Snow

So China is being hit hard by snow storms. Southern China usually doesn't get much snow, and that is the are being affected, so it is particularly bad. I know some people have been concerned about me. It has snowed in Chengdu a few times. I took some photos that I will get uploaded soon. But today it is sunny and much warmer. I am in no danger. I'm leaving China to save money so I wasn't going to travel now anyways, even though I would have loved that. I'm spending my last two weeks playing in Chengdu. I'm going to miss it here very very much. I really do like China, and living here. It's just not the right time in my life or education. Disappointing.

Connections

I started this blog so I could talk about my time in China, and include my family and friends. I didn't want to make it too political. But this is a really difficult challenge for me. I think in a very global way. This is something I developed mostly on my own, though the way my mom raised me helped a lot. She always wanted us to think about the consequences of things, and to think of things from many view points. She helped my sister and I develop very empathetic outlooks. I was the one who asked if we could start watching the nightly news when I was 9. I was the one who decided to get out of a school that was completely self absorbed.

Anyways, the New York Times and the Seattle Times today had articles that talked about things I am passionate about. The New York Times ran an article about the rising costs of meat in the world, and how feed lots are so harmful for the environment, but may actually go out of business simply because they cost too much in resources. I've been aware of this problem for a few years now. I mostly eat vegetarian, but I do love food, so I eat meat. If I buy meat I buy organic, free range stuffs. Another article that they ran unrelated was about how in Haiti the poor are eating pies made out of dirt, honest to God. Because of higher oil costs the poor world wide are being priced out of the market for FOOD.

The Seattle Times is running some special about college sports. The UW used to let the football players get away with horrible crimes and keep playing. To me this series spoke less about how the UW fucked up, and more about how our society fucked up in letting multiple generations of boys grow up in gang ridden slums without any expectations, hopes or even a basic education. These boys don't learn anything at the UW, they get help from professors and tutors, and graduate with two choices, the NFL or complete failure. When they get into the NFL they use their wealth to start raising fighting pit bulls and then go to jail for animal cruelty.

I read these things and only see the big picture, I see the connections. That is how I think, how I like to think.

I haven't done as much as I could have with my time and energy so far in my life. I've had a hard time just dealing with my own life. But I will do more. I'm studying so that I can have a more refined ability to see and deal with these connections. I'm getting the history and facts to back up all these general ideas. I'm going to learn how to research and write and use this point of view I have. I'm going to have a job where I help people. I'm going to have hobbies in activism. I'm going to do more. I'm really passionate about this.

I haven't really let my friends and extended family know how passionate I am about these ideas, and these plans. Honestly, I don't know how to talk about it yet. I see my friends and family, and they aren't doing anything. Americans are apathetic. They are going about their adults lives, trying to be happy. My friends are all graduating right now and getting jobs, trying to be happy. Only one of them I can think of are studying to go into a field that really helps people. None of them volunteer their time. Few of them volunteer their money. I simply don't know where to begin. My ex boyfriend really ended up disliking me because of how I am. I am passionate about making a difference, and disappointed and sometimes angry that no one else is. I'm a big freaking hippy, talking about love and connectedness and being brave so you can stand up and speak truth to power. (My current boyfriend actually likes this about me, now I'm worried his family will still like me when they find out what a huge hippy I am, dragging their son/brother into a world of chosen poverty, vegetables and composting toilets). Since then I haven't really been able to talk about it. My mom says I will when I get older, that it might take me a while to figure out, so I guess I'll wait.

I'm glad I came to China. But it makes me feel even less hopeful. China has done a lot to help it's own people. It's done a lot to destroy the environment. The goal of the Chinese people I have met is to consume, to have a higher standard of living. They have grown up poor, or with parents who used to be poor. They can see on television all the things they don't have and want, not only in America, but in Korea and Japan. I'm not blaming them for this desire. But they have no concept of how to do so in a way that won't harm the world and deprive others of resources, the more China consumes the more pressure is put on the whole world. And so both the current super power and most likely the next super power aren't prepared to find a new way to be.

And I don't know what to do. So I'm going to end up a social worker helping foster kids in King County or something similar. Maybe one of the kids I help can become a Ghandi, or a Martin Luther King Jr., maybe one of them can figure out to have a loud voice and make people think differently.

Panda

Tanner took this photo so you could see how close we were to the pandas, these are teenager pandas. They are being tossed apples which is why they are watching the audience.



Tanner and I both took the chance to hold red pandas. It was great.

more tourist stuff in Chengdu

A very famous scene in Chengdu, Tanner took this gorgeous photo


This is a map of the clubs right behind my dorm, but we have no idea why it's called "Bacon Walk"




I ordered us a whole fish, this one of the fins


this is the head


Our last dinner before Tanner left was at a fancy restaurant known for good Sichuanese food, Tanner looks beautiful

our delicious dinner



Jackie Chan advertising a Anit-Falling Shampoo


Jinli Street is built like an old style Chinese street, with loads of stuff to buy, and foods that are often street food other places. This sign says "Distribute the Son," yummy.


Me in front of Jinli street.


Tanner outside my dorm, the banana trees make Chengdu look really tropical


Outside of DuFu's thatched cottage, he was a poet who sort of retired from the world here in Chengdu

In the park around DuFu's cottage there is a huge statue of poets, yes, poets


At a temple, the old men took out their birds for some fresh air




what are these?





Oh man, the racism in these black dolls just shocked Tanner and I. They hardly come through here in the photo. They are very black, and have different stereotypes characterized. Some have huge lips. They are all making just the ugliest, oddest faces.

Traveling

Buddha's ears and nose are considered lucky, we liked that his ear had a fern growing out of it, perfect for the old man.


Tanner in front of a World Heritage Site, the largest stone statue in the world.

Big Buddha from the boat. We have a lot of photos of him, but it's really hard to capture his size, or it is for us beginning photographers.


The Buddha park also had some interesting caves with sculptures, some old, and some slipped in to up the count of Buddha's but aren't authentic.





Buddha with Lehsan in the background, I really do love China on days like this one. We had a wonderful, odd, interesting day.

Rickshaw/pedicab ride


We saw a real Porshe, Tanner stood in a group of Chinese men admiring it and took photos







these two are from the boat ride to see the giant Buddha from the river




There were fireworks in the village next to the hot springs right after our dinner. Someone must have had a wedding or a baby. They were right above us, it was really special.


There were really loud animal noises coming from the space above our room all night at the hotel next to the hot springs, Tanner here is putting on his warrior face so he can go kill 'em (no animals were harmed in the making of that vacation)








The dirt guard says "Lacoste," the clothing company

My boyfriend is pretty

at hot pot



at Ben's going away party, Tanner is making the face I make when I pose for photos, my "America's Next Top Model" face


I seem to take a lot of photos of myself when I'm tipsy/drunk at parties, Tanner jumped into this one, we both have funny expressions