...the beginning of the end

Chengdu 19-20-21-July

End of Studio wrap up.

So as it stands, this post might turn into several, and it might jump back and forth between the past few days like a boring, non-violent Tarrentino movie. I have been off of our project for a few days, and as Amy can attest, I usually go through a bit of a funk after everything has been finished and turned in. I get so involved in a studio project, that when the deadline passes, I dunno, I call it my own silly little version of post-studio-partum depression. It usually hits a few days into finals week, and only lasts a couple of days, but none the less, I think it has been compounded by the fact this crazy pirate ship of a studio has finally come to an end, and some of the Chinese students, hell let’s be realistic, most likely all of them, I will never see again. Be that as it is, I haven’t been blogging, one day out of not wanting to, the other of not wanting to have to face the end of this trip.
My impressions of China were fantastic and amazing. The people here, man there are a lot of them, but the ones with which I came into contact were awesome. All the SU students were so helpful. They wouldn’t leave us alone. Not in a bad way, either. They all wanted to show us the city, make sure that we understood everything that was being said, dealt with many moments of akward silence of two people who do not speak the same language stumbling around their home town.
I have to say I have a new found fond spot in my heart for the city of Chengdu. As I said, I haven’t been writing for the past few days, but I‘ll summarize, and when I get around to it, I’ll finally get all the notes in my head out on to the blog. We have been in Chengdu, and from Friday, when we arrived, till Monday morning, we had been working on our final paper presentations of the research we collected in Taoping. That was a quick eight hours working, so roughly 40-48 man hours of work to put together a 33 page document on the hydrology and human impacts on the watershed in the Taoping area. I really got to know a few of the students well over the trip, and then back in Chengdu.

Okay, looks like I got time on my hands, stuck in Chengdu, bad weather in Beijing has us grounded. So as I mentioned, on the 18th we worked and had hot pot. On the 19th we met again to finish up our hydrology work, and then Nan, Chen, Xiao, and I all went to Sichuan food to celebrate. I know that I may have mentioned it to a few of you, but sweating is a common tableside occurrence at Sichuan food. The food is spicy. The strange thing is I think I have really gotten used to it.

So after hot pot, Dana, who had dropped out of the program, was in Chengdu, but only for a night, then she was travelling with some newly found friends to Beichuan. We met up for a couple of beers, and she had been in contact with Lindsey via email over the course of the trip, but wanted to hear first person about some of the crazy times in Taoping. So we chatted, and called it an early night, since she had to catch a bus at 6:30am the next morning and still needed to pack.

Monday morning had our final meeting in store for us. We were to turn in our reports and reflections on the trip and visits to the different villages. After the reports were turned in, we had beers, at 10 am on a Monday. Now, normally I wouldn’t think anything of drinking a beer after a deadline, but these were school purchased beers, at 10 am, on a Monday. Dan Abramson had said they wanted to put together more of a party, but the timing didn’t allow it. So anyway, we drank beers, and took pictures and traded email addresses, and we all had fun.

So I have been in Chengdu for two extra hours waiting for weather to clear, and it looks like it is going to take a little longer than expected to get home. I think I got a voucher for a hotel when I get to Beijing, but again, it is all in Chinese, and I have no idea what it says.

So as I was saying we had a good time drinking beers at ten am, and then someone got the idea to go to karaoke. The Chinese take their karaoke very seriously. It is kinda like that scene in “lost in translation” when Bill Murray sings “more than this.” You rent a booth, and you friends stare at you while you sing. It is much more intimate than the American version. The Chinese also seem to know all the lyrics to all the songs anyone picks, even the English songs. Anyway, I will disavow any knowledge of singing in falsetto Celine Dion’s “my heart goes on, “ or Air Supply’s “I’m all out of love.” This is the last I will mention of those two artists in any sort of written work for the rest of the blog’s history, promise. It was good fun, the kids love their singing, and some of them actually can hold a tune. There ended up being enough students to rent two booths. It was fun to run between them and sing with different groups. As I said, this is a serious endeavor. We arrived at about two-two thirty, and they rented the booths until seven pm. That is a marathon. I am not totally ADD, but even that is a long time to sit and listen to mediocre at best music. But we sang and sang, and by then Josh, J-bo and I all ended up at the Western style restaurant, Peter’s Tex-Mex. After dinner, Josh and I went back to the dorms, it’s hard work drinking beer morning, noon, and evening.

Oh my, I just realized that I haven’t even mentioned the “Thumbs Up, Two Thumbs Up” grading system. After we turned in the reports, the instructors gave out scores of our design solutions from the twenty four hours worth of work in Taoping. I should preface this all with the fact that the students in Chinese schools always know what their position is in school. They are ranked, and the rankings are public knowledge. Needless to say this creates a crazy bloodthirsty competition in the classroom, and one they were happy to have left behind while all the group work with the American students was happening. Anyway back to the grading, so in the meeting they announced the “grades.” And I should also mention that there were groups that received “no-thumbs.” So the groups that received one or two “thumbs up” received a gift. It was really weird. And if you must know I was in a “two thumbs up” group.


I woke up on Tuesday, and I had this listless feeling, that end of studio feeling. So I decided to sleep in. I woke up a bit later, and my stomach wasn’t feeling so great. I spent quite a bit of time near the toilet that morning. Josh had a bunch of stuff to take care of, and some of the students to see, so I ended up napping most of the day away. He came back around 3pm-ish, and we had some instant noodles in the room. He had another meeting with students, but he mentioned the Opera. I felt I needed to get out of the room, so I asked if I could tag along, and we found Jason and Yiran, a student that had been helping him get a plane ticket to Kathmandu. So Jason, Yiran, and I met up with Josh and Dai Xinchen, and the five of us went to the Sichuan Opera. Now, this isn’t quite what you would think of when hear opera. It was more like traditional and folk music, acts and performances. There is also a traditional act of changing clothes in the blink of an eye. Now that I write that, it sounds far more kinky than anything could ever be in China. The act gave the appearance of the performers’ entire clothing changing colors instantaneously. It was actually pretty nifty. So, we didn’t have time to eat before the opera, and we ended up back over at the Uygur restaurant, which is the first place I ate at in Chengdu, with Tiger. Fitting way to end the day and time in Chengdu.

That reminds me, I never was able to find Tiger again. I went by the coffee stand for the last three days I was in Chengdu, and the store was closed. I don’t know if that was because of the school calendar, but, to no avail, I wasn’t able to give him my thanks, and say good-bye. If I had any regrets from this trip, that would be the biggest.

I am on day two of trying to get home, and still need to finish all of this. The flight to Beijing was over three hours late leaving. So I got to Beijing and there was no flight to the USA until tomorrow.