minutes for. The Macau section was almost empty and we went through in just a minute or two. I took a cab back to Taipa with Riitta and Johanna #2. Our cab driver seemed a little weird and he kept saying things to us in Chinese. He stopped his car at the New Century Casino got out and opened the trunk and looked at our bags. He came back to the car and told us to pay a higher price than what the meter said. He was charging us 3 Pataca for each of our 3 bags in the trunk. Sometimes the drivers will charge 3 Pataca extra for everything in the trunk, and there is a sign in the car saying that they are allowed to do that, but this was stretching the rule. He had not done anything to help us get the bags in or out of the trunk. It was only about $1.50 more, but it made the girls mad and they would not give the driver the money at first. The driver then started screaming Chinese in their faces. This shocked them, as they did not like to be yelled at, and they paid him the money. As the driver sped away he kept yelling things at us. The girls looked like they were about to cry.
I walked home and talked to Raj for a few minutes, then got two double cheeseburgers at Mcdonalds. After dinner I walked to the computer lab and met Johanna and Kaisa there. We sat there for an hour then walked back to the apartments together. At home I talked to Raj for a while, then we watched another episode of “24”.

9-18-04

Johanna called at 8:30 to say that everyone was meeting to go to Zhuhai at 9:30. I took a shower and packed, then met all the Finnish girls and another guy, Bora of Turkey, who was also planning go with us. We split up and took two cabs to the border. We all passed through the Macau departure section of the border with no problem. Bora did not have a visa and he needed to purchase one so he would be allowed to pass through the China section of the border. He tried to buy one but found that they cost twice as much at the border then if you buy one in advance, so he decided not to go.
The girls and I crossed the border and walked through the big underground mall that is in front of the border building. We exited the mall under the city and found a very nice inexpensive hotel nearby. We rented two rooms and I am staying in one with Johanna and Kaisa. We each paid about $8 for the room. It has 2 twin beds in one room and 1 in another, and there is plenty of space for the 3 of us.
After we checked into the hotel we went to a restaurant down the street called Maple Leaves, then went to a Mcdonalds across the street for desert. We then walked back towards the underground mall, and Johanna, Kaisa and I separated from the other two girls and agreed to meet them later. At the mall we walked around for another hour. I bought a fake rubber mouse and frog to scare people with. My roommate is very afraid of frogs.
At about 2:30 we met the other two girls again and went to a big massage parlor in the mall, by the main entrance. The place looked luxurious and huge, with a maze of hallways with stone floors and marble walls. We asked for a one hour massage and two girls in Chinese robes led us to an empty room with several massage tables, and closed the door behind us. The girls did not expect that we would all be in the same room and were at first a little uncomfortable to be seen in their underwear. After about 10 minutes alone in the room, 4 girls came in to give the massages. A fifth girl came in to give Kaisa a pedicure because she didn’t want a massage.
Three of our masseuses talked constantly most of the time while they worked, but mine kept almost perfectly quiet. The massage was painful a couple times, but for the most part it was great, and the I couldn’t believe how fast the hour passed. Afterwards we went to the front desk and paid $3.50 each……unbelievable.
Next we went to KFC in the mall for dinner. The restaraunt had a security guard was taking his job way to seriously. He slowly walked around the restaraunt with his hand on his baton at all times. He walked up to people that were standing in line and closely looked them up and down, and he stood over the tables of the people that were sitting down and checked them out as well. After we left KFC, we went to find something called The Night Market. We had heard that there was a street where vendors set up booths after dark every night. We found an English speaking woman by the mall exit and she told us that we needed to take a cab. There was a man there with a van there and he offered us a ride for 30 Yuan. I think that the woman and the man were working together, because the ride to the market was only about 2 blocks.
When we arrived we were not sure we were in the right place, because there were not any street vendors there, but there were lots of dirty little shops all around. One of them was selling chickens and ducks and two dogs were having sex on the sidewalk in front of the store. We walked through the huge market area and went in a few stores along the way. As we walked, little girls and boys no more than 7 years old begged for money. Women were sleeping on benches everywhere with babies in their arms. As we walked back to our hotel we saw a woman sitting on the sidewalk next to an overturned trash can. There was some kind of soupy substance that she was scraping off the inside of it and eating. She was doing this very fast and looking out the corners of her eyes like an animal does when you watch it eat. She had a kid that was about 3 on her lap. In front of our hotel across the street, a little girl was peeing on the edge of the sidewalk.
The girls and I walked to a supermarket across the street to get some food and drinks. The place had two levels and there must have been at least 1000 people there. There were fish in aquariums on the second level, and there Johanna and I saw the ugliest fish I have ever seen in my life. They were square, whitish-yellow and had huge eyes.
Back in our room, Johanna, Kaisa and I spent a couple hours eating, drinking and talking. I had bought an unknown clear alcohol at the supermarket and it turned out to be the most disgusting liquor I have ever had. It tasted and smelled like garbage and it is going in the trash tomorrow. At about 11:30, Riitta and Johanna #2 joined us in our room. We sat there for another 45 minutes while we talked and played a couple games.
A little after midnight we decided to find a bar where we could have some more drinks. Kaisa decided to go to sleep and the rest of us left. In front of the hotel we found some kids who spoke some English and they stopped a cab for us and told the driver where to take us. The bar we arrived at was very nice and so was the weather. We sat outside at a table there for 2 hours. All mixed drinks were $1, so we tried everything on the menu. At the end of the evening we took another cab home.

9-17-04

I got up at 10 again today and went to the travel agency to pick up the visa that I applied for yesterday. Afterwards I went back to campus and had lunch. The school canteen has both a sit down area and a cafeteria style area, and today I decided to try the cheaper cafeteria area for the first time. There were a couple hundred students eating there and I had to share a table with others. I ordered a dish with noodles for about $1.50 and it tasted good.
I had class at 12:30, then went to the FBA office to drop my finance class, but it was closed for lunch. We only have 3 days each semester here that are open to add or drop classes. I then went to the library to meet the group that I am working on the consumer marketing project with. I spent a few minutes on the computers while I waited for them, then we spent an hour developing a more detailed outline for our project, in which we have to analyze Chinese songs from the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s. We again used one of the private conference rooms.
Next I walked back to the FBA office, but now there was a line of about 100 chinese waiting outside the door. I decided to forget about dropping this class today and I walked back downstairs. I saw Kaisa on the way down and she told me I could walk in the back door and talk directly to the person I needed to, Grace. We went back upstairs, but Grace was gone til 4, so we went to the computer lab while we waited. My phone rang there, and it was the travel agency. They told me that they had printed the wrong nationalities on our visa and I needed to bring it back tonight. Nobody here seems to do anything right the first time!
When Kaisa and I went back to meet Grace she told us to fill out a form, then she slammed the door in our face. Grace used to seem so nice, but now all the exchange students hate her, and I am starting to understand why. I asked Kaisa to call Johanna and we met her by the FBA office. I have not been able to call Johanna’s phone lately, for some unknown reason. She can call me but I can’t call her. I told her that it was because my phone was jealous.
Johanna and I walked down the hill and took a bus to the travel agency. They had the new visa waiting for us and we just walked in and out quickly. Next we decided to find some food. We sat at an open-air restaurant and ordered some Chinese dishes with rice and noodles. After dinner we took a walk to the shoreline by the gold statue. We sat on a bench there are watched the sunset, which had bright red clouds.
Riitta called us while we were on the bench and asked if I would help her with her computer. So, Johanna and I took a bus back to her apartment. Riitta was trying to move some pictures from one laptop computer to another, but was having trouble burning a CD that the other computer would read. I couldn’t figure it out either so I just pointed at the computers and said “neither of you are going nowhere until you get these files moved”. A couple minutes later both of the computers started making the same strange noise and a window popped up on the screen that said “Another computer is nearby, would you like to transfer files”. This is one of the funniest things that has happened lately, and we could barely believe our eyes. I at first got some really strange looks from the girls. It turns out that both computers had infrared data sharing ports that they did not know about. We clicked yes and the files copied themselves to the other computer.
After the computer incident we all decided to go back to my apartment and watch a movie. We first headed to the supermarket to pick up some food. On the way I realized that I had left my backpack at the girls apartment, so I borrowed keys and went back to pick it up. I then went home and waited for the girls to meet me there. A couple of other exchange students came also and we all watched Farenheight 911. After everybody left I talked to Carolyn for a few minutes on the phone.

