更多中药，Even More Chinese Medicine

So I have been taking that Chinese medicine I bought for almost a week now. I have a good feeling about it working, but I everyone tells me that Chinese medicine is really slow and takes about a month to start working. Yay. Chinese medicine tastes so bad but I’ll live.

On Monday I went to a nearby hospital to talk to their Chinese medicine doctors. I paid 15 Kuai and got a full examination which consisted of the doctor feeling my pressure points, checking my pulse and tongue, and asking me a bunch of questions. I guess my body has too much cold and wind, so I’m guessing I need fire and dampness to offset it. At the hospital I also experienced acupuncture and fire-cupping.

Acupuncture is the most well known to westerners out of these two. They do exactly what you’ve seen: put needles into you. The needles don’t go deep and they don’t hurt. They also do not put as many in you (at least your first time) as you might have seen on TV. They put about 6 needles in me, all into the spots nearby where my pain was. On two of the needles in my back, they gave me some electricity. That was almost the most uncomfortable part, just pulsing electricity through my body for about 20 mins. The electricity isn’t harmful in any way, but it still feels weird. The most uncomfortable part about acupuncture is that they stick these little metal balls into your ear and they hurt! I had to leave these torturous things in for the whole day and night.

Fire cupping is where the doctor creates a vacuum in a bunch of small glass cups and suctions them to your back. This is supposed to get your qi or energy/blood moving and draw diseases out of your body. The cups are left on for 5 minutes and when they are taken off, they leave marks that last for about a week or two, depending on how much poison your body has in it. If you have a lot, the marks will be dark red, almost like bad bruises and will take a long time to go away. If you are “healthy,” apparently as I am, the marks will be very light and go away quickly.

After having experienced both of these treatments twice already and am set to have another today, I can say that I am still not sure if they work well or not. My neck and back have since stopped hurting, and I feel a little better, but I don’t have some euphoric feeling that others have claimed to feel. I am most hopeful that these treatments with the actual Chinese medicine that I have to drink can make whatever is causing my allergies (probably bad digestive system or hormones) go away!

Allergy Troubles – 过敏=麻烦。

This post will also be in Chinese!!!

If you know me, you know I am allergic to almost everything. In China, this is a problem. One of my most prominent allergies is to soy sauce and here they put soy sauce in everything. I often eat out at restaurants in China because 1: I don’t have much time to cook my own food and 2: the cost of eating out every night is so cheap that it is worth it. Here you can buy beef and noodles for about 10 kuai at an expensive place. 10 kuai is less than 2 dollars. I usually buy an all meat an vegetable meal though, so that costs about 30 kuai which is still only $4 compared to a $12 steak meal back home.

The fist thing I did before and after I came to China is to look up how to say and read all the things that I am allergic to (not an easy task.) At these restaurants I generally tell the waiter that I cannot eat these things and she usually either says ok or I have to order something else form the menu. Even though I tell them not to put these things in, I think there is still contamination from sharing the cooking surfaces or they do not know exactly what has or doesn’t have that stuff in it.

Today I am going to see a Chinese medicine doctor. My teacher gave me a list of all these legitimate shops and places where I can get treated for my allergies. I actually already have a list of herbs and stuff that I will buy. I found this list when I was searching for studies on Chinese medicine curing allergies. Apparently there is currently a study being done in America that has had success using these herbs.

I also want to get accupuncture. Chinese medicine could work for me, who knows. Many Chinese people believe it is better than western medicine. In some ways, it could be true. They have a much longer medicine history than we do.

要是你已经认识我，你知道我有很多过敏。所以我觉得我每天都吃过敏的东西。我的身体变越来越不舒服。我的肚子常常不舒服。在饭馆我告诉服务员别放酱油麻油，等等，可是我觉得他们还放。可能他们不知道怎么别放，或者不知道什么是酱油等等因为很多的东西有酱油。。。以前我常常去饭馆吃饭，可是我觉得我最好自己做饭。我可以学怎么做很多中国菜就成一个大厨，哈哈。我已经学到做孜然牛肉和辣的包菜，很好吃！

今天我会去东南京路买中药。我的同学的室友很客气因为她会陪我去。我得买很多药的东西。我希望这个药可以让我的身体最好，可是不让我花太多钱。

Random Shanghai Events Part 1

Shanghai is a huge clash of two very different cultures and from where we have been going lately, you can tell just that.

