My weekly emails have turned into monthly emails that have turned into seasonal emails. Bear with me, but this one could get kinda long…
Nanjing’s weather has a very special place in my heart.
The weather here isn’t very subtle at all inasmuch as that it’s really hot and humid for 3 months and then, one day, the temp drops drastically and the Summer is over. For example, the past month or so it’s been in the mid to high 70’s. Gorgeous and happy weather. Windows always open, birds singing, rainbows, the whole nine-yards (minus the rainbows, Nanjing is much too polluted to see rainbows). And then, on Friday, the temperature dropped 14 degrees and Bam – it’s Autumn now.
So the jackets are out, the windows are closed and the heating is turned up high. And so my losing battle against getting a cold begins.
While September was quite uneventful, the month of October turned out to be a pretty cool time. The first week of October is the equivalent of Independence day in China, so the students got the week off of school. My father was up in Mongolia, so I went up to visit him. Mongolia was incredible. The scenery was fantastic, vast steppes, mountains and hills that seemed to go on forever, and a blue sky that somehow seemed bigger than I’ve ever seen before. The people there were really friendly even though I didn’t speak Mongolian. I had the opportunity to visit some really beautiful Buddhist Temples, a ton of different museums and many other things. While I’ve spent a good amount of time in Latin America and Western Europe, I’ve never been to a post-Soviet state like Mongolia. It was a new experience for me, and I felt more culture shock during my short time in Mongolia than in my many months in China.
The statue of Lenin is still up there, the alphabet is in Cyrillic, and few people speak English or Chinese – so I was, once again, illiterate and unable to really communicate. But in spite of all of that (or perhaps because of it) I felt Mongolia to be an incredible, beautiful and mysterious place…and I can’t wait to go back.
I got back home and then we had another week off of school for the Nanjing Sports Games – essentially a mini-Olympics in China. I got to watch some Chinese wrestling and some swimming competitions. But mainly, I did my own mini sight-seeing trips throughout the city…I also caught up on my West Wing DVD collection. :)
Last night, I was invited by one of my friends to attend this Chinese live variety show that was being held at a local bar. On my drive over, I met Li the Cabbie’s crazy younger brother who drove just as well as his brother did. (They’re not really brothers, but my god are these people terrible drivers) Unfortunately, this time the seat belt didn’t work, and I think we ran over a cat…so I’ve decided that from here on in, I’m going to stick with buses or walking.
After nearly dying several times, we made it to the show. It was actually really cool. There were comedians, but seeing as how they spoke in Chinese, we just kinda laughed along with the crowd. Though at some point, I’m sure they were making fun of the Taiwanese. I kinda laughed at that point. There were acrobatics, there was live music and it was really really neat until the finale. In which they brought out a male pole dancer. Yup, some Chinese guy with nothing but a black thong.
And that’s all I want to say about that.
Thongs aside, time here in China has been really great so far. I’m learning a lot about living on my own, managing money, learning how to talk Chinese so people understand me; but I’m also living in a society that’s changing at such a rapid pace.
We forget that in the 1970’s people hoped to be able to buy a bicycle, a watch and a radio; in the 1980’s it was a washing machine, a TV and a Fridge. Today, cars are plentiful, people own their apartments, everyone has a TV, people travel in and out of China at a rapid pace and they’ve recently flown men up to space. It’s fascinating to see this country grow and change from this point of view. The people here are very proud to be Chinese and very excited about the future. Yes, there are still many fundamental problems – the income gap, the environment, etc. but these are exciting times nonetheless.
While I’m terrible at responding to emails, I do eventually write back (Eventually…Denise, I haven’t forgotten about you!) Please send me an email and keep me posted about all the things that are going on in your lives. I miss you all a ton and love getting news and updates.
Since February, I’ve taken about 5.7trillion pictures. Some of those made it up to my Flickr site. If you’d like to see bits of Mongolia, Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai, my Apartment and other stuff, go check it out. The site is http://www.flickr.com/photos/12minds
All right, I’ve bored you enough. Hope all is well and thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Alberto
10.24.05
12:17pm
Nanjing