9-16-04

I got up at 10 today and took a shower, then went to Mcdonalds for breakfast. I went to the computer lab for a few minutes then class at 11. As I was walking to class Mike and Carolyn called. When I got to the room, there was a sign on the door saying that the room had been changed. I saw Johanna and we went to find the new room as I talked to Mike and Carolyn on the phone. The new classroom was even worse than our old room, which had been to small. The new one was a bigger lecture hall, but each seat is child sized.
After class I talked to Johanna, Riitta and Johanna #2. We decided to get a group visa so we could spend the weekend in Zhuhai, which is the mainland city bordering Macau. A group visa is only about $3 per person, compared to $30 for an individual visa. The catch is that the group has to enter the country and exit the country at the same time. I agreed to go to a travel agency and get the visa later in the day.
After my next class I met Johanna again because she had collected all the Finnish girls passports. I needed everyones passport in order to get the visa. My next class was statistics. After class I asked a Chinese guy named Dash, whom I have talked to before, where the travel agency was. He didn’t have anything to do, so he came with me. We took a bus to Macau and found the place easily. A lady there copied all the information from the 5 passports and it only took a few minutes to apply for the visa. Dash and I then took the bus back to Taipa. Johanna #2 was on the same bus, just by chance. When the bus dropped us off, all the other girls were coincidentally at the bus stop. I gave them all back their passports.
I showed Dash my apartment, then I bought him some Mcdonalds for his help with applying for the visa. Next I walked to the library. The computers were slow there, so I went to the computer lab. I came home at 8 and watched 3 episodes of “24”. Afterwards I called my dad to wish him a happy 59th birthday(oops, I called on the wrong day, it was actually the 11th). I also called home to wish Chris a happy birthday(it really is his birthday), but Clara answered and told me he wasn’t home, then I unsuccessfully tried to call several other people. I have a calling card with 100 minutes left that expire in 2 weeks, so I need to call lots of people fast. I just bought the card a couple weeks ago, so it’s not really fair that I only had 4 weeks to use 200 minutes. This is a place that you should always read the fine print.

9-15-04

I have no classes on Wednesday’s! I didn’t get up til almost noon. I had lunch at Mcdonalds then I walked to campus. I picked up some more student visa paperwork from Ming, then I went to the computer lab. At 2 I got on bus #2 because I had to go to take my paperwork to the immigration office in Macau and apply for my student visa. There were about 10 other exchange students on the bus and it had already been packed tight with chinese before we got on. The university had arranged for 2 groups of exchange student to apply for visas today. The first group went this morning and I was in this second group. We were suppost to meet a woman from the university at a Mcdonalds accross the street from the immigration building. The meeting had been scheduled for 2:30, but it was almost 3 by the time our bus arrived. Since we were late we decided to just go directly to the immigration building. We got in a line there, but someone soon realized that we were in the wrong line, so we decided to see if anyone was still at Mcdonalds. There we found about 15 other exchange students and the woman from the university. They were still filling out paperwork and had not even been waiting on us. We waited another 20 minutes at Mcdonalds, then went back to the immigration office. We waited in a waiting room there for about an hour. The section of the building that we were in had about 200 people waiting in 2 rooms, but the restroom only held one person at a time. At least it had real toilets and not floor toilets. I was the last student to get my visa. A lady at a booth just looked at my paperwork and passport for a minute, then gave me a piece of paper.
After I left the immigration building I walked back to Mcdonalds, were Johanna, Kaisa and Toumas were eating. The four of us walked around in a department store next door, then Toumas left and the girls and I got on a bus to go to a book store. We had considerable trouble finding out which bus to get on. I tried to ask a couple different girls on the street and they ran away, literally. Johanna and Kaisa thought it was hilarious and Johanna said I was “scary”. We eventually found the bookstore in an area by KFC. I bought a book for consumer marketing and statistics and the bills was 500 Pataca total. Sixty dollars for 2 large books is alot better and the $100+ a piece that I pay in the US.
After the bookstore, we went to a supermarket and gawked at the produce. Some employees came out from the back and stared at us. I don’t think they like us touching thier stuff. We then bought some ice cream there and took it to a bench on a square nearby. We sat at the bench for about an hour and I learned a few Finnish words. I can now say hello to someone and cuss them out. The Finnish language might be harder than chinese because the girls told me I sounded terrible, even though I thought I was copying them exactly.
After we left the bench we took a bus back to Taipa. I went back to my apartment, then to a restaraunt with Raj, where we met Shane and Karim. Afterwards, Shane came back to the apartment with Raj and I, and we watched 3 episodes of “24? on DVD.

9-14-04

I got up at 8:30 and headed to campus. I took a big yellow bag of laundry with me to drop off at the school laundromat. The lady that works there was late, so I sat on my laundry bag outside for 20 minutes while I waited for the place to open. I next went to the computer lab til 12, then I went to business communication class for the first time. I missed it last Friday because I accidentally went to the class in the room next door.
At 2 I met with two students from the mainland whom I am working on a consumer marketing project with. We used a private conference room at the library. There are several of these rooms available for students to use. Each person in the room has to show their ID and sign in at the front desk. The rooms even have locks on the doors and no windows facing the hallway. While I was here I was considering what would happen if SIU offered private rooms like this to any student that wanted one. We all have heard about the things that go on in the library at night, so I can only imagine.
As I was leaving the library I got a call from Ming and she told me I needed to fill out some student visa paperwork in the administration building. On the way there I stopped at the canteen to get lunch, but realized I didn’t have any money. I went to the campus ATM, then to the administration building. I filled out the visa paperwork and paid 50 Pataca for something they called a testimonial, which I supposedly need to get a visa.
Next I went to Mcdonalds, then home to take a shower. Next I went back to campus to pick up my laundry and use the computer lab. At 8:30 I went home and started watching the movie Road to Perdition. Raj came home with Milan during the movie, then Pedro, Cloe and two other exchange students came also. We played cards and a game where each person sticks the name of a famous person on anothers forehead and makes them try to guess it using only yes or no questions.
Later in the night Raj and Pedro watched Matrix 2 and I made phone calls in my room.

