Home Sweet Apartment

It's so good to be home!! It's funny to think of this place as home, but that's how my apartment feels, especially after a nice vacation.

Last week I went to visit a friend in Xi'an - the ancient capital of China. Apparently this was the original capital city when China was first unified by the first emperor in the 2nd/3rd century, B.C. This was also the capital city during China's golden age - the Tang dynasty, all the way through the Ming dynasty, and it was also the beginning of the Silk Road. Pretty cool, huh? Needless to say, it has a lot of cool stuff around, and I'll post pictures when I get them. (I forgot my camera at home, so I had to use my friend's camera) Probably the coolest thing to see in the area is the army of Terra Cotta Soldiers, a tribute to the first emperor, and used to protect him in the afterlife. As one of my friends told me though, it's kind of depressing to think that you still need the protection of thousands of soldiers in heaven. Is that really paradise?

Xi'an is pretty much in the middle of China - much farther west than where I live. It's about an 18-hour train ride. Going there I had a bed, which was great, but coming back I just had a seat. The train ride was....interesting. Amazingly, the train wasn't packed. I was sitting with two students in a compartment made for 6. By the time we got to my city hardly anyone was in my car. I was even able to lie down on my seat and sleep for a while. It was the emptiest train car I've ever seen in China - *very* amazing, since it's the end of the May holiday and you'd expect people to be riding at all hours of the day/night. My train was even a special kind - added on just for the holiday.

The most interesting part of the train ride: one of the workers in my car would come and talk to me quite often. First of all, I was the only white face in the whole car, so of course that draws attention. Then he found out that I speak a little Chinese, so he wanted to come and talk to me because of that too. I know he was just trying to be friendly, and most of the time I didn't mind. In fact, I got to talk to the two students too, and with the help of my handy-dandy dictionaries (I carry two - not because I'm compulsive, but because I'm indecisive about which I like better) we spoke in Chinese the whole train ride until they got off (about 11 hours). I was pretty proud of myself when I realized that. :)

Anyway, back to the worker. Chinese students studying English are taught that there are some subjects "taboo" to foreigners - age, weight, salary, sometimes religion, and sometimes politics. Well, this guy never had that lesson. The first time he came and talked to me he started talking about Pres. Bush vs. Pres. Clinton, and how Clinton was so much better and that everyone liked Clinton better. The first time he started talking about this, I tried to just brush him off. I told him that some Americans liked Pres. Bush and some didn't, and tried to tell him it was that way in every country. I didn't mind the first time he did this, but he kept coming back and talking about Pres. Bush each time. Now, no matter what your opinion is of Pres. Bush, if someone keeps bashing the leader of your country repeatedly, after a while it will wear on you. By the fourth time he told me that Pres. Bush liked war and guns and that everyone in the world hated him, I was getting downright angry. I finally told him to look at leaders in other places - Africa, for example - and that they liked to make war. He told me I was trying to change the subject. That just made me angrier. I told him that, no, I wasn't changing the subject, that it was the same. The thing is, if I had told him what a lot of Americans think about some Chinese leaders, he would have been very offended. I restrained myself out of politeness. And of course, I didn't mention that the reason he had such a negative impression was that his gov't often feeds the people a certain point of view and doesn't give the whole story (about many things). I know he didn't realize that what he was doing was rude, but it just left a bad taste in my mouth. When he wasn't talking about Pres. Bush everything was fine.

However, I do give major points to the Chinese railway workers because at one point after the students left a guy started smoking just diagonally across from me (and of course he would stare at me too - a double negative). It wasn't too bad at first because the smoke was mostly going out the window, but at that point some workers were walking through the car and they started yelling at him that he had to go to the designated smoking area if he wanted to smoke. I was inwardly rejoicing. :)

My train finally pulled in to my station (newly remodeled for the May holiday) at 1:30 a.m. I bought a lot of stuff (including a new backpack that I could probably fit inside) in Xi'an, so of course I stuck out when all the taxi drivers crowded around the train station exit. Vultures!! I tried to run away, but they kept following me and trying to get me to take their taxis, even when I said I didn't want to. Finally they got the idea, and I got a taxi on the street outside the station. :) (They don't overcharge - they just use the meter)

So, I'm back sitting comfortably in my apartment, getting caught up on stuff and starting to go through my stuff to decide what I want to take home and what I want to leave. Only 2 1/2 months until I'm home!!!! :)