I have been tromping around Harbin for two weekends now. This weekend will make three. The first weekend was rather disappointing. The second weekend was fruitless. Harbin appears to be very functional, full of concrete, and devoid of character, at least in the summer. In the winter the city is supposed to come alive with snow and ice sculptures illuminated from within. Also known as ice lanterns.
Its not that Harbin is terrible, it is just lacking the street life and vibrance I was expecting. On the upside I did find a nice forest park to walk around in, excellent meat sausages, and potential t1bet1an food.
The contrasts between china and the US are numerous and striking. Who would have guessed? Lets start with physical appearances. Chinese people look Chinese. More than that many are rather slim or skinny. Actually most of the Chinese females are rather thin and many of the males are rather portly. The size difference between the sexes is striking. Also the shear frailness of the women. I had been thinking about how strange the size contrast was for several days when I asked my roommate. His response was that many women diet, constantly. I was astounded to hear this, although it does seems to make sense (check out the bellies on some of the guys). Widespread dieting is not confirmed, and I am not about to go around asking every thin girl.
There are several portly men, as i mentioned. Whats even more interesting is that it is currently summer and their bellies get hot. To cool off the belly, you simply pull your shirt up uncovering your belly and go about your business as if everything is normal or you are super proud of your protruding flesh.
http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/CityTour
I also went to a lake and some sand hole for a picnic this weekend.
http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/Daqing
Monday, July 28, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Population
One of my teachers provided a interesting insight into the current population size. She summed it up in two of the famous Chinese four character phrases. The first translates as 'more kids, more happiness.' This has had clear effects. However it would be interesting to investigate historical population growth. I'd bet there was a turning point where population growth became exponential. The second phrase translates as 'males are important, females are unimportant.' She gave an explanation for the clear sexism. Traditional when a couple marries the bride moves in with the groom's family in their family compound. As parents grow old, their children take care of them, except if there children were all daughters and married away to other houses. This system has even an greater impact when the parents are limited to one or two children by law.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
kareoke
I found a music video for one of the songs we sang.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEXLcmfKDIg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEXLcmfKDIg&feature=related
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
翻译Translation
Some of the following sentences are translated semicorrectly。 By semicorrect，I mean you should be able to divine the intended meaning from the mess of English grammar. The Chinese sentences are my originals and google provided the english translations.
U.S. Olympic athletes great, more and more access to the gold medal.
France's Olympic athletes are lazy, less and less access to the gold medal.
美国的奥运会选手很棒，获得的金牌越来越多。
法国的奥运会选手很懒惰，获得的金牌越来越少。
Russia on the construction of Harbin have great impact.
The United States on the war on the Iraqi people have a good impact.
俄罗斯对哈尔滨的建筑有很大的影响。
美国的小大战对伊拉克人有很好的影响。
In the United States on the Iraq war on oil-related.
Western consumption and the development of China-related.
在伊拉克美国的小大战于石油相关。
西方的消耗量与中国的发展相关。
Than listen to her mother's words is more important to have assertive.
Comparable to the well-being is more important to other people's happiness.
比听妈妈的话更重要的是有主见。
比拟的幸福更重要的是其他的人的幸福。
U.S. Olympic athletes great, more and more access to the gold medal.
France's Olympic athletes are lazy, less and less access to the gold medal.
美国的奥运会选手很棒，获得的金牌越来越多。
法国的奥运会选手很懒惰，获得的金牌越来越少。
Russia on the construction of Harbin have great impact.
The United States on the war on the Iraqi people have a good impact.
俄罗斯对哈尔滨的建筑有很大的影响。
美国的小大战对伊拉克人有很好的影响。
In the United States on the Iraq war on oil-related.
Western consumption and the development of China-related.
在伊拉克美国的小大战于石油相关。
西方的消耗量与中国的发展相关。
Than listen to her mother's words is more important to have assertive.
Comparable to the well-being is more important to other people's happiness.
比听妈妈的话更重要的是有主见。
比拟的幸福更重要的是其他的人的幸福。
T-shirts
There are some good ones here. For example: Today in pronunciation class I was having a hard time concentrating. The main reason was the two silver gothic crossed dangling from our teacher's shirt. Secondary reasons were the bizarre creepy angel's and demons flying around her. Additionally there were some words. In big stylized letters on the front "Paradise Chick" and in smaller letters on the back "Pure feelings come from heaven; Angels will bring us feelings; Would you follow the voices from the sky?"
Another winner from today was a white form fitting job with big letters made from silver sequins. The letters spelled "I heart Cookie" The word cookie stretched all the way across.