Right around the former French Concession area, there is are a few interesting markets to check out. One is called the “Insect Market.” You can buy just about any creepy crawler or animal here.

The big thing about this place is apparently the sale of fighting cockroaches. These huge ugly things are often bought by elderly Chinese with too much time on their hands in order to compete with other ones. These competitions are an Eastern way of gambling, but instead of losing your money to a casino (the man), you get to lose your money to another old guy with a better cockroach. I haven’t seen a cockroach fight but I’m sure that they are very intense (Ha). These fighting cockroaches are also very expensive. Some poor souls pay over 100 kuai just for one, while the singing cockroaches go for well under 30.

Make songs, not war

Cockroaches aside, this market also has a huge random assortment of animals. Anything from rabbits, kittens, and squirrels to turtles, fish, and flowers can be bought and probably bargained for. They actually had some really cool looking birds:

"I may look cool, but if I get out of this cage, I'm pecking your eyes out."

 

 

After we went to the insect market, we hit up the tea store building. I love tea so this was one of my favorite places to shop. The tea mart as I call it has all these little shops run by different people in which you can first go test the tea, and then buy it. All of the shops are set up the same way: a table in the middle of the room with tea displays all over the walls. The most expensive teas are near the entrance of the building while the cheaper ones are towards the back and upstairs. We went to two stores, one at the entrance, and one in the back. The store at the entrance had the sweet old lady that you saw at the beginning of this article. She was so nice and probably puts up with Westerner shenanigans every day. Half of our group, which was about 12 people, squeezed into this shop and sat around a table meant for six at the most. Tea lady still served us all. We tried two kinds of tea, Ginseng Oolong Tea (人参乌龙茶）and Jasmine Tea (茉莉花茶) Both were amazing, but I didn’t buy anything from her because her prices were too expensive. She was so nice though, I felt like someone should have bought something. I think that’s the prevalent marketing scheme here; smother your customers with love so that they feel bad leaving without buying anything. Anyways, we were at that store for about a half hour trying her tea. Before we left, I wanted to check out the cheaper stores and buy that Ginseng tea since I already had some Jasmine at home. At the second place, I bought some for 35 kuai for 50 grams of it. 50g is not really a lot, so it was still a little expensive, but the little bag of tea I bought lasted about 3 weeks using some every morning.

 

Seriously, she wouldn't stop giving us tea

 

 

After the tea market came the most non interesting place in Shanghai: the fake market. The reason I think it is not interesting is because all of the street vendors sell the exact same things and all the items are either junk or most likely lead filled tea kettles and cups. The only thing I would consider buying there is one of those Mao/Sun Yatsen type shirts with the distinguishing collar. I would write more about this place, but there isn’t much more to say than that.

 

My bad

Hey all! I have to apologize for being absent for so long, but quite a bit has happened in the past few weeks on top of the insane amount of homework we have each weekday. Good thing is, my Chinese is getting so much better. I feel like I can have somewhat of a conversation with my teachers now.

I’m going to write a few different posts starting from oldest to newest events.

History

Yesterday a group of classmates and I went on a scavenger hunt around the French Concession area near the Bund. If you are ever in Shanghai and are looking to blow a lot of money, this is the place you want to be in. I am not joking, a little personal pizza costs about 120 Kuai or about $20 US. This place is really nice, but the prices are just ridiculous. I feel like I was pick-pocketed after eating lunch here. That aside, there is a lot to do in this area. For our scavenger hunt, we had to visit various museums and learn about some of China’s history. Next month there will be a celebration of the 90th year since the Chinese Communist Party was formed, so there has been a surge in the number of people attending these kind of museums. The first museum we went to was just for the history of the foundation of the Communist party.

Why does this make me feel like the last supper?

Shanghai is a very important place when it comes to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s history. Just a little background: The CCP and the Kuomintang party were both fighting the invading Japanese forces together in the early 1900′s. One day, the KMT decided that they didn’t want any chance of Communist forces having a say in their government after the Japanese were driven out. In Shanghai, this decision led to the massacre of many members of the Communist party and even some bystanders. This was the start of the Communist party’s great struggle and eventual “long march.”

After the CCP museum, we went to FuXing Park. This place is really beautiful and is a great spot for night life such as clubs, bars, and drunk people watching. In the day time though, you can see many elderly Chinese playing chess with each other and couples dancing to slow music.

