Found Them!

Wow, that went by fast. I can’t believe that I have been in China for 25 days and that tomorrow I will be hopping on a plane headed back to Chicago.

Through this blog I have been able to share most of my trip: the different places, most of the people I met, the things I did. But because this website is public, I was not able to share a couple parts of my trip that I found to be the most exciting—the people that I met associated with these experiences have asked that I did not share information about them. So, if you are interested in hearing about this part of my trip, please hit me up when I’m back in the States and I would be glad to share ;)

The title of this blog is called Searching for Dragons, and ironically I haven’t posted anything about dragons this whole time. You may be even wondering if I found any dragons. Even if you weren’t wondering this, I am telling you that I FOUND THEM!

In Shenzhen:

In Guangzhou:

In Hong Kong:

In Beijing:

In Tianjin:

In Shanghai:

Now these pictures of dragons are great and all, but they aren’t the dragons that I am talking about. In my first blog post I mentioned that I was looking (searching, if you will) to gain a greater knowledge of the Chinese culture on my trip; I considered this knowledge and the experiences associated to be my dragons. Here is a list of some of the dragons that I found while living and traveling in China:

1. When living in or visiting a foreign country, it is vital to learn how to adapt to the culture and become a part of it: learn what is polite, what is inconsiderate, and other social queues.
2. (Something that I’ve learned this whole past year, but was only amplified while in China) Every person in the world has the desire to be loved and cared for. I saw this in various forms from waaay too much cutesy-PDA in public to grandparents taking care of toddlers (family bonding).
3. There is a lot of importance on success: you must provide for your family (including your own parents when you have kids), if you live in rural China you must study your butt off so you can make your way into a bigger city, and even if you graduate from a University you will take just about whatever job you can get and work as hard as you can at that.
4. So many people haven’t even heard of Jesus.
5. The culture can be lonely. If you don’t know someone walking on the sidewalk there is no need to smile or even acknowledge the person. At lunch, if you are sitting at a table with someone you don’t know you will probably not talk to that person.
6. There is a lot of national pride and pride for their heritage and family.
7. If you are a guest and a family takes you out to eat, they will make sure that you are well-fed, even if it is at the expense of them going hungry.
8. It is OK and not considered rude to ignore street vendors when they come up to you and try to pitch their products.
9. If it is hot outside, it’s more than acceptable to lift up your shirt to cool off your exposed belly.
10. “Squatty-potties” are the norm. If you are a kid under 10 and you need to pee, if you are outside you can pull down your pants and have at it! In front of the mall, in front of the Forbidden City—it’s all good!
11. Fast-food restaurants have jobs which have the specific purpose to clean up your table after you are done eating. When you are done, leave your tray at the table. And don’t tip—that is their job that they are paid for. If you clean your tray with the staff nearby it is considered disrespectful to them and you are implying that they are not needed.
12. Foreigners are prime targets for scammers. Taxis without meters, people with nicely laminated cards that describe in English they are deaf and are asking for money , people who are artists or college students studying art that come up to you and coax you into buying their art (not exactly scammers, but people with hidden agendas!).
13. People love Yum! Brand foods. KFC and Pizza Hut are HUGE over here!
14. Construction is everywhere. Skyscrapers seem to appear in cities overnight, and consequently some of the newer cities are ghost towns with a lot of new big buildings but with no one living in them. Foreigners invest in the property, but the rooms are unoccupied.
15. Every move of yours is monitored. Don’t think you are never not being watched.
16. Advertisements are centered on Westerners. Blonde is beautiful. Pretty is considered tall, thin, and pale (delicate) skinned.
17. If someone is wearing revealing clothing, it is totally OK to stare. By wearing revealing clothing you are asking for people to stare at your bare skin.
18. Foreigners should take an interest in the locals and their culture! It’s fun for us and the locals get happy that you take an interest in their lives!
19. For the most part, the people over here are soooo kind.
20. It’s crazy cool how God provides for and strengthens individuals who earnestly seek Him.

Those are some of the dragons that I encountered while in China.

