Just Some Taiwan Anticipation

Two weekends ago it was Halloween - what did you dress up as? I toyed with the idea of going as blackmail (wearing black and postage stamps) or stealing the classic Megan and going as gum-under-shoe (all pink with a shoe tied on my head), but ended up being distracted by other matters and copping out, going as a nudist on strike.

The day before Halloween I made a last minute decision to go to Hangzhou (杭州) for the weekend. I needed to get out of Shanghai (those of you who knew Mason - RIP - understand. I've been pretty torn up for the last week), and have been meaning to visit my friend Drue there for some time anyhow.

Hangzhou is beautiful, and certainly doesn't seem like a city (or by China standards, small town) of around 7 million. It takes about two hours to reach the city from Shanghai by bus. I took a sketchy van/bus/面包车 which was cheap and oh-so-legitimate. My fellow passengers were quite nice; I befriended the other young girl in the back row and someone even produced After 8 mints!

While I'm not sure that Hangzhou is truly is a cross between Lake Geneva and Aspen, it did have lovely parks and the lake was pretty remarkable. I highly recommend renting a boat for a few hours. Also, next time I go I'm for sure spending at least one night in one of the "vacation huts" along the shores.

Drue and his friends were lovely hosts and I had a great time. We visited a bar where one of their friends had his debut DJ event, carved pumpkins, met some Russians, and played some good old American drinking games at Zhi Da.

This past week has been relatively uneventful. A little bit of class, a little bit of actual work. I am however fully engrossed in planning for Taiwan!! We leave next week Sunday. It should be a pretty excellent time. If anyone has ever been to Taipei (台北) and has some suggestions, I would absolutely love to hear them.

Hope all is well with everyone.

~L

P.S. I forgot: this week I rode go-karts in China. It was surreal.

The UN and Global Challenges Conference

I just got back from a conference held at Fudan today by the United Nations Foundation on the subject of the UN's current global challenges. I was really excited for the conference, given the topic of interest and the star studded panel of people-who-have-influenced-so-much-of-my-studies-and-research. But, I walked away feeling more frustrated and limited than before.



The talk had such potential for giving real information, but it seemed as though the panelists underestimated their audience's intelligence and came unprepared to give that information, or even just opinions - which is really what we were all looking for. Granted, they received several fluff questions that I could have easily answered (but they didn't really even go in depth into answering those) but they also got some great questions which they pretty much avoided answering entirely.

Each panelist started off the discussion by stating what they thought the major problem facing the UN was, and a question and answer followed. Senator Timothy Wirth talked about climate change. Professor Emma Rothschild talked about climate change as a source for the economic crisis and urban planning as a way to combat both issues. Professor Ni talked about what his students talked about. Ted Turner talked about nuclear proliferation and climate change in terms of energy production. Muhammad Yunus talked about technology and the UN as a vehicle for our generation. Professor Yuan Ming talked about a need for leadership and and a projection of Chinese culture. Then the Q&A started.

After that (seemingly) good start (since the Chinese professors didn't actually say anything), things just got frustrating. Yunus started things off by talking about how nothing can be created until you imagine it. Without a vision you're just drifting. Having a vision leads to organization, and common vision leads to inspiration. You should use this inspiration to start small and then get involved big. This is great, but frustratingly was the answer to almost every question. The panelists responded to almost every inquiry ("What should we do about climate change?" "What is the UN doing about internal reform?" "How should we use technology?" "How do we influence the people in power?") with a plea to our generation to join the UN or government organizations. Over and over again it was the "have a vision and go for it, the power lies in the young generation" speech. Who are you, Walt Disney? We've all heard the "if you can dream it you can do it" speech. What we were looking for was the inspiration for that action and the affirmation that SOMETHING is going on among the higher-ups right now. Also, is the UN doing anything NOW, or is it just WAITING for my generation to join up and fix it - because thats what all these appeals were making things sound like.