9-13-04

I got up at 7:30 this morning and went to Mcdonald’s, where I had a Big Breakfast and an extra order of pancakes. Afterwards I went to the computer lab and worked on a project for my consumer marketing class. I spent about 2 hours on the Internet looking for Chinese songs from the 1990’s that were translated into English. This is a very specific thing to search for and it almost drove me crazy, but I have come to almost never take no as an answer from the Internet. Some things are just really hard to find. You have to start out with a simple search, then narrow it down using this information, and it can take lots of time. This reminds me of a story…..
A couple years ago a friend told me that she could not find an adult Teletubbie costume for sale on the Internet. I told her that I would take a look for her, but she was stubborn and told me she was sure there was nothing available and I should not waste my time. I was a little bit offended by her attitude so I took it as a challenge and offered to bet her “anything” that I could find one. She laughed at me and said, “Sure because you wont find it”. The next day we were both using a computer lab at SIU and I spent the time looking for the costume. After about an hour doing Yahoo searches, I found one. A lady somewhere was making them herself and selling them on Ebay for about $75. I showed my friend the computer screen and she was surprised and said, “Well, I bet you anything…..and you win”. The next day she told me that she bid on the costume but was outbid at the last minute. I thought this was a good opportunity for a double-or-nothing bet, so I told her I would bet her “anything twice” that I could find another costume on the Internet. I tried for hours, but I ended up losing the bet. The End.
At 11 I went to consumer marketing class. The business teachers here always ask me questions about business in the U.S. because I am the only American here. Some days I like to speak up in class, but other days I just like to sit in the back and be quiet, but here I don’t have an option. Every class is this way every day and I am almost used to it now.
I got out of my last class at 3:30. Johanna called me and we met at her apartment. We took a bus to the beach in Coloane. We ordered food at a small restaurant there and it was scary. The place had dirty cement floors and Johanna’s food was served at room temperature. I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich and the ham was old. I could tell because the juices on ham get thick when it ages….You can try test this theory yourself, it’s true. Open a new package of ham, slowly separate two slices, and watch the area between them. The juice there will have the consistency of water. Now, let these two pieces of ham sit in the fridge for a month. Take them out and pull them apart slowly. You will see that the ham juice now looks like glue, and strings of it will stick to both slices as you pull it apart. The good thing is that it probably will not hurt you, because ham lasts a long time. Enough about ham.
Johanna only ate about half of her meal, but I ate all my old ham. She had to pay for both our meals because the restaurant would not accept my 500 Pataca bill. We then walked to a pool by the beach to meet Riitta and Johanna #2. The other girls were not at the pool. There are two beaches and two pools in Coloane and we had come to the wrong one. It was getting late, so we decided to just stay at this beach. We got in the grayish-yellow water for a few minutes and little fish jumped all around us. Johanna said the water was too cold, so we got out and laid on the beach. We looked at clouds for a while, then she let me bury her feet and one hand in the sand.
We took the bus back to Taipa and I went to the grocery store, then home to take a shower. Johanna and Johanna #2 came over and copied some music from Raj and I, then the girls and I watched Edward Scissorhands.

9-12-04

I was still sick today and didn’t have much energy. I got up at 10:30 and used my computer to make a video of my trip to the Great Wall, which you can view on this site now. At noon I went to Mcdonalds and Park-N-Shop(department store) with Raj. Raj bought a few groceries and I just gawked at the strange things that people eat here. This was the first time I have really spent any time exploring a grocery store here. They do have some American products, but they are very expensive. I little pack of Oscar Mayar ham is about $5, and so are Eggo’s.
When I got back home I went to sleep and did not get up til about 5. I walked to the computer lab, and I saw Tibo on the way there and he came with me. I sat there for an hour and a half and worked on my web site. There is something very strange going on with the Internet here. I changed the code of my main page to display the picture of the turtledragon and added a link to the Great Wall video, but the page did not change. I thought that computer I was using was not refreshing the page right, so I logged on to another computer, but the page was still the same as it had been before I changed it. Impossible, because the old page does not exist!
I went home and sent a message to Johanna. She messaged me back and I went to her building and met her, Kaisa and Riitta. Tonight was the beginning of a 4 week international fireworks competition. Each Sunday there will be two countries competing. The girls and I walked up a mountain road to watch the show. We didn’t expect to see other people in this isolated location, but we found lots of people and several film crews there. The competition tonight was between Australia and Taiwan. The fireworks were displayed in front of the Macau tower and it was a good show for about 20 minutes.
Afterwards we walked up the hill further and found a nature trail that goes to the very top of the mountain. It was too dark to use the trail tonight, but I will go back another time. During our walk back down the mountain, the second country in the competition began thier fireworks display. The first country’s display is at 9 and the second starts at 10.

9-11-04 Saturday.

Today was my sisters birthday, but I forgot to call her. Sorry Amanda.
I got up at noon today and missed a class. Yes that’s right, I missed a Saturday class. Yesterday my teacher told us that he was scheduling a special make-up class today because he was going to miss a day next week. There are lots of classes that meet on Wednesday and Saturday, but I didn’t sign up for any of those, and neither did any of the other exchange students - no surprise.
I had a message on my phone from Johanna so I called her back, then met her and Kaisa at the busstop at 1. We took a bus to the main square in Macau. I bought some clothes I needed and we ate lunch at Mcdonalds there. We walked around for a while, then went back to Mcdonalds for dessert. We then left the square and walked around the city. We came to a place on the shoreline with lots of tourists. Vendor carts lined the walkway and many of them had statues of pigs having sex. There was some kind of dedication ceremony going on and a high school age band was playing, but I could not identify any of the instruments. I have never heard music like this before. There were two guys playing drums and each time they hit them it looked like they were doing Karate moves. I had been to this area a couple weeks ago to a Karaoke bar with my chinese friend Eric. Johanna, Kaisa and I went into the same bar and nobody was there except for us. We sat there for an hour and talked and drank a beer. We picked out music to listen to from a computer that was mounted on the wall. The only music they had was 80’s love songs.
Around dark we looked for a bus home, but we waited a long time and the one we needed never came, so we took a cab. When I got home I noticed that Raj had cleaned up the party mess from last night. When I left the house earlier, I had left him a note that said “get this shit cleaned up”, in the hopes that he wouldn’t clean until I got home - but I’m not really complaining. I spent the rest of the night installing some software on my computer and getting all the empty beer bottles and trash out of my room.

9-10-04

I slept till 11 today because I was feeling sick. I had a class at 12:30, but I accidentally went to it early, at 12. So I found some other exchange students in the courtyard and talked to them while I waited. The teacher was an old english man who looks and sounds extremely eccentric, but it’s really to early to tell. After class I saw Karim, Tibo and Shane and the three of us went to lunch at the canteen together. We found a booth with couches and pillows and all of us almost fell asleep before the food arrived. After lunch I went to the computer lab for a few minutes, then finance class. I instantly decided to drop the class, becuase I don’t need to take it and there is an incredibly boring teacher.
After class I went to the office of the School of Business and signed up for a Mandarin Chinese class. They wanted me to pay 1300 Pataca, so I went to the campus ATM then came back and paid for the class. When I came here I was expecting this for free, but I have now come to expect nothing free from this university. Next I walked around Taipa looking for a place to buy some speakers for my computer. I have thousands of MP3 songs that I brought from the US, so I thought that descent speakers would make my stay here better. It is nice to have familiar things in this country, because nothing normally is. I found some speakers at a computer store for $30, which included a descent subwoofer. On my walk back to the apartment I stopped at two other stores and bought a power adapter, hammer, padlock and beer.
When I arrived home, Raj was there. We worked on getting the apartment ready for a party we planned tonight. I hooked up my new speakers and they sound great. Raj and I used the hammer I bought to beat a padlock off of a gate that was blocking our patio view. All the apartments here have these gates and I guess it is so people don’t fall out the windows. We had asked for the key, but the landlord said no, so we took matters into our own hands because the gate made us feel like we were in jail.
Next I took a shower, then uploaded my 16 cd’s of MP3 music onto my computer(thanks Tim and Mike!). The first person to show up for the party was Toumas of Finland. Over the few hours about 30 other exchange students showed up, and they all came ready to party. The beer bong was a big hit again. I set the computer up like a jukebox and let everyone pick out thier own music. About a dozen people asked if they could come back and copy it another time. As the night went on more people kept coming and everyone kept getting louder.
At 1A.M the doorbell rang and this time it was not another party guest, but there were two cops standing there. There were two chinese students at the party and we let them talk to the police. They told us that the police had said that they would arrest everyone at the party if they had to come back. I had heard that parties get two warnings, but we didn’t want to take any chances, so we told everyone the party was over and we were going to continue it at a nightclub in Macau called DD.
About 15 people went to DD. At the entrance there were about 20 guards and metal detectors. Inside the club the sound was too loud and not many people were there. We only stayed for about 20 minutes, then walked to the Mandarin Hotel. Outside the Mandarin, Kaisa realized that she did not have her purse, but she had no memory where it was, and it had a VISA card in it. I waited with her and Johanna while she tried to call VISA phone number that was on the back of my card. As she was on the phone, Elizabeth walked up to her with the purse. It turned out that she had given to her to carry earlier in the night, but forgot all about that. After this we all walked into the Mandarin Hotel, but after a few minutes everyone decided that they were tired. The same Eminem cover band was playing that had been there 2 weeks ago.

