Music Video: Passion Pit's "Carried Away" - One-man band cover by Nguyen-Anh Le

Wassup, my friends!  It's time to release a new music video!  Passion Pit's "Carried Away" has been stuck in my head so much lately.  It's such a catchy and danceable tune (just don't pay attention to the depressing lyrics).  So I felt compelled to do my own cover of it!  Click here or on the screenshots above to view the video in YouTube.

My "instrument of the day" is the Keytar!  I had purchased a Roland Lucina AX-09 a while ago, but just realized I've never shown it off in its own video.  "Carried Away" was perfect for it, since it has a great keyboard lead riff that fits the strengths of the Roland.  For those of you who are interested in the keytar, here's a nice demo video.  I love this baby.  It is quite versatile, and it's super portable.  I've decided to clear out my other keyboards and just stick to this one (and a stage piano).

For the music video, I decided to shoot it "on scene" at the Great Wall of China!  Well maybe not exactly on scene, since I went there in 2008 and filmed this music video in 2014.  Details, details :)

Enjoy!!!

Happy Lunar New Year! Welcome to the Year of the Cat - or is it the Rabbit? Life's mysteries revealed within...

Happy Lunar New Year to everyone! May you and your family be blessed with happiness, health, luck, success, and the chance to read my blog many times this year :)

I thought I'd spend a little time researching the glorious Inter-Web to learn more about this great tradition. Even as an Asian growing up with this stuff, there are things you just observe but don't really understand the meanings or origins of. To observe the holiday properly, I should really be taking the next two weeks off work. But nooo, I'm not taking any time off. So just an hour or two of research isn't so bad :)

Don't you mean Happy Chinese New Year?

Don't let Chinese oppressors fool you - there is more to Asia than China. Just because there are 1.3 billion of them and 100 of the rest of us doesn't mean that you should only listen to them! If you are a cultured Gringo, you may have asked yourself "hmm, to which of my Asian friends should I wish a happy new year?" Obviously Chinese ones, since it's often called Chinese New Year. The Vietnamese too, since I am blogging about it. The Vietnamese new year is called Têt. Even Koreans as well. Here's how to say Happy New Year in several languages:

• Vietnamese: Chúc mừng năm mới
• Chinese Mandarin: Gōng xǐ fā cái (恭禧發財)
• Chinese Cantonese: Gong hey fat choy (恭禧發財, written the same as Mandarin)
• Korean: Sae-hae-bok ma-ni pa-dŭ-se-yo!  (새해복 많이 받으세요)

What about the other Asian countries, like Japan? I wondered this myself.

• Apparently Japan used to follow the Chinese Zodiac and observe Lunar New Year. But the Meiji Restoration in the late 1800's put the Japanese on the Gregorian (western) calendar, and the new year on January 1.
  
• Southeast Asian countries like Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand used to observe Chinese New Year, but heavy South Asian/Hindu influence and climate differences apparently moved the new year to the fifth lunar month - April.
  
• The Philippines is pretty much "Latin Asia" - Jan 1 new year and Catholic.
  
• In Malaysia, they celebrate Jan 1, Chinese New Year, and even Islamic New Year.
  

What the heck is a Lunar New Year anyways?

While the answer on the surface (duh, it's the new year of the lunar calendar) may be simple, it's really a little more complex... Let's step back a little. The sun and the moon have been used for telling time since the early days of civilization. The concept of the year is pretty obvious. It's very useful for figuring out seasons, weather, and planning agriculture. Each time the earth is at a certain spot in its orbit around the sun makes perfect sense for a new year.

The hard part about the year is that it's a really long time. Every day looks like the previous day, until you realize a big difference several months later, like when summer has turned into autumn and the leaves start to fall. Hence a more useful and shorter-term measure of time is the moon's position around the earth - the month.  The moon takes about 30 days to travel around the earth.  It's pretty easy to tell where in the month you are too - new moon, waxing crescent moon, full moon, waning gibbous moon, etc.  That's why every civilization has the concept of the month.

