Qingdao Weekend

Sorry for the delay in posting about this. The semester is coming to an end in the next 2-3 weeks so we've been busy with schoolwork.

Thursday, May 28 was a public holiday in China for the Dragon Boat Festival and since Megan and I do not have class on Wednesday (until recently, my new class is on Wednesday afternoon), we decided to take Friday off and have a long weekend vacation. We had been planning for weeks to travel to Sanya, a popular beach destination in Hainan Province, with our friends and colleagues Kerstan and Karen but in the end we decided the cost of the flights were more than we wanted to pay (we got flights to Singapore this summer for even cheaper! Thank you Tiger Airways!). Instead, we decided to make the short trip to Qingdao and get to know the city that we technically live in.

Armed with our Lonely Planet China guide and the excitement for a long weekend, we headed into town on Wednesday morning. Naturally, our first stop was our hotel, the Beach Castle Hotel, which was some sort of repurposed old German colonial building. The rooms were great and the location was perfect, right on the water in the old part of the town.

The sign right next to our hotel, how welcoming!

Right inside the main gate, you can see the prison to the right (which we think might also have rooms now) along with the main part of the hotel to the left.

Megan standing outside of the lovely Beach Castle Hotel

Wednesday afternoon was spent wandering along the coast of Qingdao, through pleasant parks and to the nearby beach: Qingdao No. 1 Bathing Beach (not because it is the best, just because there are 6, and who needs names anyway?). We were amused to see the beach attire reversed by gender from what we're used to in the States. The men all wore Speedoes, while the women, terrified by the prospect of a tan, were fully clothed or even layered. In China, as a status symbol of sorts, women try to stay as pale as possible. Physical laborers and peasants are tan because they spend their days working outside in the summer heat, so being tan has the connotation of being poor. I suspect that I am thought to be one of the wealthiest men in China thanks to my blindingly white complexion.

One of the parks we stumbled upon while walking along the ocean.

Part of the oceanside path near the No. 1 Bathing Beach

No. 1 Bathing Beach

On Wednesday night we went searching for a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet, but we fortunately ventured a little further and stumbled upon an even better dinner spot. We wandered through some alleys that, for those who are familiar with Shanghai, reminded us of a cross between the Xin Tian Di and Tiakang Lu areas. Like Xin Tian Di, the area consisted of old buildings that had been renovated and updated into a pleasant walking area. Like Taikang Lu, the alleys weren't as polished as Xin Tian Di and the area wasn't as blatently marketed towards foriegners. We found a great restaurant that overlooked a courtyard where performers played some traditional Chinese instruments, some that I had never seen before. It turned out to be a very pleasant first evening.

This area was quite hidden, we were lucky enough to see this little alleyway from the main street and decided that alleys aren't nearly as creepy in China as they are in the states, so we ventured in.  It was a fortunate find!

There were tons of these statues all over this area, I think this guy was cooking some 串 (the kabob-line things that are all over the streets here).  A little further up was a statue of a man smoking opium along with a few guys playing mahjong.

This was our view of the courtyard and performers from our seats in the restaurant.  There were hardly any people there when we arrived, but by the time we left it was packed.

Thursday morning we set out again full of optimisim, but our mood quickly soured when we arrived at McDonald's for breakfast at 9:45 am only to find that breakfast was no longer being served. The woman at the counter didn't even look apologetic. We ended up settling for coffee.

So, with empty stomachs and a caffine buzz, we headed out to see some of the sights. We opted to check out Xiao Qingdao (小青岛), or Little Qingdao, first. Xiao Qingdao is a pennisula that juts into the bay in Qingdao and has a nice park on it, along with a light tower. We had to pay 15 RMB to get into the park, which was well worth it to get away from the holiday crowds. The park was very green and provided an escape from the noise and bustle of the city. Due to the relative isolation of the park, we decided to relax and sun bathe for a while instead of heading to the beach, which was overrun with Chinese vacationers. Despite choosing a less busy spot, we still got numerous looks from bypassers who couldn't believe that we were, GASP, exposing our skin to direct sunlight!

On our way out to 小青岛

A little closer view of 小青岛 with the real 青岛 in the background.

There are all these awesome old fishing boats that hang out just off the coast.

Jordan at the edge of the peninsula.  

There was a pleasant, uncrowded path that went all the way around the little peninsula.  Every side of 小青岛 had a different and pleasant view, so the walk was quite nice.

The lighthouse in the middle of the peninsula.

There are fishermen on all sides of the peninsula, and they must be quite nimble because Jordan and I tried to walk out a little further to get a better picture, but quickly realized our lives could be jeopardized if we tried to walk too far out on the rocks.

This is near where we sat out.

