Summary

My last two weeks in Qingdao, before going home to the US for vacation on July 22, were busy and stressful. I spent too much time with friends and over-committed myself. I spent over three weeks at home in New York. I did not experience much culture shock, and was able to make trips to both Boston and Philadelphia.

I returned to China with my mom on a Tuesday, August 17. We stayed in Beijing for four days, and Marsha met up with. It was fun but stressful, a bit much for my mom. We have been in Qingdao since then and my mom has loved Qingdao. It far surpassed her expectations.

I enrolled in an informal program a week and a half before the official start of school on September 6, as I had been eager to get going.

My Chinese

On July 18 I took a standardized test called the HSK, which measures one's Chinese ability on a scale of 1-8. Upon returning to Qingdao I got the results, and to my pleasant surprise, I got a 6, which officially qualifies me to take classes at a Chinese university with Chinese students.

I've gotten the usual mix of feedback on how my Chinese is coming along. My Chinese landlord said that it has not improved at all since he met me in mid-April. He asked what in the world I've been doing all this time in Qingdao. When he first said I had retrogressed, I was not sure I had heard him correctly. It felt strange getting such direct criticism. A very good Chinese friend of mine, Celia, also recently told me that my Chinese has gotten worse.

I am confident that my Chinese has improved. I think what happens is a person gets a very good first impression of my Chinese and this impression stays with them. Later on, after getting used to my Chinese, they notice some of my weaknesses. As this more recent impression is negative, they are left with the illusion that my Chinese has deteriorated.

On the positive side, I have gotten a new compliment, one I had never heard before this month. People say that I speak better Chinese than any American they have ever met.

I've started watching a Chinese TV Show and love it, not only as a means of studying but as entertainment. If I look up all the words I don't know, it takes over three hours to get through a 40-minute episode. Lately I have not had the time to do that.

Last two weeks in Qingdao

After school ended, I had two weeks to prepare for the HSK test. I ended up spending more time with friends than reviewing. For a variety of reasons, the two weeks were a nightmare.

A very good friend of mine asked to borrow a lot of money and I had to refuse. This was especially awkward and difficult because I felt I may have misled my friend to believe I would lend the money. This refusal was hard on my heart.

The next upsetting experience also dealt with a friend asking too much of me. Garisson, who had been my best friend in Qingdao last term, started hanging out with me more frequently as the school year came to a close and summer vacation started. Although we had fun together, I became irritated when he started speaking only English with me. I got the feeling he was using me to practice his English.

One day, he asked whether he could stay at my place while I returned to the US for a few weeks. Additionally, he asked if a female friend of his who was visiting from out of town for a week could also stay (with him) at my apartment for up to a week, before I was to leave Qingdao. That he even asked me made me uncomfortable, and I did not know how to politely refuse his requests. In America, I could be direct, but in China being direct is often not considered the best way to refuse someone. A side annoyance was that Garisson would not be OK with his female friend staying at my place without him here. He did not trust me with her, or maybe her with me. I struggled for days thinking of how to refuse him. To further complicate matters, I knew he had a big crush on the girl coming to town, and that she didn't feel the same way about him. That he had a crush on her meant he would be especially let down at not being able to stay at my place with her. But I knew that allowing him to stay here, besides being an inconvenience for me and a disturbance, would lead to an uncomfortable situation which I would be in the middle of, watching his heartbreak.

Finally, I told him directly that I would not feel comfortable with anyone staying with me for that much time as I need my space and am used to living alone, but would be OK with him staying here for two days. He said he understood.

I think the situation was partly my fault for letting him feel too comfortable by letting him feel at home in my apartment. This included letting him sleep on my bed, as he is tall and cannot comfortably sleep elsewhere, and his using the shower, and cooking. Soon he started staying at my place as long as he pleased. He took the expression, "Make yourself at home," to another level.

Further, he verbally put me down various times. On one hand I like someone to be honest. On the other hand, some things are better left unsaid. He once said he hated how I used my hands when I speak. He also said my jokes were childish, and girlish.

All of this began to outweigh his positive qualities, including that he likes sports, is interesting, generous, and gives me insight into the Chinese male perspective.