The Moon makes roughly twelve revolutions around the Earth in a year.  I bet this behavior of nature is why you see a base 12 system (aka duodecimal) used in many units of time: 12 months in a year, 12 hours of day and night.  Many Asian countries used the twelve lunar cycles as the main basis for determining the length of a year.

Problem is that it's not exactly twelve cycles - it's really 12 cycles + a few days.  So every once in a while, you have to add an extra "leap" month in there to make up for it.  Since this system adjusts months to fit the earth's position around the sun, it's technically called a lunisolar calendar.  Thought I'd insert that random trivia fact :)  The lunar new year usually occurs at the beginning of the second lunar cycle (new moon) after the winter solstice. 

Strange, eh?  Are these crazy Asians making life too complex?  Well there's another well-known holiday that is determined in a similar way.  Easter, as recognized by Western (non-Orthodox) Christian churches, occurs on the first Sunday following the full moon that occurs after the spring equinox.

The Chinese Zodiac

Lunar New Year is strongly associated with the Chinese zodiac.  The Chinese zodiac is like the western zodiac in some ways: there's a cycle, and there are twelve phases to the cycle.  The western zodiac, which came from the Greeks, is based on the Sun's position across the sky.  The twelve signs of the western zodiac are supposed to be the twelve constellations through which the sun passes (though the signs have been abstracted for astrological purposes, so don't believe any nonsense about the earth wobbling and a 13th sign). The constellations refer to characters or events in Greek mythology.

The Chinese zodiac, however, is not based on any constellations.  Asian philosophy/religion/astrology is very closely tied to nature.  The Chinese zodiac's twelve signs are based on everyday animals and the characteristics associated with them.  There's a good Wikipedia page that describes the characteristics in detail. Another difference is that the Chinese zodiac cycle is in years rather than months, so the entire year of 2010 is Tiger, and 2011 is Rabbit/Cat.  Here's some awesome artwork by DarkuAngel that shows the cycle:

There is more complexity to the Chinese zodiac as well. There's a macro cycle involving the 5 elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water).  Not all people of the same sign are the same.  A 1975 Cat/Rabbit is a Wood Cat/Rabbit, while a 1963 Cat/Rabbit is of Water.  This makes the astrological cycle 12 x 5 = 60 years. There are other considerations for which month and even which hour you were born. The end result is several thousand possible astrological personality traits. No wonder Asians actually pay astrologers for significant readings!

2011: Year of the Cat? Or Rabbit?

I have wrestled with this mystery since my birth.  Those of you born in 1975 like me, or 1951, 1963, 1987, 1999 may have experienced similar inner turmoil as children.  Now that it's 2011, you can all join me in the controversy.  In Vietnam, 2011 marks the fourth and luckiest year of the lunar cycle: the year of the Cat.  Everywhere else, it's the year of the Rabbit.  It may be true that cats and rabbits both have whiskers and pointy ears, are good jumpers, and breed a lot. But cats and rabbits are pretty different animals, really...  Regardless, let's talk about the lastrological traits of whatever-this-small-furry-mammal-is:

• Luckiest of the signs (followed by the rat). Talented and affectionate, yet shy. You are peace seeker.
  
• Gracious, good friend, kind, sensitive, soft-spoken, amiable, elegant, reserved, cautious, artistic, thorough, tender, self-assured, astute, compassionate, flexible. Can be moody, detached, superficial, self-indulgent, opportunistic, stubborn.
  
• The best life partners would include the Sheep or Pig but not Rooster.
  

Let's also add a description of a cat/rabbit's astrological trine, which is kind of a harmonious grouping of a few signs.  There are four groupings of three signs.

The fourth trine consists of the Rabbit, Sheep, and Pig. The quest for these three signs is the aesthetic and beautiful in life. Their calm nature gives them great leadership abilities. They are artistic, refined, intuitive, and well-mannered. These souls love the preliminaries in love, and are fine artists in their lovemaking. The Rabbit, Sheep and Pig have been bestowed with calmer natures than the other 9 signs. These three are compassionately aware, yet detached and resigned to their condition. They seek beauty and a sensitive lover. They are caring, unique, self-sacrificing, obliging, sensible, creative, empathic, tactful, and prudent. They can also be naive, pedantic, insecure, cunning, indecisive, and pessimistic.