After a few hours in the sun we started to feel drained, but fortunately on the way back to the hotel we encountered our first opportunity to have beer in a bag. I had heard tell of this wonderful Qingdao phenomenon, so we were glad to try it out. For a measley 5 RMB we bought a massive amount of Tsingtao draft beer from a friendly neighborhood lady with a keg. My initial concern was with how to drink it, but then the lady produced a few straws and we were good to go.

The pijiu (啤酒, beer) break gave us ample enthusiasm to continue our sightseeing. We stopped by both the old German Catholic and Protestant Chruches. We were unable to get inside the Catholic church, but it was an impressive structure nonetheless. Interestingly, in the courtyard in front of the church we counted 7 sets of brides and grooms getting wedding photos taken. It did not appear that any were actually on their wedding day, but rather getting photos taken before the big event to put on large banners at the wedding reception (an opportunity Megan and I missed).

The Protestant Church was also an interesting piece of architecture from the outside, but the Lonely Planet guide was accurate in its description of the interior of the church as "Lutheran". The sanctuary was extremely plain, but I was glad to see that there appeared to be a few locals sitting in some of the pews praying. The most interesting part of the Protestant church was the bell tower, which still had the old bells and clock built by the Germans in 1908.

Thursday night we had a craving for Western food so we searched the internet for good restaurant and settled on Cassani, an Italian restaurant. It was a great choice. The ambiance, food, and service were all great (I had lasagna YUM!). While the dinner was quite a splurge when compared to our meager salaries, we ended up getting a ton of food, including cheesecake, gelato, and a bottle of wine for only US$60. A meal of equal quality in a similar restaurant in the States would easily be double.

Friday we started the day checking out the old German governor's mansion, which was one of the highlights of the trip for me. The mansion had been a vacation spot for Mao in 1957, and many other notable Chinese leaders stayed there with him. The rooms had apparently remained as they were when Mao stayed there, so it was a neat piece of history. The best part, though, was the building itself. A very cool and huge old German building.

Friday afternoon was finally time for us to check out the famous Tsingtao Brewery tour. We arrived on Qingdao Beer Street around 1 pm so we decided to eat at a seafood restaurant across from the brewery. The "menu" was a bunch of tubs filled with water and various ocean creatures. As we were in Qingdao, we had to get the Qingdao specialty gao la, or clams. We also got some sort of prawn/crab hybrid. The choices were great and we enjoyed the food along with some fresh Tsingtao beer that made the trip across the street from the brewery.

The brew tour itself was great. Tsingtao brewery has quite an interesting history, having been established by the Germans and later controlled by the Japanese, the KMT, the Communist Party (you would be amazed by the progress made at the brewery during the glorious 9th 5 Year Plan!), and finally as a publicly traded company. The "Drunken House" was also a highlight, meant to imitate the feeling of drunkenness. The room was actually just very slanted in one direction so you were fighting gravity while walking though. All in all, the Tsingtao Brewery seemed to be a Chinese version of the Heineken Brewery I visited a few years ago in Amsterdam. That is to say: large, interesting, and everything slightly lower quality (except for the beer, which I find quite comparable to Heineken).

We wrapped up our weekend staying at the Intercontinental Hotel, which was AWESOME. We had seen our share of the sights and we're only a few hours away if we ever want to see more, so we took advantage of staying in the nice hotel by laying by the indoor pool and watching movies on an actual TV for once as we only watch movies on our tiny laptop screen here. It was awesome. While looking for a place for dinner on Saturday night we stumbled into some sort of fundraising event for the Qingdao Expat Community that was being held in one of the hotel restaurants. We just thought we were paying for a buffet dinner, but it turned out we were buying tickets to this event (if we were Chinese we probably wouldn't have been able to buy the tickets). The buffet was awesome, they had a GREAT Filipino band (as Filipino bands tend to be), and we got a lot of nice smiles from other westerners. I felt like I was at some event at TAC or the American Club in Singapore. What luck!

We definitely felt like VIP when we turned on the TV at the Intercontinental and found this!  Our daily lives are not very luxurious here, so every little thing excites us!

We forgot beds this soft existed.

Spying on Jordan from the bathroom- only super nice hotels give you that luxury.

Our weekend concluded with a church service (also in the Intercontinental) on Sunday morning for the Qingdao International Christian Fellowship. The community was great and there were a few hundred people in the congregation. The music and the preaching weren't the best I've heard, but effort is what counts and the feeling of being in a church service again was great. We will be sure to attend again if we in the area on a Sunday again.

I'm having trouble uploading photos so for now check out this album on Facebook (you don't need a Facebook account to view them). Hopefully I'll be able to add photos to this later.

