China!
First: Something cool about Vietnam. Semester at Sea is the biggest group of Americans to go to Vietnam post Vietnam War. Cool!
I didn’t know what to expect from China but all I knew was that the ports were crazy looking! We got in to Hong Kong and it was at that moment I realized Hong Kong was an island, who knew? We were attached to a shopping mall which was pretty cool/dangerous and we didn’t have a lot of time. What happens in China is that the MVeX docks in Hong Kong for 2 days, leaves at 8pm the second day and travels 2 days north to Shanghai where it docks for another two days. Students had the choice to get on the ship for the in between time or travel in country and meet up with the ship in Shanghai, I stayed on the ship.
Also, in our pre-port lecture the dean told us that China monitors emails, phones and other public communication systems so we should watch what we say, God Bless the USA.
Day 1 – Hong Kong
Before we got off we had to be “quarantined” and had a face to face customs situation. The crazy socialists of China required every single person on the ship to have their temperature taken, I really wanted to know WHAT would happen if we did have a fever? No dimsum? Only two dumplings? Well, I didn’t have a fever, I don’t think. The lady called out my temperature in Celsius and I looked at her and said, “So, Am I alive?” She said yes, I am seriously considering having a sit down talk with America about why they really ruined our lives by not teaching us the metric system. “It’s 30 degrees out,” so I prepare for snow, walk outside and internally combust.
We got off the ship and took this little ferry over to the main Hong Kong (HK) Island. China has really funny signs everywhere. The U.S. has your standard “pedestrian crossing” symbol sign and here I saw a sign that looked like the ones for no smoking, the red circle with a cross through it but instead of a cigarette there was a trumpet, guys seriously… leave your trumpets at home. Caitlin and I are hungry, no surprise, so we want to try some local cuisine. We find this Chinese restaurant and they tell us it’s on the 2nd floor. There was a really big language barrier; barely anyone spoke English so you could catch sight of me doing the most ridiculous sign language. We walk up a flight of stairs and the sign says “Floor 3,” huh? So we keep going and the next one was “Floor 4,” is this a trick? We decided the elevator might be the best way and getting in it we see the buttons showing floor 2 on the 5th floor, makes perfect sense to me.
We order a couple things to try and be cultural, gross. Seriously, there is only one thing that I have done in absolutely every country, eaten McDonalds. After our dim-puke-sum and dump-vomit-lings we headed out for a wonderful day of shopping. I believe I bought a cool pair of pants from H&M and then we wandered for a bit more. We head back to the boat and on the way I purchased my new camera, hooray, my life is getting back in order.
The Rugby 7’s was in Hong Kong so all the SASers were going to the same place at night. Apparently, the Rugby 7’s is a huge deal and a huge party so it was pretty cool that we were here for it. I ate dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, a nice Chinese cuisine, and got ready for the night.
We show up at Yingbow Ching Cowdun Street (something like that) and it was PACKED. My first thoughts were that someone sent out a message to every fat hairy man to wear a ridiculously small costume and scar every woman’s eyes for life. People were flooding the streets and to be honest, there was not one Chinese person there, really soaking up the culture. It was about 90% SAS and 10% drunk old men. What I didn’t know is that the Rugby teams, the real deal ones, go to the party. I met the Australian, Canadian, Kenyan and Samoan rugby teams. When I met the Samoan one I asked where they were from and they said “Samoa,” my response: The only Samoa I know is a Girl Scout cookie, nice Jaclyn. I googled it when I get home, apparently there’s Girl Scout cookies off the coast of Australia, way to go ladies… globalization at its finest!
Had a good night at Rugby 7’s and since they can’t speak English SAS hands out these little sheets of paper with Chinese characters on it that say, “Please take me back to the MV Explorer.” Haha! I don’t know why but I find that so funny. So every time you get in a cab you just extend your arm out into his face, no words are exchanged, and off you go.
I got back around 3am which meant it was 3pm in the states! I took my computer to the free wifi zone and got down with Skype. I called my wife, Dana, about 24323 times and finally she picked up with a really concerned, “Hello?” After I said hello she goes, “OMG! I didn’t pick up because it was a weird number and I thought it was Blockbuster calling for the movie I have had out forever!” HAHAHA has anyone ever gotten that mysterious “000-000-0000” phone call? Don’t pick up, it’s B-Buster and they’re on to you. I got to talk to lots of friends and then I went and crashed.
Day 2 – Hong Kong
I have a friend, Anders, who is absolutely in love with knock off markets. We went to a huge open air market that he had been to a day earlier. We pay for the ferry to HK Island and then get in a cab. The cab was pretty long and expensive and I realized we were going under a tunnel. Anders didn’t know where he went the day before so essentially we ferry boated to HKI, then took a cab back and went to a market about 10 feet from the boat, awesome.
The market had SO much stuff, white flags were shooting out of my wallet…I was wearing tinted glasses that day so they appeared brown, what do brown flags mean? Shop! We did some serious damage then
Short day, back to the ship, ate California Pizza Kitchen again and we left port around 8pm.
Day 3 – At Sea
In Hong Kong the family of the man who founded Semester at Sea boarded the ship and we had to impress them because they were making a pledge to give the program 1.75 million dollars over a 10 year period. We found out that we would be getting 5-course meals on both nights, SCORE! Who needs the Great Wall when you have fine dining? There were only about 70 of us on the ship and there were no classes, I felt like I could have run around every deck screaming at the top of my lungs. I got a lot of school work done then got dressed up for our evening of class.