Maybe this weekend I will find some new shirts of my own.
Another winner from today was a white form fitting job with big letters made from silver sequins. The letters spelled "I heart Cookie" The word cookie stretched all the way across.
Maybe this weekend I will find some new shirts of my own.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Monsters and KTV
Our pronunciation teacher is rather strict. Class time is filled with lots of wrong，no，try again，no，listen to me, no , again, again, again, no, wrong, etc.
The other day after class I was walking down the hall with a classmate. Our teacher was approaching us from the other end of the hall. As we neared, 30ft to go, we notice her begin to stutter-step and cower against a wall eyes blinking frantically. There was something near the ceiling approaching her, and she was scared. It flew closer. She gave a scream and made a full retreat. It was a butterfly. Seeing her cower before the pretty butterfly was quite the contrast to pronunciation warden we had experience just 10 minutes prior.
Last night we went out for dinner with a Chinese student group. I didn't catch the name of the group, but their purpose is to welcome and entertain foreign students. It was great fun. We left at 5 for a hot pot restaurant near campus. Hot pot is exactly what it sounds like. A great big pot set in the middle of the table kept hot by a charcoal fire. Various meats, vegetables, and fungus are then ordered to put in the pot. The pot is filled with water and a few spices and let to boil. Once boiling, you just start putting food in and taking food out. Most things are cut thin and only take a minute to cook. We had lamb, beef, 6 types of mushroom, various root veggies, tofu or different sorts and some greens.
Hot Pot and Korean BBQ are two types of restaurants were you do all the cooking, right on your table.
Around 7 we left for the infamous KTV. There are KTV's throughout China and similar enterprises throughout asia. KTV is a karaoke joint. This one was particularly dark and shady. After entering the door we were met by four KTV employees wearing white dress shirts, black slacks, and CIA earpieces. The room was very dim and there was loud music. After price negotiation, we were led down an even darker stairway with a low ceiling to the dark basement. The basement had approximately 15 equally dark rooms with mirrored walls, couch space for 10, two mics, flatscreen tv, touch screen karaoke control, and strobe light. We entered our room, the door closed, and thus began the next 5 hours.
It was quite fun to watch and hear the chinese students sing. Some were quite good. It was also interesting to hear lots of chinese music. After 5 hours of chinese music, and confidently say love is the primary theme, seconded only by the desire to find love and marriage. All the songs were rather serious and very heartfelt. It made for a rather emotion experience. Since it was a karaoke place, there was a tv. One the tv were the words to songs and also music videos to go with the songs. Most were dramatic and involved a young man and a young women loving one another, but more often feeling heartache over being separated or lonely.
It didnt take long for me and Tony to get dragged into the fun. There were english songs too! Oh boy. I dont have much singing practice, nor am i familiar with the random assortment of pop songs from the 70's-90's that was available. Tony and struggled through several rather poor songs that we had never heard before, or mistakenly heard on the radio. I dont remember most, didnt recognize most, but Ricki Martin and Richard Marx come to mind. Also a song called Venus that went something like "Im your venus. im your fire. im your desire." What i would have given for hips dont lie.
dress shirt and slacks. She just ran around, chewed gum, smiled at the camera, was chased by the camera, pretended to swing a baseball bat, and was If the english music selection was appalling enough, the music videos that went with the songs would do anyone in. The videos were not the originals. They involved 1 or 2 white foreigners, shot mostly in the US. One video simply had a women dressed in a baseball cap, oversized mensudderly ridiculous for the duration of the song. The song had nothing to do with baseball, or this ridiculous woman. Another video had a man with a rather unattractive bush of neck hair escaping the neck of his t shirt. The man ate a popsickle, waved a sparkler around, and held a rose. The video was shot using green screen, which was replaced with hideous 80's stlye neon color kaleidescopetry. The ricky martin video consisted a women wearing very short cutoff jean shorts and some tight top. She just posed on a porch and next to a motorcycle for the video. At least the motorcycle had BC plates.
I felt pretty bad as "cultural ambassador." The american movies (although there weren't necessarily even shot, produced, or of Americans, the association was clear) were appalling poor. Not only that, but in comparison to the heartfelt emotional chinese videos, the american videos were outright embarrassing. I am not saying the original videos or even other american music videos are good, but that the representation of american culture these videos gave was depressing.
