Sicilian monkey AIDS? Pop rocks? More like the mystery growth taking over my arm.

About a week ago, I noticed a small red rash around my right elbow. I thought to myself, gross but I can handle a tiny thing like that (And I’ve had my share of rashes). Of course I proceeded to show everyone, prod it occasionally, but generally I ignored it. Before I realized it, the innocent red bumps had jumped from my elbow to a small formation near my wrist. It didn’t help that the next day I went for a massage and the masseuse rubbed my arm up and down. It was also 100+ degrees F.

By the next day a small clump had formed in the middle of the elbow group and the wrist group. That night we took an overnight train from Suzhou to Beijing. The trip included the arduous task of hauling all our months-worth of luggage down stairs, up stairs, through platforms, and into our cabin while still in the Suzhou heat. By the time we got to the Beijing train station, some 13 hours later and unshowered, my rash had started to blister. We spent the whole day cavorting about historical downtown Beijing, including Tiananmen and the Forbidden City. All the while I futilely rubbed cortisone cream on my growths and tried in vain to ignore them. Now single blisters of pus (called pustules) were showing up in isolated spots along the three main subjects.

That night I woke up feeling like my whole arm was on fire. The next morning (today) all the former red rash bumps had “crystallized” into pustules, making the profile view of my arm look like a topographic map of mountains. For some strange reason and an even stranger coincidence, we visited a Tibetan monk hospital today where the monk-doctor examined me and decided I have digestion problems (most likely true as I haven’t eaten dairy in a month) and my body is suffering from allergies to itself? They gave me medication, which looks like drops of deer poop and cost 290 yuan, but for all I know it could just be candy coated jelly beans.

Mainly I’ve just been extremely conscious of what my arm is touching and jumping at the slightest bump from someone else. I guess all I can hope for is that the rash can’t get any worst (please please please oh mighty monks). Needless to say, my dermatologist can expect an emergency appointment when I get home.

"Is my hair messy?...Then why is yours?"

zach here


Yesterday was our graduation ceremony thing, which was a nice dinner at the local cafe with our teachers, directors, and some dean at the university. The highlight of the night was definitely the string of comments made by one of our teachers, Fanghui Laoshi:

-Jane, is my hair messy? "No" Then why is yours?
-I would DIE if I were a vegetarian (right to a vegetarian in our group)


Dumb Things Cindy has said:
-Wow, China is really close to Africa. "That's India"
-Where's the Leaning Tower of Pisa?


more later, writing this is boring me

Chinese Gandalf

If someone could figure out why these pictures are formatting like this...I'd appreciate that.

Anyway Friday we had a lazy afternoon and then drove out to another part of Suzhou University where William and his students were having a party to celebrate his leaving. When we got there, Mimi (my mom's friends daughter) had brought a gaggle of girls to split off with each of us. The pairing up was sorta awkward and I ended up not with anyone...I think they thought I was a student. The campus had a nice lake where according to one girl, on nice days "there are lots of valentines." The most prominent feature, however, were the dorm buildings which looked like prisons. The girls told us that at 11 pm, all the electricity goes out.

Towards the end of the party, William told everyone in the room (about 200 English major students, 95% female) to get up and meet someone new. Basically every girl with a camera flocked to the boys to get pictures with white people. Jane was mistaken for an ABC (american born chinese) and they thought I was a sophomore in the college.

Saturday we went to Shanghai. Unfortunately we were only able to visit a couple "key tourist" locations, the Oriental Pearl tv tower and an old, really crowded shopping district. We boat-toured the landscape and saw the buildings from MI-3. We also rode to the top of the tower but it was too smoggy/cloudy to see much.

I'll have someone else blog about the stuff I forgot about.


Zai jian!
Cindy

"Are Robin and Jason coming?... It's not funny."

Hey everyone, Adam here.

Time for that long put-off post, the one that proves that I wasn't left at BWI. So, let's see... Jane's post left off on Sunday.

Classes resumed as per usual on Monday. Nothing new, just plowing through new vocab and sentence structures. In the afternoon we had planned to go to the Suzhou University computer lab, but there was a bit of a hold-up, apparently. Zach and Jane had taken the bus down to Guanqian Jie, a pedestrian shopping street, and got a tad lost. As in wandering around/looking for random buses for 35 minutes lost.

I'm not quite qualified to tell that story to it's fullest extent, but this one is mine. Monday night we had gone out to dinner (Chinese!), and we were on our way back when Jimmy struck. A young-ish Chinese guy, he approached me wielding a mechanical, obviously-memorized speech, in English, attempting to befriend me. I said maybe two things to him, and he latched on. "IhaveheardsomuchaboutyouIloveAmericaactuallyIthinkAmericanslookweirdactuallyyouareallveryhandsome."
Oh, and it was fast, too. Before long he was asking for money (surprise), and we quickly ducked into the nearest store and became VERY interested in their polo shirts. Whole thing just gave me the creeps.

