all comments have been approved!!! i am finally able to get through to wordpress without having to use a proxy and therefore all comments are now being shown!!!! yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! ok, lets see how this post goes, i’ve been thinking of a format to help me write about qingdao…

Favorite things to do in Qingdao: Buy DVD’s… you know… that are not really real?… hahaa… i have about 20 dvd’s bought so far, including Kung Fu Panda… yesssssssssssss… I have Kung Fu Panda before anyone in the states… Skidoosh! DVD’s are usually 7 kuai each… thats a DOLLAR! hehe……… Go to Carrefour- Carrefour is kind of like the French WalMart and has really great prices on clothing and various other goods… they have really great t-shirts for like 20 kuai or about 3 american dollars, yay, and their supermarket is uber huge and very nice to walk through and just to look around in……….. Go to May 4th Square (Alex’s Nana… below you’ll find the explanation for May 4th Square hehe)- I actually reallllllly love going to May 4th Square, I dunno why, I really like the Winds of May sculpture and just the view of the harbor is really nice, I haven’t been there for the laser light show yet, but I will do that sometime soon, but the park around the sculpture is just really amazing and good for people watching and checking out Chinese leisure culture……… Play basketball on the courts outside of our dorm……. KTV (Karaoke)- some usual songs include Michael Jackson hits, Cher, boy bands, Rihanna… good times all around… we still need to take Tio, and oh we shall and it shall be epic!

Favorite Foods: Gongbao Jiding (Kung Pao Chicken)- spicy sauce over chicken, vegetable bits, and peanuts… soooooo yummy… we always get it when we go to Saturday’s (our hangout right by the campus… the stairs up to the place are uber-shady but the food itself and the fun times we have there are great)……. Gala (don’t really know the spelling but thats kinda how you say it in Chinese) these are basically small spicy clams that are really good, and why not, we are right by the ocean…….. Xihongshi chao jidan (Tomatoes and Eggs)- I am for sure cooking this for everyone when I get back (now that the salmonella scare is over)… basically its cooked tomatoes and scrambled eggs with a bit of sugary sweetness… its splendid and people tell us its a college student favorite in China………. Tomato Potato Chips- stick with me on this one… they are scrumpcious (omg spelling sorry) potato chips with Tomato flavored powder on them and they taste amazingggggggggggggg…. one of the best snacks here, hands down……… HuaCha (Flower Tea)- comes cold in a 16oz bottle and is so refreshing on a hot Qingdao day……

Favorite Experiences so far: going to watch Qingdao Jonoon, Qingdao’s China Super League soccer team, take on Liaoning FC and win 2-1… got to see a great penalty shot goal and then later an amazing semi-bicycle kick goal by Qu Bo, who used to be a star for the Chinese National Team, but has retired from international play……. During our first or second week here, 5 of us just followed these green lasers in the sky to where they originated and thats how we found May 4th Square for the first time, yaaaaaaay!………..

Gripes about Qingdao: I have three…

1. There aren’t any dryers in the dorm… so I have to hang everything outside my window on the bars… booooo. air dry is no good.

2. Why does China have to make all its cultural and historical relics and areas into marketplaces… seriously, you can’t take pictures inside some of the most famous buildings at the Confucius Temple in Qifu but you can totally buy an overpriced ice cream or coke, or some playing cards with ancient Chinese drawings on them. I went to Zhanqiao Pier today, which is a Qingdao landmark, and all along the pier and out by the pagoda, there were sellers, and it made the walkway so narrow it took like 10 minutes just to get out to the pagoda… seriously, it really messes up the awesomeness of these amazing places when you have 3 or 4 sellers yelling Hello at you, because thats the only English they know….

3. This one actually doesn’t have to do with China… it has to do with all the journalists and pundits in the States who can’t say a positive thing about China and the Beijing Olympics… Let’s see, you have never been to China and you are probably just writing this op-ed piece from your desk in a corner office right? But you hear on the news about how China is so bad and evil and unforgiving towards activists and the government is cracking down, etc…. ok, yeah, the Chinese government is doing some pretty uncool stuff and suppressing media and opinion quite a bit, but what government in the world isn’t doing uncool stuff? every government does dirty dealings, and every government cracks down before the Olympics, this isn’t some new phenomenon from governments before the Olympics… ok, great, I’ve already digressed…. I wasn’t going to talk about the Chinese government… what makes me mad is that these journalists are writing pieces that paint all of China as bad, not just the government but in general China… uh uh, don’t go there, for the past 8 weeks I have gotten to really like the Chinese people and am totally loving how pumped they are for the Olympics… they are all sooooooo excited for the Olympics to start, they all want the games to go well, they are ready to root on their country, they are making huge efforts towards making this country as welcoming as possible for foreign visitors… and what do they receive when they hear from the western media? criticism… uh uh, thats not gonna fly for me… The Chinese government and Chinese people, I feel, are two separate entities, with the government being pretty out of touch with its people…. the people of China are freaking excited about showing themselves off at the games, showing their country off, showing off their history, their culture off, and they have every right to be excited… China is so unique and the people are so genuine and nice that they deserve only praise and our equal excitement about these upcoming Olympic Games that are able to unite the world like no other event…. As far as I’m concerned, yes, I question the Chinese government, but not the people, not the culture, not the awesomeness that is China and its Beijing 2008 preparations…. Zhongguo Jia You! Let’s Go China!…. sorry if thats a rant, but yeah, just having to read negative articles about the games just really irks me…

For Alex’s Nana’s questions about May 4th Square… the name originates from the May 4th Movement, which occurred in 1919 as a response to the Treaty of Versailles. See, Germany held Shandong Province (where Qingdao is, and why there are so many German style buildings here) pre-WWI, and Japan entered the Allied side right before the end of the war along with China, and when it came time to reward the two countries, China was snubbed and Japan received rights to Shandong Province from Germany… this is no good… so students around the country, especially in Peking (Beijing), began to protest. This marked a huge cultural change in China… they dropping of Confucianism, which had failed to make China strong, and the adoption of a new culture which spawned a major intellectual flourishing and pretty much set up the beginning of the Chinese Communist Party. In the end, the May 4th Movement was majorly anti-imperialist and anti-feudalism, marking a big change in Chinese culture and easily opening the door for Communism to get a foothold in the country…. hope thats helpful heheheh!

Hope all is well!