My Favorite Pictures: Part 1

Today, I thought I'd start a series of my favorite pictures and stories. I've got 10 for you to look at today and I hope you'll be interested! Please feel free to leave comments and to subscribe! Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Today we've got 9 from Lanzhou and the last one is from Beijing. I planned it to be a little more eclectic, but by the time I finished, I realized they were almost all from Lanzhou. Next time, I'll mix it up a little bit.

I was an exchange student (the 1st ever) to attend Lanzhou University of Technology. The university has two campuses and the 1st time I went to the west campus of the university, I met some total strangers and they invited me back to their rented apartment and cooked a huge meal for me and 3 friends I was meeting there. 

You can see that people do meals differently in China - all the dishes are the in the middle of the table and are shared by everyone, but everyone has their own rice bowl. It's a much more enjoyable experience than everyone spooning off onto their own plate. It's a group experience.

This was taken at a primary school assembly in Lanzhou, where I talked to some of the kids and did some games and all kinds of stuff. It was an "English Adventure Day", so they were desperately trying to find a foreigner to participate. 

It was an interesting experience - the kids put on short English language plays like Snow White and everyone did their best to participate, although it was hot that day and the sun was beating down on everyone for the whole 2-hour(ish) assembly. Props to the kids for putting up with it!

This is the 兰州理工大学运动会。The Lanzhou University of Technology "Sports Meeting" - it's kind of like the university's version of the Olympics. All the departments show up and parade in like in this picture, there are shows of martial arts, their ROTC (ish) program, music, and there are events like the hundred meter dash, tug-of-war, etc. It's a cool thing and I'd recommend anyone who goes to China to study to attend a meeting like this if their university holds one.

These are 3 good friends of mine (r to l) Zhu Jiacan (Mike), Xia Fei (Kevin), and "Suella" Zhang. They're all good people and really friendly and speak great English. We took this on the West campus of LUT.

This is from the time I tried Stinky Tofu. It was not exactly my favorite, as you can see...but the night market was a really cool place!!!

This is Eric, the son of one of my teachers. He's really cool and super hyper and super funny, but the only thing is that he gets angry when people speak English because he can't understand :( poor kid

My band!! Exchange Student Band - I was an exchange student, and Freddy and Janson are now exchange students in Chicago, and Christina is an exchange teacher. She was only in the band for one performance, so I guess it was E.S.T. Band for one performance. E.S. Band forever!

This is a pic of ZhongShan bridge (中山桥) in downtown Lanzhou. It was the first bridge built across the Yellow River in a Provincial level city in all of China! Cool! It's a little over 100 years old - super cool! A lot of YouTube vids that you will see of Lanzhou will feature this bridge.

This is a view of south-western Lanzhou - this bridge is the 七里河桥 Qi Li He bridge. At night, it's lit up with neon and it changes colors and it's is really, really cool! This was taken from the western part of the Bai Ta mountain, 白塔山.

This is one of my favorites from the whole trip - this is a jump back to Beijing. This was taken as I exited the Forbidden City's north entrance. The pagoda/pavilion/whatever that you see in the top center of the picture is the central pagoda/pavilion/whatever of Jingshan Park.

It's actually a part of Chinese fengshui. If you have a palace or importance building, it is good fengshui to have it surrounded by water (the moat of the Forbidden City), and then on the north side protected by a hill (Jingshan Park, created by the earth scooped out for the moat). The hill and water are supposed to protect you from demons.