I'm honestly a bit of a skeptic, but I gotta admit that many of these traits are true of myself (well, the good traits hehe).  Ladies, remember: I'm seeking beauty and a sensitive lover, and I could go for some artistic lovemaking!  Haha :)  Come to think of it, I even had a great relationship with a Pig before, and a not-so-great one with a Rooster.... But I digress....

Ok, now why do we have Cats in Vietnam and Rabbits everywhere else?  The Chinese zodiac dates back a very long time - beyond 2500 BCE.  This is almost 2000 years before the Greeks (who came up with the western zodiac).  There are many legends and stories.  Culture has evolved over time too.  Unfortunately, there really is no accurate record of what happened.

The zodiac origin story that I enjoy the most is of the Great Race.  Click this link for the story.  It's a wonderful read - it's a great myth tale, and it clearly depicts the personalities of the animals.  It's even great for telling your children - check out the book on Amazon :)

While some have argued that somehow "rabbit" got turned into "cat" due to some translation error into Vietnamese, I'm not so sure.  The legends all feature the cat prominently in the story, as one of the 13 (or 12) animals.  Either the cat got screwed out of the race, or somehow it finished the race.  How do you mess up the translation of part of the story (rabbit to cat) but maintain the cat's role in the story?  Highly unlikely, I say!  Furthermore, Vietnam was occupied by China for over 1000 years.  There had to have been a tremendous amount of culture swapping - too much for a simple translation problem to get in the way.

Bottom line: no one really knows what's up with the Cat in the Vietnamese zodiac.  I think the folks selling Trix cereal would rather see the lucky rabbit as the winner.  However, Al Stewart would probably make a lot more money with royalties if 2011 were truly the year of the Cat.  As for me, all I have to say is "meow."

Chinese recipe: Lao (Hot Pot)

Have you ever had Chinese Hot Pot? It's a great dish. Very popular amongst Chinese. We Vietnamese also make it, but not as often. In Chicago, perhaps the most well-known Hot Pot place is in Chinatown, called Lao Sze Chuan. The Mecca for Hot Pot is in Beijing. I had opportunity to enjoy it firsthand.  Here's a photo of Ryan and myself showing down in Beijing (Mo was with us too). 

What exactly is Hot Pot?  Well, as the name suggests, it all starts with a huge pot that's heated in the middle of your dinner table.  There's a delicious broth inside.  The rest is cook-it-yourself.  You get a bunch of veggies; seafood like shrimp, squid, and fish; and red meats like beef or lamb.  Throw it in the broth, wait a little, and voila - freshly cooked tasty delights! Here's a closeup of our hot pot in Beijing.  This version had two soup bases to choose from - regular and spicy.  Also note that the soup bowl hole is built into the table - that's how serious Hot Pot is in China! :)

Over the Christmas holidays, my family (parents and uncle/aunt/cousins) came to Chicago for a visit.  I took them to Lao Sze Chuan.  I think they enjoyed the meal.  But my parents weren't too impressed.  They're never very impressed with restaurants actually.  How did they beget a foodie for a son?  "We paid how much for that?" asked my dad.  "I can make that at home," said my mom.

True to my mom's word, when my parents came to visit today, it was time for some homemade hot pot.  They brought a whole cooler full of raw vegetables and seafood on ice in their car.  Succulent shrimp, slimy squid, fiesty fish, yum.  Today was Good Friday so my parents (who are Catholic) passed on including meat. We all partook in the preparations.

Making Hot Pot is actually very easy.  It's all about preparing the ingredients beforehand.  Wash this, chop that, slice this, defrost the other, blah blah blah.  You can pretty much put anything in there.  When you're done with the prep work, put everything on a plate and place it on the table.  We went with the following ingredients:

• Lettuce
• Chinese Spinach
• Some Vietnamese green whose name I can't remember
• Potatoes
• Shrimp
• Catfish
• Squid

The one thing about making homemade Hot Pot is having the goods.  You need a large pot that can be heated in front of you.  It needs to big enough to cook a lot of food.  But it shouldn't be too tall because you'll need to put food in it and grab food out of it all the time.  I went with my electric wok this time.  Betcha never tried to make soup in a wok before!