Because I did not completely refuse him, a situation developed during his friend's visit. His female friend stayed with him at my place for only one night, but Garisson helped her find a place to stay in a guest house right next to my apartment. She came over to shower every day. Further, Garisson stayed over four nights. I lent him my key just in case he would need it when I was not home, and he ended up using it a couple of times without asking me first.

On his third night he stayed over without asking, and I didn't make a big deal about it because I figured it would be the last night he would stay. But the next night, after spending a nice evening with different friend on the beach, I came home to see Garisson sitting on my couch watching TV. I had a talk with him, even though I knew his friend was leaving the next day, because I felt what he did was wrong.

When his friend left Qingdao earlier than she had originally planned, he hinted it was because she was not comfortable where she was staying, indirectly blaming me. All this was too much for me, and I did not want to see Garisson again in the week or so I had remaining in Qingdao. The day before I left, he apologized for his behavior in various aspects. I let him know he could not stay at my place during the time I went home, and he did not try to make me feel bad about it. Until this point, I had not refused his request to stay at my place while I was away.

To add to my ongoing headache, Florence was acting crazier than ever. She said that I had caused her to lose face at the wedding we had gone to together. At the wedding, there was one point where I was speaking with a woman next to me, and Florence asked me if I wanted water. I was in the middle of a conversation, and further, the waitresses were in charge of this. She did not like me talking to a woman, even though Florence and I were never more than the most platonic of friends. For these reasons, I nastily replied, "Can't you see I am talking to someone?" That was when she lost face, though I did not realize it at the time.

Months before, I had tried to stop being friends with Florence because she had been unreasonable and immature at various times. I had succeeded in limiting seeing her to once or twice. Now more than ever, I did not want to be in touch with her, nor to speak with her ever again. It simply was not fun.

One day after the wedding, Florence started writing text messages to me rather than calling me. When she asked if I did not want to speak with her again, I decided to be honest and said yes. I thought she knew that response was coming, but apparently not.

She went crazy in a way I feel inappropriate to describe here, I did not know how to handle it. I finally appeased her by saying I would meet with her before going home so that we could talk about our situation face to face. I eventually wrote her a text message, saying I had left for Beijing a day earlier than I had planned and thus could not see her.

Last term a doctor who treated me at the clinic at school last term and was very friendly to me when I was sick during my first month in Qingdao wanted me to meet her son, and as I now had some time, I gave her a call.

Her son was OK, but not someone I could be good friends with. In any case, after we met the first time, he continued to call me to meet up, and eventually his mother invited me to their place for dinner. She wanted her son to practice his English with me. At their apartment, when she heard him speaking to me in Chinese, she'd say, come on, speak in English.

This, in itself, was not a big deal, but I felt like it was one person after another that wanted to use me, had some ulterior motive . Maybe I was getting paranoid but I was more than ready to get out of Qingdao. I was as excited about leaving Qingdao as I was about getting home.

I learned a valuable lesson; not to put out too much or be too friendly, to keep space among friends, and not open your house up too easily as people tend to take you for granted and ask for more and more. It has taken more time than it should have for me to learn this lesson.

My Flight Home

On my flight from Beijing to New York I stood up to stretch and relax in some open space by the bathroom and started eavesdropping on a conversation going on in Chinese. Eventually, I joined in and I ended up speaking to various Chinese people over the next seven hours .

One was a Chinese man who had been living in New Jersey working for an international company the last ten years. He felt that he had not been able to blend into American society and was hoping his work would transfer him to China very soon. I liked him except for some strange comments he made about women. He said something about Shanghai and the women there and it gave me the impression that he goes to Shanghai and pays for women. And I wouldn't say I looked down on him because of it, but the way he mentioned it gave me the creeps.

Another was a female graduate student, Crystal. She has been studying abroad in the US for four years. She also had many complaints about the US and felt that she often encountered bureaucracy, more so than in China. She backed up her comments with some examples. She lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband, and during my trip to Philadelphia the following week I ended up meeting up with her and her husband and showed them around.

Lastly, there was a girl with the English name of Windy, not Wendy. She seemed to think that was a proper name and though the rest of us disagreed, she held her ground. I found her to be the most obnoxious. She had never been abroad but was not excited about it. She was going to the US to get her master's degree in Law from Columbia University. I could not understand her very well because she spoke fast, with difficult vocabulary, and I think an accent from Hainan, where she is from in China. I never would have expected us to become good friends, but as it turned out, I spent more time with her in the US than I did with anyone else, and we became best friends for three weeks.