I am so glad that I was able to go on this trip and experience the Chinese culture. It has been so eye-opening.  I wanted to thank my Dad for urging me to spend this month in China—this is an experience I will never forget. Thanks Dad, I love you. Thanks to my family for putting up with me not being home; it seems like every break off from school I am away doing something else. I love y’all. And thanks to everyone else who has been reading about my adventures! I hope that you enjoyed reading about my trip, I was glad to share it with you.

One of the questions I am prepared to answer for when I get back to the States is the question, “how was it like traveling alone for almost a month?” I was able to get in contact with quite a few people over here, and meet some randos; but it’s true, a lot of my time was spent with just me. But I didn’t really see myself as being alone. Jesus says in Matthew 28:20, “and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” I have had some of the best intimacy with God in my life on this trip. In those moments sitting alone looking over the river, or walking down a street surrounded by people who don’t take notice of each other, Jesus was with me. In those moments, I was comforted with a peace that only God could have provided. You notice that He is with you and moving in your life when you see a beautiful landscape and don’t say, ‘Wow, that’s so beautiful!’ but rather, ‘God, you are soo good!’

And it’s true, God is good. Sooo good.

-Alex

With the Youths

I finally understand all the rain…its rainy season over here! From April until the end of June it rains a lot and gets very humid. I was told today that the best time to visit Shanghai is in the month of October, where it’s still warm but not humid. Whenever I travel back to China I need to remember that…

Today I hung out again with Amy and Christy, and we went to their youth group that meets every Saturday. Background info: they went to a German International school while in Shanghai, and this youth group is for International students. I’m pretty sure that Chinese students aren’t allowed to participate, but there were probably about 60 people there that were from the U.S. and Japan and Singapore. It was AWESOME! They have a small-ish room in the basement of the church with beanbags and a couple couches. We worshipped in song (the songs that are typically sung at U.S. youth groups) with one person up front playing a guitar. Afterwards, one of the students (a junior) gave a talk about the “Greatest Love Story”; he had a powerpoint and other media prepared. I thought it was very brave for him to go up there and do a 45 minute talk, and bold of the staff to structure their weekly meetings with students taking the stage.

When one of the staff members was making announcements, she talked a little about missions and how it’s common for people to go to impoverished areas to do mission work (they are participating in a habitat for humanity build next week in Sichuan where an Earthquake hit…not necessarily a missions trip, but serving those people down there). She then went on to say how that people shouldn’t forget about the spiritually impoverished areas such as Japan, England, and the United States. This lady was talking about people being missionaries in the States, something I really haven’t heard much before (probably because being from the states you would want to be living out your faith anyway).

It was a cool experience and I was glad to see what established churches (or in this case, a youth group) looked like in China—even if it didn’t have any Chinese people.

Tomorrow is my last full day in China. This trip has gone by so fast. Be sure to check back tomorrow for my last blog post, it should be a good one to end on ;)

-Alex

Friends in Shanghai

Today I met up and hung out with Amy and Christy, who live in Shanghai. We got connected by a mutual friend, Jon Getz (thanks Jon!). We had a fun time hanging out at their house, then going out to a fake brand mall.

Last week the mall got raided by policemen, because the government is trying to take the issue of pirating very seriously—at least they want to look like they are taking it seriously, for political points. First of all, everybody knows this mall has knock off items, and pirated DVDs, and all sorts of items like that. The police knows…the larger government knows…but usually they let it slide if the store owners are being hush about it. But this mall got raided. When the mall gets “raided”, the police come and lock up the mall and don’t let the store owners leave. They then go into the stores, taking a portion of their knock off goods. Then they tell the store owners not to sell pirated stuff. After this rigmarole, the police pack up and leave.

Even though this mall got “raided” a week ago, there was still a lot of other really cool stuff, and I made some purchases for some of my family (so I’m not going to say what I got them). After the mall we headed out to a Starbucks to enjoy some Frappuccino’s while it was thundering outside. From there we went back to their house to play some Settlers and play some guitar/sing some worship songs. It was saucesome.

I was bad today and totally forgot to snap pictures (doh!). I’ll add some tomorrow night, my second last blogpost. It’s crazy to think, but I have 2 full days left in China and then the next day I leave for home…this trip has gone by so quick, and its almost time to get back to reality…almost ;)

-Alex

Grammar

From one tower to the next. Today I went into the Jin Mao skyscraper, which holds the highest observatory deck in Asia. This trumps the Pearl Tower for sure.

