The other Jamb

Jinan Tuesday

Qufu was okay. Very historic as the home, temple, and burial-place of Confucious, but the pace was too fast. That and it just wasn't all that interesting. I think that was because I just didn't have the background that the Chinese have to really appreciate it. I managed to get myself a couple of cheap-o fans with Edwin's help. The highlight of the day though was Mount Tai. We only got to spend an hour on the top of the mountain because of Confucious' trip, but it was extraordinary. The view was impressive despite the smog and the general majesty of the mountain was really awe-inspiring. Jesse and Matt ran up to the peaks. It was a spiffalicious day.

Jinan Wednesday

Today half of us decided to stay in Jinan rather than visit the Folk town. We climbed the 10,000 Buddha mountain with the Chinese students that stayed behind with us. The first thing we saw is a giant buddha as big as a building and all in a gold color. Further up we split up again. I wanted to stay and sketch and three of the Chinese students stayed with me. I got as far as sketching the contour of the trunk of a tree before I got pulled into a conversation with the students, which was difficult because they didn't speak much English and of course I didn't speak much Chinese. The rest of the day was spent on the personal project.

The weekend kind of all rolled together, but it went something like this:

Jinan Thursday

This day marked the begining of the tandem project with our Chinese counter-parts. I got matched up with a girl who spoke no English. She has a really gorgeous style of watercolor painting characters. Communicating was difficult because the simplest of phrases were getting mangled both ways, confusing the hell out of us all. Edwin said that a great deal of what we all wanted to say was "whatever you want to do, I'll go along with it." She took the file home with her and added some work of her own to the project that night. I jumped into the project by starting a background while she was at her dorm-room getting work to show me. I worked on it further while she watched as well as one of her professors.

Jinan Friday or Saturday

My partner brought in her addition to the project and it looked pretty cool. She added a drawing of one of the Chinese gods as well as some characters of her own that looked a little Tim Burton-esk. After some input from Ying, I added a strange blue monkey to the gate where the guard sculptures normally sit as well as some Halloween elements ( since the Chinese don't celebrate that holiday). Aside from some printing logistics we were pretty much finished by the time the rest of the class had communicated enough to start working on their projects. I proceeded to complete my personal project, which was a small box with three layers to create a sense depth.
At lunch I made the Chinese students laught by eating some of the spices that cause your mouth to numb and tingle like you have sprite stuck in your mouth. I did it intentionally 'cause it feels good, but you're not supposed to eat them usually. After that I started a doodle in photoshop (which because I was working on the lab computer, everything was in chinese) which began to turn into a really cool image. We were all there in the lab 'till 6:00pm, chuggin away. I got into a conversation with Wang Lin Lin, my partner, using the translator on the computer. She told me how many girls wanted to get plastic surgery to raise the bridge of the their noses, widen the eyes, create a wrinkled eyelid, and used makeup to lighten the skin. The conversation actually began with her saying that my nose was high. It was a compliment, but I didn't understand what she meant. She also told me how it was fashionable to dye the hair blonde. I told her how students in Oregon often dye their hair many different colors, including blue, green, purple, red and orange.

Jinan Sunday

Everything was a matter of fine tuning and figuring out how to print. I did a rush job trying to take pictures of my box around the campus and to photoshop-correct them before the printing-guy left. After that all I did was play with Z-brush, which I was surprised to find on the computer. It's the most awesome 3D program ever! I managed to make a few characters in a matter of an hour and I got Jesse and his partner hooked on it too. The bus left at 2:00 to go back to the city for a free day. I wasted it by deciding to join those going out shopping rather than going to the internet cafe. It was a collosal waste and I was thoroughly annoyed.

