Busy!

Its official, no matter where you are the holidays are always hustle bustle.  In China Christmas isn't celebrated (really, though it is Valentine's Day) but I still feel the same sense of aaak gotta do this gotta do that, school, Christmas parties, gotta here there quick quick loose ends everywhere and then everything all of the sudden slows done, then suddenly comes to a halt and its Christmas.

So, this week it turns out that I am all over Shanghai.  First, my trusty computer had a bad day, which involved the epic search for an Apple Store.  Despite Shanghai being the center of the Chinese material universe, there is really only one Apple store-and its located in the bowels of Shanghai's metro line 2 next to Ronald McDonald.  So that was interesting.  But now my computer is wonderful and healthy and I have a fancy ridiculously cheap external hard drive!

Last week my school informed us that finals would be moved up two weeks-in order to have a proper graduation ceremony and have a slightly longer spring holiday.  That's all fine by me, except my first final is the day after I come back from Taiwan.  Luckily its my spoken final, which is relatively easy.  But I have been tacking on another hour and a half of tutoring to learn the material that we will cover in class.  Plus I have a paper due in my culture class, and I am stuck in my oh so common rut of changing my topic as I do more research and learn more interesting things.  Oh, nelly.

One of us five gappers is also leaving for America for ever this Friday.  So we have spent the last few days running around doing and seeing everything left for her in Shanghai.  Yesterday afternoon we were all invited to karaoke with some Chinese friends, so naturally today we are all missing our voices.  Which isn't good especially since I have a little cold.  

Also, Christmas parties have taken me by storm.  Well, not really.  But this morning in class we all brought in breakfast from our respective home countries.  I brought PB&J out of a lack of creativity.  But there were donuts, German chocolate cake, latkes, Russian smoothies, Korean sushi like items, etc.  Plus we listened to Christmas carols and it was fabulous.  On Friday I am invited to a Christmas party, and I need to find some sort of White Elephant gag gift.  Also, I need to figure out some sort of holiday food that is inexpensive to make (anything I can make is priced to the euro, blech) and can be made without really cooking all that much.  (No oven, stove is questionable)  

And I leave on Monday!

Edit: This sounds really whiny, but I am not whiny, just amazed at how busy I am.

Jenny, this is for you.

A few years ago, Jenny had a small fascination with the great ancient Chinese Tai Chi 太极拳(tai ji quan).  I had essentially forgotten this, and I hadn't really given Tai Chi much thought since arriving in China, because people of my generation simply don't waste their time with that.  Tai Chi is an old people thing.  They ideal Tai Chi body is becomes rounded, hunched over, with a big gut, so its not even appealing as exercise.  Everymorning (chi is the strongest at dawn) Shanghai's parks become flooded with the elderly, practicing their goofy looking routines.  They move very such speed, its amazing to me that such slow, seemingly effortless movement can be achieved.  My grandpa says Tai Chi is for the very sick people who aren't strong like my family.  So its understandable that I forgot about the Tai Chi that my sister was obsessed with, the KAPOW bing kill kill whack Tai Chi.

Until today that is.  My Chinese culture teacher woke us up really early this morning to go to a park, meet his friend (an Aussie who moved to China ten years ago to found a yoga school, then later moved to the woods/mountains/countryside to practice yoga but then discovered Tai Chi and studied it in a temple for several years then studied in Beijing and then moved to Shanghai) who would introduce us to the fundamentals.

His myths about Tai Chi (they might not be common myths for those outside of China)

Tai Chi is easy

Tai Chi is for really old people

Tai Chi can't be used for fighting

My biggest shock was the last myth.  Hear, Tai Chi practictioners sort of just move there hands around like butterflies to some ancient-sounding Chinese music blasting from a scratched up boom box.  Some of them even hold fans, which appears to be the most civil and un bloodly martial art ever.  (but actually the fans used to have daggers in them and in ancient China concubines were also trained political assasins)  

All of Tai Chi is about killing.  The moments are essentially stoomping on your opponent, pulling him down, pushing him over, stabbing him, etc.  Its about the Yin and Yang, the constant flow of energy.  If a person uses too much energy (Yang) you can go all Yin (relaxy) and absorb his energy and he fails.  One man, who evidently knew the most about fighting and stealing chi pushed me over just by standing still.  Its sort of incredible.

