City God Temple

My study abroad program hosted a day trip to City God Temple for anyone who wanted to go. Of course I was totally up for a trip out to another temple (I love going to temples!), so I immediately signed up! I had a great afternoon at City God, but it was definitely not what I was expecting and a very interesting experience showing how China capitalizes on the history of their country while demonstrating the interests of the people who live here.

When you first walk into the temple, the entry way is not very peaceful but instead filled with a souvenir shop, a massage parlor, and a restaurant. Not quite the first impression you expect when entering into a place of worship. When you enter into the main courtyard it feels much more like what you would expect out of a Buddhist monastery; much quieter and the traditional Buddhist incense and praying. Unlike other temples I’ve seen, the statues and relics were all incased when you went in and out of the rooms around the perimeter of the temple. There were stands (tourist traps) set up inside of the temple itself, as well, selling pieces of jade jewelry, religious figures, and other trinkets.

Outside of the main temple is Shanghais oldest teahouse, which is 180 years old. My roommate and I went into the teahouse thinking it would be fun to get some tea from such a famous location but quickly changed our minds and left when finding out that a pot of tea would cost over $20 US dollars, but not before snapping a picture! Instead we went to a nearby restaurant and had 饺子(jiăozi- dumplings) which were very cheap and delicious!

The area surrounding the teahouse was a beautiful pond with statues, flower gardens, and coy fish! But again, I was a little disappointed in the area that was meant to be such a relaxing place. The amount of people that crammed into the area around the teahouse was completely overwhelming! You couldn’t move without getting pushed in the opposite direction, and the Chinese are not shy about blatantly pushing you out of the way! Around the pond and teahouse, which used to be traditional buildings that were an extension of the temple, are now completely converted to house gift shops, restaurants, and many different stores to buy things. Its very surprising being in a place which clearly has so much history and an elegant style of old Chinese architecture and to be suddenly snapped out of it by being pushed by somebody into a Starbucks, shoved in the opposite direction into a McDonalds, then harassed by a street vendor to buy a remote controlled helicopter! The commercialization of Chinese history and the country’s monuments is one thing that I have found to be disappointing in China

 (You can see Starbucks in the center, on the left is a Cold Stone, and further on the right is McDonalds!)

Although the experience to City God Temple wasn’t quite the afternoon that I had had in mind, the trip was very eye opening and interesting to see this side of China. Its these experiences, the ones that may not be the most appealing to me, that help me piece together an idea of what Shanghai is like overall, not just viewing the city from the eyes of someone who has only experienced the best of what it has to offer. I believe that the negative experiences are the ones that make you more patience with the unfamiliar, more understanding of the people and the culture, and humbling you when realizing that it is you who has to change the way you behave when choosing to be in a new and foreign place. 

Coca Cola Factory Tour

      

      My Changing Nature of Business in China class is taught by the past CFO of Coca-Cola China so as a special class trip, we got to go visit the Coca-Cola bottling plant which is on the outskirts of Shanghai. We were brought up to a board room and shown a video of the history of Coca-Cola. Started by a pharmacist in Georgia in 1886 and only sold about 5 glasses a day when it was first sold. Now the product can be found in over 200 countries and has a huge product line!

      We got to first go through the bottling and assembly lines of both Coke and Sprite. They are able to fill about 1,000 bottles every minute from their assembly line! It was crazy to see how quickly the bottles moved from being first washed, then labeled, then filled, and finally sealed and sent off to be packaged. They also showed us about the new packaging system that China is using to be a little more eco-friendly. Instead of using cardboard boxed to package their bottles, they are using plastic wrap and shrink wrapping cases of their beverages which take away much of the waste that cardboard used to account for.

