the flowering of Hangzhou

Hangzhou has tended to leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth with our previous experiences there. Medical exam, confused taxi drivers yelling at us, Morten had his cell phone stolen. But that totally changed this weekend.

Hangzhou is big. Real big. About 6.4 million people. And downtown is about 1 hour from Lin'an. I feel like the quaint hamlet of Lin'an has a lot to offer with its 600,000 people- but people go to bed very early and they do not sell solid cheese. One of my students was going back to Hangzhou with her parents so she invited me to come along. I needed to go to Hangzhou to try to pick up some things for our Halloween party next weekend- plus I am HORRIBLE at shopping for myself, so I was hoping this trendy, hip 19 year-old student of mine could help me. Instead, she gave me a huge bag of oranges, a bunch of nuts and I was sent to fend for myself on the streets of Hangzhou with no real knowledge of where I was (well, she was home to spend time with her family...). Morten was going to Hangzhou via bus and we'd talked about meeting up later and maybe booking a hotel so we could take the bus back the next day. Unfortunately, when I attempted to call Morten, a message flashed across the screen that his account was disabled. I later found out that his phone had run out of money and he was flying around town trying to figure out how to re-load it. I felt nervous, freaked out, lost. I was in a city of 6.4 million people- who all spoke this weird language with funny writing and had been plopped in front of this big store full of high-end shops (Prada, Fendi, ect). There had been some kind of mis-communication here. I had said I needed a western store. One where they potentially had the goods for celebrating Halloween. This kind of store was intimidating- full of high priced goods I knew they would try to sell to me at a higher price because I was completely unfamiliar with the concept of bargaining. Plus, it seemed as though the escalators wound like some kind of corkscrew through the building- only leading up. After bee-lining to the bathroom and making a hasty get away down a dirty back staircase I realized I just needed to relax and decide what I was going to do. I bought a map from a dude on the street. I sat on some steps and ate one of my oranges. Morten still wasn't answering. Well, I just needed to find another place to chill for awhile. I could have a relaxing evening on my own in the city if I wanted- I could find a hotel, soak in a tub, eat some western food. So I hopped into the nearest Starbucks, ordered a tall latte and some rasin-pudding-torte thing. I think it boils down to wanting to feel competant, but things can be so scary if you don't reach out to other people for help.

When I walked in, the place was coated in a layer of foreigners- hailing (I believe) from Britian. And you know, they weren't very friendly- not to the staff- not to me when they cut in line ahead of me. There's some kind of un-spoken code amungst foreigners- to never really acknowledge each other. Everyone came to China to see a sea of black-haired people, not whitey apparently. Maybe tourists are the same everywhere; annoying. Anyway, after some time and attempting to ask the only person in the Starbucks who didn't speak English where I was on my map, Morten finally calls. We eventually find each other and make our way down to West Lake.

Everything is so pretty in Hangzhou at night (well, save perhaps the crippled beggars). Fountains come out of the lake and change colors and dance to classical music. The mountains and pagodas are lit up and boats shaped like dragons coast across the glassy water. We had some dim sum and found a hotel for the night. Nice hotels- are kind of becoming this guilty pleasure. Its SO nice to be able to take a bath! and eat toast in the mornings! I was pretty tired, but we decided to check out the Hangzhou night life before calling it an evening. And we were not disappointed.

Only a block or so from our hotel was this hopping club with neon lights and a large group of police officers about to enter. We followed them in, down a yellow and orange flashing corridor to a table where it appeared people were talking loudly and paying a cover fee... we stood confused and were ushered inside. Lots of lights- walked into this bar area where scantily clad women were dancing on little platforms. See, that's my fear about going in to loud places with lots of flashing lights. Brothel. But alas, this was no brothel (*whew*).

I like dancing. And the crazy techno bars in this country I've seen are very expensive and play music its almost impossible to dance to. This was the first place I've ever been in this country where lots of people were dancing. And the music was good enough to dance to. And people somewhat knew how to dance. In fact one boy even knew how to dance. When I dance to club music, I like to have fun- swinging each other about and so on. When I tried to dance like this with a boy in Lin'an he left me standing alone on the dance floor shortly after. This boy didn't! And that's how I met my "Chinese boyfriend" that max knows about 20 English words. He is my height, black hair, brown eyes. Slightly dark complexion. We send text messages. In Chinese. Its much faster to send messages in characters... except for the whole - trying to translate words I dont know into Chinese. We actually convey messeges. In Chinese. Sometimes I don't have to use a dictionary. Even though I really can't "talk" to this person, its given me a great incentive to learn more Chinese. Having to actually apply my new words to come up with sentences is wonderful. So, boyfriend may be the wrong word now, but just you wait till my Chinese improves a little.

Today- slept in- took a LONG bath- went to the western grocery store where they sell ACTUAL LITTLE BRICKS OF CHEESE, sliced ham, and french bread. Morten and I were pretty happy campers. And then walked in the rain around West Lake- for what must have been a solid 6-7 miles to the bus station. SO MUCH WALKING IN THIS COUNTRY.

Okay, with that I want to share a quote from one of my student's essays. I've been grading these forever and will finish up this weekend:

"If Obama wins the election, it would be a slam dunk against racism!" - from one of my student's essays about who they would vote for in the American election.