I think his shoes say it all.

It hits a spot in me seeing old couples do these kind of things

After the park, we visited the former residence of Mao’s right hand man, Zhou Enlai. It was a really fancy mansion that he lived in. Apparently when he was living in Shanghai, the KMT had a lookout post right across the street to keep an eye on him and the others 24/7 .

On the way back home, we took the bus because we were exhausted from walking so much. While on the bus, I learned one thing: the drivers keep it real. They are the most aggressive people on the road and our driver yesterday in particular was the man. This guy was driving a stick shift bus with one hand while he was either talking on his phone or drinking tea with the other.

"Oh hey Sue. So like yesterday I totally saw this hot dress at Macy's and I was like OMG this would so impress Johnny but it was like wahyy too expensive. What a rip off. Hold on this guy is honking at me. WHAT? NO YOU MOVE. Sorry, so like yeah did you go out to dance last night?"

Food

China is famous for having many different types of food. Since it is so big, before cars and other forms of modern transportation were invented, many Chinese people were isolated from each other for long periods of time, making them create their own different customs and styles of food. Western China is famous for its spicy food, Eastern China is famous for its seafood. Beijing is famous for Mongolian Hot Pot.

I love all kinds of Chinese food but I think my favorite is Sichuan hot pot or 四川火锅. Its a very involved eating process. A hot pot is unique because everyone puts their own food in a boiling pot of water in the middle of a big circular table to cook it, then takes it out when its ready. When you go to eat hot pot, you need to bring people that can eat the things you do. This was our problem tonight. I cannot eat fish, chicken, soy, sesame, etc. One of my friends that went with me does not eat red meat! This was kind of a problem. We were pretty lucky though because we knew just enough Chinese to get a pot that was split into two different sections, so our food didn’t touch. Sichuan food is really spicy. When you eat something out of a hot pot, your tongue will tingle, and you will sweat. Its funny to think about how Sichuan is has an extremely hot climate in the summer, yet they still love spicy things.

We ate like kings for like $7 a person. In our side of the pot we had thin strips of lamb and beef. In the other side, they had chicken. We also had some vegetables which were pretty good.

Anyways, on a personal note, I am very tired. I haven’t had more than 7 hours of sleep in a night since I came to Shanghai. That being said, I’m going to bed early tonight!

Insanity

So I’m going to write this really fast and probably mess up a lot of grammar, but I really need to get to studying for class tomorrow. We learn like 20 new words per day and I was really lucky to have known about half of them already today. Our first class went pretty well, I think it is hard but also very interesting. The teachers talk slow enough for us to understand, which is good because most Chinese people talk way too fast. We have about 5 hours of class per day with a lunch break in between. 5 hours of Chinese hurts my head, but its worth it. It builds character.

 

I don’t know if I should name people I know yet because most people who read this won’t know them, but me and my friend went to Wal-Mart after class to buy some cooking stuff so we could make dinner sometimes. We were there for like 2 hours, not counting the half hour each way it takes to walk there and back. That’s a lot of time to spend at Wal-Mart but at least we got everything we needed for awhile and now know where everything in the store is.

When we got back, we cooked a full course meal. I would’ve taken a picture of it but it was just so good it literally disappeared off of our plates before I could. We made our own dumplings (Jiao Zi) with ground pork, garlic, and green onions on the inside. We probably cooked them for a little too long but they still came out really good. For the main dish we made a beef, garlic, and bok choy stir fry with some Sichuan pepper salt stuff on top. In my opinion, that was the most tasty part of the meal. For the vegetable part we made some steamed purple sweet potatoes and bok shoy with some cinnamon on the potatoes. Hen Hao Chi!

We found out that making food takes up a lot of time, so we probably won’t do it too much even though it saves money and tastes just as good if not better than the restaurants. It’s just hard to make food and find time to study for our classes.

Ahh!

I need to sleep early one of these nights. I keep telling myself I’m going to go to sleep early, but any college student knows how that works out.

Talking with strangers

Confucius Brand Liquor. I'm sure he would have wanted alcoholism

Today was my greatest learning experience so far. I went out by myself to browse around the various markets around my campus. They are closer and much cheaper than Wal-Mart. At one of the vegetable markets, I picked out some sweet potatoes and the owner weighed them and gave me a price. One of the biggest differences between China and America is the aspect of bargaining. In China, anything that is not in a high class store or supermarket can be bargained for. Since my Chinese is not yet that conversational, I wasn’t able to bargain for my food and probably paid a higher price (even though they were still amazingly cheap.)

