Journal #6--June 2001

I returned to Hong Kong after my adventure in Vietnam on an unmatched "high." I was exhilarated to be back in Hong Kong and felt as if I was seeing the city through new eyes. My perspective on Asia and studying abroad had been changed by my recent journey. In general, I was loving life, and no situation was going to bring me down. My attitude on the world was, and continues to be, completely positive!

My Masters program began again on January 28th with new courses and new professors. I enrolled in my final four classes that would complete my course requirements and hand me my Masters in International and Public Affairs by May. My academic life was prospering nicely.

Outside of the world of academia, Hong Kong was a new city to me. After a week back in HK, I went with a few friends to a "Funky Times" party, where I was the only one with a real afro (I still haven't cut my hair since September when I write this). Thus, I entered for half-price. During February and March, I attended numerous events as part of the annual Hong Kong Cultural Festival, including a Buena Vista Social Club concert, the Emerson String Quartet, a play entitled, "A Servant to Two Masters," and a performance of the Tuscany Orchestra. Robert Black College received a new resident by the name of Neil Wolitzer, a Duke law student from Hollywood, Florida, that was taking the semester at Hong Kong University. My Vietnam traveling partner, Nate, my new friend, Neil, and I bonded well and ended up hanging out quite a bit the second semester. As I write this, of course, Neil has since left Hong Kong on a 40-day excursion through Tibet, Nepal, and Thailand. Hope he enjoys eating Tibetan yak burgers! Tasty! Anyway, the three of us quickly became workout partners at the JCC (Nate became an honorary Jew) and dining/social companions throughout HK. The semester has been a truly memorable one.

After about a month of being back, I had a lovely visit from my lovely friend, Livia, and her lovely fiancee, Stephen, for a few days. It was simply lovely to see them. They spent about a week in Thailand and then returned to Hong Kong for another lovely two days. It was definitely lovely to see some familiar faces. I gave them an overview of Hong Kong, and we all went for a lovely Thai dinner with Livia's friend, Tessy, and Mike Finn (one of Stephen's closest friends), both living in Hong Kong and Tufts alums. Wasn't this a lovely story?

SHOUT OUT OF LOVE TO KATIE SIEBEN AND DAVID ROSENBAND, who both just emailed me simultaneously from different offices in Washington, D.C. as I write this! And to Ben McDonald, who just got engaged! And to Jason Marczak, who will be going to Bologna, Italy, next year to start a two-year Masters program at Johns Hopkins. And to everyone who has just graduated and will be moving on to another episode of their lives...

Anyway, as the semester progressed and the University "reading week" approached, the travel bug once again set in...So, I decided to head to Chiang Mai, Thailand, for another little adventure. I wasn't able to head up north in this magnificent country during the last visit, so it was something that needed to be done. Thus, I booked a ticket and flew to Bangkok on a Thursday evening. I spent one night in Bangkok and actually ran into an American guy that I had had drinks with my first night in Bangkok four months earlier. Small world, I say. I was unable to meet up with Dave Rubenstein, a fraternity brother from Tufts that has been studying in Sydney and was supposedly in Thailand. Thus, I headed up on an overnight sleeper train to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Chiang Mai is a major northern city in Thailand, that is filled with culture, fantastic food, and is very relaxed. On the advice of my buddy Neil, I got a room at the Ratchada guest house for US$3 a night. With a fan, balcony, hot shower, and queensize bed, it was perfect. I spent the first day wandering around this exquisite town, discovering all of the hidden restaurants, temples, and markets throughout the winding streets. I went for a Thai massage for an hour, which I had almost everyday while I was in Chiang Mai. For $2, you can't go wrong. The next day, I joined a trek up into the jungles north of Chiang Mai to visit the various Hill Tribes, gorgeous waterfalls, and complete natural beauty of northern Thailand. The treks around Chiang Mai are what most visitors come to the city to do, so I was excited. I met my guide for the three days, a short Thai guy with a long ponytail and a huge smile, named Boo. Boo picked me up in a truck, and we went to meet the rest of the group. For the next three days, I trekked through the jungles with three older English women, a guy and gal from Australia, and another two Americans.