Tuesday we went to the closest high school. Cindy's mom had a friend who is teacher there (she has friends everywhere) and so we met his class. They had all been learning English for 11 years and were about our age. Since Jane had sat down with a group of boys, I was left with a girl group. Only one really talked to me, doing a lot of interpretting work for the other girls, but I think that the others could understand most of what I said. They giggled, though. A lot. One even proclaimed "She," pointing at the girl next to her, "has a crush on you!" Cue giggling. Later we played the guys of the class in basketball. Jane, Zach, Jason, Cindy, and I were more or less schooled... but we had fun. As did the two dozen onlookers. At one point our opponents were practically tossing us the ball to let us score. A bit of ping pong and badminton followed. The whole experience was really enlightening, and we made a lot of friends.

Wednesday. We took a day trip to the Humble Administrator's Garden, probably one of the biggest attractions in Suzhou. Or it seemed like that, with all the tour groups with their guides waving flags and spouting facts from their megaphones. Otherwise, it was very relaxing, and we just meandered around the maze-like paths, ponds, and bonzai gardens. Dinner was KFC at a new-ish mall, Emerald City. Portions seemed smaller, of course, but we reveled in the greasy Western food.

Today, Thursday, we went on a boat tour of a portion of the Grand Canal, which separates the old, historic Suzhou from the new, apartment building-filled new Suzhou. We had our third tai chi class, too. Good stuff. Personally, memorizing the moves isn't as hard as I thought it would be. And it's always fun for me to think about the martial arts roots of the movements (I watched a kung fu movie on TV before the class).

(Brief) Chinglish Report:
"Are you have smile?" on a student's shirt at the high school
"Beware of safety" a sign at Panmen Gate

Whew, that was a long one. I guess it had all just been building up. Sorry my post was kinda late. Oh, and enjoy the pictures! More coming soon, I'm sure. Zai jian.

-Adam

Picture Post!

One of our Chinese teachers, Fang laoshi

Is it beautiful??

Thursday:

Nothing noteworthy happened in Chinese class today. However, we have started Tai Chi and it is very interesting. I think we all really like it and are interested in learning more about it. We like one of our teachers, a cute little asian woman. I don't mind our other teacher, but Cindy seems to have a problem with her. Speaking of problems with people, Zach's new arch-nemesis is the cafe's manager, Helen. I don't really not what his problem with her is. The rest of us like her.

Friday:

I napped a lot today. . . wait, that's every day.

Saturday:

We went sightseeing! We went to a town called Hangzhou. It's one of the "heaven cities" and honestly, it was a bit boring. Very pretty, but the most interesting thing we did was feed huge and greedy fish. I'll post pictures. I was also forced to use a squat toilet, so as of now, Cindy and I have both used squat toilets.

Sunday:

It's been over a week in China, and it's just short of a miracle that we are all still alive and in one piece. Crossing the street is the hardest thing to do here! You have to be careful or you will get run over by cars, bikes, or mopeds. There is incessant knocking and superfluous noise. It's really loud.

Today, we went to an old town called Tongli. It was pouring today and we all got super wet but it was a fun trip. There was a lot of shopping to do and we all bought stuff. We also found some exercise equipment that kept us entertained for a while.

Dinner tonight was pizza. It was such a nice change of pace because we've been eating at the hotel restaurant and the food, which was okay for the first couple of days, has now become barely edible.

We finally found wifi so we will be updating the blog more frequently, I think, so check more frequently. We miss you all!!! Love you <3

Jane

"Why does everyone have vans here? Because there are so many of us!"

We've had our second and third days of classes now and it's definitely exponentially increased in difficulty but through thousands of dialogues we're getting through.



After our second day of class we went to Cindy's grandmother's house who is like the poster Asian grandma. She hugged us all immediately, showered us in candy, shouted every English word she knew at us, laughed when she had no clue what we were saying, and took like 10 thousands pictures with us. The best thing she did was by far when Jane walked in the door and Cindy's grandmother thought she was Cindy.

I made my first bargain today--a North Face jacket specifically for Northwestern--for half the initial price. I think I still paid too much but I'm not complaining.

The next day we went to the Pearl Market which was sort of like the Columbia Mall except everyone sells the same exact things--pearl necklaces, peark bracelets, and pearl rings, and everyone is Asian. Cindy's mom did know someone working there so we didn't get ripped off.

Unfortunately Tai Chi was canceled together but we'll have it Thursday.


Look-A-Likes
-Erica Fedor
-Jess Chun
-Theresa Kang
-Vicky Park
-Cindy's Dad