Basic Survival Rules: China Edition

I've been playing with the idea of doing a collection of survival tips for different places/situations/etc. Of course, I must put this out there: I do not, in any way, think I know what is best for everyone, nor am I trying to force advice on you. I am merely using my own experiences to hopefully provide some sort of insight. Just toying around!

Here's the first one, inspired by my recent trip to China as well as the previous trips I've taken there in the past. I think these rules are a pretty good summation of my thoughts, opinions, and feelings towards this strange, but incredible country.

May they save you from whatever terrors you may encounter.

BASIC SURVIVAL RULES: CHINA EDITION 

1. Always bring a pack of tissues with you wherever you go. Unlike other countries, toilet paper is rare in many bathrooms. Sad, but true.

2. Learn how to use a squatting toilet. They're odd and feel much less civilized in my opinion, but in many places, they're the only option.

3. When eating meals, relatives/friends will undoubtedly encourage and urge you to eat more and more. It can be exhausting to refuse every single time, and it makes them really happy when you comply, so this depends a lot on your own willpower. When in doubt, pick your battles wisely and be as polite about refusing as possible. Rude manners at the table will be noted.

4. I've taken a while to accept this one, but it's an important thing to remember: people in China smoke. A lot more than you might be used to seeing. When you're trapped at a meal with a bunch of adults and most of the men start smoking, do you:

a). Start telling them about the terrible health impacts that smoking can cause? 

b). Stand up and walk out of the room without a word?

c). Smile and ask for a cigarette yourself? 

d). Keep your thoughts to yourself and try to inhale as little smoke as possible?

For me, the answer is always d. On the inside, it drives me insane that everyone in the room is getting secondhand smoke, but I don't want to offend these people and try to change their lifestyles. Most of these people are relatives or at least guests or friends. In my opinion, it's not worth ruining our relationships by trying to make their business mine. I don't know. That's just me. 

  

5. Traffic in China can be absurd, to say the very least! I've taken probably every form of transportation here (car, foot, taxi, bus, van, motorcycle, bicycle, rickshaw, horse, electric scooter, subway, regular train, high-speed train, plane, boat, ferry) and it's given me some verrrry eye opening experiences...by that, I mean near death experiences. 

It take some getting used to, but you will get more accustomed to nearly getting hit by cars, incessant honking by your driver when it's completely unnecessary, crossing a busy highway with no crosswalk or stoplight, squeezing a sedan into an alleyway with literally NO room on either side, driving cars on sidewalks, and so much more. 

Just remember: try and be as safe as possible (seat belts are rarely used here but it's still a good habit) and trust the skills of your driver/pilot/conductor. They're more brilliant and masterful than I think anyone gives them credit for. 

6. When in China, remember that you're in the most heavily populated place in the world. It's overwhelming to see so many people. That's no doubt. But it's also exciting and fun! There's no better place to people watch. Just be careful and if you can, stay away from packed areas like subways during rush hour. You will get rubbed, shoved, and pushed by dozens of people, and if you don't feel like you're suffocating, it's not nearly at its worst.

Just don't allow others to constantly push you down or to the side.

7. Fight off mosquitoes relentlessly. Depending on where you are in China, you most likely will be attacked by them, so invest in bug spray, an electric flyswatter, and other weapons of your choice. They're heartless, bloodthirsty little demons.

8. Foreigners are always screwed over when they try to haggle with store owners in China. Try to be as firm and unrelenting as possible with only paying if it's a fraction of the price they give you. Store owners can give absolutely persuasive arguments...just keep in mind that you're a foreigner, and that's one of the first things on which their price is based.

9. Even though everyone around you in China might act like a vampire in terms of hiding from the sun, it's still okay to get your tan on. Stand out in that crowd of umbrellas! Why not?

10. As always in any new/foreign place, just be cautious with strangers. It can't hurt, and some people will not have the right intentions or your best in mind. It's just the way it is.

Let me know if I forgot any crucial tips! Hope they help you if you're ever China-bound anytime soon...

Days Twenty-Seven & Twenty-Eight: Our Last Day Here & the Journey Home

Day Twenty Seven

Alright, friends! We made it to the last day in China, which means my last blog post about it. It was very bittersweet and although I was excited to go home and see my parents and my kitty, I was also very sad to be leaving. Our family members had been so good to us, and I would definitely miss them. We would not be seeing them for a long time again...I guess that's the price of living on two different continents.