Time in the US

When I got off the plane and through customs, I was surprised not to see anyone waiting for me. I went to the phone booth and called my mom, and it turned out she had just parked and was walking toward the waiting area.

I did not experience much culture shock, but if I had to say what struck me, it was the decadence, the lack of smiles from people on the street, and the breast implants. Maybe it's that I'm used to seeing smaller ones here. It did not take me long to adapt to America.

Becoming friends with Windy

Windy called me and I arranged to meet up with her. I know how Americans are not that friendly to foreigners and I wanted to try to be friendly. I didn't especially like her after the first few times meeting up, but I started liking her more and more and all of a sudden we were hanging out talking until four in the morning.

We ended up meeting in Boston, where we had a nice day, checking out the campuses of MIT and Harvard, Boston Commons and the Charles River. We spent a lot of time together, walking in parks, eating, shopping, etc.. One day, to my surprise, she let me know she had a boyfriend.

Basketball with Jason

Besides making a good friend, nothing significant happened while I was home. One thing I remember is playing basketball one evening and the following morning with my first cousin, Jason. When I spoke to Jason's mom on the phone and told her about me and Jason playing ball together in the morning, she was shocked because he apparently does not like to get up early. I was flattered, because over the years Jason has gotten up early many times to play ball with me.

Another thing I remember distinctly was one Friday when Jonathan, Rachel (my sister) and I went to Philadelphia.

The day started out with Jonathan and me picking up Rachel from my dad's apartment. Jonathan and I were having a huge argument, which had started the night before. We had been talking about Michael Moore's film (Fahrenheit 9/11) at dinner, and after dinner watched a documentary about how biased Fox news is. We talked about whether documentaries had an obligation to attempt to be objective, and the conclusion seemed to be that they did not have to be. I did look up the word now, and I see "Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter, as in a book or film."

In any case, this led to a discussion about the news, and whether there was some obligation to attempt to be objective. I think there should be, that the news should not be allowed to send subliminal messages. My brother disagreed, and when we picked up Rachel we asked my dad. I thought he would agree with me, but he didn't. On the contrary, my opinion bothered him, and he started yelling.

He was most annoyed that I was open to the possibility that Fox news' early announcement of the election results that Bush won, when the results were clearly inconclusive, could have been politically motivated and further influenced the election results.

I am neither left-wing nor right-wing. I don't think Michael Moore's movie is presented objectively, and don't think Republicans are more conniving than democrats or visa-versa - I wouldn't know - but my sister is somewhat on the left, and seemed to think from my own views that I was too, so she took my side, which I found amusing.

In the midst of much yelling through the car window, we drove off. First stop was a rest area where Rachel had some Roy Rogers fried chicken for breakfast. She said Popeye's fried chicken tastes much better than KFC because they use real chicken, unlike KFC, which uses something which, she says, cannot legally be called a chicken.

Next stop was Swarthmore. We did not use the shortest route to get there and Jonathan made sure to point this out. When we got there, it started to rain, but we still walked around the beautiful campus. I listened to both Jonathan and Rachel sing in this roman-style amphitheater on the campus. Then we played baseball. I was impressed with how Rachel throws a baseball. She doesn't push it, but rather throws it overhand.

After lunch, we got a tour of a very selective music school in Philadelphia. We received a tour from the admissions officer. There was a photo of Einstein playing the violin and he made some off-hand reference to quantum-mechanics and music, and related this to Einstein. Rachel astutely pointed out that Einstein in fact was a proponent of relativity, the opposite of quantum-mechanics. I am not sure whether she was right and perhaps I am phrasing this wrong. The way I see it, one may be a more specific and accurate representation of the state of matter, but that doesn't deem the other one incorrect. Maybe relativity was supposed to be the end all be all and quantum-physics somehow disproved some of relativity's logic. Rachel has read more than I have on this.

In the afternoon, we took a nice walk on South Street, one of the more lively places in Philadelphia, and caught a movie.