Nevertheless it was fun. Just picture me singing Ricky Martin Livin la vida loca.
http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/ktv
The other day after class I was walking down the hall with a classmate. Our teacher was approaching us from the other end of the hall. As we neared, 30ft to go, we notice her begin to stutter-step and cower against a wall eyes blinking frantically. There was something near the ceiling approaching her, and she was scared. It flew closer. She gave a scream and made a full retreat. It was a butterfly. Seeing her cower before the pretty butterfly was quite the contrast to pronunciation warden we had experience just 10 minutes prior.
Last night we went out for dinner with a Chinese student group. I didn't catch the name of the group, but their purpose is to welcome and entertain foreign students. It was great fun. We left at 5 for a hot pot restaurant near campus. Hot pot is exactly what it sounds like. A great big pot set in the middle of the table kept hot by a charcoal fire. Various meats, vegetables, and fungus are then ordered to put in the pot. The pot is filled with water and a few spices and let to boil. Once boiling, you just start putting food in and taking food out. Most things are cut thin and only take a minute to cook. We had lamb, beef, 6 types of mushroom, various root veggies, tofu or different sorts and some greens.
Hot Pot and Korean BBQ are two types of restaurants were you do all the cooking, right on your table.
Around 7 we left for the infamous KTV. There are KTV's throughout China and similar enterprises throughout asia. KTV is a karaoke joint. This one was particularly dark and shady. After entering the door we were met by four KTV employees wearing white dress shirts, black slacks, and CIA earpieces. The room was very dim and there was loud music. After price negotiation, we were led down an even darker stairway with a low ceiling to the dark basement. The basement had approximately 15 equally dark rooms with mirrored walls, couch space for 10, two mics, flatscreen tv, touch screen karaoke control, and strobe light. We entered our room, the door closed, and thus began the next 5 hours.
It was quite fun to watch and hear the chinese students sing. Some were quite good. It was also interesting to hear lots of chinese music. After 5 hours of chinese music, and confidently say love is the primary theme, seconded only by the desire to find love and marriage. All the songs were rather serious and very heartfelt. It made for a rather emotion experience. Since it was a karaoke place, there was a tv. One the tv were the words to songs and also music videos to go with the songs. Most were dramatic and involved a young man and a young women loving one another, but more often feeling heartache over being separated or lonely.
It didnt take long for me and Tony to get dragged into the fun. There were english songs too! Oh boy. I dont have much singing practice, nor am i familiar with the random assortment of pop songs from the 70's-90's that was available. Tony and struggled through several rather poor songs that we had never heard before, or mistakenly heard on the radio. I dont remember most, didnt recognize most, but Ricki Martin and Richard Marx come to mind. Also a song called Venus that went something like "Im your venus. im your fire. im your desire." What i would have given for hips dont lie.
dress shirt and slacks. She just ran around, chewed gum, smiled at the camera, was chased by the camera, pretended to swing a baseball bat, and was If the english music selection was appalling enough, the music videos that went with the songs would do anyone in. The videos were not the originals. They involved 1 or 2 white foreigners, shot mostly in the US. One video simply had a women dressed in a baseball cap, oversized mensudderly ridiculous for the duration of the song. The song had nothing to do with baseball, or this ridiculous woman. Another video had a man with a rather unattractive bush of neck hair escaping the neck of his t shirt. The man ate a popsickle, waved a sparkler around, and held a rose. The video was shot using green screen, which was replaced with hideous 80's stlye neon color kaleidescopetry. The ricky martin video consisted a women wearing very short cutoff jean shorts and some tight top. She just posed on a porch and next to a motorcycle for the video. At least the motorcycle had BC plates.
I felt pretty bad as "cultural ambassador." The american movies (although there weren't necessarily even shot, produced, or of Americans, the association was clear) were appalling poor. Not only that, but in comparison to the heartfelt emotional chinese videos, the american videos were outright embarrassing. I am not saying the original videos or even other american music videos are good, but that the representation of american culture these videos gave was depressing.
Nevertheless it was fun. Just picture me singing Ricky Martin Livin la vida loca.
http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/ktv
Friday, July 18, 2008
地址和手机号 Address and Number
For mailing both labels are required. If you send something, expect some strange and interesting thing sent back.
Jason Clark #408
CET Program
Harbin Institute of Technology
No. 6 Dormitory
Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150001
People’s Republic of China
Cell
086 13796 033047
if you want to talk we can set up a time. there is a quite a big time difference and i am in class most of the day.
Jason Clark #408
CET Program
Harbin Institute of Technology
No. 6 Dormitory
Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150001
People’s Republic of China
Cell
086 13796 033047
if you want to talk we can set up a time. there is a quite a big time difference and i am in class most of the day.