Today was our rest day, and would be spent almost entirely at home. We had to pack and get ready to leave early in the morning the next day. I used my time to blog, clean up my living spaces, and arrange everything in my backpack and suitcase. Today was also the only day that I took a nap after lunch, like most Chinese people do for siesta. It was a lovely nap, but the temperature was getting higher and higher throughout these past few days. I was sweating profusely because my grandma felt like it was unnecessary to turn on the apartment's A/C.

In the afternoon, my grandma's youngest sister came over to visit us. She brought us peaches and grapes, and talked with her sister and my aunt for a long time about recent events/news. I helped my aunt prepare these Chinese herbs so that they could be cooked, and then we went out to dinner at a restaurant nearby.

Dinner was, once again, delicious. We ordered so many dishes that I'd never tried before, and it was a memorable last night out with my family members here. My aunt took me and Jason out for a walk after dinner; we got some pastries for breakfast tomorrow morning at a bakery (boy, do I wish we had the vast selection of sweet and savory snacks that they offer there...donuts don't stand a chance when there are such amazing rolls, breads, etc.) and we also grabbed some more snacks to bring home from a chain in China called Lyfen (in Chinese, the name is"let's get a few" or "a few snacks").

It offers rows and rows of little snacks and bites of all different kinds. There's sweet snacks, like jellies, brownies, or cakes, salty snacks like seasoned peas, little black eggs, shrink-wrapped meats, and much more. The main thing that we like to get there are these peeled, sweetened walnuts that are flavored with honey. They're amazing, but you can only really get them in China. My aunt insisted that we get more besides the walnuts, though, and tossed eggs, jellies, and meats in our basket as well. Hmm...I'll let my parents take care of those ones.

Once back at home, we went to bed early. I stayed up for a while and talked with Claire for a while. She's been able to speak with Jason and me entirely in English this time we've gone back, which is super impressive! There's still so much we hadn't talked about and wanted to chat about... unfortunately, we'd just have to rely on WeChat until we see each other again.

Our last dinner in China

Delicious balls filled with black sesame

The bowl of red stuff is sweet congee soup, with little glutinous balls...trust me, it's terrific.

Enough food pics? Okay, let's move on.

Cakes at the bakery. They're so cute!! 

I want macarons topping my cakes from now on.

The rows at Lyfen...snacks beyond your imagination.

Day Twenty Eight

Time to go home! We headed to the airport around 5:30 in the morning, after waking up groggily to hug Claire and say goodbye. Once we got to security, we said goodbye to my aunt and uncle, who have seriously had a lot of work dealing with us while we were in China. Thanks for everything! I promise, I'll bring you guys out for a lot of fun when you visit me in LA.

It was a marathon of three flights until we could be back in our beloved Boston.

First: Shanghai --> Beijing (~ 2 hours)
Second: Beijing --> New York (~13 hours)
Third: New York --> Boston (~1 hour)

After suffering through more airplane food, uncomfortable naps, and crying babies, we were finally, FINALLY in our parents' car and speeding towards our sorely missed house. The flights weren't all that bad though...thankfully, none were delayed, Jason and I got a three-seat row to ourselves for the 13 hour stretch, and we had gotten into Boston safe and sound with all of our luggage. Phew. On the way home, I watched the Lego Movie, Saving Mr. Banks, 47 Ronin, and Ride Along. Best way to make 13 hours go by much faster than you'd think: TV, TV, TV.

Well, that just about wraps things up, folks! Hope you've enjoyed reading these. I'm back to the US, which means that these next few days, you will find me thoroughly jet lagged and sleepy, as well as adjusting back to American life and surprisingly missing certain parts of China. In other words: I won't be leaving the house too often...I'm going through a weird phase right now.

Until my next blog post, friends! As always, thanks for stopping by!

Quenching my thirst in New York...almost home!

Boston is as beautiful as we left it. 

Hello, blue water and clear skies!

Day Twenty-Six: Vampire Hunters, Alice in Wonderland, & KTV

Day Twenty Six

Today might have been one of the best days of our trip! We slept in, had a great breakfast, chilled at home with our relatives during the morning, and then enjoyed a homemade dumpling lunch made by our aunt. Her dumpling-making skills are no joke. She wraps her dumplings so well and doesn't even taste-test her stuffing before she uses it. She simple smells it to gauge the taste. What?