Jinan Monday

The morning was spent trying to get the exhibition up. It was fun, but there wasn't any tape at first and they were all trying to hang things using string and clips, which were trully unattractive. Finally I got some sticky circles from Erin and that worked well. The prints were already mounted on foam-core when we walked in- to our surprise. I nearly pulled one of the walls down on me while I was trying to reposition on of my title stickers. After lunch I was just walking back into the exhibition hall when those returning heard a large "whud". I thought, "that can't be good". Then I walked a little further in and noticed it was my wall and hoped it had fallen on Matt's stuff and not my box which was taped to it. Buuuuttt nnnooooo. It squashed my box flat. It was funny how pathetic it looked all split and smashed. With some crazy rush and some tape I managed to reshape it in time for the show. Enough that as long as you didn't look closely it looked okay.
The show kicked off with way more people than I was expecting. There was literally a crowd moving through the exhibition. Then we all got called out for the opening ceremony with all the faculty and the SUAD president. As we rolled back into the building we started our final project. An impromtu wall drawing between all of us. I managed to liven things up a little by putting my hand in the ink and plastering my handprint on the paper. The Chinese faculty made faces and laughed every time I went back to put more ink on my hand. That led to Drew, Jesse, and Matt to getting their hands stained as well. After much fairwell and hugs, we left at around 3:00 to go back and pack and get ready for our final dinner. I got most of my packing done before we set off for food.
At the restuarant, there was dancing, singing, and a little bit of opera. Ying and David (her husband) sang a karaoke song, as well as one of the waitresses, the president, and Jackie, the dean. Drew also sung Hey Jude -which was awesome! And, Jesse made a fool of himself once again by boasting that he'd drunk more than the President. Promptly the President got up and poored Jesse another glass of strong alcohol and gave him the title of Little Tiger (being born in the year of the tiger), whereas the President was Big Tiger. Indeed.

Beijing Tuesday

The train ride to Beijing was considerably less stressfull than the last train ride. Outside of the station though was so crowded it was scary. There where a lot of people just standing about waiting, as well as some beggers and venders. We followed our guide for about a block down the city street to where the buses were parked. Craziness in itself. We went to CAFA university for lunch. It is the most prestigious art and design school in China with only 2% of applicants accepted each year and a student body of around 6,000. All the areas of the school made me want to go there for graduate school. The campus is beautiful and the work produced there is proffesional all around. The president and his team are the ones who designed the Beijing Olympic logo that we've been seeing all over China. I remember wondering in Jinan who it was that got to desing that logo, and it was great surprise to suddenly meet that very person. Something else that was kinda cool was the use of holographic pictures that changed from chinese to english words to label the photography department's rooms.
From there we spent another three hours journeying to the Great Wall. We got there just as the sun was going down, but unfortunately the smog was thick even out there and we couldn't see it. But we got a small taste of what climbing the wall tomarrow is going to be like. It's going to be a tough hike.
The farmer/tour guide cooked dinner for us. It was the best food we've had yet in China, it was so good.

Beijing Wednesday

Apparently there are small scorpions on the wall, though I didn't see one. However, I did witness a spider that had long legs and moved like a crab does. It was also so flat that it looked dead if it stopped moving. There are also multiple species of beetles. Some look like bumble bees, while others are green, and some are a strange blue.
Sleeping on the wall was cool, but we weren't able to see the stars. The toilet was a bucket in the far corner of the tower, and the bedding was no different than sleeping on the beds at the hotel and dorm. I woke up at 5am and got up immediately. I managed to spot a couple of squirrels running around on the wall. One thing we've noticed is that many of the animals that we would see in our own wilderness in Oregon aren't really present here in China. Large birds and rodents are a rare sight. Edwin suggested that perhaps they are eaten. Anyways, we did get to see the sun come up, though it was rising over the smog/fog rather than the mountain tops. After a little bit of food we set off at around 6:30 or 7:00. Up and down some pretty serious stairs and rubble for about 20 or 30 towers. I got jipped by a woman in a yellow t-shirt who sold me a long picture of the great wall for 100 yuan. She was so insistent saying "Thank you, buy buy. You buy, my kids go to school. Thank you, buy" and kept shoving the stuff at me. I knew my mistake before I even walked 20 paces, suck monkeys.
The scenery was as intense as the hike. And I made it all the way to the ticket booth for next section of the wall before a headache kicked in. I had to stop and rest for 40 minutes before I could keep going. By that time Ying and David had caught up to me and I walked with them the rest of the way. And finally, we made it to the tower right before the road down to the bus before I got really sick with heat stroke and had to get Edwin to bring me some of Tim's rehydration salts and aspirin. I couldn't walk the road, so we bought tickets for the cable ride down. I got in a harness and was strapped to the cable and sped down over the hill and the lake like an amusement ride. I was feeling better by the time we got into the restaurant to get food, but we were all surely exhausted.
The bus stoped at the 798 art district for a couple of hours on our way to the hostel. There was an enormous painting as long as a wall that depicted the Great Wall with a black cloudy sky and the sun coming from the right where men were looking out from what looked like one of the towers in a sort of hopeful and productive manner. It was gorgeous and the painting style and colors were rich. There was also an artist who made sculptures out of metal and then created large paintings of the colored reflections in the sculptures. The highlight, though, was when I walked into one gallery and the music was "Dust in the Wind" that was purely instrumental. That was a lovely taste of familiarity. Buuuuutt then my headache came back and I started getting sick again even though I was downing all the water I had. So I went back to the bus to chill and breath.
The hostel is in the back of an alley in with the other residences. It was stunning to walk in there at night after Ying had told us of the accomidations. It wasn't nearly as bad as it had sounded. The entryway was lit by red chinsese lamps and the courtyard between all the rooms was colored morning glories in it. There's only two toilets and three showers between everyone in the hostel, but there isn't much of a backup as one might imagine.
Dinner was fast food dumplings after which I crashed.