9-9-04

I got up at 9 today and had yet another Mcdonalds breakfast. The only place in this country that I can find a descent breakfast is Mcdonalds. Then at dinnertime, the only place that I can get a meal in under 20 minutes is Mcdonalds, so I am going to eat there alot over the next 4 months. The only time I like to go another restaraunt and wait for my food is when I am with other people, so otherwise, Mcdonalds it is.
Next I went to the computer lab, then my first class of the semester started today at 11. This class is consumer marketing, and despite the title, I believe that it will be an interesting class due to the teacher. He is a french Canadian that seems to be funny and full of unusual interesting information about his subject matter. The classroom was too small for the 50 students that showed up for class. The people who came last were going to other classrooms and bringing back stolen chairs. The teacher told one girl to just sit on my lab, but she didn’t do it. There are several other exchange students in the class, and among them is Johanna.
Consumer marketing lasted for an hour and a half, then I went to my 12:30 international business class. The teacher of this class is Joseph and he is from the Phillipines. When class started he went around the room asking each student why they had signed up for the class. I was honest and said “because it was required”. He laughed, but said “well unfortunately is also have no choice but to accept you.” My next class was statistics and it was so boring that I could barely hold my head up.
At 3:30 I met Johanna and Kaisa by an IBM booth that had been set up on campus. Laptop computers were being sold there and Johanna had asked me to come and help here with purchasing one. Both of the girls decided to buy one and they were told to pay a deposit and then pick up the computers next week. Next, the three of us walked to the cafe in the library and had lunch.
After lunch I walked to the computer store that was building my computer. The lady there told me to come back at 10P.M. Next I went to the bus stop and met Johanna and Kaisa again. Riitta was them them also and we all took a bus to Macau. The first one we got on was going in the wrong direction, so we had to get off and walk 2 blocks back to the bus stop we just left from. Then we got on the right bus and it dropped us off by Kentucky Fried Chicken. Riitta had to go to the camera store that she had bought her camera at two weeks ago. After this we ate some desert at KFC, then took the bus back to Taipa.
I then went home and Karim, Shane and Tibo were there with Raj. We watched the movie Johny Brasco, which Raj had paid $1 for in Xian. At 10 I walked back to the computer store and picked up my computer. I could not carry all the parts, so the guy that built it followed me home and carried the monitor. Back at home I set up the computer and everything worked fine.

9-8-04

I woke up to thunder this morning that sounded like bombs going off around me. Grace called me and told me that my schedule had been approved, minus one class that was full. I went back to sleep til almost noon. I then went to the school canteen and had lunch. I decided to order something new. It turned out to be a giant piece of toast that was as big as the plate. On top of it was some kind of cheese suace. I will not order it again, but it was edible. Next I went to Grace’s office to pick up my approved schedule, but she had already turned it over to the proper authorities for me. While I was in her office I paid her for the orientation week(the week she made us eat roaches). The total came to about $40, which seemed reasonable. During the week she had kept a total of all the expenses, then split it up among the students.
Next, Karim sent me a message and I met him and Shane and the rec center. There I played squash for the first time. We rented a court for an hour, which cost $1.25. I lost all the games against both of them, but I almost won because it is almost exactly like racketball, which I play alot at home.
It rained all day today. After squash I spent two hours on the library computers. At 8:30 I went to Mcdonald’s for dinner. I went home and found Raj there. He had just arrived back into town from Xian. He had bought several nice scrolls and statues there, and I helped him get the scrolls attached to the walls.
Not much really happened today. As the semester starts, not as much exciting stuff is going to be happening, so these journal entries will probably get alot shorter, but I’m sure there will still be some interesting happenings worth writing about.

9-7-04

I slept til 10:30 today and felt kind of sick becuase of the long night. Karim stayed in Raj’s empty room last night because his air conditioner was broken. The two of us went to Mcdonald’s for breakfast. Afterwards I took my new phone back to the store for the third time because I had not yet been able to make outgoing calls. One of the employees called my phone in the store and it rang, so it turns out that it will only not accept calls from certain people. Maybe the phone is jealous. Everything in China is broken.
Next I took the shuttle bus to campus and went to the School of Business office because I had not yet completely finished making my schedule. After this I spent some time at the computer lab, then I found a cab to take me to the clinic in Taipa. I had a 2:30 apointment to get a medical checkup for the university.
Yesterday I had taken a cab that was sitting in front of the New Century Casino to the clinic, where I had made todays appointment. When I got into the cab yesterday, the driver got very angry when I showed him the clinic address. While he drove me there he looked at me in the rear-view mirror and yelled. When we got to the clinic I handed him the money and he threw it all over the car. I said “Teseen Le”, which means “you’re crazy”.
So, today I did not want to take one of the cabs in front of the New Century, but that was all I could find. The driver once again didn’t like me, but he didn’t make it as obvious this time. At the clinic I was given a number and made to wait in a waiting room for about 20 minutes. My number, 8, was called in Chinese and I didn’t understand, but luckily the guy sitting next to me noticed it and pointed at me. I walked into a room where a nurse measured and weighed me, then gave me a test strip to take to the bathroom and pee on. I don’t know what they were testing for, but she looked happy when I showed her the strip, which had now changed changed colors, from white to yellow - Yellow…go figure. I then was lead back to the waiting room, where I sat for almost an hour. I finally heard my number called, in english this time, and went into another room. This room was big and mostly empty, except for a medical table and a desk, which had an old doctor sitting behind it. This old doctor silently got out a book and showed me pictures of numbers and animals that were hidden behind a pattern of tiny multi-colored squares. One of the animals was a dragon, but the others were real. Next I had to take the standard eye test where you look at chart on wall and read off the letters. The old doctor then signed the papers I needed to take back to the university. I had to pay $15 at the front desk before they would give them to me.
I then took a bus back to the university and took my competed medical forms to the admissions office, where I was finally given my student ID. I then went to an ATM machine to get some money and walked to a little computer store that I had seen next to my apartment yesterday. It was no bigger than a closet and there were several family member inside who owned the store. Thier child was crying and nobody spoke any english. They had a flyer on the window advertising a good price for a descent computer. I pointed at the flyer and unsucessfully tried to ask some simple questions. They called somebody on the phone, but this person also did not understand me. They told me to come back at 8.
I went home and tried to learn how to use my new chinese phone. I discovered that it has an FM radio tuner. The property manager then rang my doorbell and she was being followed by a man and a woman that were carrying a 7 foot tall dresser. My room did not have one and she had been promising it since I moved in. They sat it in my room and left. The whole apartment smells like Cedar wood now.
After I filled up the new dresser with my stuff, I walked back to the computer store. There was one woman there from earlier and another man that I had not seen before, who appeared to be the expert. We was able to tell me that I would have to pay half of the money up front, then he would build the computer for me. I decided to take my chances and agreed to the deal. Next I walked to the student apartments across the street and went to a party I had heard about on the 13th floor. Many students had returned to town today, as I had on Sunday, and the small apartment was full of about 20 of them. I stayed there for about 3 hours and the security guard came to the door 5 times to tell us to be quiet. Nobody really got any quieter, but the students living at the apartment didn’t seem to mind. I’m surprised that the police were not called.