Not your Average Spa

For my entire life I've suffered with headaches and migraines.  Over the years I've tried a variety of different techniques to tackle the pain: medicine, yoga, physical therapy, chiropractic treatments, stretches, breathing techniques, special diets, you name it!  While I lived in Singapore my mom and I would religiously visit our local reflexology friends at Causeway Point and get weekly foot and back massages which seemed to be helpful (plus, who doesn't like a good rub down?)  So, when our new friends here in Huangdao told Jordan and I that they'd found an AMAZING place for reflexology we jumped at the opportunity to test it out.  We woke up this morning pretty stoked for a 2 hour, 60RMB massage (less than $10 per person!) However, we were sorely mistaken about what this 'massage' would entail.  

We began with a pleasant foot soak in tea infused water, while our feet were soaking our backs were gently rubbed by two jolly looking Chinese men.  We then sat back in our soft recliners and sighed peacefully while they rubbed oil over our freshly cleaned feet.  Then it began...

While punching our feet and laughing as we tightly gripped the lazy boy arms in pain, the Chinese men proved to be much stronger than their tiny physiques let off.  I remember thinking the first few rounds of foot reflexology in Singapore were painful after not having been in a while, so I decided I needed to toughen up and try to enjoy this 'massage'.

After about 50 minutes of the foot massage, I had begun to unclench.  We were then ushered into the next room and asked to lay face-down on the massage table.  Being spoiled by the Singapore American Club and the Houstonian Spas I was slightly disappointed at the lack of pre-massage dips in the sauna, freshly cleaned long white robes,  lavender and eucalyptus oils, and soothing music to accompany my full body massage, however I decided I could survive getting a back massage in my jeans with my face pressed into a questionably 'clean', mildewy scented towel.  I was determined to enjoy the back massage because my headaches always seem to temporarily subside after a good massage.  

While I did feel completely satisfied with the back massage portion, I became slightly nervous when I thought I was done, and then looked over at Jordan who had somehow lost his shirt and had glass cups stuck to his exposed butt.  I watched for a second as Jordan's masseuse lit a fire under each cup and quickly inverted it on Jordan's back creating some sort of giant hickey.  I asked Jordan how it felt and he seemed perfectly content so I decided if he could handle it, i could too.  

A diagram of how cupping is performed.

The skin gets sucked about an inch into the glasses. There is a feeling of sweet relief when they are removed.

Little did I know that Jordan's circulation is much better than mine and he therefore got to skip the 'scratching' part of the experience.  I was asked to take off my shirt and lay face down on the table while my sadistic masseuse used a tooth-less comb type object to literally scratch my back for 20 minutes.  He smiled and told me this will make my headaches better- yeah we'll see!  After the scratching came my turn for cupping.  While Jordan and most other people say that cupping isn't too painful I'm going to go ahead and liken it to waxing;  After the first 5 times or so it's not that bad, but the first 5 times you want to cry and slap the person inducing such pain on you.  I tried to go to a happy place, and that happy place did in fact look a little bit like the Houstonian Spa, so I was a little bummed to open my eyes and find myself still in a smelly room with 10 glasses fire-sealed to my neck, back, butt and legs.

All in all, we survived and I'm going to try to keep an open mind.  If I miraculously feel brand new tomorrow (which I was promised) then perhaps I'll go back, and after 5 more sessions I will be convincing all of you that scratching and cupping is the wave of the future.  Otherwise, brace yourself if you ever happen upon a Chinese 'Spa'. 

Notice how Jordan's marks are nicely shaped and his back only looks slightly strange?

Now, draw your attention to my back which looks a bit like I was run over by a bus.

Miscellany

Before I post on some of our more recent events, I wanted to give a quick update on what we've been up to the last month or so. 

New Class

For the last 3 weeks I have been teaching a new class because one of the other foreign teachers had a "disagreement" with his class. The class is an oral class and I guess all the previous teacher did was have one student per class give an oral presentation and then a few students would ask questions. The students had complained that they were only getting to practice their oral English one time in the semester, and the rest of the time they spent sitting and listening. Also, the class has a textbook the students had to pay for, but the teacher refused to use it.

After many complaints from students and many requests by the administration to change his teaching practices, the teacher still refused to make any changes. So, the class was given to me. It kind of bums me out that a foreign teacher can be so stubborn and the school can't really do anything about it. The teacher is still getting paid as much as he was before, and he has one less class. His stubbornness and refusal to cooperate actually benefitted him. Unfortunately I see many foreign teachers taking advantage of their "foreigness" in this way. Oftentimes the school will do anything to please the foreigners, even if we're being total jerks.

The students are undergraduate English majors which is quite a contrast to my post-graduate students from various majors. The English majors are significantly better at English and much more enthusiastic. It makes teaching the class a ton of fun and also much easier than my post-grad students. With the post-grad students I feel like I have to struggle to get any sort of response from them, but the English majors happily volunteer answers to questions. I'm hoping next semester I'll be able to teach some more English majors. 