I was able to get another cool 360 of the city on a much clearer day. From the pictures below you can get a better idea as to how big Shanghai is. 

 In the tower I happened to find...Bunnies! The Chinese take tradition, and superstitions, very seriously.

And I am not exactly sure why you would need to have a place to put your postage being 1115 ft above the ground, but whatever works. Heck, its China.

As I was reading some panels about the history of the building, how they chose the current design after narrowing it down from 6, I couldn't help but notice some pencil marks on the panels. The pencil marks would cross out some words, write different tenses for verbs, and add commas. Some guy had corrected the grammar mistakes on the nicely printed panels! Hilarious! 

(I added the red circles to point out some of the corrections. hehe)

Other than going up the Jin Mao tower, today was a very chillax day with a lot of sitting and reading. With the heat we had today, and humidity, moving around outside was not appealing, as I was in a constant state of sweating, but sitting and reading by the water was pretty nice.

And why do skyscrapers need to have car dealerships on the bottom floor of their buildings? Once again, only China... 

-Alex

Pearl Tower

Even though it ended up being pretty cloudy today (darn you weather.com!) I just couldn’t hold back anymore…I finally went up into the huge TV tower. I later found out that it was called The Oriental Pearl Tower—such a Chinese name.

When I went to buy my ticket there happened to be a Chinese law enforcement group going up into the tower. They walked in rows of two and lined up looking very official as they received instructions from their squad leader. It looked pretty intimidating from where I was standing, but when I saw the guys up close in the tower they looked like college students—like me. Apparently, every first year university student in China is required to go through a year of military training; it would be like requiring all the first year university students in America to do ROTC training for their first year. Pretty intense.

At the entrance to the Pear Tower I was greeted by a bunch of bunny rabbits hanging on the wall. 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, and they still had decorations up from the Chinese New Year back in February! And if they are still up as of now, they might be there until the next new year; hanging decorations for the animal of the year in your house is supposed to bring your family good luck.

The Oriental Pearl tower is the largest TV tower in Asia (whoop-de-doo!), and we went up over 800 feet in the air to see a 360° of the city. It was super cool, the views were unreal! The only thing that would’ve made the experience better was if it hadn’t been as foggy/cloudy as it was…but that’s what I get for being impatient and wanting to go up today. In the pictures below I added some effects to make the shots look cooler, but I think they give a distorted picture of the actual cloudiness (it wasn’t too bad).

Today I was meditating a lot on Philippians 2:5-8 (not like “sit cross-legged while humming” meditating…), asking God to let Paul’s words really set into my mind and heart. I came to this passage because I was thinking, ‘If someone asked me who Jesus was, what would I say?’ I don’t think I’ve ever been straight up asked this by someone, but being in a country where a lot of people actually haven’t even heard of his name, the question popped into my mind. The passage goes…

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

So Jesus is God, but didn’t think that his equality with God was something to be kept, so he made himself nothing by taking on the form of a human to serve God and people, and became obedient to suffer a criminal’s death. Holy smokes. So Jesus is God (Jesus = God), but Jesus made himself nothing because he didn’t think his equality with God was something to be kept (Jesus ≠ God). It would be important to know that God exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So part of my answer to the question ‘Who is Jesus?’ would be that:

Jesus is God (while being fully human).

Have you heard the term Servant King? Jesus, being God, cared about people so much that he would give up his seat in Heaven, forfeit his powers, and be born into the screwed up and sinful human race (in the lowest class!). Jesus went from the very top to the very bottom of the totem pole to serve the people in the bottom. Mark 10:45 says, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” God, the only being that is worthy to be served, came instead to serve people.

Jesus is a servant.

And lastly, Jesus was obedient to the humiliating death for criminals: death on a cross. God, came down to Earth to serve people, was put to death by these people he came to serve. Talk about loving people. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” Romans 5:8. And it is through this death that we are saved and our sins are forgiven, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by Spirit,” 1 Peter 3:18.

Jesus is the Savior.

It’s crazy to think how great of a God we have; that he would love a screwed up people so much that he himself would come down to earth and serve us by dying in our place so everyone can have the opportunity to dwell with him forever in his Kingdom; all we need to do is believe this in our hearts and we are saved (John 1:12). This definitely gives Him the glory—saucesome.

