About Me

Greeting strangers! If you are reading this right now you most likely fall into one of these categories: family, friends, teachers, or fellow Juniata College students. If you are not one of the above by whatever misfortune or luck you have stumbled upon a college's student study abroad experience in China. Please stay and enjoy. My name is Jasun. Now to interject two disclaimers. One, this is my blog and I will speak my mind and sometimes, unfortunately, this may cross your comfort's threshold - and for that I apologize. Two, as much as this blog belongs to me, I am writing for you. As such, if there are any questions (I mean any) that pop into your head that you want answered just send me an email at Moyjf08@juniata.edu and I'll answer it on this blog. One more thing. I can't seem to upload pictures here. So I will most likely be uploading pictures on my facebook account. If you are interested in seeing these pictures and are not a facebook friend by all means add me - just leave message saying something of the sort that you follow this blog if I do not know you. Best wishes throughout the year, and I hope together we make it a fun, educational, and safe year.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Lost Days

As I write this on the plane to Myanmar, I’m attempting to reflect on my stay at an authentic Chinese family. This will be the only section that will be written in a strong past-tense. So I’m sorry because it doesn’t flow like I want it to. I’m not even sure where to begin because so many thoughts and frustrations are going through my mind while I write this. I guess I’ll start out by saying I didn’t get to do anything I thought or expected to do while in Kunming. First, my initial plan to go to Yuanyang fell through because we couldn’t attain a bus ticket. So I tried to be flexible and opted to do a few days trips in and around Kunming. But those, however, fell through as well for two reasons. One I got sick so I had to remain inside for a few days. And second, was their lack of faith in my Chinese language abilities to travel or explore on my own.

Now to be fair, from their point of view there was a certain unspoken rule that they were liable and responsible for me because I was staying at their house and the fact that my camera was stolen didn’t help my case.

However, that isn’t to say that I didn’t get out of the house. The first day I arrived I was ushered out of the house to meet some friends of theirs who were going to take me to the Myanmar embassy. Turns out these friends actually own and run a travel agency which specializes in groups tours to Myanmar. Not only did they help me get my visa, but they also insisted on helping me get my tickets to and from.

Now before I continue on my rant on Chinese culture and thinking, let’s take a break to discuss more positive aspects of my stay in Kunming. First, omg, the weather and temperature was amazing there. As close to perfect as possible. I think it was actually colder inside than outside – in a bad way, unlike during summer when you want it cold inside. The local food was good. It resembled something closer to what I’m used to back home. Some of the more famous things I tried here was erkuai and cross-the-bridge noodles. Things to try if you ever in the area.

Now unfortunately because I wasn’t writing daily all the negative things have overshadowed all the good things and I can’t seem to think of anything else I want to talk about…So, we move back to negative things. All the negative things seem to stem from Chinese culture, so I think, no, I know that I need to get out of country and thank god I am. So there are two events that made me explode inside.

First is traffic awareness. We decided to try and go to Dian Chi a famous lake at Kunming. However, as we neared to the lake, there was only one road into and out. Of course, instead of waiting to enter like any most people in America would do; a good number of the Chinese motorists thought it a good idea to drive on the other side of the road. What ensued was that eventually this road was clogged up because no one could enter or exit the lake. After like ½ an hour of not moving, we called it quits. But the driving escapades don’t end there. We entered a turning circle and what do you know but there’s an accident. Instead of the cars and people involved to drive out of the turning circle where they wouldn’t disrupt traffic, they stopped and got out exactly where the incident occurred. Thus making it nearly impossible for everyone else to use the turning circle…

This second event isn’t directed at Chinese culture, but is more of a sad story of my trip to the local Kunming zoo. Let’s ask ourselves a question, what’s the purpose of a zoo? I believe the answer is to educate and promote preservation. Well, going to this zoo – or any zoo in China – with that outlook, will bring a lot of disappointment. First off, people were littering everywhere and everyone was illegally feeding the animals when there were clearly signs in Chinese and English saying not to. On top of that they were making attractions off of animals. Why put the whack-a-monkey machines right next to the monkeys…like really? None of the exhibits had anything to say about what the animals were or any of their information, etc. It just completely lacked any form of trying to promote conservation of the animals in there zoo – probably something closer to zoos when they first opened in America: a place that holds exotic animals.

But we’re about to land in Myanmar, and I’m really glad to be getting out of this country. Hopefully it’ll be as pleasant as I hope. I’ll let you know soon.