Beijing Thursday

We were screwed over by our cab driver to the Forbidden City this morning. He dropped us off four of five blocks away from the north gate where we were supposed to meet the rest of the group. He charged us 21 yuan for a trip that shouldn't have cost us more than 10 and didn't give us the receipt. Then we didn't know which way to go and ended up walking all the way to the south gate to get in. We being Katie, Jesse, Joel and I, we made our way up toward the North gate and finally met up with everyone else. Poor Edwin at apparently been sent running to the sought and east gates looking for us, though he didn't find us. After that I pretty much followed Jesse around all day. We climbed the hill to the temple above the City where Jesse got dressed up as an Emperor which I am pleased to say was hilarious. We met up with Ying, Edwin, and Drew for lunch and got an interesting lesson in tea from Ying before heading back to the Hostel to rest.

Beijing Friday

The weather was even worse than yesterday. It was raining hard and it didn't let up till late in the day. We travelled to the Temple of Heaven, but it wasn't all that exciting. I bought a few gifts and Ying bought playing cards with all the chinese Emperors on them. The weather really was crap though and I went back with Joel and Drew to the hostel to work on our projects. I got most of it done by the time dinner rolled around. It felt good to just lie around and draw while it was raining outside after so much running around.
The real fun came at night though when I finally got to go out with the group to go drinking at the local bars. We invited Andy along, a student at the University of Washington who was staying at the hostel. He was nice, but the poor guy was getting sick. So we sent him off to his airplane that night with as many drugs as we could find from our stashes at 1:00 in the morning. But Houhai was gorgeous with all of the lights and the reflections on the water.

Beijing Saturday

Today was the flea market. We got up early to taxi and buy lots of shtuff. It was a big place and there were a lot of people, but I didn't buy much at all. The others bought a lot of hanging scrolls and paintings, but I was discouraged by having to barter for everything, and not sure what I wanted to begin with. I managed to get a few gifts, but once again was got done in my lack of water. I managed to find some just as I was going down, but the amount of people smoking and the incense burning started making me whoozy and I just wanted to leave.
I taxied back with Jesse with a whopping charge of 54 yuan for the ride.
We were supposed to have dinner at the Peking Duck restaurant, but it was so busy that we just couldn't get in in time for the performance at the tea house. We ended up in the restuarant next to it and ordered the duck anyway. What was funny though was that the duck was cooked at the big four-floor restuarant and brought to us. So we ended up with our good duck anyway.
The teahouse was great. There was shadow puppetry, opera, juggling with large jars, oral mimcry, and martial arts. I particularly enjoyed the Shadow Boxing display. On the way back many of us bought propaganda woodblock design posters. We must of cleaned out a good half of the peddler's stock.

Beijing Sunday

Drew, Joel, Jesse, Edwin, Peggy and I all sat inside the airplane on the tarmac for 7.5 hours. It all began with one of the oxygen masks in the forward compartment being damaged. By law the plane was not allowed to take of with it in that condition so they sent people out to search for the part on other United planes. That didn't work so it was flown down to us. We got all ready to go, but because it was something akin to rush our, we were 9th in the queue to take off. We were at third in line when someone became ill and had to be taken off, so we lost our spot. Then a few hours later someone else became nausious (probably from lack of food and drink, cause they took away water bottles right before we entered the plane for whatever stupid reason), so many people got of the plane to wait in the terminal. We actually ended up raiding the snacks out of Rachel's suitcase and eating all of Edwin's snacks as well. Then the crew was past their working hours if we took off at a certain point, so they had to switch out the crew and the pilot. So finally after all that and all the people were back aboard, we took off for a 10.5 hour flight across the ocean. Stupid piece of plastic. At least I got to see Japan at night. It was really beautiful seeing the city lights spread out like a spider web in the black.
So it was guaranteed that everyone on that flight missed their connections. There was a huge group of Mexans who were put up in a hotel in San Francisco while the other 300 some people had to wait in line 3 hours to get our flights rescheduled. One exciting thing that came out of that was that Dominic Monaghan (who plays Merry in Lord of the RIngs) showed up in line and Jesse went to get a picture and talk with him. He has a very deep English accent. Then it was another 3 hours wait for our night flight into Eugene, putting me in my bed around 12 midnight, Pacific time. That couldn't have been any less than 24 hour day.

