A Hangzhou New Year's

We're a month into this experience, and I still feel as if I'm just getting to know China. This place is, at times, equal parts rewarding and frustrating. To enjoy China you must be willing to roll with the punches, to put up with massive bouts of confusion and frequent changes of plans. If you can handle these, however, the positive experiences seem to be absolutely worth it.

Last week in Beijing was another interesting one. At my internship on Wednesday, we had a formal lunch for about 40 members of my company, IDC. We walked to a large restaurant near our office in Xidan, where we sat at round tables of about 8-10 people each, with a big lazy susan in the middle. As a parade of traditional Chinese dishes were brought out one at a time, I waited and waited for a friendly-looking, western dish to save me...it never came. Not wanting to be impolite and refuse everything that was offered to me, the foods that I tried included pig stomach, pig lips, and chicken stomach. I refused the pig feet (which, to me, more closely resembled human hearts), duck tongues, and chicken feet. When we walked out, my coworker Stephanie asked, "Why did you not like any of our food?" (apparently they could tell). I smiled and tried to politely explain that I had never seen anything like most of those foods before, and it would take some time for me to adjust to this new Chinese cuisine. "You're so foreign!" she said, laughing with our other coworkers. They did, however, confess that I had been more adventurous than most of my American counterparts, and that my chopstick skills were quite impressive.

Friday night, a few friends and I went out to do some karaoke-ing with our awesome Chinese professor, Li Laoshi (Professor Li). She seemed to thoroughly enjoy watching us make fools of ourselves singing boy band tunes and rap numbers from our youth. Li Laoshi sang a few songs in Chinese, and then offered to sing "the one western song she knew." It turned out that none of us had ever heard of it before (it was something called "Lemon Tree"? If you know it, please comment below and enlighten us).

As I write this post on Monday evening, China is in the middle of the two week celebration known as the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year. We had a full week of class last week, but this week are off entirely. We were scheduled to leave for a 4-day tour of inland Shanxi Province, beginning Saturday morning, but were informed on Friday night that the trip might be in jeopardy due to a large snowstorm in the north. Some students chose to stick it out and risk getting stuck on the bus-trip to Shanxi, but our normal group of four decided to add an extension to our previously-planned trip to Shanghai. On Friday we did a good deal of research online and in books, and settled on a city near Shanghai, called Hangzhou. We had never heard of it at the time, but some locals confirmed that it was a great tourist destination.

Saturday afternoon we took the hour and a half flight from Beijing to Hangzhou. During our descent into the city, we were treated to one of the more surreal, incredible sights any of us had ever seen. When I looked out the window as we came out the bottom of the low-lying clouds, I remember thinking 'wow, this is a huge airport,' because of all the flashing red lights. As it turned out, we witnessed the most fantastic 15 minutes of fireworks of our lives. That night was 'the night' of the Chinese New Year celebrations, and a gigantic blanket of red fireworks was laid out below us, as millions of families stood outside their homes and celebrated the new year. We, as the only westerners on the large flight, were joined by the Chinese people in oohing and aahing at the mindboggling display below. It was a quintessentially Chinese moment, something that can't really be witnessed anywhere else.

After checking in at the "Hangzhou European-Style Holiday Hotel" we ventured to a popular bar street that had been recommended by the one English-speaker at the front desk. Much to the chagrin of my traveling partners (but as I had quietly suspected all along), Chinese New Year is more of a Christmas-like celebration as opposed to an American New Year's party where you go out and go crazy and count down at midnight. Most businesses were closed, and everyone seemed to be at home with their families. We found a jazz bar filled with ex-pats and enjoyed popcorn and pizza while it snowed outside.

Hangzhou is, like many Chinese cities, an odd contrast of beautiful, historic areas and flavorless, dull sections full of towers and apartments. Famous for its West Lake (supposedly the most famous lake in all of China due to a series of myths and legends that took place there), Hangzhou is at its best in the area around the water. It's hard to explain because the weather's been so cold and miserable during our stay here, but it feels like a spring break destination (despite lacking an ocean). The streets near the lake are beautiful and tree-lined, and the plants and flowers are in bloom (or at least they were until this rare snowstorm hit). On Sunday, our first full day in town, we saw the sights at the historic lake, which was incredible. Soaked and cold, we still loved the views and the people. Michael, Morgan and Elizabeth bought some local artwork, and I took some pretty cool photos. In a coffee shop, we met a local named Jin, who offered to show us around the lake and make some suggestions for the rest of the stay. After walking across the scenic 'causeway' along the edge of the lake, we climbed the historic Leifeng Tower, which on any other day would have offered some breathtaking views of the lake and the city beyond. It was still cool, but left us wondering about how awesome it would be on a clear, warm day.

The four of us went out to a nice Italian (yes, Italian!) dinner for Valentine's Day, then hopped from a local bar to a few clubs. Clubs here are an interesting thing, especially when they're not ex-pat clubs. We, as Americans, are apparently a big deal. We're often treated like quasi-celebrities, and the management always seems privileged to have us there, as if we're promoting their business with our mere presence. The Hangzhou locals were very friendly and seemed happy to hear that students from America (America!) were thoroughly enjoying their somewhat unknown city.

We got up late on Monday, and after a stop at Best Bite Donut shop, we spent the day at the Lingyin Temple, one of China's most imporant Buddhist sites. Upon entering the complex, we noted that it felt like a Chinese Disney world, with carefully manicured landscaping, wide paths, and small booths selling sodas and chips. All it needed, we said, were little speakers to play a tribal beat and the occasional monkey/jungle noise. Soon after, however, we found ourselves climbing wet paths on a series of steep hills into which were carved many Buddhist statues and murals. We slowly made our way back down and entered the temple itself, which was a series of about 20 yellow buildings, all clustered together as if in a castle. The main buildings were filled with gigantic (several stories tall) Buddhist relics. The religious artwork and architecture was unbelievable, but just as interesting were the scenes around us: people praying, bowing, waving incense, throwing coins at large black pots, and mumbling to themselves. Much of it seemed like a scene from a movie, and we felt slightly out of place among the throngs of worshippers that were essentially on a Buddhist pilgrimage. It was yet another only-in-China moment, an incredible experience that was far removed from anything I'd ever witnessed before.

Getting a cab from the temple was a harrowing experience (cabbies in this city are the most aggressive I've ever seen. They will make wild, inexplicable driving manouvers just to get one car ahead in a lineup. It is sickening). We made our way to Hangzhou's Six Harmonies Temple, another large temple that sits high on a hill overlooking the city and the river. Cold and hungry, however, we decided to table the temple until later, because the low clouds had nearly eliminated the view from the top.