      Afterwards, we went through the factory’s Coca-Cola Museum. They had all of the styles of bottles and cans that Coke has used in the past and even had special bottles designed for Chinese events such as this past summer’s Expo and the Beijing Olympics. They played a wide selection of adds that have run on Chinese television to advertise Coca-Cola products available to the Chinese market. It was interesting to see the similarities (advertising to a younger audience and having the commercial be highly energetic) and the differences (focusing a lot of their adds on romance and falling in love) from Chinese Coke commercials to American coke commercials. The museum displayed the many different products that Coke produced for the Chinese market, many that I have never seen in the states, and now when I look around at the drink selection in stores it is blatant how dominant Coke has been able to become in the Chinese market. Although, there are other brands such a Pepsi, from what I have seen, it looks as though Coke has about 75% of self-space in stores reserved for their products.

      
We got to finish our afternoon at the Coca-Cola Facotry by getting to sample the different drinks. I chose to try a milk like drink with pineapple flavor. In 2008 China was faced with a crisis with the milk that was being sold to its citizens. The chemical melamine was found in the milk prodced by 3 major companies in China and as a result over 6,000 people became sick and experienced kidney failure, a few even died because of this chemical. Due to this milk crisis, the Chinese have been very hesistant to drink milk over the past few years. This Coke product is not pure milk, has a fruity flavor, and also doesn’t require refrigeration (cold drinks are not popular in china, only in the past few years has the idea of chilled beverages began to gain popularity), this makes the product much more desirable to the overall population. The drink fell way beyond my expectations! It was delicious (almost like a less sweet pina colada!) and I’ve bought it a few times already!

      The factory tour and presentation was such a fun opportunity and something so unique to be able to experience while here!

Hot Pot

·      One of the most classic Chinese dinners is called Hot Pot. Basically what it is, is a Chinese style fondue! You sit at a table and in the center is a big pot split in half filled with regular brother on one side and spicy broth on the other. Under the table is the fire that boils the broth. The 服务员 (fúwùyuán- waiter) brings you a tray filled with an array of different meats and veggies to cook in the broth! The first time I went was with my Beginner 1 Chinese classmates at a restaurant that is about a 10 minute walk away from our dorm. We got pork, beef, chicken, shrimp, lots of mushrooms, and other vegetables. It was really good! I was so fully after eating there! The second time I had hop pot was, unfortunately not quite as great of an experience. We went to a Hot Pot restaurant in the Sichuan province of China, known for their incredibly spicy food! Besides the fact that my mouth felt like it was on fire, the types of meat they brought out to us were less then appetizing. They brought whole fish and plopped them right into the broth which left an unpleasant fish taste afterwards, the broth was much more oily then the broth in Shanghai (a very common thing in Sichuan, oil is a very prominent ingredient in most of their cooking), and some of the meat they chose to serve was sheep lung, cow tongue, cow stomach lining, and a unknown animal’s intestines. Now I pride myself on being an adventurous eater and willing to try almost anything (which I did) but its hard to expect me to make a full meal out of inner organs! So I think I will stick with my preferred Shanghai style Hot Pot meals from now on, which I do enjoy very much!

Huangshan - Yellow Mountains

Four of my friends from the program and I decided to get out of Shanghai for the weekend to escape the pollution and crowded city so we packed a backpack and headed to the Anhui Provence. In Anhui is where you will find Huangshan, known as the Yellow Mountains in the states. The yellow mountains are very famous for their beautiful scenery and steep climb to the top! Being from Colorado, I jumped t the chance to go hiking for the weekend and be in the thin air that comes with higher altitudes! We hopped on a long distance bus Thursday night and spent the next 6 hours traveling to Anhui!

Unfortunately for us, once we got off the bus on their last stop, we realized that we had taken the wrong bus! Luckily we were still in Huangshan but unfortunately the area is enormous and we were over an hour away from the hostel we had booked and were stuck standing on the street at 1am. We decided to just make the best of the situation and got two rooms at the nearest hotel. In the morning we spoke with the front desk and by some miracle, our little mishap ended in us being 25 minutes from our first day trip destination instead of the 1.5 hour trek we had been planning to make! Funny how things work out! So with that positive news we headed out to Mukeng, a bamboo forest along waterfalls and rivers in the Huangshan foothills. we got there and began walking around the paths around lakes and trails surrounded by massive bamboo trees 50 feet tall and about 8 inches thick! I didn't know that bamboo even grew to be so big before then! 