9-6-04

This morning I walked to campus to finish the student registration procedures that I had put off the last week while I was in China. I talked to Ming and she told me that she had been looking for me, and she told me to go see two other staff members that were also looking for me, Glenn and Keith. First I had to go to the Business Administrative office and pick out the classes I wanted to take. The classes available were not at all what I had expected. Not every class is offered every semester, which noone had told me that before. None of the classes I signed up for will transfer to SIU, but at least the credits will.
After this I dropped of the laundry I had been carying around with me, then went to talk with Keith. I had met Keith the two weeks before I left Carbondale. He retired from SIU and now works for the University of Macau. He was in Carbondale for some time during the summer and had heard that I was coming to Macau, so he had arranged to meet me one day in August at Barnes and Nobles, where he talked to me about things here.
He was now back in Macau and I found him in a nice basement office in the library. He is an older, very friendly guy with all white hair. We talked for about 20 minutes and he invited me on a trip with the local Kiwanas club to the Vietnam border. This group had paid to have a school built in a poor area there, and they were going to check out the new building.
After leaving Keith’s office I stopped by the library computer lab, but the computers there now require a password, which I do not yet have. Next I went to a store next to my apartment that sells phones, called CTM. CTM is the name of the monopoly phone company here and you see the letters printed everywhere. I spent an hour at this store buying a phone(the number is on the website!). It cost about $150, but $50 is a temporary deposit that foreigners have to pay, so I get that back. I now have 300 minutes of talk time a month and it costs less than $20. I took my phone home and tried to turn it on, but a screen appeared that asked me for a password, so I took the phone back to the store and they gave me the password.
Next I walked across the street to Karim’s apartment and he was in the process of moving into another one. Then I walked back to campus and picked up my laundry and went to the computer lab. I sat there for 3 hours and used the Internet. Karim and his former roomate, Shane, came to the lab while I was there. At 6, the three of us walked to the university recreation center, which is down the hill next to the library. It makes the SIU rec center look like a palace, but it could be alot worse. A guy that was working there showed us around the building, then we walked the back way home. The back way goes around the base of the mountain that the university sits on. Construction crews are tearing the sides of the mountain off and building new university buildings. It looks like dangerous and difficult work.
Karim, Shane and I agreed to meet again at 8:30 and go out. I went to Mcdonalds for dinner, then home, where I found that my phone was still not working. They had promised that it would be activated by 6, so I walked back to the store and they told me to wait 30 more minutes. I went home and took a shower, then walked across the street to meet Karim and Shane. On the way there I saw Milan(Dutch girl) and she told me that she was also planning to go out. Karim and Shane came down from thier building and we all decided to go to Milan’s apartment. Several more students met us on the street and we all went to the supermarket to get some drinks. While we were walking, the guy from Columbia kicked a wet pair of panties that was laying on the sidewalk and they hit me on the back and left a wet spot.
At Milan’ apartment, about 15 people showed up and it became a party. Some of the guys had gone to a hardware store earlier in the week and constructed a large beer bong, which was put to constant use throughout the night. I was the first to try it and they poured one of the whole chinese beers in there, which is like 2 regular cans. I could only drink about half, so I passed the rest on and then was done with the bong for the rest of the night. I got my camera and recorded each person take bongs. At the end of the night, the beer in the funnel was being toped of by Vodka.
After about 2 hours at the apartment we decided to go to Macau. We went to the bus stop, and along the way everyone kicked around the wet underwear again. They ended up stretched across the top of a yield sign and were put there by the Columbian guy who had kicked them for the first time earlier in the evening, when I had been hit in the back. On the bus to Macau, there was standing room only, and there were about 10 exchange students there, most of which were quite drunk from beer and Vodka bongs. Our destination was the Mandarin Hotel, which we had been to during the orientation week. We didn’t know exactly where the place was, so we got off at the first Macau stop and walked. After a while we found it, but the bar area was closed, so we walked to the Sands Casino, but didn’t find the right kind of bar there. We found a jazz-style club near the sands which was very large and nice, but deserted. We all sat there for an hour and the only other people there were employees. There was a DJ and we asked him to change the music. He changed it, then talked to us for about 30 minutes. He was from Hong Kong, but had spent some time in Canada, so he had great english. He knew alot about the government of China, so Karim and I asked him lots of questions that we had become curious about during our trip there last week.
At 2 A.M. we left the bar and looked for a taxi home. I caught a lizard on the sidewalk and it got loose in the cab. Karim’s air conditioner was broken, so he came to my apartment to spend the night in Raj’s empty room(Raj is still in China).

9-5-04 Sunday

I got up at 10 today. Karim was already up and I talked to him and Salim(guy from Pakistan) for a while. Salim gave me a boiled egg and some bread. Our train arrived in Guangzhou at noon, about 23 hours after we had departed Beijing. When we exited the building we said “bus to Zhuhai” to a few people until someone understood us. The bus station turned out to be right next to the train station. We each bought a ticket and then found the gate our bus was leaving from. We only waited about 5 minutes, then our bus arrived. We left the city of Guangzhou within 30 minutes of our arrival. The driver took his shoes off and smoked as he drove down through the countryside.
After 2 hours, the bus stopped in Zhuhai, right next to the Macau border crossing. We walked around the underground shopping area there for a while, as I was looking for a pair of shoes. At the shoe stores, employees once again just laughed and gawked at my feet. One store had a single pair that fit me, but they were just too ugly. Next we crossed the border. There were long lines at both the Chinese and Macau sections and it took us nearly an hour to get through both.
It felt good to be back in Macau, where at least things are a little bit familiar now. We waited in line for a cab at the border, as we had too much luggage to take the bus. Back at my apartment, I put all the things I bought in China up on my walls. The place looks a little more like a home now, but like a chinese home. Afterwards I turned on the TV and watched the chinese music awards as long as I could stand it. Actors and TV hosts are not the same here. The actors exaturate thier emotions extremely, and the TV hosts are just obnoxious. Pirated DVD’s are about $1 here, so we need to get a DVD player very soon.