At the end of the day, after a two-hour drive back to New York from Philly, we watched an Ali-G episode at my brother's apartment and then I dropped Rachel off at home, in Harlem, by the deadline of 10 PM, given to us by her mom (if we did not get there in time, Rachel would be in big, big trouble, she said.)

Random comments on my time in America

I ate bagels with lox and nova way too much, but never got around to having the new Burger King hamburger.

In general, I did have less in common than I used to have with the various friends I talked to. I expected that. It was more difficult to talk about my experiences in China than it is for me to write about, and people often don't  know what to ask. As a result, I didn't end up talking about China that much.

I got an invitation to my ex-girlfriend Anita's wedding. Although I would not be able to attend, I was able to meet up with her. I unnerved her quite quickly. I saw her engagement ring and we discussed it. In the evening, we ran into some other girl Anita recognized from her alma-matter, Wellesley, and it turned out this girl was engaged. I jokingly asked how many karats her ring was. Anita pulled a face, neither appreciating my humor nor realizing that I was just joking.

I had a dinner alone with my dad and talked about some deep subjects, like marriage, women, life, retiring, etc. I don't remember the last time I hung out with my dad alone. We went to a great pizza place in Brooklyn, Grimaldi's, and afterwards, got some ice-cream along the river while we enjoyed the amazing view of New York. Isaac had not yet witnessed me conversing in Chinese, so I found some Taiwanese people and chatted with them in Chinese.

I had my fill of America and by the time the 16th of August came, I was ready to come back to China.

Airport

My mom and I had a lot of time to kill at the airport in New York. I tried to teach her some Chinese but after twenty minutes she had had enough. Our flight was delayed for two hours, so the airline gave us some bagged food for a snack. When my mom got up to go get the food, a man sat where she had been sitting.

Without thinking about the fact that many seats were open, I protected my mom's territory. When a man sat next to my mom's seat and put a bag in her seat, I let him know the seat was taken. He made a face, probably because he saw so many empty seats around and wondered why I had said anything. I shouldn't have, but had already reacted. I felt bad, and proceeded to say that his bag being there was no problem, but he ignored my apology.

I noticed he had this ring on with many diamonds and it did not look like a university or a wedding ring, but more like an athletic ring. I did not want to ask him about it, but tried to get a good look at it. When my mom got back, at my request, she asked him about it. He let us know it was from the Olympics, but remained vague. I asked, did he win it? He was very athletic looking. He said yes, he had won it for crew. He participated on the American crew team in both '96 and '00.

We chatted for awhile and I was self-conscious, not wanting him to realize how cool I thought it was to be meeting him, and not wanting to make him feel uncomfortable.

I asked how the adrenalin rush at the Olympics was compared with a college championship race. He said it didn't compare, that it was much higher in the Olympics.

He was just now on his way to the Olympics, though not to compete . I learned his name, Tom Auth. He was very friendly and I felt bad about being rude about the seat. He didn't seem to hold a grudge, in any case.

Beijing

The flight was uneventful and we arrived in Beijing at 8 PM. When we exited from the baggage claim area, Marsha was there waiting, with pretty hair in a style and a huge smile. I actually could not wait to see her, though I was calm. My mom, upon leaving the luggage area, was crying, Marsha later told me. My mom was very emotional about landing in China.

On the cab ride to the city, the first big buildings we saw were Microsoft's and Nestle's, and my mom commented about China trying to Westernize. The comment bothered me, because it seems more logical that these foreign companies are rather trying to enter the Chinese market. My mom made one funny comment like this after another.

I had reserved a dorm room, which was all that was available at the hotel that I wanted to stay at. When we arrived at the hotel, they would not permit Marsha to stay with us because there was a rule that the dorm room could not be co-ed if there were a Chinese person staying there. I didn't know what to do, and started getting upset, as I did not want to stay in different dorm rooms. It's a no-no to become visibly agitated in China, but I have not managed to rid myself of this bad habit.

I told my mom there was nothing we could do, but she insisted on talking to them. She begged, but not ridiculously, for a room, and came through. They said it was available for only one night, but we were able to stay there for all four nights in Beijing. My mom sometimes has a way of getting things done.