The first day included an elephant ride, a Thai fried rice lunch, and four hours of hiking to our campsite for the night. The campsite was along a gorgeous stream, with a natural "Whirlpool," which provided us with about an hour of fun. After a long hike, we all were interested in a dip in the cold water. Of course, there were tiny leeches that attached themselves to me, so after getting out, I scrubbed vigorously. It was a bit freaky, in fact. All I could think of was that scene from "Stand By Me" when he finds a leech in his pants...Luckily, I was clean. Our shelter was a roof and 3.5 walls, with all of us sleeping on a rickety and uneven loft. Also, it was really cold that night, and the dog that had been traveling with us for the day had insomnia and was running and jumping on us literally throughout the night. It was not necessarily the most pleasant of nights. We awoke early to fresh coffee and eggs and packed ourselves back up for our day's hike. We spent about five hours hiking this second day. We stopped for lunch at the peak of a mountain, which provided for unbelievable views. We ate Thai noodles and fresh pineapple and watermelon with newly widdled bamboo chopsticks. We hiked a little in the afternoon in order to get us to the Akha village, which was a small cluster of about fifteen huts in this valley. We once again had a loft-style shelter, but it wasn't as cold that second night. The Akha tribespeople hang out with us for the evening, as we dined on freshly prepared curry chicken and Boo's Thai soup. Delicious and filling. We all sat on the deck outside our shelter for the evening, singing songs, playing guitar, and drinking a few Thai beers. The sky was filled with clear and crisp white stars, and we all received Thai massages from a local guy. Probably the best massage I have ever had! It was really a magical night. The next day, we trekked back toward Chiang Mai, with a stop at a completely refreshing waterfall. We swam and frollicked in the crisp water for about an hour. We then headed down river on bamboo rafts, which included a heart-wrenching five minutes when our raftguide jumped off the raft in order to chase a six-foot long snake, then kill the snake by whippiing it against a tree, then bagging the snake in a clear plastic bag, and then returning to the raft with a grin and saying to four stunned foreigners, "SOUP." We then headed back to town. That next three nights, I met up for dinner with my tripmates, who I had bonded with over the previous three days.

I enrolled and participated in a full-day Thai cooking course, where I perfected my Pad Thai and curry chicken. Over the final few days, I studied Thai massage, Thai culinary arts, wandered through markets viewing all of Thai cultural works of art, and played a little golf at the Chiang Mai Golf Club. I returned to Hong Kong, reinvigorated, and tackled my final papers with the spirit of increased knowledge of my global surroundings. My final classes took place in the midst of the tensest U.S.-China relations in over a decade, with the U.S. spy plane incident, so my education from the United States and Hong Kong provided me with a strong base to attempt to put forward a future policy suggestion for both sides, in the forms of twenty-page papers. Furthermore, I received encouragement that my education and outlook is somewhat well-received when an analysis of mine was published in Hong Kong's main newspaper, the South China Morning Post. Feel free to request a copy from me or the SCMP http://www.scmp.com.

Here is a fun story, as it appeared in an email I sent to a friend:

So I just finished dancing a little salsa with this cute Canadian exchange student in front of about two hundred people on the main hangout area on campus with a live Cuban band (sponsored by the Music Dept).  For about twenty minutes (since Chinese people are very shy, for the most part) everyone just stood there in a huge semicircle and stared at the band.  I decided that they need a show, so I walked up to this unknown blonde and asked her to accompany me on the dance floor.  No one else joined in, so it was just my new friend, Roxanne, and I shaking our hips.  Needless to say, we received a large ovation at the end of the song...and...Sorry the rest of the story has been sanitized for public viewing.