After a while of exploring we began to hear drums in the distance. We knew there were performances that the local village put on for the park so we set out to find them. Once we got to where the show took place we had quite an interesting time getting in with the broken and minimal Chinese that we knew as a group. We were greeted by two locals who told us we weren't aloud to come in and even at one point yelled (in English) "F*** YOU!", obviously taken aback by this rudeness and confusing random situation we were just about to leave when one of the local men noticed a hole in the sleeve of one of the boys in our group's shirt. He pointed to it and said a lot of Chinese that we didn't understand and proceeded to invite us into the area. We still have no idea why the hole in our friend's sleeve was the deciding factor in this situation! But we went in and they showed us how to pray to their gods and we did a little prayer ritual with them then went to the stage where the performances were held. There were about 10 men and women all in their "tribal" attire with modern touches. Us being the visitors to the show pulled out our cameras to take their pictures and were surprised to see they were doing the same back to us! Apparently they rarely see white people and were clearly excited we were there! They were so friendly and taught us traditional dances and even invited us for lunch that people in their village had made for them! It was delicious and, surprise surprise, was mostly rice and cooked bamboo shoot! When a group of Chinese tourists showed up they began their performance. The women did a dance, one man put fire on this body, in his mouth, and blew fire balls, and one man stomped on broken glass! It was crazy!! As we headed down from the forest we found a little zipping set up that ran across the lake two times! It definitely did not look like the most secure structure but we figured, "why not?" and decided to go for it! Turns out it was a wonderful choice and we had so much fun sipping across the lake surrounded by the beautiful scenery of the area!

We left the bamboo forest afterwards and went to a new hostel closer to the entrance of the yellow mountains. The hostel told us of an outdoor market with lots of stone figures, toys, tea, chopsticks, and other merchandise we could bargain for. I ended up buying myself a 6 cup tea set with beautiful, unique patterns and bargained my way from 180¥ to 100¥, the store owner was being very stubborn on the price and it took me holding a 100¥ bill in front of him and threatening to leave until he'd go for it! At the market we got dinner and I ordered a classic Huangshan dish of their fried noodles. Delicious! Then we headed home preparing for a long day of hiking the yellow mountains!

5:45am came way too early. We were downstairs at 6:10 eating breakfast that our hostel had prepared for us and at 6:30 the bus was out front of the hostel to take us on the hour and a half bus ride to the mountain. 

Once we got to the ticket office to get passes to Huangshan we got our first glimpse of what a touristy place the yellow mountains were! There were a few hundred people in line to get to different areas of the mountain by yet another bus, thankfully our line was the shortest and didn't take long to get us on our final bus ride before hiking! The 20 minute bus weaves through the beginning of the mountains gaining elevation quick and transforming the scenery into beautiful jagged cliffs and green trees lining the bottoms.

We were finally at the mountain! Majority of people were buying gondola tickets to take them to the first real scenic area but we had already decided that we were hiking the whole way! Little did we know before starting this trek, unlike mountains and hiking that I'm familiar with, Huangshan's trails are entirely paved... And entirely stairs! It took around 4 hours of climbing to make it to the first scenic area where the gondolas let the tourists off. 

From that first area the views were beautiful but the most memorable was actually watching the Chinese tourists. There were thousands of Chinese tourists all gathering in this one area once getting off the gondola and were waiting in 3 hour long lines in order to get to a special famous destination. You may be wondering what could possibly be so incredible that thousands of tourist would pay lots of money to get them to the top of a mountain to see. The answer is: a tree. It's not an ancient tree and it didn't do anything special. What it did was grow one of its branches a little longer then the others to make it "look like an arm is stretching out to welcome people to the mountain", which is why the tree is known as the Welcoming Tree. People wait in 3 hour lines in order to take a picture in front of this Welcoming Tree. There are just some Chinese mannerisms I don't think I'll ever get used too or fully understand.