That evening we walked in some of Beijing's famous alleys by our hotel, called hutongs. Our hotel was located in a hutong. We ate in a dive restaurant, if you can call it that, and mom wouldn't take more than a fraction of a spoon of the tofu. She said it made her nauseous. However, she was thrilled with the tomato and egg soup. After my mom fell asleep, Marsha and I went to the garden next to our room and chatted for a few hours.

Over the next few days we went to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, The Great Wall and various Peking duck restaurants. We biked through hutongs, markets and parks. My mom was overwhelmed when we walked around in crowds and when she didn't know exactly where we were going, and I can imagine what an annoying feeling that was. In addition, she was having caffeine-withdrawal symptoms. For awhile, she had trouble dealing with the fact that coffee was not readily available and this made her irritable.

I had my friend Richard, the Chinese man I had lived with when arriving in China last January, take us to a section of the Great Wall that was not restored. We drove a long ways to get there. I had been there before and had had a great time, but this time people kept asking us for money and would not allow us to continue walking without paying. At one point, when I tried to just walk by a man, he pushed me and I pushed him, and we almost got in a fight. I decided to pay him instead, but when, five minutes later, two men with knives demanded money from us to continue up to the wall, we opted not to continue. Coming down from the Great Wall, an old woman asked us for money as well. She had a farming tool, which I grabbed from her and threw to the side. This was a horrendous experience, and particularly upsetting for my mom and Marsha. In any case, we went to a different section of the wall afterwards, and had a nice hike. 

Marsha and I had a lot of fun in Beijing, but my mom was stressed, not being used to not being able to communicate with people, and not having a great sense of comfort, as taxi drivers had trouble finding our hotel, among other things. It also took some adjustment to get used to spending so much time with both me and Marsha.

Qingdao

We arrived in Qingdao on a Saturday night. My mom instantly liked Qingdao and by Sunday afternoon was comfortable getting around.

I introduced my mom to my friends Stephanie and Garisson. She finds it annoying how Garisson always speaks English with me, but otherwise has had favorable impressions.

My mom got a job teaching English one night a week, and thinks that may be too much. She goes jogging every morning and usually spends the day with a Chinese friend she made. We've gone to the beach a few times together, as well as jogged and hiked together.

My mom thinks she knows more about Qingdao than I do, after having been here for less than two weeks. She may be right. She has been to various placed that I've never been. I've been spending my days studying.

We have managed to get along reasonably well. She often cooks food for me, and found a beach close to my apartment that I did not know about. She has tried to give me space and has kept busy so we have not had any major problems. Once in awhile I find a piece of toast with butter randomly sitting around in the kitchen, but otherwise no complaints.

My mom is having a good time all in all, but feels pressure from people to go see different parts of China. She came here to spend time with me, and while I don't mind her doing so, I don't think she should go traveling just for the sake of it.

Jinan

This past weekend we went to Jinan, the capital of the Shandong province, over 300 km from Qingdao. My mom wanted to try out the train and long-distance buses, so we did both. We took a train on Saturday morning and arrived six and a half hours later. We bought the best seats available, but ended up next to the space between cars where people smoke. The door between cars was constantly left open. I also saw a roach on our seat. My mom enjoyed the scenery for a few minutes.

From Jinan's train station, we took a walk and found a filthy place on the street and stopped for some appetizing fish and fresh white rice. We visited some of the famous sites in Jinan, including some springs. At night we visited a huge square, which had huge fountains, lit by multi-colored lights and set to move to the music. It was a beautiful show. I thought we were just lucky, to be there on a Saturday night, but I was told they had this almost every night, and in fact, a few times during the day as well.

Sunday morning we went for a hike. We walked from the hotel to some hills a couple miles away, and because of some risky choices we ended up hiking up a mountain not climbed by tourists, but quite nice. A Chinese man helped lead us down, and offered me a peach he had brought along as well as some water. I accepted the peach, not knowing it was his only one.

That afternoon, for lunch, we had some Peking duck, which my mom found to be delicious, unlike the duck she had had in Beijing. We saw a couple more sites, walked through the streets and markets and then caught a bus home. Besides the two hours where we did not move on the highway, due to a multi-car accident I was told, it was a smooth ride, and we made it in a little over six hours. We shared a cab back to my place with an old man we had met on the bus.