What really made me fall in love, however, is the intensity and the beauty at the same time.  Your body is solid, like earth, but your hands are like silk scarves.  When you move your hands, they simply follow the path of the universe dictated by your body and create wind, energy, chi.  My explaination does the art no justice, really.  I can't even define Tai Chi.  Tai means too big, too immense, but Chi means the smallest point of the horizon.  Too much of the smallest.  I guess.

Oh, also, a while ago I was talking about how the Chinese believe that if you eat salt you will get sick, so here is either the cause or effect of that belief.  感冒 means to get sick, and if you look at the first character（感）, it has a 咸 on top.  咸 means salt.  The thing on the bottom（心）means heart.  So the salt gets into your heart and make you sick so the ancient Chinese made a character too reflect that, or since the character meaning getting sick that was created by the all knowing ancient Chinese has salt afflicting the heart, it must be so.  Both are interesting.

My Chinese Class.

Ignore the fact that my eyes are closed.

Check dis!

China in a nutshell.  This article is excellent.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/chinese-progress

Goal: Accomplished

Well, I am not fluent in Mandarin, but I have now witnessed an epic battle at the dinner table.  Yes, why of course, that does mean a bloody chopstick duel.

The Chinese all follow a certain set of strict health rules that have essentially become second nature.  One with bad eyes eats fish eyes.  If one's skin is bad, drink flower tea.  For a rash, drink hot things to draw the fire away.  Every possible consumable substance has some benefit or must be consumed at a certain time, or with something else, or only under certain circumstances.  Right now, both of my brothers are getting coughs, so they must not eat salt.

However, both have a penchant for salty food, which has only been amplified since its ban.  So this evening, we had two fairly salty dishes: a fish and and egg pork concoction.  Its interesting, we have had these two dishes for dinner countless times, yet I have never seen either one express such passion for either one.  Its usually only eaten when my host mom put it in their dishes and says “吃！吃饭！ 吃！ 快 一 点！ 快 一点！” "Chi! Chi fan! Chi! Kuai dian kuai dian!" (literally, eat, eat rice, eat, faster, faster) 

Whenever my host mom would start to eat her own food and become the slightest bit distracted in conversation with me (with requires almost every bit of energy and attention from both parties) the oldest of my two brothers would snake his chopsticks past the barriers of non salty dishes, and snatch a piece of forbidden fruit.  While bringing it back to his dish, my host mom would whack the ends of his chopsticks with hers, thus making the food fall from his clutches, then both pairs of black wooden fingers would kick and poke at each other, at which point my youngest brother would notice that this was a fun game and became involved.  He prefers a hands-on approach, extending his fingers directly into the match and grabbing whatever.  Somehow, my host mom managed to reach her chopsticks into his claws, and pull the remaining bits of what was once food out into the arena, where once again, they were fair game. 

Just Cuz.

So, the other day I went to the world's second tallest building.

I have now been to the two tallest buildings in the world.

Here is some evidence.

A Tragic Tale Concerning Pumpkin Pie.

Thanksgiving 感恩节 (gan en jie) in China.

My program decided to take us (all of us, the Gappers + hundred collegers) to Thanksgiving.  I wasn't really anticipating a Thanksgiving feast, but since one was promised, I started to get pretty excited.  I was assigned to eat at the Grand Hyatt on the Bund, absolutely gorgeous, plus American, so I decided that I would be guaranteed mashes potatoes and turkey and cranberry sauce.  Score!  But then, the worst happened, and on the way there my friend fantasized, "Oh, I wonder if they'll have pumpkin pie."

Pumpkin pie?  I had forgotten it existed.  Pumpkin pie. 

Well, we arrived, there was no turkey, no potatoes, and no pumpkin pie.

They did however, present a pumpkin pie as we were leaving, and I was stuffed with duck, xiao long, oysters, sashimi, lamb, spring rolls, lobster, crab, green tea ice cream, muscles, and so on.  It was delicious, just not Thanksgivingy. 

Nothing really feels like the holidays here.  All the department stores have Christmas trees and decorations, People's Park is lit up, I have seen a Santa, but it still doesn't feel as simultaneously artificial and authentic as it does at home.  But I do have an Advent calendar.