The semester ended with a trip through the major sights of China with Paul and Jan Brenner. I turned in my final papers, and Paul, Jan, and Lee left after two days in Hong Kong on a flight to Beijing. With too much baggage, an excitement of the unknown brewing inside us, and a handwritten note in Chinese explaining that mushrooms were the equivalent to the devil, we arrived in China's capital city to encounter the magnificence that is the Chinese people and culture. We stayed at the beautiful Beijing Grand Hotel, overlooking the Forbidden City. Over the next two days, we viewed the former concubine quarters of the Forbidden City, protested the humidity in Tienammen Square, climbed a section of the Great Wall (which clearly could never have prevented attack from the Mongolians, especially with the fully equipped snack bar every two hundred feet), and wandered through a scorpion-filled food market (all insects were ready for consumption). Speaking of food, our meals throughout the trip were, for the most part, national dishes and extremely delicious. Breakfast was usually at the hotel, lunch was at a pre-arranged point with the tour guide, and dinner was on our own volition to venture into the depths of the Chinese underworld restaurants, wandering through dimly-lit back-alleys toward restaurants that served the best sauteed chicken stomach. In Beijing, I met up one night for a traditional Chinese dinner, drinks, and karaoke with my MIPA classmates who were in town for a three-week additional course at Tsinghua University. The frogmeat, sea cucumber, hardened sugar covered bananas, and shots of lighter fluid-tasting Chinese alcohol made it for an interesting evening out on the town.

Also, whilst in Beijing, we ran into the famous and often scandalous boxing promoter, Don King. He was in town to promote the August fight of Evander Holyfield, being called the "Melee in China." He arrived at the hotel one evening as we were heading out to dinner. We managed to call to his attention that we were Americans, relatively easily since he was surrounded by fifteen Chinese people from the sports world and the hotel. We were pretty much the only Caucasians in the lobby. So, we grabbed a picture with him, his and my hair competing for the top spot, and even got hear the man shout out his signature line, "Only in America!" I hope he realized that he wasn't in America...

We flew to Xi'an the next day and witnessed an extraordinary wonder of the world, the Terra-Cotta warriors. Simply unbelievable that an Emperor built an entire army of fully clothed and armed terracotta soldiers to protect himself in the "afterlife." Walking through this tomb was an experience that I recommend for everyone to see. After a few delicious meals in a relaxed city with friendly people, glorious historical relics, including the former town walls and bell tower, and some wild markets with fish, birds, and other exotic animals, we flew out of Xi'an and headed to Chongqing, where we boarded a boat to spend the next four days cruising down the Yangtze River. Anything that the boat was lacking, including the glorious hot and spicy food of the Sichuan province (the food on the boat was nothing spectacular) was made up for in the remarkable scenery and grandeur of the natural aspects of the river, including the famous "Three Gorges." Since the much talked about "Three Gorges Dam" project is well underway and once completed, much of what we saw on our journey down the river will be underwater, we took the trip at just the right time. Get here soon while the natural supplies of awe and magnificence last. Stopping along the way at various river towns, we were able to see what life is like for the Chinese people outside the major cities. The river cruise was a fabulous adventure, and I recommend everyone gets there soon.

We ended the cruise at Wuhan, which was a nice-size town, and provided a quiet stopover before heading the next day to the bustling metropolis of Shanghai. Shanghai, China, is similar to Hong Kong, in that it is a large city, with modern buildings and amenities, while it retains an "Old World," Chinese charm. It is definitely a place for shopping, as their seem to be malls on every corner. We stayed at some "hole-in-the-wall," rag-tag, roach-infested youth hostel (the Ritz-Carlton), but we seemed to get by. We dined on delicious Chinese throughout our stay in Shanghai (although we once opted for a local place, called Tony Roma's). We took a daytrip to Suzhou, which is a famous center for silk manufacturing and its enclosed Chinese gardens. We walked through the "Old City" of Shanghai and even made our way to the old Jewish quarter and synagogue. We wandered on the famous walkway, the Bund, which overlooked the gorgeous skyline and waterway. The city has a mystique about it, and it was a wonderful way to end a culture-infused adventure.

We returned to Hong Kong for a day before I was once again left alone in the "City of Life( HK's new motto)." For the next week, I closed up some loose ends, said goodbye to friends, met with some importers/exporters, and prepared for my summer in China. I leave Monday, June 11, 2001, to return to Beijing to begin an intensive Mandarin Chinese course.