If you were wondering, I did not hang out with Jon’s friend today, we’ll be doing so on Friday. It’s Thursday over here, which means tomorrow…

-Alex

Less than a week? Whaaat?

Isn’t that crazy?! I have only 5 full days left in China—its nuts to think how fast this has gone by! Sorry for the lack of post yesterday. I hate to keep bringing this up, but the weather the past 4 days has been nasty: cloudy and raining on and off. At first I kind of liked the constant mist hitting my face, but now it is starting to bother me. Weather.com promises me that tomorrow is going to be sunny with a high of 84° (yeah, we’ll see…); but with nasty weather I don’t get to do all too much, so I saved things from Monday and Tuesday in this post.

This past Monday was the Dragon Boat Festival in China! Now, I’m not exactly sure what it is, but from what I gathered it seems to be a big canoe race where different countries compete and their canoes happen to have a dragons head on the front. Sounds like a good enough excuse for a holiday. Due to the dragon boat festival, lots of people were out and about Monday (in the thick of the rain). Starbucks, one of my top rain locations, was very crowded thanks to the mess of the holiday and the weather.

At night the rain had stopped, and I went venturing into a new part in town, and I was surprised to see, when I got there, buildings with Chinese architecture! After seeing plenty of European styled buildings and skyscrapers, I had begun to think that Shanghai wasn’t that Chinese…

Tuesday was much like Monday. I spent a little time in Sbux in the morning, and when the weather started cooperating I went out adventuring again. In a previous post, I uploaded a photo of a section of buildings with some crazy looking sculptures and colors. It looked to intriguing that I went and checked it out. These sections of buildings were brand spanking new, had no body in them, and apparently closed to the public. After walking around for 5 minutes and snapping some pictures, a nice policeman came up to me and pointed towards some stairs that I should take to go back to the main roads—out of the building complex. I was glad I was able to see a lot of the buildings though—they were futuristic with the glass panels, colors, and weird architecture on the front end of the building.

 (The front end glass panels)

Road Rage? How about Restaurant Rage: As I was walking through a mall today, my attention couldn’t help but get sucked in by this scene a man was making at the McDonalds counter. Now I shouldn’t be one to judge because I don’t know his background or his family’s, but he had taken the kids toy from his daughter’s happy meal and threw it on the ground. His little girl, probably about 5 years old, picks up the toy. The father then shouts something in Chinese (or maybe he was just talking in Chinese, they always sound like they are shouting…), takes the toy from her hand, and throws it out of the McDonalds. Out of the McDonalds! All the employees and everyone around were just frozen. He then stormed out of the McDonalds and his wife and daughter followed. The phrase making a scene just doesn’t due this story justice. When he had left, I went and asked one of the workers what had happened. She then told me that the daughter wanted to trade in her toy for a different one, but they ran out of the other kinds of toys and only had that. The father, disgusted that McDonalds didn’t have a variety of toys, threw the toy on the ground and out of the store. He must’ve been having a bad day.

On my adventure walk I saw plenty of interesting little shops and eateries including a “Chinese Muslim Restaurant” (yes, there is such a thing as Muslim food…I had no idea…) and “Teh Outlet of Shanghai Tobacco Sales Network” , and no that wasn’t a spelling error.

(ze Russians?)

I saw a wedding couple taking pictures on the bridge…I wanted to take a picture but I didn’t want to seem like a creep, so I did it from far away. But now that I think about it, it’s probably creepier that I took it from far away. I digress.

(Wearing red--not white)

I now know the power of saying “You’ve got to grab the bull by the horns” (in this case, just horn).

I wish that there were a lot more tourist attractions in Shanghai like there were in Beijing, but once you’ve seen the main things in Shanghai that’s kind of it—it is a city where business thrives and where you get work done. I have been more than happy spending time with God on the boardwalks and pulling out my bible in Starbucks. I have actually seen a couple Chinese people pull out their Bibles in Starbucks and read; pretty cool stuff! Tomorrow or Friday (depending on her commitment tomorrow) I’ll be meeting up with one of Jon Getz’s friends that lives here in shanghai, and hopefully we can do some cool stuff together.

Over and out.

-Alex