Making the soup is easy.  Just use a big ole can of chicken soup and pour it in.  I think we went with 2 quarts?  Set the pot to high.  Throw in some green onions.  For flavoring, you can use some of this "Memmi" noodle soup base (bottle on right side of photo).  Just squirt a bit in there.  Most of the flavoring will actually come from the seafood and meat, once you cook a bit. 

How do you cook the ingredients?  Easy - just throw it in the pot!  The entire pot is never "all ready" or "all not ready."  It's more like "the shrimp is ready now" or "only the veggies are ready so far."  To this end, you'll need to know some basics on how long stuff cooks.

• Shellfish like mussels or squid need the most time to cook
• Shrimp and fish only need moderate cooking, and you can tell when they're ready because they look white
• Hard veggies (like the base of lettuce, broccoli, or bok choy) need moderate cooking too
• Soft leafy veggies (spinach, iceberg lettuce) cook real fast
• Beef cooks really fast, especially if it's really thinly sliced.  Leave lamb in a little longer.

 When food is ready, you just scoop it up, put it in your own bowl, and eat it right away.  You can use some of this Chinese Barbeque Sauce (left side of previous photo) to flavor your bowl as well.  It's kind of a chunky pepper paste.  You can dip with other sauces too, such as garlic sauce or black bean sauce (think of sauces that you'd see at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant).  

Chinese Hot Pot is a fun, communal meal.  Everyone has a part in preparing and cooking.  Even while you're eating, you're constantly putting more stuff in the pot and taking stuff out.  Oh yeah, I should mention that you don't need to put ALL the ingredients in at once.  Just put a few in at a time - enough to cook and eat - then add more later on.  The hot pot gets tastier over time, because all the juices from the ingredients will have made the stew richer and richer.  Remember to adjust the pot temperature lower when it's boiling and higher if it has cooled down too much.  It's a very fluid effort.  Once it's all over, your stomach should feel stuffed, and your head may be a little sweaty from all the hot liquid.  Aaaaaaaaah! :)

This article and other cool articles can be found on my blog, at http://discopalace.com/blog.

Dude... uh why's your name spelled differently than it sounds??

That's what an Indian guy asked me at work today (Friday).  He meant no harm; it was curiosity.  In fact, it's not the first time this question has been asked.  Some you know how to pronounce it because I've told you.  Others know it because they know some other Vietnamese person with Nguyen in their name ("oh yeah, your name looks like the same name as this guy from work...").

The short explanation is that my name is pronounced exactly as it should be pronounced - in Vietnamese.  The twist is that the Vietnamese language uses different phonetics than English (so does French, Spanish, German, etc.).  You shouldn't apply English phonetics to it; that's where you go wrong.  The same applies elsewhere - the word "yo" in English would be pronounced "jo" by a Spanish speaker, and the French pronunciation of "bus" would sound like how we say the word "boost." 

I wonder how many of you know the long explanation.  Even you fellow Viets.  I'll write it here.  It has to do the White Man from Europe and his colonial ways......

Let me start with a little history lesson. Vietnam's history dates back to the first millenium BCE (yes, a bit before the 1960's).  The history is rather hazy during this period.  What we do know is that over time, various groups of southern Chinese people settled the Red River delta area (where present-day Hanoi is located).  They became known as Viet people.  In 258 BCE, they established a new kingdom called Au Lac.  The Chinese were the big kids on the block, and they weren't so keen on Viet people establishing their own nation.  Who would, ya know?  Why not take it over for yourself?  Pho shizzo!  In 207 BCE, a Chinese general conquered Au Lac, proclaiming the kingdom his own.  He renamed it as Nam Viet, which essentially means "the Viets in the South."  The Chinese Han Dynasty rulers still didn't like this idea of an independent nation though.  They invaded, and Nam Viet became a province of China in 111 BCE.  It remained a Chinese province for a thousand years.  That's probably how my people learned Kung Fu.