Music Competition, Brotherhood, and Duan Wu

6/4 Today was the last round of the music competition and we were in the top 10! Janson told me there were something like 200 contestants or more at the beginning, so I feel so great that we did so well! We got a certificate award that congratulated us on being in the top 10 and we also were noted on it as the "most attractive" or "most stylish performace" band - at least that's how my friends translated it. I think we were 'attractive' because we were the only real band - everyone else in the competition was singing by themselves along with a track.  I was pretty happy about the reward, but I was more happy about what happened afterward. Me and the other guys in the band were just hanging out and talking about the competition and they said that we were forever ES Band (Exchange Student Band - the other guys in the band are going to Chicago in the fall, so they are technically exchange students). I was pretty thirsty and I said I wanted to get some water, but Janson said, 'here, just have some of mine - we are brothers, what does it matter?' This isn't a big deal in America - we say 'hey bro, what's up?' or something like that all the time and it's just a greeting, but here in China, that carries some weight. We have already said that we are going to be friends forever - almost every weekend and sometimes during the week, I spend hours and hours with these guys talking, eating, walking, singing, practicing for this competition, and anything. You can't spend this much time with people and not end up liking them. Without a doubt, they are some of the greatest friends I have ever had. I will be very sorry when the day comes that I won't see them anymore. We are brothers.  6/5 Today, me, Benjamin Xi, and another guy named Stan (one of Benjamin's roommates) climbed up Bai Ta Shan, which means White Tower Mountain. It was a pretty fun, but exhausting climb - the view was amazing. Tomorrow's the Dragon Boat Festival (端午节) - I'll be interested to see what kind of stuff the city's going to be doing for the holiday. I think I'll go down to the Yellow River and see if there will be any boat races. (turns out no, they only do that on the Yangtze Rive) The Dragon Boat remembers Qu Yuan, who was a high ranking official during the Warring States Period in ancient China. He was living in the state of Chu, and during that time, there were Seven Kingdoms, including the kingdom of Qin, who wanted to conquer the other kingdoms and unite China. Qu Yuan wanted the other kingdoms to unite against Qin, who was the strongest kingdom. His king and the king's son didn't agree with Qu Yuan's idea and demoted him and he was forced to leave the city. Qu Yuan was very depressed and often worried about the future of his kingdom, so one day he threw himself into the Yangtze River (I believe that's the right river) and drowned himself as a protest against his king. Qu Yuan was a very beloved figure, so many people got in their boats and raced to save him, but it was too late. While they were trying to find Qu Yuan's body, they threw what's called Zong Zi, a type of food which is sort of a pyramid shaped rice ball made from rice powder, into the river so the fish wouldn't nibble on his body. Now, people hold boat races in order to remember the speed that people employed in order to save Qu Yuan, and eat Zong Zi to also remember him. The boats all have dragon heads mounted on the front (I don't know the word for it), so the festival eventually got the name Dragon Boat festival.

From the Spotlight

Everyone who knows me knows that I don't really enjoy the spotlight very much. I don't really like to be the highlight of the party, the big star, etc. I've always enjoyed being involved in this and that, of course - but being the 'superstar' of Lanzhou University of Technology (especially the West Campus) is something that I could never have imagined back home. Let me tell you about the happiest memory that I have of China so far.  Today was the semifinals (or 3/4 finals or something) of the music/singing/band competition on the West Campus. I was really nervous about it, because for one I was going to be singing in front of people (again...I had done it the week before for round 2) and two, I was going to be singing in Chinese and playing a guitar solo. However, once we had done soundcheck and played a little preview, I got really, really excited. First was the song Good Riddance (The Time of Your Life) by Green Day - that was so much fun to sing - my friends/bandmates really love the song and we had a blast practicing it and performing it. The crowd loved us so much, they started saying 加一 个， 加一个, which means "another one, another one!"  So we obliged! We played a song, which translated, means "the old boy". It is one of the most popular songs in China - everyone knows it. I told the crowd we were going to sing it and they all kind of looked at each other with that look of 'really? he's gonna sing that? he doesn't even speak much Chinese!' I showed them! After I sang the first line of the song, the crowd went nuts!!! It was so cool, I've never been in that kind of situation before and it made me feel so happy - so happy, in fact, that I got distracted and forgot to sing the second line! My friend Janson saved me, he saw that I forgot and sang it for me. After bumbling through the guitar solo, we got to the last two choruses and Janson told the crowd to sing along if they knew the words. Me, Janson, Boss, and the crowd all sang the last two choruses together - even the judges! People were taking pictures of us, cheering, clapping, shouting, singing, it was such a great moment that I wish could have lasted forever. I'm grinning like an idiot thinking about it now.  On that stage, I felt alive and completely and truly happy. I was with my friends, I was playing guitar and singing for a crowd that I knew loved me - it was truly one of the best moments of me life. These past few weekends during band practice have been some of my happiest here in Lanzhou. My friend Janson told me that he is happiest on stage playing music, and when I saw him playing today along with me and Boss, I could really tell. I think it might have also been true for me today. I looked through the crowd while we played our songs, seeing friends and giving them a nod of recognition; my heart leapt when I saw their faces. I feel like I've really found a home here - I don't know what I will do when it comes time to leave. That is my happiest memory of China so far.