After lunch, we left with Zabrina, who'd taken a day off from work for us, to bring us out again for another adventure! She had told us earlier about a new phenomenon in Shanghai that was basically known as "Room Break" or "Room Escapes".

They were interactive games in which you and a bunch of friends were trapped in a room or several rooms, and you had to try and use the clues/solve puzzles to unlock each lock to get into the next room. Each set of rooms has a different theme, whether it's scary, exotic, or fantastical, and there is a time limit for the entire experience. If you don't get out in time, you essentially lose.

Young people are absolutely in love with trying these "Room Breaks". A bunch of clubs have been established in the city to meet this new need, and we would be going to one of the best Room Break clubs today! I couldn't believe how cool this sounded. Why, oh why, didn't we have this in the States??

Our taxi dropped us off at a place called Three Quarks. I looked up "quark" when I got home and apparently, it's an elementary particle. Hmm...I thought the Chinese had misspelled something else or created another word. Did you know what a quark was? Am I just extremely unintelligent?

We stepped into their lobby, and I felt like I was in the real-life World of Warcraft. Bold red and blue banners hung from the ceilings, all of the furniture was wooden and medieval, and they had these huge, mystical figures standing near the walls, brandishing weapons. There were these fictional maps on the walls that showed weirdly named lands and large posters on the walls that were covered in little wooden slates, individually decorated by each group that had successfully gotten through the specific set of rooms. Whoa...I can't imagine the excitement that some people might get from stepping into this place. Such a perfect place to geek out!

The theme that my cousin chose to try was "Vampires". We were playing the game with four other people, because three people was too small of a group. After waiting for a bit, our other teammates showed up. My cousin described them perfectly: they were the Asian versions of the Big Bang Theory characters! Haha, they were pretty nerdy and seemed rather smart, and were fun to work with. Once we put away our bags in a storage locker, a crew member brought us into the first room and explained the instructions. Game time.

Essentially, we'd have 70 minutes to try and get through 7 rooms in total. Each group of players was watched in each room by cameras, and the group had two chances to "get help" from a crew member. You'd signal that you needed help by waving at the camera, and a crew member would pop in after a few seconds. Each room had a clock showing how much time you had left, but the other rooms that we went into were still stuck at zero, so we didn't have any sense of the time we had remaining. The group got 2 flashlights and 2 walkie-talkies, because we'd soon be splitting up to go through two doors, and then would converge back together to escape the final room.

We confirmed that we understood the directions, and he left us in the dark, spooky room that was filled with creepy, horror-movie music. We were now vampire hunters, and we had to figure out how to escape these rooms without being killed by vampires! So cool.

The first room that we were in was a dining area. A dining table was set up with candles, plates, and silverware on the table. There were dusty portraits on the wall of the family who lived here "before the vampires took over the house". A huge copy of "The Last Supper" was hung upside down on another wall, and there were also a few small stands, seats, and a locked cupboard.

Using the envelope on the table, we figured out that we had to unlock the cupboard by figuring out which of the family members were being mentioned in a riddle that was in the envelope. Each person had a number in one of the corners of the portrait. I let the Big Bang Theory boys figure that one out, since it involved a lot of reading and analyzing. Once they unlocked the cupboard, we found more clues inside these chests.

There was a copy of the Last Supper on a piece of paper and a black light flashlight. Once we shone the light on the paper, we found 3 triangles done by invisible ink, clumping the figures into 3 groups, and the number of people in each group ended up being the combo for the door! There were 2 passageways that we had to open; the one we'd just opened was a door, and the other was a tunnel in the fireplace. Each group had to take one route, and we could only split up once we had opened both.

That gives a pretty good idea of what you had to do with the clues and whatnot. There were so many locks...the Vampire rooms apparently were the hardest, and I could see why. It took us a while to move forward, especially since Jason and I can only read and write basic Chinese. I won't go into the teeny tiny details of what we did in each room, but we unlocked both routes and split up. I went with two of the BBT boys, and Zabrina and Jason went with the other 2. My group decided to be kind to them, and crawled through the dark tunnel inside the fireplace.