The majority of Vietnam's years were spent as a under the rule of a major power.  First it was the Chinese.  Then the French, from 1887-1954.  Then it was fighting the threat of the Communists or Americans, depending on how you spin it.  Vietnam is a nation of oppressed people who have fought for their independence for over two thousand years.

Ok, what does all this history have to do with language?  Sorry, I had to give you some (long-winded) context. Despite the rule of foreign powers, the Viet people, culture, and language have remained distinct the whole time.  The Vietnamese spoken language was present in Au Lac, during the Chinese years, and of course today.  I'm sure things have evolved, and the language has inherited words from other languages (especially Chinese).  Linguists call it a Mon-Khmer language, a monosyllabic language that is similar to what is spoken in present-day Laos or Cambodia.

Although spoken Vietnamese has been intact, what's interesting is the written Vietnamese language.  From what I can tell (with my mucho extensive research haha), it doesn't look like there was ever a original written Vietnamese language.  Maybe it had to do with Au Lac only lasting 50 years.  When the Chinese took over, they pretty much mandated the use of Chinese characters for everything (and "Han-Viet" was spoken for official purposes).  A modified version of Chinese script called Chu nom was created.  I'm guessing that this is the script used on this stone stele photo to the right.  Thus the first written form of the Vietnamese language was actually Chinese!  Chu nom was used from the Chinese times all the way til the early 20th century. 

Let's fast-forward a little and introduce the White Man.  The Vietnamese finally kicked out the Chinese 938 CE.  Following this, Vietnam enjoyed about a thousand years of autonomous rule by several dynasties of rulers.  In the 17th Century CE, as you probably know, the major European powers decided to compete for power by colonizing the rest of the world.  One of their major weapons was missionaries, spreading the word of God and the influence of the Catholic Church.  This happened in Vietnam too.  A couple Portuguese missionaries came up with a spelling system that uses Roman characters (abcdefg) to represent what they heard in spoken Vietnamese.  Makes sense, right?  Gotta figure out a way to understand the words used by the primitive, godless, native folk.  So... if you had to blame particular White Men, blame these two dudes.  Who in their right mind, Portuguese or not, would come up with "Nguyen" as a spelling??  Who would use multiple accent marks on top of a single letter?? These guys did.  But it wasn't just their fault.  They probably just scribbled down a few notes for their own benefit.  But wait, there's more!  Later on, some French dude named Alexandre de Rhodes expanded upon this system.  We should blame him as much as the Portuguese.  Rhodes created a Vietnamese dictionary, then he transcribed a Bible using this script.  The armies of missionaries used this Romanized system and Vietnamese Bible to convert people to Christianity. Today 10+% of Vietnamese are Catholic, including my family. The photo on the left is the Notre Dame Cathedral in Saigon.

For a couple hundred years, the Romanized script was used in a limited fashion - mostly for religious purposes. The French came in the 19th Century.  At first, I'm sure it was friendly. Check out our fabulous clothing and outrageous accents!  Let's trade, let's learn about each other, let's meet your lovely women!  And pass the opium please.  The Vietnamese language picked up some cool French words too.  Coffee is "cafe" in French and "ca phe" in Vietnamese.  A cup is "tasse" in French and "tat" in Vietnamese.  A shirt is "chemise" in French and "so mi" in Vietnamese.  Neat eh?  We picked up some artistic and architectural influences too.  The photo to the left is City Hall in Saigon.  Looks slightly French, no?  Btw, you should check out the French movie Indochine, if you want a glimpse of this period.

After a while, it became rather clear that the French wanted more than just to trade.  Maybe it was the gunships opening fire (under the direct orders of - guess who - Napoleon Bonaparte).  It took them about 30 years, but the French finally won in 1887.  The whole region of present-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia became known as French Indochina.  Everything became French-ified.  The photo on the right is Da Lat, a lovely hillside resort town that was built by the French.  The Romanized script, now known as Quoc Ngu, came to life during this period.  In 1910, Quoc Ngu became the official written language of the country.  Bye bye Chinese characters!  This script certainly helped the French establish more control and assimilate better.  My dad, who grew up during the late French period, went to a French-speaking school and learned history about "us" - the French, and "them" - colonies like Vietnam.  Vietnam has used the Quoc Ngu script ever since. 

