Shanghai Saturdays

You think you like American breakfast food? Waffles, Pancakes, Omlettes, Fried Eggs, Biscuit and Gravy... I know you like them all, and ya'll know that I too love the stuff. But try eating 4 months worth breakfasts that consist of hard boiled eggs, boiled noodles, fried rice, and red bean paste filled buns. Think you'd get tired of it? I know I have.

But this Saturday I found a ray of hope. A beacon of breakfast light brightly shown over the horizon, and I have bathed my body in the warmth of the light of the yellow and teal sign of the STEAK AND EGGS

The STEAK AND EGGS offers a wide-spanning menu that includes pastas, pizzas, homemade cakes and pies, and of course breakfast food. Saturday night, during my first Steak and Eggs experience, I enjoyed 2 fried eggs over hard accentuated with my own blend of hot sauce and A-1, a side of grits with sugar, and an order of the daily special biscuits and gravy.

All though the quality and taste of the food failed in comparison to the Belden Chicksaw Trail truck stop or the West Point Tin Lizzy Cafe, my simple American breakfast more than hit the spot. MMMMMMM!!!

But wait, it gets better. STEAK AND EGGS has a television with the dish (which may not be exactly legal in China, shhhh...don't tell). So this morning (Sunday), my friend Mark Lyn and I decided to leave campus at 7:00 and return to the Steak and Eggs less 12 hours after our first meal there to watch Game 1 of the World Series. This leaves me with one question for my dear readers: how many of you have ever gotten up at 6:30 AM to watch the World Series live and eat Eggs Bendict with Minnesotans, Seatlites, Californias, Bostonians, New Yorkers, and a Canadian???

Bueler??

Bueler??

Well I have, and I took something besides a full stomach away from the experience.

I know what most of you are thinking. "Gordon, why on earth would you forsake sleep to watch the Astros and the White Sox? Who cares!!" Some of you are probably thinking, "I don't even care about baseball that much." But what I've realized today I think may be worth passing on to you: Americans in other countries are jealous of what you take for granite every day.

So maybe you don't like the White Sox, dispise the Astros, or don't even care for baseball. Maybe guys like Barry Bonds have turned you off to the game.

I say, watch the Series and cheer for the Game anyway. Why, because you're an American and that's what Americans do. And while you're at it, plug in that waffle iron and fry a couple eggs and eat them for me. Cause during game two, I'll be in class.

Posted by Gordon Fellows at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm just wondering, have any of my readers heard of the Rape of Nanjing before? If you haven't, here's the abbreviated story combined with my experiences.

One stop on my recent trip South was Nanjing. The city recieved its name, which means Southern capital, because it was the capital of a couple of early Chinese dynasties. The Ming Dynasty then moved the capital to Beijing, but Nanjing continued to be an important commercial center in Southeastern China.

But once the dynastic system ended and the nationalist government was set up in the early 1900's, Nanjing was again made the capital of the country. In the early 1930's, Japan began an invasion campaign in China, and worked South eventually coming upon Nanjing in December of 1937.

They began to slaughter the locals. Depending on who you ask, between three and four hundred thousand chinese civilians and "unarmed" soldiers died in about a forty day time period. There are a lot of questions surrounding many of the concerns associated with why and how this happened, and I prefer not to get into those questions on this blog.

But while I was in Nanjing, I got to visit the memorial to the massacre. It was a very moving experience. The memorial is built over a mass grave, and after a sombering entrance and walk around the width of the grave site, visitors walk through a cut away section of the grave. Piles of bones fill one section and entact skeletons cover another.

Experiencing this place was a cold, hard reminder of the needless,non-strategic violence that war comes during a long, entense conflict. It was also a reminder of how important love is to a society. Love must be extended to all, even our enemies, or society begins to malfunction and senseless death insues.

This is not to say that war is not necessary at times, but through this experience I've come close (probably as close as possible without actually fighting) to understanding for myself that war is indeed hell.

Posted by Gordon Fellows at 05:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WARNING: The following story is not for the weak of heart or mind. If you were disturbed by my mentioning the word “defication” in my last post, you might want to go ahead and not read this one.

Last week was a holiday week in China commemorating National Day and the Communist Party’s rise to power. My program took this week as an opportunity to cancel class and travel around China. A few different trips were offered, and I decide to go with a group of about 35 to tour the China’s southern coastal cities.

It was a great trip full of memorable scenes and vistas, cultural insight, and learning about local specialty crafts such as silk, tea, and a cool hat that I ended up buying.

The last town we visited was an ancient water city at the base of China’s Great Canal called Hangzhou. This city is famous for it’s West Lake, a 3Km-by-3Km body of water that is constantly covered in fog and surrounded by beautiful scenery. Visiting the lake was wonderful experience, and as you can tell by this picture, I was really happy here.

But once we ended out boat tour, I was a little hungry so I bought a cob of corn from a local street vendor. As a chewed my corn, I was enthralled by the scenery of the park around the lake. Look at this picture? Can you beat that? But because I was so caught up in the scenery, I barely even realized the corn I was eating was cold. This of course is a dead give away that the food is not freshly prepared, and the first thing I was told when I came to China was not to eat food if I thought it wasn’t fresh. But, being distracted as I was, I ate the corn anyway.

Everything was well and good for the next two or three hours, and I returned to our hotel and had a lively discussion about public education reform with a couple of friends. But we had to cut the conversation short due to my intense stomach pains. I’m sure you can guess what happened next: a little thing the Chinese call La Duza!!!

(La Duza has two literal translations; the first is “pulled stomach” and the second is “spicy stomach.” I won’t say the figurative translation here, because so many of you objected to my use of the “deification” in a previous post. But if you want to guess La Duza, feel free to do so in the comment section. I’ll let you know if you’re correct.)

Most travelers to China encounter this problem at some point on their journey. But the problems of my la duza experience were compounded by two concerns. First, I had a four bus trip and a 13 hour train ride the next day, and second, I left my Immodium in Beijing.

The moral of the story is this. Always take you’re Immodium where ever you go in China. And remember, if the street food is chilled, you’ll end up paying more than just the bill.

Me sharing this story with you also highlihgts an interesting difference in Western and Chinese cultures. It seems that by in large the Chinese don't really mind talking about or practicing they're bodily functions in public. On numerous ocassions, I have been walking along minding my own business when all of the sudden, BOOM, the young mother in front of me removes her kids pants right before he starts to urinate on the sidewalk.

Public restrooms are often only a trench in the bathroom groud. Once on this trip, I saw one man squating over the trench with no partions around him. Other men were standing right next to him. Strange indeed.

Posted by Gordon Fellows at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...is awesome!! It's so fun to pay very little money, go to a nice place with drinkable water, and belt out the Bon Jovi classic Wanted Dead or Alive infront of a room full of your newest friends. In Chinese culture, kareoke serves as an important and affordable enternaiment, dining, and networking experience. It's also a great place to celebrate friends birthdays. And to practice chinese through singing.

My favorite chinese song translates to, "I love you like a mouse loves a bowl of rice." Don't ask me to sing it when I get home, I'll probably forget it by then.

Above, Katlin and I are singing Written in the Stars, a duet from the musical Aida.

On a related note, I think Sigma Nu should include kareoke as part of the official rush process. Any feedback on this idea?

Posted by Gordon Fellows at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)