When we reached the next room, we found ourselves in a smaller room with a chest, patterned tapestry, and many decorations that completed the vibe (severed hands, rats, skulls. Super cheerful decor). Using the walkie talkies, we figured out that our combo was hidden in their room and theirs in ours. The tapestries were the key to unlocking our locks, and we each had to count the number of 2 key images that were pictured on each group's tapestry. Since it was really hard to communicate the images we were looking for and the other group kept giving us impossible numbers, we got a crew member to help us through that room.

The third room was even harder. There wasn't anything inside except for a huge locked armoir that you could climb through, a bunch of eerie candles, etc. We had to figure out the combo by matching up a set of letters to a set of numbers through a bunch of convoluted lines. This was especially hard because it seemed like the other group had our combo once again, and we would have to rely on them to get through our armoir.

We continued trying to work it out and didn't even realize that 70 minutes had gone by until a crew member announced it through a loudspeaker. Darn...we failed. It wasn't really fair though, since we hadn't been able to keep track of time. We could've used our second "get help" card a lot sooner if we'd known!

After crawling out of the tunnel and meeting the other group, we went back down into the lobby to rest and go over what had happened. The lobby had free soft drinks (Pepsi, Fanta, and 7 Up), and we drank up while we complained about our failure. Soon, we decided that we wanted to try another one (since the Vampire one was the hardest, by far), and we decided to go with the Alice in Wonderland themed one. There were a few other themes, like the Egyptian rooms and the Prison. They were in the process of making more rooms, which was why we continuously felt/heard construction while we were playing.

I thought the Alice in Wonderland one was cooler than the Vampire one. We started off in a room that had a huge chess board on the floor, with a locked Queen chest at one starting point, and two locked doors on the other side of the room. We had to unlock the Queen to figure out the combo for one of the doors; both had to be unlocked because there was an essential tool through the left door (and a very difficult shortcut beyond that) that needed to be used if you wanted to get through the right door, which was the normal pathway to get through.

After unlocking the Queen, we got through the right door and found an amazing pathway that had been filled with hundreds of colorful balls and leaves. You had to slowly make your way through the pool of balls (or if you were a nerdy, excited boy, you could kick the balls everywhere and cause a mess) and then get to the next room.

It went on like this, and we had one group go through each door to try and see which path we could take to save time. One of my 2 moments of pride was unlocking the door to the music room (the shortcut in the left door that would save us tons of time). There was a simple picture of 5 musical notes, and I hadn't really tried to figure it out since I was busy with another lock that apparently held the essential tool we needed.

However, I tried to solve it because there were so many people crowded around the other clue. It took me only one try (the lock used letters, not numbers, so I tried the piano letters that corresponded with each note, like A, B, C, D, E, F, and G). Once we were in (much to the surprise and delight of the BBT boys who'd tried many other tactics on that lock before) , we decided to just stick with this shortcut route. The music room was really hard, though. You had to unlock 2 locks; the first used a little musical player, which played a little bit of a song (I knew it was Fur Elise right away). You had to then find the song in the pile of sheet music in one corner, and then there would hopefully be some set of numbers to unlock the first lock.

My second triumph was when I found the correct sheet music (I'd played the song as a child) and gave the right combo for the lock to open! Yes. The next lock we had to unlock was even harder. It required you to find a certain bar of music by Fuga of a certain song in the pile of music. I thought I'd found the exact match, but none of the attempts we tried would work. Sadly, our time ran out again trying to figure it out, and a crew member came in to walk us out. We asked about the lock we were on, and he said that only one person had been able to figure it out, and that person was a music teacher. Whoa...we felt a lot better about ourselves now.

I hope that these Room Break games can be brought to America someday. They're so interesting, fun, and exciting; I definitely could have been more effective had it been in English, and I bet so many of my American friends would love playing these games. It's like being a real-life detective, or being in a video game! Such a great idea.

Once we drank a few more sodas, we decided to leave and walk around Huai Hai Road, a very well-known street with huge designer stores in the center of Shanghai. It was a quick subway ride over, and then Zabrina took us to these two shopping areas to just look around. They were in the very wealthy, affluent part of Shanghai that catered to many foreigners (there were restaurants with international cuisines, cafes, bars, and buildings with a lot of European influence).