9-4-04

We all got up at 10 today and packed our suitcases, then walked to Mcdonald’s for breakfast. Afterwards we picked up our luggage and Karim and I said good-bye to Raj, who was going to Xian by himself. The woman who has been helping us at the hotel then lead Karim and I to a place where we could find a cab. On the way there she was able to tell us that everyone who works at the hotel is family, and she is the daughter. When we found a cab she thanked us for staying at her hotel and told the driver where to take us.
We arrived at the train station and fought the crowds until we reached our train platform. I tried to buy a bottle of water from a vendor by the train. I said “how much”, and he looked at me for a second and grinned, then stated a price that was 10 times to high. I turned around and walked away as he yelled the right price to me, but I didn’t stop. On the train Karim and I were in the same car, but not the same compartment. There was an African girl from the Congo underneath me, whom I talked to for a minute, but she could only speak a little English. Her native language was French, so I introduced her to Karim, who also speaks French. I layed on my bunk and looked out the window for a long time, then fell back asleep.
At 7 I woke up and heard Karim and the French girl talking. I crawled out of my bunk and hit my head on the luggage rack. I sat down by Karim as the French girl walked off to do something else. He told me not to introduce him to anymore African girls. We then walked to the cafe car and bought two bowls of dry noodles, which are actually very good in this country. We went back to our seats and ate the noodle as we talked to a guy from Pakistan named Salim, who was in the shoe business. He gave me a beer.
After I had been up for a couple hours I decided I needed to get back in my bunk, and I will probably sleep all night now. There is not much to do on the train and only a couple people speak even limited english. I wish I had a book.

9-3-04

We recieved another wake up knock at 6:30 this morning. The knocker came back a few minutes after his first knock and knocked again, this time pointing at his watch, meaning hurry up. We quickly got ready and walked downstairs, where we met a van in the alley. It was cool, dark and raining outside, unlike the bright warm days we had seen before here.
When we got to our bus it appeared that nobody onboard spoke any english, at least noone made any attempt to speak to us, as the english speakers almost always do. Raj, Karim and I all fell asleep quick. The bus soon made a stop at a garden on the edge of Beijing. The three of us did not want to pay money to see another garden, especially on a wet and rainy day. We sat on the bus after everyone left, but a lady got on and motioned for us to get off. We thought she worked for the tour company at the time, but after we got off we realized that she worked for the garden. She was just trying to get more people to buy tickets. We could have stayed on the bus and slept, but after we got off, the bus drove away, so now we had to find something to do for a while. I decided to buy a ticket and walk through the garden. I first walked with a tour group, but got tired of hearing chinese spoken on a megaphone, so I walked around on my own. There had been a sign on the entrance to the garden that mentioned fountains with colored smoke coming out of them and big waterfalls, but none of this stuff was to be seen, but not to say that the garden was bad. It was huge and nice, like most gardens in China.
After a while I walked back to the place I thought the bus was going to be and nobody was there, not even Raj and Karim. I walked a little ways down the street and it appeared that everyone was really gone, then I saw Raj and Karim walking towards me on the sidewalk. They said “where the bus?” Raj had left his MP3 player on the bus and he was not at all happy about that. He walked off from Karim and I and did not reappear. After 15 minutes of waiting the two of us decided to get a cab because we did not know if Raj would come back. As our cab was leaving the street that the garden was on, we saw Raj in the street talking to someone. We stopped and he got into the backseat.
During the ride I told Raj and Karim that I had decided to go back to Macau early tomorrow because I still had to sign up for classes. The university was looking for me. The cab dropped us off at Tienanmen Square. Raj and Karim wanted to go back to the hotel and tell the staff there what had happened, but I decided to get breakfast then call Johanna and Kaisa, as I had planned to do before we were offered the bus trip today. Johanna told me that her and Kaisa were going to go to the Forbidden City, which I had been to before and required a ticket, so I said that I would call them later. I then decided to go see Mao Zedong’s body on Tienanmen Square, stopping at an Internet cafe on the way.
When I got to the building Mao was in there was a long line and as I entered it, a guard pointed at my camera bag and shook his head no. Another guy tugged on my shirt and pointed accross the street as he said “check bag”. This guy did not appear to be an employee, but only someone looking for a tip. I could use his help with the bag check process, so I followed him. As we crossed the square and the street he kept pulling on my shirt and walking faster and faster. He was really getting annoying and acting a little crazy, so I pushed his hand off my shirt. He then grabbed my hand and pulled on that and I broke free. After that he slowed down and walked normaly. As we came to the bag check building, he told me 20 Yuan, or about $2. I handed him the money and we walked up to one of the windows of the building. He gave a lady the 20 and I noticed that she gave him back a 10, which he discreetly folded into his palm. He gave me a ticket, which I took to another window, where a lady took my camera bag and gave me a little piece of metal with the number “10? on it.
I then went back to the line to see Mao’s body. There was still a big line, but they let several hundred people in the building at one time, so it went fast. As we walked through the gate and towards the building, there was a little trailor where fake flowers were being sold. Dozens of the people were stepping out of line to buy the flowers. When we walked up the staircase and into the doorway of the giant building, there was a huge white statue of Mao there to greet us. In front of the statue were several carts on wheels, where people sat the flowers they had just bought. The flowers looked old and tatered. It appeared that after they were placed on the carts, the carts were rolled back out to the trailor and resold. By the looks of the flowers, this might have happened thousands of times. That’s cheap, especially considering that Mao is the national hero here.
After we left the room with the statue in it we came into the room with Mao. It was a round room with another glass room in the middle of it. Inside the glass room were two soldiers standing beside the body of Mao. Mao was laying underneath another layer of glass and his skin looked plastic, like it had recieved many layers of paint. Someone who had been here two years ago had told Raj that his face was growing a little mold at that time.
As I left the building, I saw Raj and Karim walking in the crowd. They wanted to go see Mao too, so I showed them where to check thier bags and I picked mine up. I then went back to the hotel and they went to see Mao. When I arrived at the hotel, the lady who had picked us up the first day knocked on my door. She was trying to tell me something, but I could not understand. She kept pointed at the word “wire” in a dictionary. She spent almost 30 minutes trying to communicate with me and we were getting nowhere for a long time. Then I realized she was offering to buy my train ticket for a small commission. After we worked out the details, I fell asleep.
When I got back up I walked to Mcdonalds and had an excellent Big Mac, then got on the subway at Tiananment Square. I really didn’t have any specific destination, I just like to check out all the cities subways, and they always have stations that are underneath important areas of the city. I rode the first train for a few minutes, the “blue line”, and then transfered to the “yellow line” train. One of the stations on the yellow line was called The National Military Museum, so I decided to get off there. It was already 4:30 in the afternoon, but the Museum was open for another hour, so I paid about $3 for a ticket. The building was large and very old looking. On top of it was a steeple with the communist star on it. Inside was several floors of tanks, missles, jets, etc., but some of the most interesting exhibits were written in text. Each exhibit’s label was translated into english. The floors of the museum were set of in chronological order and told the story of how the communist party came into power from the very beginning. There seems to be much more national pride in this country than I had expected. Watching the people at the museum today and the national flag raising yesterday has changed my perception of how they feel about the government. Many more than I had expected seem to love thier government. I think alot has changed here over the past 15 years.
When the museum closed I went back to the subway station and took the train back to Tienanmen. From there I walked back to the hotel, where I took a shower. Raj and Karim arrived shortly after me, then the lady who had knocked on the door earlier came back. She spent at least another 30 minutes trying to understand what train tickets for buy for Raj and Karim. She was surely trying to learn english or she would have given up on helping us a long time ago. After she left I walked to the calling center to call Johanna and Kaisa. At 9:30 I met them at the entrance of the Forbidden City. We walked back to the area of my hotel and went to a restaraunt there. We were surprised to find “Fried Rape” on the menu there. After dinner we walked back to the hotel so I could show them the conditions we were living in. They saw our tiny room and the public bathroom, which had fresh turds lying inside of the in-ground toilets(we luckily have a private bathroom).
The girls had to get up early, so I took them to a cab, then Raj, Karim and I took a cab out looking for a club called Banana. We showed the driver some writing we had which said “Club Banana”, but he took us to some other club called “Hip Hop”. As soon as we got to the club prositutes came to sit on Raj and I. My prostitute asked me to buy her a drink. I was going to do so and I got out 30 Yuan to get her one, but she took the money and put it in her pocket, then pointed at the bathroom. I shook my head no and she looked very surpised, then smiled and walked to another table. I wonder what I would have recieved in a bathroom for $3? Club Hip Hop was really not our style. It had both male and female dancers on stage and the guys were wearing g-strings. The American sounding DJ was obnoxious, and interupted every song with korny phrases like “it’s yo birthday”. Then a chinese guy came onto stage and sang a love song in chinese.
We left this club after an hour, then showed another cab driver outside our writing that said “club Banana”. This driver knew where he was going, and we soon arrived at a building with moving spotlights projected onto the front of it, and the word “Banana” in block letters on the wall. There were lots of people standing around the front entrance. Inside was a big staircase with moving colored patterns of lights projected onto it. We followed it upstairs and entered the club, then we could barely move. The club was big, but there were well over 1000 people inside. In the middle was very large dance floor with 3 or 4 hundred people on it. I walked onto the dance floor and I at first thought it might be about to collapse, but it turns out that it is actually suppost to move up and down with the music. It didn’t move alot, but it was very noticable. The dance floor was way too crowed, so we decided to move up to the second level, which was almost as crowed. This appeared to be a club for rich people, as there were lots of older western men and lots of above-average-looking prostitutes. Some of the girls were even enjoying what appeared to be cocaine at a booth in the corner. This is the first time I have seen anyone use drugs in this country. The penalties are harsh, even including death, but I have been told that the police have a reputation for being open-minded when it comes to bribery. As we were standing on the second floor a stainless steel cage dropped out from the ceiling above the dance floor. It had a woman dancing a robot dance in it, who was wearing a tight, silver and shiny kind of body suit.
After an hour at the club we took another taxi back to the hotel. Tomorrow it’s time to go back “home”.