The five of us decided that as part of our hike on Huangshan, we were going to make it to the very top of the highest peak in the Yellow Mountain Range, Lotus Peak. By this time our legs were tired an wearing out fast but we never quit movie and walked up stairs after stairs until we made it to our final destination! The views front the top of Lotus Peak are breathtaking. You look around and you are the tallest thing for as far as you can see. Peaks and valleys are all you see in every direction you turn! It was such a feeling of accomplishment to have made it so far!

The trip down from Lotus Peak was significantly shorter then the trip to the top, although walking down stairs just works a different set of muscles than going up the stairs, ensuring that no matter what, you will not be able to walk the next day! But we got to the bottom in once piece very excited about what we'd just done. From the time we began climbing the stairs until when we got back down to the same point, we had been climbing up and down stairs for 7.5 hours! Not some little hiking trip, that's for sure!

That night my roommate, Charly, and I both fell asleep at 8pm and didn't wake up until 9am the next morning. The only reason we were able to move was through the application of ample amounts of Tiger Balm and Icy Hot to our throbbing legs! 

And what would a traveling story be without a little insanity thrown in last minute? All weekend, for some strange reason, we missed almost every single bus that we took. We each took turns being reason for almost missing the bus but my moment didn't come until we were heading back to Shanghai. Our hostel got us a taxi van to take us (unnecessarily) about 1/2 a block from our hostel to the long distance bus stop. We got off the taxi bus and onto the Grayhound-like bus going to Shanghai and right as we were pulling out I realized I had left my kindle, one of my absolutely favorite things, in the taxi van. I jump out of my seat and start screaming to stop the bus (in English which no one understands) and frantically am yelling at everyone to stop and let me out of the bus to try and chase down the taxi van! Finally they get what I'm saying and stop about 100yds away from where we'd been. Myself and my friend Peter jump off the bus and sprint after two different vans that looked like the one we were in, I was literally sprinting after the wrong van in the middle of the road! After not catching up to it I run back to our hostel panting and frantic trying to tell them to call the van they had gotten us and tell her to come back. In the meantime my roommate is dealing with the bus driver who's threatening to leave us! After a few minutes of pure panic that I had lost of one my favorite things I'd brought to China, a little taxi van pulls up front of our hostel waving the kindle in her hand! The people of China have been overall incredibly nice, but it was even more then I had expected! It was an absolutely crazy but memorable way to end a perfect weekend in the Yellow Mountains!

Chinese Culture

·      When I first decided to study in China a lot of people thought I was crazy. They thought that it was insane for me to choose a destination so far from everything that I was used too and in a language that was so completely foreign to me, those people may have been right but if I could go back in time I wouldn’t do anything different!

·      Some cultural differences are hard to be able to handle at times. For example, spitting is a very common thing among men in the Chinese culture. When you are on the street there are men spitting on the round and I have even seen some spit on the floor inside of the train stations. It’s hard to ignore when we were brought up around the belief that doing anything like that is incredibly rude and just plain gross! Another time when you can see a blatant difference is when waiting in line for just about anything, because lines mean nothing to most Chinese. When you wait in line its a very good probability that a few people will just jump right in front of you!  The concept of “waiting your turn” doesn’t seem to be something that was taught in elementary school quite like it was in the United States! Your patience is sometimes stretched with situations like that but it definitely helps you grow and become more understanding of others’ cultures.

·      But not all the differences are bad ones. A few times this past weekend while in a smaller city of China, a Chinese family asking if we would be in a picture with them approached my friend and I. They were so enthusiastic and excited about getting a picture with a “Meiguo ren” (American)! So somewhere in China there is a picture of a Chinese woman and I on a bridge in the middle of a Chinese garden. And they aren’t the only ones who get beside themselves at the sight of a foreigner. Multiple times a day we would have people saying “Laogui, laogui!”, which means “foreigner, foreigner!” while we walked past. People would also come up to us and say “Hello!” because that was one of the only English words that they knew. Its so funny to see how entertained they are just from seeing people from another country!

·      Overall the differences, either being entertaining or tough to handle, make living in a foreign country much more interesting and I believe will force me to move out of my comfort zone and grow into a more international person. Since I hope to someday have the chance to work in an international company, I couldn’t be happier about my decision to throw myself into the culture and customs of China!