CUBA Game

Since it's founding in 1998, all major Chinese universities have competed in the Chinese University Basketball Association (CUBA). The CUBA is the equivalent the NCAA, but only for basketball, and Shandong University of Science and Technology is the CUBA equivalent of Kansas or Duke. Our school won a CUBA National Championship in either 2001, 2002, or 2004.  When I've asked various students or other teachers I have heard all three answers.  I've even had the opportunity to see the CUBA National Championship trophy, which is an awesome golden backboard and rim (think slightly larger Nerf hoop, but pure gold), but it doesn't even say the year on it.  The CUBA wikipedia site says 2002, for what it's worth.

Regardless of what year they've won, SUST has won one national title (out of only 10 so far) and nearly every year they make it to at least the Elite 8 of the CUBA Tournament, usually the Final Four. They are a powerhouse. I have told my students that if they ever know of a game that I could watch they should let me know.

One evening I received an email that SUST would be playing Hunan Normal University at our school's gymnasium the following afternoon at 2:30 pm.  He said that finding tickets would be difficult but he wanted to let me know anyway.  Fortunately, Megan and I were able to land tickets from our well connected friends Kerstan and Karen, and we headed to the game. When we arrived, we learned from some other spectators that this game was the Quarterfinals for the national tournament, so SUST was in the Elite 8.

The gym was packed with students when we arrived and we found our seats which were in the very front row behind the visiting team's bench. Apparently the tournament is set up in a home and home format, where a game is played at each team's campus and the team with the highest aggregate score continues to the next round.

The game was a blast. The pregame and halftime festivities were half of the show. There were "Basketball Babies" (what they call cheerleaders here), mascots (a panda, a pig, and an inflated basketball-headed creature), drum and singing performances, giant flags, and traditional dancers. Also, the student section was arranged to spell "CUBA" with the colors of their shirts. While the students clearly cheered for our school to win, everything official was completely unbiased. The cheerleaders did not openly support one team or the other, the student section was comprised of students wearing both schools' colors and spelled "CUBA" rather than "SUST" and each team had an equally large flag.

The actual game was a blowout. SUST dominated the game from start to finish, winning 99-71. This was the first leg of the match, so aggregate score counted, and they had incentive to run up the score. The level of play was pretty high. The players rivaled NCAA Division 3 athletes in both physicality and skill, but the coaching left a lot to be desired. With the exception of a few inbounds plays, the game was basically unorganized streetball. There were times that some players did not even pretend to get back on defense, but their coaches did not seem to care. A well coached Division 3 team like Calvin would probably run all over these teams.

Since the game they have had the second game of the match at the other school's campus and SUST is successfully into the Final Four, so there will be another game on campus so I hope to watch it too.

Here are some photos of the game:

Cameraman for CCTV 5 (China's ESPN). This dude was texting on his cellphone before he saw me about to take a picture and pretended to be filming.

Karen, Kerstan, and Megan in our seats before the game.

The student section spelling out "CUBA"

The players from the teams threw some mini-basketballs into the crowd and I caught one!

Halftime drummers.

The inflated basketball-headed mascot with a guy inside it walking around.

Halftime dancers.

Game action from our seats. Our seats were right behind the opponent's bench.

Most of the gym.

Final score: SUST 99 - Hunan Normal University 71

Basketball Team Dinner

My weekend basketball team, Team Bangbang, recently had a team dinner after one of our games a week or so ago. We ate at an outdoor barbeque restaurant in Huangdao and it was great chance to do something social with both the American and Chinese members of the team. Almost every player on the team has a wife or girlfriend too, so all in all our group was about 12 or 14 people. 

The conversation was held half in English and half in Mandarin, with the bilingual among us translating for the less lingually inclined. Those of us who knew very little English or Mandarin tried our best to keep up and pitch in with a few words of our own. Many toasts were attempted in toaster's foreign language with laughter usually following. My Mandarin toast was the embarssingly simple "我们是朋友!” (Women shi pengyou!/We are friends!).

These truly cross-cultural moments are some of my favorites in China, and make me extremely thankful that Megan and I decided to come here.

Here are a few photos:

Our table outdoors at the barbeque. A great evening.

Good food and drink.

Three of our Chinese teammates showing their strength: Jack, Li, and Gao.

An interesting insight into male/female relationships in China: Jack (left) ran home after our game to change and told us not to tell his wife that he was playing basketball because she doesn't want him to play so much. There are things that I do or don't do at Megan's request, but something healthy like basketball isn't one of them.

Team Bangbang: (top L-R) Gao, Hunter, Roland, Li (bottom L-R) Jack, Me, Kyle, Kerstan

The wives and girlfriends.