Monday, July 14, 2008
开始学习Studies begin
First day of class....and the homework begins. Endless hours of repetition, memorization, and practice.
http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/StudiesBegin
http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/StudiesBegin
Sunday, July 13, 2008
香庐山 Xianglu Shan Big Incense Pot Mountain
This last weekend we went for a mountain climb. Mountain climbing exactly taxing. There were nice wide paths, paved in places and the mountain was more like a small friendly hill. Nevertheless it was great fun, mostly because there was a big rain storm.
The place was crowed as most places in china are. Tourists (chinese) abound complete with camera's and picnicking gear. It took a little over an hour to get the top. There were about 10 foreigners in the group (including me) and we got plenty of looks and people talking about us. The talkers would preface whatever they said with "they dont understand (chinese)". Some engaged us in conversation with "what country are you from?"
Once we got to the top and had some lunch the downpour began. Luckily for us the way down was not the well manicured upward route, but rather a much steeper slick muddy one. I thoroughly enjoyed sliding down the muddy hill just like it was snow and ice. Others disliked being wet and muddy and having precarious footing. It was great fun. There should be more mountain climbing and mud skiing in the rain.
pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/XiangLuShan
The place was crowed as most places in china are. Tourists (chinese) abound complete with camera's and picnicking gear. It took a little over an hour to get the top. There were about 10 foreigners in the group (including me) and we got plenty of looks and people talking about us. The talkers would preface whatever they said with "they dont understand (chinese)". Some engaged us in conversation with "what country are you from?"
Once we got to the top and had some lunch the downpour began. Luckily for us the way down was not the well manicured upward route, but rather a much steeper slick muddy one. I thoroughly enjoyed sliding down the muddy hill just like it was snow and ice. Others disliked being wet and muddy and having precarious footing. It was great fun. There should be more mountain climbing and mud skiing in the rain.
pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/XiangLuShan
Thursday, July 10, 2008
到了 Arrival
I am here! I got in last night around 10pm. Not too bad of a trip overall. Around 30 hours of travel.
On the flight from the US to Beijing 北京 the guy behind me had an epileptic seizure. I was reading my book when he started making some groaning noises and shaking violently. The people next to him didnt do anything so I went and got the stewardess. We eventually found a doctor. It turned out he had forgot to take his meds. The flight was late getting into beijing and I missed my flight to Harbin. Air China was very easy to work with, even in chinese, to get a new ticket for later last night. After being had for an extra $5 dollars by the taxi driver and accidentally going into a girls dorm, I made it to my new home for four months.
It is a 10x10 concrete white box with two beds and two desks. I share a bathroom with 3 others. I met my roommate today. He is a history major from Xian, the city with the terracotta warriors. His name is Song Lai Long. I also went through some bureaucratic processes to get internet in my room and get a meal card for the cafeteria. Both involved no less than 5 separate forms and at least two large red stamps.
When walking back from the store after purchasing a new blue plaid bath towel I happened to pass a young lady wearing a teeshirt with english words on it. At first glance it looked like a Nike shirt, but upon further inspection it turned out to say "just do me" followed by at least 20 other statements. I was only able to read two, "just grab me" and "just kiss me." I wonder if she had any idea. I also wonder what the other 18 said.
On the flight from the US to Beijing 北京 the guy behind me had an epileptic seizure. I was reading my book when he started making some groaning noises and shaking violently. The people next to him didnt do anything so I went and got the stewardess. We eventually found a doctor. It turned out he had forgot to take his meds. The flight was late getting into beijing and I missed my flight to Harbin. Air China was very easy to work with, even in chinese, to get a new ticket for later last night. After being had for an extra $5 dollars by the taxi driver and accidentally going into a girls dorm, I made it to my new home for four months.
It is a 10x10 concrete white box with two beds and two desks. I share a bathroom with 3 others. I met my roommate today. He is a history major from Xian, the city with the terracotta warriors. His name is Song Lai Long. I also went through some bureaucratic processes to get internet in my room and get a meal card for the cafeteria. Both involved no less than 5 separate forms and at least two large red stamps.
When walking back from the store after purchasing a new blue plaid bath towel I happened to pass a young lady wearing a teeshirt with english words on it. At first glance it looked like a Nike shirt, but upon further inspection it turned out to say "just do me" followed by at least 20 other statements. I was only able to read two, "just grab me" and "just kiss me." I wonder if she had any idea. I also wonder what the other 18 said.
I was up at 3am this morning. Now it is 8pm and I am pretty tired. Tomorrow I get my class schedule and Saturday we are going for a hike.
Monday, July 7, 2008
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