I had a table with great people and they served us fruit salad, soup, salad, fish, and dessert. We also found out that there would be free wine with dinner and Les McCabe (head honcho on board) would be footing the bill, this could be a rumor but it’s still pretty cool. I got my server over and asked him what the limits were on this fantastic deal and he said there weren’t any, I asked for a little special attention at table 7. A fantastic dinner and 6 glasses of wine later we were finished. A few of us were talking about what we should do that night because we were on the ship and we decided, dance party in the union!
A friend of mine went up to Les, as he was sitting with the family of the founders, and asked if we could use the sound system and have a dance party, he looked at me and gave me a thumbs up, WOO!
We dance partied until midnight then I went to bed.
Day 4 – At Sea
Not much going on today, the weather was too cold to lie out, my tan was fading and it was stressing me. They played great movies on the TV loop and I got to see Role Models, which was hysterical, and Seven Pounds.
After a day of leisure I got ready for classy evening take two. I had Salmon, salad, soup, dessert and something in a peanut sauce, it was amazing.
Shanghai and my Blackberry in the morning!
Day 5 – Shanghai
I had to do some FDP’s on the first day. What is an FDP? Well, every class I take 20% of the grade is “field work.” They want to incorporate the classroom with the journey. You have to do 3 per class and write papers on them, I am a bio major, I haven’t written this many papers since high school! Pretty soon they’re going to ask me to do DBQ’s. Hey Dana, remember in high school when you were taking the History Regent’s Exam and in your Document Based Essay you forgot and didn’t site ONE document, hahahaha so glad you made it to college. Loyola has gotten a gem.
The first FDP was a Kindergarten Visit. Kids scare me so at breakfast I was asking my friends for some tactics to use to make sure they like me. We took a bus ride through the city, which is the largest in China, and were brought to the school. All the kids were waiting at the gate screaming for us, heart attack. They all grabbed our hands and walked us inside.
We sat down and they told us they were going to put on a show for us. The show was a dance routine that was high energy and lasted about 20 minutes; I would have needed an inhaler. These kids were crazy but so smart. They memorized such a long routine with dance moves, formations, partner work and other things that I still have trouble with and they were 5 years old. This is why China’s 14 year old gymnasts are ready for the Olympics before they reach the regulated 16 year old mark, who needs rules when you have boot camp Kindergarten.
After the routine a little boy came over to play with me, I asked him his name and he said “Davie #1.” Why are you Davie #1? “Because there’s 5 Davies,” Oh, Hi I am Jaclyn #1. The entire time I was trying to speak to Davie he was bouncing up and down, I was getting sea sick. I drew a picture for him, of him, and it consisted of a stick figure with a head and hair. He laughed at me. I then asked him to take a picture with it and I said “Say cheese!” They could barely speak English, what he said back to me was, “Cheese? WHAT ARE YOU FRENCH?” hahahahaha I could not handle this kid. We didn’t have long with them and when I was saying goodbye, in between 3 foot jumps that he had been doing for the past hour he said, “BYE BYE YOU FORIEGNER!” Bye Davie.
Back to the ship and onto another bus for FDP #2. This was one was with my favorite professor, Prof. Harmon from Northport! We were going to a community center to have an open discussion about the one child policy.
In China you are only aloud to have one child to try and control the population growth. This leads to many problems like infanticide, forced abortions and child abandonment. Since China is a country of hierarchy they take a lot of time caring for their elderly. When a couple has a child they want to have a boy so that they can be taken care of when they are older and the family name will live on. A lot of times a girl child will be aborted or abandoned. Almost every adopted child from China to the U.S. is a girl. On the other hand there is a problem with child kidnappings for boys. Many couples will pay a high price for a black market male child.
The women were very open with us but every answer was very by the book.
After the Q&A we went to see the community center. They had a fitness room that measured height, weight and a few other things. I volunteered to do it so I stepped on the scale and a little bar came from the ceiling and bopped me on the head. The machine started to make a game show noise and there was “calculations” on the screen. Turns out my height weight is 5 out of 5 and a thumbs up, cool, so am I going to live?
Back at the ship I ate dinner and got ready for the night. A couple friends and I went to a karaoke place…Asia loves karaoke. We sang songs for a while and the man who worked there gave me a tambourine, I was in heaven. It was a pretty low key night, we were all exhausted.
During the first day in Shanghai many high power Chinese business had dinner on the ship. The 1st and 4th richest men in China were on the MVeX, don’t ask me where the 2nd and 3rd were. Semester at Sea is creating a program that will make a University in China a sister school so they had to rub elbows with the top.
Day 6 – Shanghai
Last day in China and I still haven’t received my package with my Blackberry. I got one from Dana and DHL said the Bberry one was in China but they weren’t turning it over to the ship. My Mom contacted DHL and the lady said that I had to prove the package was mine. Well, I haven’t gotten it yet so technically it’s still China’s. I had to have the port agent call DHL and the number wasn’t working. I was starting to panic. I love democracies and this whole China government thing was not working out for me. We had about 2 hours until we left China and I had been trying to make contact with my package for hours when all of the sudden the gangway lady comes in and says, “There is a man with a package at the bottom of the gangway asking for a signature!” I screamed “That’s mine!” and ran for it. This random man was standing there holding only my package; it was the weirdest thing ever. I signed for it and was the happiest girl ever. I think I told the port agent that this was the equivalent of Christmas in April. I ripped my Blackberry out of China’s socialiast censorship loving hands. Roar!
After 6 days of China it was time to go. China falls somewhere at the bottom of my list for countries I have visited so far, the language barrier made things very difficult and I didn’t see anything that really excited me.
Japan is next and I am excited!!
Update you soon
Jaclyn
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