In China, 8 is supposed to be a lucky number. What's ironic is that our flight number was UA888.

First week jamb

Shanghai Tuesday

When we first arrived we’d been up for nearly 20 hours, and the very thing I had been paranoid about happened. Three of us in the group including me did not get our luggage. I felt immediatly lucky that I had the other suit-case with me, but I was still very annoyed at the problem. Stepping through the door to outside, I thought three things: "My god it's hot," "My god it's humid out here," and "What is that smell?" It was like bad eggs. I got over it.
The traffic in the city is insane. The lights say stop and the traffic keeps on moving, at least when it comes to making turns. Pedestrians and cyclists cross streets wherever they can or want to.. I commented to Edwin that I thought the people ignored most of the traffic rules was becuase there are so many people in the cit (16 million according to Ying). If they followed the rules like we do, the back-up at the lights would be horendous.
The air here is so heavy with humidity and so hot. The smog is visible on the horizon all around. After sitting in an air conditioned place, going outside again is almost like suffocating. And finally—the people are very up in your face. Compared to the States/Oregon the people are constantly coming up to you; most of which seem to be people sell knock-off watches and bags. The roofs and architechture are all very elaborate, especially in the marketplace around the tea house. Ying explained that the reason for the upturned corners on the rooftops was a symbol of hopefullness or prosperty, because a corner sloping down is sad and depressed. At night the city is covered in light displays. Some of them are very impressive, providing a light show pattern over an entire skyscraper.
The group climbed JinMao tower after dinner. To get up we would all cram into an elevator till no one else would fit, then went to the 18th floor at around 200meters/second. It was incredibly crouded dispite being late (around 8:30-9:00). The best was being able to look down into the center of the tower all the way to the bottom. There was also a store that was cracking open oysters and giving away pearls if you showed them your ticket. Of course they tried to sell us something with them—at least they did for the girls.

Shanghai Wednesday

We woke to find it raining very hard outside. It was a surprise to all of us. None of us had thought of bad weather, but lucky the hotel rented out umbrellas. During breakfast the lost luggage came, relieving me of some much despised stress. Afrter depositing the suticase Edwin, Katie, Jesse, Joel, Drew and I decided to walk to the museums rather than take a taxi. The rain and wind was nice, but didn’t realy change the air. It was still smelly and warm. The ancient art was good, but like any other museum. The Modern Art was rather boring. In the artist’s block there was: brushed paintings that vaguely hinted at faces-like a massive motion blur. The artist most memorable was the one with the painting of water/water plants that were 3D-ish using lots of paint for the effect. It was detailed from afar but up close it was also dribble color. He also had giant paintings of the tops of apples in different colors and a plate with an intricate, traditional design of floral and ribbon- all in ceramic. It was so thin I could imagine how he made it without breaking those details. The graffiti there was also very artistic, with great text designs and crazy characters. On the way there we got to see a lot of high-rise appartment buildings. They are impressive in themselves because ther are so many, like a city unto themselves.

Shanghai Thursday

The water town is were the people wo live there live like they did several decades ago. Walking with Joel, Jesse, Rachel, Drew, we ate breakfast in a little hole in the wall. For 15 yuan (about $2) each, we got a bowl of hot noodles. We kept wandering and managed to wander our way out of the traditional town. We were robbed of sprite by a dwarf in a green shirt, then proceeded to get even more lost and ended up on the highway. We back tracked to the stage where we were originally to meet Ying. It took about and hour and some of being lost to make our way back. The tour guide took is to see the exhibits in the back of the town. It was almost unbareably hot. There was no airflow, it was hot, the humidity was high and I was dripping sweat. I don’t think I’ve ever been that hot before. I was glad I packed a lot of water that day. One thing I do remeber about those exhibits though was the rice-wine maker. There were tons of urns fermenting the alchohol and the smell that was coming from them was pungent, like some sort of a meat roast.