After the vegetable market, I went in to one of the grocery stores to look for random things. I figured this would be a good chance to try to talk to some people, so I asked one of the workers about tea. After that, I went into another section of the store by the registers, and I happened to hear one of the cashiers say something about a Wai Guo Ren, or foreigner. Being the only foreigner in the store, I was pretty sure that was me, so I wondered what they were saying. When I bought my tea, I talked to the cashier about some little things and after a few seconds, everyone that worked in the store came over to try and talk to me. There was literally like five people in a circle around me. They even ignored the customer in line behind me! I think he didn’t even care and was listening himself. I found that very humorous. They didn’t realize that they were talking too fast so I told them to slow down. Actually, I told one lady to slow down, but I think I might have said it wrong and she ran away or something.  Chinese people talk very fast since their words are all one syllable. From what I could understand and talk about, they liked America and one of the cashiers wants to go there. They asked me if America was expensive and I told them it was and that China is very cheap. I wish I could talk about how Americans make more and Chinese make less, so the standards of living are not all that different. Well in a few years, I think they wont be.

I really want to go to a KTV soon so that I can get my singing on. China has karaoke bars all over. Basically what you do is get a private room with a couple friends and sing for the whole night. It’s really fun. I wish America had KTV’s but I think too many people are shy or something. I guess singing with people isn’t a pastime

A short note

Shanghai is awesome! Yesterday, the biggest task me and my new group of friends accomplished was finding wo er ma or Walmart. Walmart in China doesn’t play around. It’s about a half hour away from our dorms and it is literally four floors of everything you could ever need. Someone told me that they sell cow placentas there. Sounds interesting? I will definitely go there a lot.

Sleeping last night was terrible. China only has one time zone for the whole country. In Shanghai, the sun comes up at around 4:30 AM. What happens when the sun comes up? Birds happen. Apparently all of the most annoying birds in China gather directly outside my window at 4:30 to make sure I’m up. I’ll have to get used to my new alarm clocks if I want to sleep!

We have a full day today for orientation. Placement exams are at 2:30 but I’m not too worried because it’s not like we’re being graded.

Finally here! 到了上海！

So it’s 4:30 AM and I cannot sleep at all. I had to force myself for half of the night. My flight got in around 7PM and let me tell you, it is torture to ride on an airplane for almost a whole day and night. The worst part is that I have a cold, so I had to blow my nose every 20minutes for 17 hours. Not to mention that from the pressure of the airplane, I lost hearing in my right ear for a while after arriving. Never sit in a window seat on a flight like that because there are two people blocking your exit to the bathrooms and to stretch, and you have to wake them up and tell them to move numerous times. In my case, there was a Taiwanese couple next to me. Both were a little overweight for Asians and they made out almost the whole time! Yay.

Anyways, I am not really in a bad mood, just had a bad flight. After the plane landed, I took the shuttle bus from the airport to Wu JiaoChang (5 ways square.) This place is huge and the streets are lined with shops and small restaurants. After I got off of the bus, I had to walk about 20 minutes to my dorm. The only problem was that I didn’t know which way it was. Lucky for me, I am an outstanding guesser and ended up walking right to it. I thought I was going to have to get a hotel room for the night since the official move in wasn’t until the next day, so I went into every little side street searching for a place. I found a couple, but from what my broken Chinese determined, only Chinese people could stay in these hotels. I’m a little rusty and need to review. All I could say to them was 我要睡觉 or “I want to sleep”. Haha. Anyways, after being turned away from three “hotels”, I started to walk back. While I was doing so, I saw some American students along the way. Lucky me! I asked them where I could stay the night, and found out that they are staying in the same apartments that I was supposed to be in the next day. They ended up taking me there and I was able to move in early and they only charged me 95 kuai for the extra night. These apartments are very nice and everything seems to be new.

It’s been raining nonstop since I got here, and the forecast says rain all week. I guess Rochester’s weather isn’t much better, so I’ll have to deal. Tomorrow (Today) I have nothing planned until around 6:15, when everyone else will be arriving, so I will take it as a good chance to get to know my surroundings and find some 好吃。