9-2-04 Tuesday

We woke at 4:30 this morning to a wake up knock from the hotel staff. We were going to see the raising of the national flag before our bus left at 6:30 for the Great Wall. As we tiredly walked through the dark streets we started to see more and more people walking in the same direction as we neared Tiananmen square. When we arrived at the square there were at least 2000 people standing face-to-face with a line of soldiers in front of the national flagpole. The flag was not raised until 5:30, and many more people were joining the crowd each second we waited. At flag raising time, a group of about 40 soldiers marched out of the entrance of the Forbidden City, accross the street and onto the square. When they reached the flagpole one of them attached a flag and raised it as the chinese national anthem played on loudspeakers.
After the flag was up we walked back towards our hotel. On the way we stopped at a small shop and bought some tasteless “breakfast.” I miss eggs and sausage. At the hotel we waited for 20 minutes and fell asleep in chairs until a guy woke us up and pointed at a car outside. The car took us to a bus that was about 10 minutes away. Some people standing by the bus asked us for our reciept several times and had a hard time understanding that we were never told to bring any reciept, but they eventually let us get on the bus. I was planning on just going right to sleep, but a girl named Mary sat next to me and said “me want to practice english with you.” She was just getting ready to start school in Beijing and her parents had just brought her into town. The whole family was on the bus. We talked for a long time and the communication was very hard, as she had spoke english out of the classroom very little. The tour guide talked into the microphone for at least 30 minutes as the bus drove towards our first destination. This was the worst voice I have ever heard and the bus speakers were turned up way too loud. He just kept talking and talking and talking, very, very fast. When he stopped I continued talking to Mary. I showed her how to play tick-tack-toe and 20-questions. During 20 question she guessed what I was thinking on the first guess, a TV. I told her that I thought she was psychic, then I spent several minutes trying to explain what the word “psychic” meant, but was unsuccessful. I spent another 10 minutes trying to describe what an insect was, and I think she knows now.
Our first stop looked like a small town in the mountains. When we got off Karim said that he was going to kill the tour guide if he spoke into the bus microphone again. At that time the guide appeared next to us with a large megaphone and started the same terrible talking again. We walked up to a gate and purchased a ticket for about $6. We all 3 thought that we were going to look at a tomb. We walked into a building and went down an escalator. Karim and Raj were lagging behind and looking at a store. The guide yelled at them over the megaphone and I thought that they might really kill him soon. At the bottom of the escalator was a small opening in the wall, and inside this opening there were carts moving by on a rail. As a cart would become available, the next people in line would get on it, then they would disappear as the cart moved along the rail. I got in a seat by myself and the cart quickly brought me into total darkness. After a few seconds I saw a strange purple light ahead, then I realized that the light was spinning. The cart was going steeply downhill and purple spinning thing kept getting bigger as it came nearer, and it soon appeared that I was going to go inside of it. It was a spinning tube that surrounded the cart and was decorated in psychodelic patterns. I got dizzy and felt like I was spinning and not the tube. After a couple seconds the tube had given me the sensation of being almost completely upside down. As we exited the tube I was sure that we had gotten on the wrong bus.
The dark underground ride continued with fire-breathing dragons, fountains, light shows and many other animated robots that resembled no real or imagined creature I have ever seen before. When we got off the carts I asked a guy I had met earlier on the bus what the hell was going on. He had lived in Canada for years, so he spoke good english. I was told that I did get on the right bus after all, and this was one of our scheduled stops. It was a theme park that had been built by chinese businessmen 15 years ago, but had gone out of business because it could not draw enough tourists to support itself. The reason for this lack of tourists was superstition, as the park had been built upon a burial ground. Recently, a group of Japanese businessmen decided to try and reopen it.
The next thing our group did was enter a large theatre at this park. We were the last in line and the tour guide said something in chinese about us that made everybody laugh. The canadian guy told us he had said we were very slow. The theatre had an oversized screen and big seats with seatbelts on them. As the lights dimmed I noticed that lots of big electrical cables were wired to each seat. When the room became black, the screen showed a computer animated log floating down a river, and all the hundreds of seats in the theatre began to slowly move side-to-side as the log floated in the water, then came a waterfall and I was glad I had put on my seatbelt. The seat shook violently and I started sliding under my seatbelt. It was much more realisitc than I had expected, as I experienced a very believable sensation of falling. We were tossed about for the next 3 minutes in the same ways as different situations appeared on the screen.
As we exited the theatre, the Canadian guy translated that we had 30 minutes free to try any 2 rides we wanted. We first tried some go-carts, but they couldn’t have outrun an old riding lawn mower and only lasted about 90 seconds. Next Karim and I tried a water rapids ride. Karim got really wet and I only got a sprinkle. Afterwards, we got back on the bus as we had been told to. We were taken to an underground tomb about 30 minutes away. It was in the centered of a huge wooded and landscaped area. At the entrance were guards, metal detectors and x-ray machines. After the checkpoint we walked down about 10 flights of stairs. It was cool and damp in the tomb and there were lots of little square coffins sitting around. There had been emperors buried here, and the goverment unsealed the tomb about 20 years ago. After we left the tomb, we bought some lunch from the many vendors in the parking lot. Raj and I also each bought a carton of Marlboro’s for $4 each. As our bus left the parking lot we saw another tour-group pushing thier bus.
Our next stop was the Great Wall. We had 2 hours to walk as far along the wall as we could and get back to the bus. This was the main tourist area of the wall and hundreds of people were all about. Here, the wall went straight up a mountain, which meant thousands and thousands of stairs. Karim walked the beginning section too fast and got sick(see video), so Raj and I continued alone. We were determined to reach the top of the mountain. As we arrived at the stone building which appeared to be the top we were met with dissapointment. The mountain continued behind this building and there were hundreds more stairs to go, but no time left. We walked in this building and were suprised too see and smell that people had been using it as a bathroom. There had been many people walking the lower sections of the wall, but few had made it this high. The ones that did had marked thier territory.
The ride back to Beijing took two hours and everyone on the bus was asleep within the first few minutes. We were dropped off at Tienanmen Square. We first went to an ATM and two guys that looked homeless kept looking over our shoulders. It seems that this happens every time we go to an ATM. I guess they are just waiting for a handout. We next went to the Internet cafe for a while, then stopped at a barber shop which is close to our hotel. A girl first took me to the back and washed my hair, then a guy with long purple hair spent about 30 minutes cutting it. In the US it takes 10 minutes. After it was cut the girl took me to the back again and washed it, then again led me to the guy with purple hair. He was going to put some kind of gels in it but I shook my head no. Next I paid……$2.50. Karim had his hair cut and dyed for less than $10. There was a German lady underneath a hair dryer the whole time I was getting mine cut. They took the dryer off of her head as I was leaving and she cried. Her boyfriend came to her side to comfort her.
I had read an email from Johanna while I was in the computer lab, in which she told me that her and Kaisa were in town. They had flown in from the city next to Macau. I called her cell phone from a calling center in the alley near the hotel. There are many calling centers here, which are small businesses with many phones that can be used to make cheap international calls, but there are so many people talking loud chinese in them that it is almost impossible to hear the person that you are talking to. I finally got ahold of Johanna with the help of an employee, but could barely hear her and got cut off after one minute. Next, Raj and Karim met me and we all walked to Mcdonald’s for dinner.
I tried to make calls at another calling center afterward but had no luck dialing-out there. An employee insisted on helping me and ended up connecting me to a wrong number, which I had to pay for. I then found a another calling center in a very quiet alley, which really appealed to me. I was able to get ahold of Johanna again and I arranged to meet her in the morning. Next I tried to call several other friends back home, but only got answering machines, as it was about 9AM on Monday morning in Illinois. I then called home and talked to Clara, but traffic started to come through the alley and it ruined our conversation. Back at the hotel, the lady who had originally introduced us to the place came to our room and offered us a trip to the Palace of Heaven in the morning. We had wanted to see that sight, so we bought this trip for about $3 each. It’s been a long day.