Shanghai Friday

We started the day going out to look for art supplies. I bought some watercolor pencils and a sketchbook for about $10. Most times it’s hard to find just a sketchbook for that. The rest was spent woking on projects and sketching. Not very exciting. Until I went out with Drew to find some lunch. I followed him down the food street to a shop that sold meat on a stick. Drew bought three. But while we were walking back, a man with a monkey on a leash took one of his meat-sticks. Then a second man with a monkey took other stick to feed to his monkey. He just took it out of Drew’s hand. Drew was pissed off, but he didn’t want to make a deal out of it because 1.) he didn’t speak the language, 2.) The man had a strong grip and wouldn’t let go, and 3.)the monkeys may have been small and fuzzy, but they certainly were not cute nor happy. Drew went to find food someplace else while I went to the market to get a drink and some crackers to eat. Later the group went out for dinner at a little restuarant on the corner were Drew bought his meat sticks. The boys ordered a fresh snake, which we later learned when the bill came was a king snake and we had to pay 400yuan just for the snake. It was a surprise, but divided between all of us was only about $10 each. But Edwin and Ying got into an argument with the manager trying to reduce the bill some. We all felt kind of bad and just sucked up the mistake and payed the bill. I watched King Kong on tv while I finished up my project 'cause I'd never seen it before. It was a dumb movie--Jackson was trying was too hard.

Shanghai Saturday

I put the final touches on my project and then read for a while. In the afternoon I joined Jen, Matt, Tim, and Drew on a trip on the subway to the French Concession area. We didn’t actually find it though. We got off in what we thought was the right place, but essentially just ended up meandering our way to the restaurant for dinner. It was a relaxing hour and a half walk though, just being able to wander at our own pace. We saw the greener part of Shanghai, a woman who had her little palmeranian dog do tricks for, a wall with some crazy childish murals on it, and entire ducks – head and all – hanging in a window for purchase. Dinner was at the restaurant “Vegetarian Lifestyle.” It was pretty good, but again we ordered too much. I think all of our stomachs have shrunk despite all the food we've been fed. At the hotel we had a speedy review of some of our projects before rushing down to the lobby to wait for the drivers that would take us to the train station. The men were horrible. The guy that arrived on time wouldn’t leave until the other guy got there ten minutes late, which was making Ying worried and antsy. Our driver had poor driving skills on the way there. And when we arrived at the station, the first man came up to Ying wanting a flat rate of 50 yuan each. She was told the fair would be metered and they knew she was in a rush to make sure we all made it on the train. She gave 50yuan for the both of them. We rushed to the train, though it was more dramatic than it needed to be. Sleeping on the train wasn’t that bad. But we were all awake by 6am. For some reason the water in the water closet was left on, so there was a sloshing bucket next to the toilet.

Jinan Sunday

Shandong University of Art and Design welcomed us with a giant banner. The day was sunny and warm, but not nearly as sweltering as Shanghai. We took a small tour of the town and went to the marketplace near the big blue swirly spikes. It got really hot though and we were all tired. We got our first look at the dorm rooms before lunch. The room itself was okay, but the beds were the same as they were in Shanghai: hard. The bathroom was the surprise though. After having the nice rooms and bathrooms at the hotel, this was like looking at a facility inside a travel trailer. The toilet looks exactly like that and the shower head just sits on the wall. You can’t take a shower without drenching the whole bathroom in spray.
Dinner was at a super fancy hotel/restaurant. Some of the group who didn’t dress up felt under-dressed for the occassion. The room itself was huge with the biggest lazy susan I’ve ever seen. ( It also rotated automaticaly.) The night was impressive, but we were all tired, as seemed to be the normal result of each day, and came back to the dorm to crash.

Jinan Monday

The ride to the new campus of SUAD is a 40 minute straight shot. Once we got there, the was not really impressed by the building. It was just an arrangement of boxes—very industrial looking. We introduced ourselves to the Chinese students, and them to us. But aside from Jesse, we didn’t really speak to them much.
By time we made it back to old campus to look at the folk museum collection, I felt like I was going to fall asleep on my feet and fall over. I managed to nap for an our before going to dinner at the buffet where we had lots of sweets. There was this one dessert that was some sort of sweet bread with whipped cream injected into the center. I ate three of them. Edwin and Ying’s husband, David, each down a glass of beer with the Dean by wrapping arms around the neck. Very funny.