普陀山

I've spent the last three days with my uncle, aunt, and cousin visiting an island called 舟山岛 (boat mountain island?). About the size/ geography of Martha's Vineyard but with the typically Chinese massive development. A relaxing time spent seeing sights and being inundated with philosophy, history, and language lessons. One last weekend in Shanghai and then I'll be making my way up to Beijing to get this semester started.

Hope all is well on your side of the Pacific.




quite possibly the cutest three minutes so far of my trip (back when visiting family).

pictures.. for real this time

Finally back in Shanghai with working internet. Hanging out with my grandma 外婆 for a few days, then Beijing on the 31st.

Here's a collage of pics from the countryside.

tour of my grandma's house

ill sign off with this:

big bro mao strikes again

I've been told that the pics I uploaded have been blocked. I guess cute pics of my little niece posing are anti-revolutionary.

 

Once I am able to use the yale vpn on my own computer, than I'll get those cute pics up.  Off to my grandmother's house even deeper in the countryside. 

 

first full day

Big Bro Mao has blocked access to facebook, any american blog, twitter.. but surprisingly lets fmylife get through. Connection is really slow and unreliable. G-mail in Chinese is allowed so I'm routing this post through that.

I arrived safely in 椒江 (Jiao Jiang) yesterday afternoon after a five hour drive with my uncle (mom's sister's husband) from Shanghai. Had some great conversations about philosophy (overcoming the language barrier made things interesting). Spent the afternoon catching up with my older cousins (daughter and sister of my father's older sister) and later hit up the karaoke with them and my uncle.

Before we went to the KTV, everyone claimed to be terrible at singing, the self-effacing attitude typical/expected from native Chinese. I made them go first and they all killed it receiving close to full scores on the Guitar Hero-esque rating system at the end of their songs. After 30 seconds of me serendading them with Usher's "Burn" (English options were limited to that, Britney Spears, and Madonna), they were all in stiches laughing. The computer sided with them and gave me a 65.

and so it begins

Grandma and uncle are yelling at me to hurry up as we speak.  Flight went uneventfully.  Beat jet lag by not sleeping at all and crashing once I got to grandma's.  Leaving now for countryside and my cousin's house. Pics soon

the prodigal son returns... a generation later

On August 18, 1989, my father stepped off a plane at O'Hare International Airport and into the United States of America. Safely tucked away in his pocket was $80 scrounged from family and friends. All he had to his name were the clothes on his back, a few possessions in his suitcase and the American dream.

On August 18, 2009, I will land in Pudong International Airport in Shanghai and will eventually make my way up to Beijing where I will be living for a semester. With a wallet full of plastic, I will be wielding a good deal more purchasing power to be blown on fake watches, faux designer threads, and tacky Mao paraphernalia ("trippin' on mao" was my second choice name for this blog).

When my mom brought up this coincidence over dinner tonight, I was at a loss of words. Its significance, the parallels that can be drawn, the "deepness" of it... a whole book wouldn't do it justice, much less a single blog post.

Nevertheless, a quick synopsis: The changing global social-economic landscape. The American dream fulfilled/deferred. The vicarious homecoming of the prodigal son. Expectations on the next generation. A legacy comes full circle.

I’ll hopefully explore all of the above over the course of the semester.

During the next few months, I'll do my best to record the highlights of my day-to-day existence. I'll throw in nuggets of self-discovery as I come across them and maybe some amateur social commentary to keep things interesting.

20 years to the day. Just a coincidence? I think not.