Last few days . . .

There I was, locked in an inlet of an alley behind a gate after dragging my suitcase out of the apartment building I had been staying in in Beijing. I had returned the key I had been lent by my lovely host, who was fast asleep on the second floor of the building. I needed to get past the gate to get out to the street and make my flight to Hangzhou that was departing in less than two hours. It was 5 o’clock in the morning.

After pulling on the gate for a few moments, I saw a small hut-like building in the corner of the inlet. Hoping it would have a button to open the gate, I opened the unlocked door and stepped inside. Inside there was a warm little room with an old computer and clothes on the floor. I heard someone stirring in the next room back and turned to try to leave before realizing the person was yelling at me in Chinese. Not knowing what to do, but knowing that this was my only way out, I stammered back in broken Chinese “I can Shanghai.” He seemed to understand and I heard the gate click outside. I took a few quick steps back, retreating from the building and opening the gate—I was free.

After waiting in the subway for 20 minutes before finding out the train I needed wouldn’t be around for another half hour (again through mangled chinese communication and a lot of pointing at my watch) I hailed a cab and made it to the airport in time. Shanghai air got me safely to Hangzhou with a full belly and the experience of watching old chinese people throw things at the cute baby in front of them who kept looking back around the seat.

At the airport I met Harry (who knows an Amherst debater I debated that went to his school), and the other judges he had been sent to fetch from the airport—Georgiana, AJ, and Dan Li. These four would be among the lovely people I met in Hangzhou, whom I could write about for quite a while.

Since I’m a little behind, I’ll give you the highlights.

Hangzhou is a great little city, that feels much less rushed and crowded than Beijing, and its West Lake is BEAUTIFUL.

They put us up in a very fancy hotel, which was great except for its lack of wifi. Oh yeah, and the fact that you have full view of the toilet and shower from anywhere in the rooms. My first thought was that this was a weird cultural thing, my roommate Dutian assured me it isn’t. My second thought was that maybe this is a couple’s room, but the two double beds makes that wrong. Dutian suggested that perhaps it is for prostitutes to be able to shower while making sure their clients don’t leave without paying. This seems like a brutally inefficient way of accomplishing this oddly specific goal. My third thought was that it was just fucking weird, which it is.

Oh yeah, also at the West Lake, there was an old man on one of the trails shooting off the main loop around the lake who was repeatedly hitting himself in the stomach. I asked Harry (who was giving a tour to Georgiana, AJ and I) what he was doing, “exercising” Harry replied.

Judging the debate was excellent. This was partly because of the friendships I made with the other judges, and partly because of the subtle insights I got from the debaters like “black people are stronger than white people and Asians.”

We had a lavish banquet with around 30 different phenomenal dishes. It also had some unforgettable talent performances, such as this kid screaming Eminem as loud as he could into a microphone with his headphones in so he couldn’t hear himself.

I ate a duck heart.

I took a train to Shanghai and heard the 3.5 hour long non-communist-party-approved modern history of China from my friend Neal in a restaurant/café in the eight story mall on top of the Zhongshang park subway station.

I sent in the final draft of a seminar paper this morning.

My day in Shanghai today basically got rained out. Crappy weather sort of killed my list of things to do. Luckily I have an extra day and a half.

This evening was lovely though, after getting dinner with Chadsey and one of his friends, we played trivia at a pub (I forgot Ralphie from A Christmas Story’s name and called him Tommy), and went to KTV (chinese karaoke).

My trip has been phenomenal, looking forward to more good things to come!