We had dinner at K11, a ridiculously nice shopping mall with high-end stores, unique, modern restaurants, and a giant winged pig in the front of the building. The restaurant Zabrina chose was called Champè and it was a  fusion of Asian and Chinese cuisines. We had Thai-style linguine, Sichuan noodles, mushrooms baked with cheese, Asian vegetables, roast duck, and spicy Asian fish. Dessert was also amazing, but I really don't know what it was (some type of cake with aloe in it and these wrapped pandan roll things with cheese? It didn't taste like cheese though).

It was a delicious meal (my relatives seemed to be treating us to the best food for our last few nights here) and once we were finished, we took a cab through the terrible traffic to get to another mall, where we'd be meeting our family. Jason and I had expressed our interest and love for KTV (essentially karaoke, but in a booked private room where you could order snacks, drinks, etc. and sing all kinds of songs regardless of their language or genre), since we didn't have it back in the States, and my relatives were happy to bring us to a KTV place before we left. 

KTV is utterly huge in China, since people love to sing, pretend they're great singers, and go out with friends. You will see huge, glowing signs for KTV everywhere, in every city, and I am personally very upset that the US of A has not brought KTV to its people. It's a lot of fun, and it's really rather affordable to book a room for a few hours. 

We suffered through bumper-to-bumper traffic but finally made it to the KTV place, which was one floor of another massive mall. Our relatives had already started singing, but let us order a bunch of songs off of the little electronic screen once we got there. Jason and I chose all of our favorite American music, while my other cousin chose a bunch of English songs that she liked as well. 

I haven't been using an English name to address her because she's been deciding what her name should be during our time here. Her English name has been changed a few times now (it was Greyna at one point, then Rose, and most recently Alan) but she wants to have a new one because she isn't loving the current one. We've been helping her think of good names, but I think she decided around this time that her new name would be Claire (yay!), so I'll just call her that from now on.

Claire also loves karaoke, so the three of us basically hogged the microphones for the rest of the night because our relatives insisted that they preferred to hear us sing in English. We did all types of music: Calvin Harris, Coldplay, Eminem, Leona Lewis (at Claire's request), PSY, the Spice Girls, Jason Mraz, Lifehouse, etc. 

So so so so much fun! I really wish we could've stayed longer (we had so many songs all queued up and ready to go), and Jason and I were nowhere near done, but our time was up so we headed back to the apartment. Tomorrow would be our last day in China, and Zabrina wouldn't be able to get out of work that day to say goodbye, so we hugged her and thanked her for all the fun we'd had these past weeks. The first of many goodbyes...I definitely tried to treasure these last few days with the family. Who knows when we'll see them again?

My aunt, the dumpling master

Such cute little guys!

And they look even better when they're ready to eat!

The following are the photos I took from the lobby of 3 Quarks

Free drinks and a 3 Quarks brochure, with a BBT boy strategizing in the background

I really wanted to find better pictures than the ones I took at 3 Quarks, so that I could give y'all a better idea of the actual club, so these next four were all found at: http://www.dianping.com/shop/8370128 You weren't allowed to bring phones into the game, which is why there are next to no photos of what the rooms look like. You'll just have to go check it out yourself!!

This is one of the rooms in the Vampire sequence that we sadly did not make it to...

If you beat the game, you get to decorate a little block and hang it up. *Sighs wistfully*

The first room in the Alice game: unlocking the Queen of Hearts

A nice fountain near Huai Hai Road

Cousins! Me and Zabrina

Beautiful, old alleys

The majestic flying pig

Fly away, big guy!

Not used to these pristine, modern restaurants. Where are the germy, crowded local eateries we're used to?

Pasta? In China? 

Dessert #1

Dessert #2

The Lotus Mall, where we sang our little hearts

Anxious to start karaoking ...where's our room??

Deliberating over what we should sing first

Our disco ball

A questionable man selling a large turtle on the street...look at that sneaky smile. Yikes

Having a bit too much fun on the exercise machines (more like pieces on a playground) in the apartment complex

Day Twenty-Five: A Trip to the Golden Mountain

Day Twenty Five

Didn't think I'd really be able to commit to doing these blog posts about every.single.day for the entirety of my trip to China, but I'm glad I've been able to do so! We only have a few days left, folks! If you've gotten bored already, the final stretch is here!