Not to mention, I, and my peers would LOVE to get involved with the UN or a government organization, but for someone of my age, means and experiences it's so easy to feel limited by the opportunities available. Don't talk to me like I've never tried and that there are limitless opportunities out there if I'll only commit myself to them. I guarantee you half the people in this room have tried and it's not that we're all under-qualified - we come from some of the best universities and the best international affairs programs, but the fact is those internships are competitive, there are only so many entry level spots available in government, the UN can't take everyone who was a vision - you need to do something big to stand out so we needed inspiration from you to feel like it was POSSIBLE for us to become involved.

After the discussion was over I went up to Senator Wirth and attempted to articulate this, although I think he thought I was more accusing him of denying me some state department internship or something, which was not my intention. He gave me a little talk on the UN Foundation not having the resources to provide internships for more than 20 or so people. I tried to backpedal and say that I understood that - which I do - and explain that I just wanted some advice on what else I could be doing. Myself and so many of my peers are unable to get these opportunities, what else can we do to educate ourselves and work towards bettering the world? He had nothing to say besides commenting that the internet must be a great resource.

The internet is a great resource, but I want to learn and I want to one day be able to make a difference, and I want to not be frustrated by the lack of achievement I have going with my "vision." Sometimes it's not enough to "post it to my wall for inspiration" per Mr. Yunus' advice and too often the "start small action" is under-appreciated and overlooked. The least you could do is give me an idea of what is going on on the international stage regarding these issues right now. What should I use the internet to be researching?



All that said, there were some interesting ideas discussed in this panel and I did take copious notes. Professor Rothschild in particular had really interesting things to say regarding urban planning and specific changes that could be made in the economic model of mass consumption in developing countries. Mr. Yunus discussed his utopian vision of a world without passports and visas, and the problem institutions being based on state lines even though these problems are cross-boundary. He also talked about the philosophical interpretation of the human being as profit-maximizing. But, none of these ideas were expanded upon the way I would have liked. It seemed like the panel thought they were talking to uninformed children. They asked if we had ever heard of Model UN or the Copenhagen summit. Sure, there are people who haven't, but not those people who fought to get tickets to this particular conference.

Bottom line, you're preaching to the choir and I think we all really wanted to hear a bit more.

Some Shanghai Stuff

It's been an exciting couple of weeks here in the Pearl of the Orient! After I got back from my Qinghai trip (of which entries are still being added and post-dated! See here and here and here and here and here!), some of my friends from IES BJ came to visit. Sean was between jobs in Hong Kong (香港) and Drew is living/working in nearby Hangzhou (杭州). It was a wonderful visit, I was a crappy tour guide, and we marveled at the tourist tunnel and the ubiquitousness of Haibao.


This past weekend I got 17 new kiddos from Babson. So far so good, and orientating in October is weird. I've been getting to chaperone all their field trips though, which is way more fun than work. Excellent. It meant the tourist tunnel twice in two weeks (a little much even for me) and I got to go on a river cruise of the Huangpu! Something I've always been too cheap/lazy to do, but now I will definitely recommend it to SH visitors, especially during this glorious fall weather.



Other than that, life is going well, as is probably evident by my toaster oven post. Mmm delicious cookies. Halloween this weekend! I have no plans or costume yet, how about you? What is everyone going to be for Halloween?

This Friday I will either have a Chinese midterm or meet Kofi Annan and Muhammad Yunus. Hmmm...

~L

So beautiful!

Check out the glory:



Yes, those are coffee shortbread cookies in there!

Only in China

1. The other day the trash can in my gym's locker room was full of liter beers. Which they sell behind the counter. Along with coke. But no water.

2. Outside my building there is a shop that sells bubble tea and "wheat iced." That's like ice cream, but it's wheat.

3. Yesterday, in the infinite bike line up, I became frustrated with my bike lock key when it didn't work. Turns out there were three of the exact same purple bike with black basket and off-red rope lock. This happens often

4. Today at the grocery store, I asked where the sugar was, with the intention of baking. I was brought to a wall of sugar cubes.

5. Tomorrow I will make cookies (pending sugar discovery). Four at a time. In a toaster oven.

~L

Chinese Aerobics

Yesterday I took an aerobics class at the gym I've recently joined. Shockingly, my Chinese vocab does not cover terms used in such a class. Hilarity ensues.