In spite of the unfortunate means by which the French took power, many people today - including my parents - view the switch to Roman characters as being positive.  Vietnam had always had low literacy rates.  The French colonization efforts and use of Romanized script dramatically improved education and literacy in Vietnam.  I would certainly be more illiterate in Vietnamese today if I had to learn Chinese characters. 

Now you know how Vietnamese is spoken in this funny sing-song sort of language but is spelled using Roman characters and employs a different phonetic system.  I.e., why my name doesn't sound like it's spelled, although it really does sound like it's spelled if you understood Quoc Ngu.  I just with those Portuguese missionary dudes made it even simpler.  It also feels a bit sad knowing that your language never had its own original written form, since its two written forms came from foreign occupiers.

You probably have other questions, like "why is your first name like other people's last names?"  And "why is everyone named Nguyen?"  And "why is it such a sing-song sort of language?"  I'll get to those some other time.  For now, I must go to bed.

Xi'an and the Terracotta Army

The main reason we went to Xi'an was for the Terracotta Army (Wikipedia). It's supposed to be the 8th wonder of the ancient world or something. Perhaps the most significant archaeological find of the 20th century. It was pretty amazing to see how much effort they put into crafting these figures. Different types of soldiers, weapons, uniforms. And each one had unique facial expressions!

I was not super impressed, however. All I could think was "why did they do it??" Basically it was so this army could join Emperor Qin Shi in the afterlife. One big ego trip!!! Yes, Qin was a great emperor, being the first to unite China, standardizing language and measurements, and building the first of the Great Wall segments. But still - the dude must have had a god complex! What gives??? Not to mention - they call his reign the Qin dynasty, even though the dynasty consists of only one emperor. That seems a bit silly. At least Mo was able to buy a Terracotta soldier figurine at the market...

If the Terracotta Army was not that impressive, was Xi'an worth the trip? Absolutely. I have already written about how lively and interesting the city is. The other excellent landmark was Hua Shan (Mount Hua), one of the five sacred mountains of China (See Wikipedia). The mountain is about 7000 ft high (2100m) and features five peaks, four of which we hiked.

The hike itself was strenuous but awesome. We took a cable car up to the lowest peak, then we hiked between peaks for about five hours. It would have taken another four hours to hike from the base. Various websites have stated that this mountain is really dangerous. I was a bit worried myself, after reading them. But it really wasn't that bad. The mountain actually gets a lot of tourists, many of which did not appear to be in great shape. There was even a guy yapping on his cell phone as he hiked up. The one warning is that there is very little hiking documentation in English. You don't get much of a sense of how far any of the trails were, or how long it would take you. For example, if we had hiked from the base as we had originally planned, we wouldn't have had time to hike up all the peaks. Oh well. At least there were vendors on the mountain selling food and drink :)

Yet another interesting thing about Xi'an is that it was the eastern end of the Silk Road back in the day (ya know, Marco Polo?). Check out the Wikipedia entry. Not only is there historical significance to this, you could see its effects even today. Most notably, there is a Muslim Quarter in Xi'an. Within the quarter is the Great Mosque. In this photo, you can see us having stumbled upon a funeral at the Great Mosque. It was a bit interesting to see Chinese people wearing Islamic garb. You could even tell that some people in this area had facial features that came from mixed blood with west. Now that I think about it, it was also a unique multicultural feat that my Mexican friend whose name is Mohamed but isn't Islamic was visiting a mosque in China.

I will stop raving about Xi'an - after this last tidbit. The final cool thing about Xi'an is that it has fully intact city walls that surround the city. And you can ride a bike on them! It's a great way to appreciate life, living conditions, culture... and smog! I think it's about 15km all the way around. It took us about an hour at a leisurely pace.

Photos available online here.