Today, we took a trip with my cousin to her hometown of JinShan (which also means Golden Mountain), which is also where my aunt and uncle frequently work and live when they're not in Shanghai. We stayed there for around a week last time we came, but there was only time for a day trip this time around. It was pouring rain again, but we only had this one day to go, because my cousin had taken today off from work. After eating breakfast, we left with our cousin for the railway station. It was impossible to flag down an empty taxi in this rain, and we walked for quite a ways before getting on a bus to get to the station. Not a very fun morning. Our shoes were thoroughly soaked and we were shivering when we got on the high-speed train.

From there, it was only a short hour-long ride to JinShan. It was merely drizzling when we got out of the station and hailed a taxi to get to my aunt's company. She worked in a huge, fancy building that had China Agricultural Bank's logo on the top. Jason and I were very much reminded of the corporate building in "the Matrix" in which they have an epic shoot-out. Each floor had many homogenous doorways with numbers on them, and each door was protected by various security measures. We went up to the 10th floor, found my aunt's office that she shared with three other co-workers, and rested there for a little bit before we went to lunch in the cafeteria on the third floor.

The cafeteria was very clean, and was already filled with many workers when we got there. On one side, they have a bunch of different individual dishes laid out, with bowls of rice and noodles and soup, and you choose whatever you want. I grabbed two vegetable dishes, some pork, and a yogurt. Jason had ordered a bowl of noodles, which I tried as well.

While our aunt was up there, she told her co-worker friends that we were American, which caused a lot of staring and gawking to ensure while we ate. Darn it, I was so sure we would blend in this time! I mean, sure, we were wearing Red Sox and Chicago Bulls t-shirts, but I totally thought we looked like we fit in with the dresses and suits. Hmph.

After we were done, we went back up to the office. Jason and I had wanted to watch a movie for a while, so my cousin searched for the movie times at the theater in JinShan to see what was available. We rushed to the mall nearby to watch Maleficent in IMAX, and then walked around the mall for an hour or so after the movie was over. We spent a lot of time in Watson's, a drugstore that's a lot better than the ones we have here...they sell really great cosmetics and skin care products, which I wanted to buy. My cousin encouraged me to get some skin care and makeup remover products, because I don't use too much of them, so I walked out with some new purchases for the future that will hopefully do wonders for my skin.

We then took a bus to the beach, where we'd gone many times last time. JinShan is right on the water, which gives it a very breezy, chill vibe. It had rained today for awhile, so the beach wasn't as nice as it usually was. We strolled around for a bit before hopping back on a bus to go back to my aunt's office. Their building had a badminton court on the fifth floor and a ping pong table on the tenth floor, and she knew how we liked badminton, so she wanted us to squeeze in some time to play before we left.

The badminton court was really nice, and you didn't have to worry about low ceilings, since the five floors above it were all open space above the court. Felt a bit weird playing in an office building, but it's a nice touch that they added some areas to exercise. Great idea!

Once we finished playing for more than an hour, we headed to my uncle's car and we drove off to dinner. We ate at a really nice restaurant called Private Kitchen, which had a very vintage and decorative environment inside. There were floral love seats in the hallways, mirrors and framed paintings on the walls, and gorgeous vases on the shelves. Loved the whole feel of the place. My aunt ordered our meal, choosing vegetable curry, beef curry, mango shrimp, tangy fish with veggies, fried rice, and more. It was one of the best meals I ate in China...very flavorful, delicious, and just wonderful in every way! I'm a fan of curry, and the way they made it here was oh so good. We also got a free dessert because my aunt decided to get a membership card, so that was a great ending to everything.

It was time to catch the next train back to Shanghai, so my uncle dropped us off at the station again and we took off running. We were able to get on a train quickly, and were chugging along back towards Shanghai before we knew it. Once off the train, it was only a short bus ride before we got back to the apartment and greeted our family. All in all, a great day trip!

Made it! 

View from the office

Lunch at the office

The cafeteria

Watching Maleficent in IMAX! Note the Chinese subtitles and the blurry picture you get without the glasses

Playing badminton in the office

Everything looks the same...

I seriously dig Private Kitchen's decor.

Curry, mango shrimp, and more! Delicious dinner

Matcha smoothie with red beans and ice cream

Watson's haul! 

From left to right: face wipes, makeup removers, an eyelash curler, water spritzers, and anti-acne face masks