9-1-04 Wednesday

I got up at 6A.M this morning. Raj and I wanted to eat at least once in the luxury café car before we had to leave the train, so we decided to have breakfast there. I ordered the “west style breakfast,” which was 2 deep fried eggs, 3 warm pieces of bread and one small piece of Spam-like material. The train arrived at the Beijing station at 7A.M.
As soon as we walked out the front door of the building we were met by a stampede of salespeople, as we have been at all the other train stations in China, but this was the most extreme yet. One guy offered us a ride for 100 Yuan, which is 10 times the normal cab price. As we walked away from him he kept yelling lower prices, but we were tired of people trying to over-charge us, so we ignored him. There were dozens of people waving hotel brochures in our faces and we noticed one that caught our eye. It was offering rooms for $10 per night, and we had decided we wanted to stay in something cheaper in order to see a less tourist-friendly part of the city.
The lady with the brochures led us to a tiny van that already had 4 people sitting in it. The van took us on a 15 minute ride through the city. The lady pointed at the potential tourist sites as we drove along, and she at least knew a few words in English. The van pulled into a series of tiny alleys and we arrived at our hotel. As soon as we saw the inside of the building Raj said he wanted to find something else, but Karim and I still wanted to try it out. The building and the rooms(especially the bathrooms) were very dirty, but the beds were perfectly clean, so we decided to take it for 3 days.
We did not have the cash for the room, so the lady that brought us led us through the alleys to an ATM. When we arrived back at the hotel she also sold us a bus trip to the Great Wall tomorrow and some little pins of the Chinese flag. There were only 2 beds in the room, so they brought in another small fold-up bed, which took up all the floor space in the room, and cost us an extra $5 per night. Only 1 person at a time now had enough floor space to stand up. I took a shower as soon as we checked into the room and was surprised to find that there was no hot water. After the terrible shower I went down to the desk to ask why it happened, but nobody understood me. They called a girl from upstairs down to the front desk and she told me that the hot water was turned on daily at 7P.M.
During our van ride earlier, the woman that brought us had said that Tiananmen Square was only a ten minute walk from the hotel, so we decided to find it. As we walked through the alleys, we could say the name “Tiananmen” to anyone and they would point us in the right direction. Along the way, Karim and I bought 2 Chinese shirts because we talked the saleslady down by over 1000%. The bargaining here can be fun sometimes.
As we neared Tiananmen, a young guy named Jackie walked up to us and said “Welcome to Beijing,” and shook our hands. He followed us and talked to us for the next 3 hours. So, he joined us on our walk through Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. The Square is said to be the largest courtyard in the world and it is packed with Chinese tourists and lots of marching soldiers. In the middle is a building that holds the 30 year old dead body of Mao Zedong in a glass case that tourists pass by (Just imagine if the US put Reagan in a glass box for 30 years. Weird.). Around the sides of the square are all the main government buildings, something called the Chinese Youth Communist League and The Forbidden City.
After walking through the square, we entered into the Forbidden City. Above the entrance is a giant painting of Mao Zedong. We had to purchase a ticket for about $6 to enter. The Forbidden City is like a giant museum that could hold millions of people. There are hundreds of buildings on the grounds, many of which are filled with gold and other precious things. Each building is perfectly restored. The grounds between the buildings are all beautifully landscaped in stone. There is so much landscaped space that it would take an entire mountain to get enough stones to do the job. As we walked through the area, Jackie stayed with us the entire time, often singing while he walked. I heard him sing The Backstreet Boys, Mariah Carey and Paula Abdul.
When we left the Forbidden City we parted with Jackie and found a cab. We went to an area called “The Temple of Heaven.” We were all 3 very tired by this time. We walked through the temple and the huge gardens which surrounded it. After spending an hour at the palace we took a cab back to Tiananmen Square and found an internet café. As we left the Café two girls introduced themselves to us, Wai and Yue. They showed us where to find an ATM and we asked them to dinner. We went back to our room and got ready, then met the girls again at 10.
They took us to a 24 hour Chinese restaurant that was near our hotel. They ordered for us and they ordered a lot. We were all very hungry, but dishes kept coming and coming after we were full. After dinner we sat and talked for a while. Wai kept mostly quiet, but Yue was all talk. She said “Can I ask you guys anything?” and I said “Sure, as long as we can ask you anything.” Her first question was directed at Raj and Karim. She could not keep herself from laughing as she asked. The question was “What do you guys put in your hair?” Both of them had slicked back hair, and the way she asked the question made all of us laugh for the next several minutes.
My question for her was “Why do Chinese men and women both let their pinky fingernail grow to huge lengths?” She told me it was just a fashion, but I had heard that they use it to pick their noses. Her reply question was “I hear that Americans have a lot of girlfriends and get married and divorced a lot. How many girlfriends have you each had and have you ever been married?” I wanted to lie about being married, as not to reinforce stereotypes, but I told them the truth and they asked a lot more questions about it.
At midnight we left the restaurant exhausted from our long day. We agreed to call the girls again and went back to the hotel.