I have all the entries for my Qinghai trip in my journal. I'll copy them over when I have time - probably at the beginning of next week. They'll be backdated to the day they actually occurred. Keep checking back!

~L

P.S. Fall weather is incredible!

That time I slept on the floor of a bus.

Yesterday morning we hiking around the mountain with the Buddhist prayer flags all over it, but not really on it because it felt a bit disrespectful. Got some good photos and saw a ton of prairie dogs and yaks. (Come to think of it, I think prairie dogs are the only small non-domesticated animals I've ever seen in China. Weird. No squirrels or equivalent.) Then we packed quickly in anticipated of the 2 PM bus.



We were rejected by the 2 PM bus. They said they would only take 4 of us, and thinking that there was a 3 or 4 o'clock one, we foolishly decided to pass on those seats. The restaurant owner who saved us by finding the hostel assured us there were others and agreed to call us when he saw a bus so we could just chill out.

So, we sat in his cafe drinking tea and eating na'an while having two of us stand sentry outside for HOURS! We went in 20 minute shifts and I'm pretty sure it hailed in all of my shifts. After waiting 4 hours, a sleeper bus came through. We hailed it down, and the lovely restaurant owner convinced him to take us on, despite the fact that they had only one open bed.

Jose took the bed and the rest of us pushed to the back with the intention of sitting on the aisle. A young Tibetan couple saw what was going on and, without hesitation, offered us one of their beds. These are not large beds. Charlie and Ben got in that and the Tibetan couple cozied together on just one of their 100 kuai beds. Gareth, Anna and I took to the floor. For the first few hours it was pretty awful; I couldn't lay down because Anna was behind me, so my back was dying, but more importantly I had to pee so badly so every position was absolutely awful. This bus wasn't stopping either - bathroom breaks by request only. We didn't discover this until waiting patiently for a break for about 2 hours. After the bathroom we rearranged and I was able to lie down. From then on, smooth sailing. Well, smooth as it can be to be lying on the cold, bumpy, miserable floor of a bus. All that aside, it was actually a rather pleasant ride. I taught the guys in the back how to play solitaire.


We finally pulled into lovely Xining around 11 and parted ways with the nice bed loaners. We went to out normal hostel, but after calling and door pounding, no one responded. So sad! So we called up the other HI hostel in town and headed over.

This one had a much better location (2 blocks from the snack street and 3 from the bars) but there was an awkward spread. There were 2 six person dorms, one had 3 people and one only had one person. 5 of us went to one room and Charlie went to the other. We never met the guy in our dorm - he woke up really early - but he did leave us a nice note wishing us good travels. It was so sweet!

Took a shower this morning - glorious! But cold, and the showers weren't very nice. Then we went to the Tibetan market for the morning. Everyone bought a ton of stuff. I stuck to my list, which was good, but I feel a bit guilty about not getting more gifts. I bought a Thanka painting of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, incense and a burner, a banner of the Om sutra and 2 bracelets like mine for the diamond family (if you guys are reading this, surprise ruined, but get excited for mail!). I also got to feel very clever because my Buddhist art history courses finally came in handy and I was able to interpret everyone's paintings.

We had lunch at a Muslim restaurant, and then just went to the hostel to hang out and play around on the internet for the afternoon. We hit up the snack street for train supplies - nuts, fruit, na'an - and then headed for the station. I feel awful for not remembering to tell the boys to keep their knives in their pockets, because they all went through the metal detector in their bags and were confiscated. [Side note to future train travelers in China - keep weapons in your pockets. They will not be detected there. They will find them if they're in your bags].

Last night on the train was uneventful. I agreed to the middle bunk and turns out it is also pretty claustrophobic. It did not help that Gareth found it productive to tell me claustrophobia stories and compare my bunk to a coffin.

Now we're just sitting around, settling in for out day on the train. Gross. Some people are studying, some are reading, and I'm thinking about going back to sleep, but it's so hot and stuffy my coffin will be uncomfortable. It's gonna be a long, hot, stuffy, thirsty and unattractive day.