Misc.

• A funny quote from my mom's Scottish friend, Tom: "Where you see a mouse, you see a Chinese person. Where you don't see a mouse, you see a Chinese person."
• In a Beijing taxi, when we were stuck at a red light, the driver got out of the car, fetched a brush from the trunk, and proceeded to clean the outside of his car. Other drivers looked at him like he was crazy.
• Garisson made a bet with me on the following tongue-twister. I said it should be, "She sells sea-shells on the sea shore," and he said it was, "She sails sea-sells on the sea shore," even though his sentence makes no sense whatsoever, and at the time we made the bet, we were walking by a woman selling sea-shells on the sea shore. He lost and admitted it. A teacher of mine also made a bet with me, that Popeye's was a Korean fast-food chain, not American. I thought it was so funny how they lost these bets, but then lost a bet myself. Garisson avenged himself. We bet on the word "smart." He said it meant painful, and he won. In my dictionary, I found a couple of definitions. One is a verb, "To cause a sharp, usually superficial, stinging pain." The other is a noun, "Sharp mental or physical pain."

People

Stephanie

• She will continue to tutor me one day a week, and is excited that we will study Chinese history and culture together.
• I think she may like me, but I told her I think it would be best for me to not get into a relationship with a Chinese woman. This way, she won't expect something to happen and create an awkward situation for me. I think more and more that I understand why some Westerners avoid serious relationships with Chinese women. The Chinese outlook is different from that of Western women. I've had some good experiences, but I've also had experiences where I'm not sure what the feelings really were. Chinese girls may be curious, may think you have a good financial situation, or may want to use you to go abroad. I hear more and more about Chinese women using men.

Daxiong

• He spent the summer in the US and we both happened to return to Beijing at the same time, but were unable to meet up. He asked me to travel with him in Thailand this February, so there may be some crazy adventures ahead. He plans to study this term, take January and February off and start work in March.

Mom

• She has asked me some awfully strange questions, such as, "Does it rain in China?" "Are there mice in China?" She's also made funny comments, like, "There are some very pretty Chinese girls. They don't all look the same. Some have American noses."
• She noted how greasy and salty the food was, and said, "What's wrong with these people?"
• She's noticed some strange and unpleasant smells here. But we have that in New York too!
• She likes me to order healthy things, but when I order boiled vegetables, she complains that they do not taste good.
• She said she would boil some string beans for me. When I had some, I tasted oil. I mentioned it to her and she said maybe it was left-over from the pan, as she had made pancakes earlier in the day. Later, she finally admitted that she did add some oil, thinking that I would not notice. She complained that it was difficult to sneak things by me.
• She was reading my diary. In fact, it has very private things, but I could not blame her. It was my fault for leaving my computer logged on and the folder with my diary open. The reason she was caught was that she started laughing out loud at something she read.

Suen (Windy)

The girl I met on the airplane originally had the name Windy, with a difficult to pronounce Chinese name. Windy and I tried to pick out another English name, but she didn't like any from the hundred we looked through. My mom thought she should keep her Chinese name. For awhile, I was stubborn and disagreed, but then I realized that I was wrong, that it wouldn't be that inconvenient to use or difficult to pronounce, and agreed to give Windy my blessing to use the name  Suen, which is close to the Chinese pronunciation of her name. (She wanted my blessing) I can admit when I'm wrong!

What the Chinese find surprising

• The Chinese find it so strange that we don't buy apartments. Here, parents buy their children apartments when they get married or are ready to live on their own, because they can't buy them themselves. Renting is very uncommon. They find renting unstable, but this is because in China people rent from the owner of a particular apartment, not a landlord or owner of a building. When I explained that in New York, some apartments are only available for rent, and that there is a managing group or one owner, they found this strange.

My friend Apple asked me some very difficult English questions and I think the questions (besides the first one) may not have a correct answer. Here they are, in a simple format:

• Do you want to invite the <xxx>? a. Browns b. Browns' (I think a.)
• The chairman was <xxx> by what Jim said, and glared at him for a few seconds. a. put down b. put away
• He bought the books in <xxx>? a. sale b. bargain
• When asked to dinner, he frequently declined, on the <xxx> of being sick. a. excuse b. ground