Onwards to Xi'an

Greetings from Xi'an, China!  Xi'an is located in north central China.  It was an ancient capital city (complete with city walls!), the seat of the empire for several dynasties.  It is most well known for being the home of the Terra Cotta Soldiers, considered the eighth wonder of the ancient world.

Sometimes it is hard to appreciate the fact that China has over one billion people.  When we were planning our trip, we considered going to Xi'an first.  But then we thought it would be a good idea to go to a big city first, before going to a small one.  Well - big and small are relative in China.  Beijing is huge indeed, with over 10 million people.  Xi'an is smaller - but it still has a whopping 3.5 million people!  I don't think there are 10 US cities (including their suburbs) that would be any bigger.


As I wrote earlier, Beijing was not what I expected to see.  So modern, so clean, so orderly - so dull.  I think the combination of Party HQ and the Olympics has made Beijing boring (or perhaps it has always been boring).  Xi'an, on the other hand, was exactly what I expected.  Xi'an is full of life.  Right outside my hotel room, you can see a busy intersection.  There are small vendors selling things like squid on a skewer.  There are clothing stores, cell phone stores, and restaurants.  When you walk around downtown, you don't really feel like a tourist.  You're just another person in a crowd. 

It's really nice to see so many people walking around all the time.  In the States, it seems that everyone cloisters themselves at home.  Once in a while, they may go shopping or out to eat, but they go right back home afterwards.  It seems that people spend more of their time outside in Xi'an.  You see lots of people just taking a stroll, hanging out on a park bench, grabbing a snack from a street vendor.  Perhaps it's due to tighter living quarters.  Or perhaps it's just culture.

Traffic is pretty amusing here (it's like this in Vietnam too).  The streets are full of cars, buses, mopeds, bikes, and pedestrians.  It seems like the rule of the road is "just do it."  People will turn left with oncoming traffic.  They don't stick to driving lanes.  While we were waiting for a train to cross yesterday, the drivers (including ours) queued up on the wrong side of the road so they could cut in front of everyone ahead of them.  As a pedestrian, it's a similar deal.  To cross the road, you just start walking at a steady pace.  Cars will avoid you.  You just shouldn't make sudden moves or hesitate.  And if you wait for traffic to clear, you may have to wait forever.

Photos available online here.

Last day in Beijing

Today is our last day in Beijing.  We've been here just for three days so far, but it seems like a whirlwind of stuff to see!  It was great seeing all the tourist things like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.  But it was also great to check out local stuff like all the markets and restaurants.

I have to admit that I was a bit surprised about Beijing as a city.  Although I knew it was a huge city of over 10 million people, I didn't think it was as modern of a city as it really is.  It's full of large buildings - skyscrapers, office complexes, and high-rise apartments.  The streets are arranged in a grid pattern, with "Ring Roads" running as beltways around the city.  Aside from the smog, the city is very orderly and clean.  When I told one of my friends about this, she was shocked; everyone else seems to think it's a dirty city.  Perhaps they are trying to change their image for the Olympics. (check out the new Olympic stadium).   I didn't even see as much public spitting as I thought I would see (though it still happens).  One advantage about being a communist state is that you can choose to build anything or to clean anything up, and the people will comply...

Taxis are really cheap in Beijing.  You can go all over for just a few bucks.  This is amazing, considering the exorbitant fares I pay in Chicago.  One downside, however, is that traffic can be pretty bad (well, I guess it's bad in all big cities).  What's even worse is that the taxi drivers don't speak English.  Public service people speak English, so do market vendors, so do the local farmers who hang out with you at the Great Wall.  But not the taxi drivers.  You have to hand them printed names of where to go (or get the hotel concierge guys to talk to them).  We thought we were fine, but then apparently lots of taxi drivers either can't read or have such poor eyesight that they couldn't read our pieces of paper.  We've had to get out of at least five taxis because of this.  What a nightmare!

I'm proud of my non-Asian travel companions Mo and Ryan.  Not only did they eat funky foods, they were able to haggle successfully at the Chinese markets.  If you can haggle in China, you should be set for life!

Yesterday we went to the Great Wall.  What an amazing place!  The Great Wall is actually multiple walls, constructed at different times by different dynasties, and located in different places.  Most people go to the wall at Balaling, where it is fully restored and is very tourist friendly.  We were sick of the crowds and wanted a more natural view.  So we did a 10km (6mi) hike between the Great Walls at Simatai and Jinshangling.  It wasn't a long hike, but man was it tiring!  Up and down, up and down, along the countours of mountains.  It was the most strenuous hike I have ever done.  It was well worth it though.  The scenery was spectacular!

Now it's time to close out our visit to Beijing.  Tonight we fly to Xi'an and visit the Terracotta Army.

Photos available online here.

First impressions of China

Ni hao from Beijing!  I've spent what seems to be a whole day flying, plus a full day hanging out in Beijing.  It feels like I've seen a today already!  And I'm wiped out.  But I have to write a blog entry to get these impressions written down.

If you've never flown to Europe or Asia, it's quite the ordeal.  My nonstop flight from Chicago to Shanghai was over 14 hours in length.  Not to mention a 2 hour delay due to some plane problem.  Once we arrived in Shanghai, we had a 3 hour layover and then took a domestic flight to Beijing.  Long day!!!  The biggest thing to deal with is the time change.  Luckily (or unluckily), I had so much stuff to wrap up before leaving that I stayed up all night the night before.  This helped me fly, because it made it easier to fall asleep.  The other thing I like to do is carry a toothbrush on the plane so you can sleep/wake up with fresh breath.  Add your ipod and a good book and you're good to go!

One thing I try to do is understand something about the language of the place I'm visiting.  Three days before my trip, I started learning some Mandarin from the Internet.  There are some nice sites with free mp3s of spoken Mandarin!  Westerners find Eastern languages funky because they are all about intonation/inflection rather than conjugation.  Mandarin uses monosyllabic words consisting of a starting consonant-type sound and a "final" sound.  There are many  sounds, and the phonetic rules are different (but very consistent, unlike English).  Even though I understood the basic structure of the language in theory, I was still pretty useless in practice.  A 50-word vocabulary only gets you so far.  Funny thing was that everyone thinks I'm Chinese so they'd start blasting words at me and I'd stare at them dumbfounded.  I think they thought I was my friends' tour guide :)

A bad stereotype about Chinese people is that they are pushy and don't care for things like lines or personal space.  It never bothered me before.  But after just a couple days, it has annoyed the heck out of me!  People will just shove past you to get to wherever they want to go.  I thought it was just limited to markets, but I saw it at the airport, at tourist attractions, everywhere!  I didn't even bother to check out the most crowded parts within the Forbidden City.  Sheesh!

On the bright side, you can't go wrong with Chinese food.  Chinese food and Italian food are perhaps the only truly global foods out there.  Well, I guess you can count American chains like McDonald's and KFC too.  Everything has been so good.  Tonight we had the king of all feasts, Peking Duck, right in the heart of Beijing.  Yum!!!  It's super cheap too.  I think I've spent less eating out this whole time than I would have spent in one night drinking in Chicago.

One exception on the cheap front, however, is Starbucks.  In an effort to increase market presence, Starbucks has arrived in China in full force.  Are you surprised?  My grande vanilla latte cost me 33 RMB, which is almost 5 dollars with the crappy USD (7 to 1 ratio now).  In contrast, a whole plate of Mee Goreng at a Singaporean restaurant ran me 30 RMB!

My friends and I went looking for some good nightlife in Beijing.  Apparently, Beijing was a very sleepy city even just 10 years ago.  Since then, bars and clubs have opened up.  We stopped by a couple areas last night and tonight.  The bars are very touristy, and very quiet still.  Maybe we just aren't going to the right places?  But these strips are supposed to be the right places :(  Also, we were endlessly hounded by people on the street to come to "lady bar, lady massage" (for me, it was the same but in Mandarin haha).  It really turns you off from wanting to be in that area.  We did finally enjoy ourselves at a place last night, where it seemed like locals (at least Chinese people) hung out, listening to pro musicians sing cover tunes.  But now we are on a quest to find some hip nightlife.  Any suggestions welcome!

Photos available online here.