The Fall of the Party

From my parents' home in Hudson, Ohio, I send you my final posting. I spent 40+ hours traveling from Harbin to Hudson, first by train to Beijing, then airplanes to San Fransisco, Chicago, and finally Cleveland, and finally by car to home. I reeked of sweat and solitude. I was impatient with American civility (thought: "Why don't people just hurry up and get off the plane already?!"). I gawked at the abundance of facial hair (I'd guess 1 in every 4 men) and fat. I eavesdropped on thick Midwestern accents. I grinned at chaches (for those of you over the age of 25, read: jocks) trying too hard to look cool. I shuddered at the empty, sprawling suburban streets. I was home.

As promised, here are links to my final two albums of my family's trip to China. These are from our time in that southwestern city of 12 million, Chengdu.

Part I: http://calvin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045120&l=b001b&id=15302001

Part II: http://calvin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045365&l=c0d2b&id=15302001

And now, I sign off. This blog has fulfilled its purpose as a telegraph back home to our friends and our families, keeping them updated on how Lisa and I were doing in China. As for the future, no one knows what's in store for either of us. If you wish to keep in contact with us, please email us instead and we'll be sure to reply happily, speedily, and thoroughly.

Farewell, and godspeed, from the Party People's Republic of China.

One more photo album, and a second attempt with the first albums

I've heard that non-Facebook users have had problems accessing my first two albums, so I'm going try this again. Hopefully, these links will work.

First, the latest album, this one of our second day in Beijing.

http://calvin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044949&l=53762&id=15302001

Now, going backwards, our first day in Beijing:

http://calvin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044862&l=801f7&id=15302001

Our trip to the Ice Festival in Harbin:

http://calvin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044684&l=2ca4c&id=15302001

Our trip to the Tiger Park in Harbin:

http://calvin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044630&l=6df28&id=15302001

These are the specified "public links," so everyone should be able to access them. I still have 1-2 more albums to put up from our time in Chengdu, so brace yourselves!

Also, I bought my plane ticket back to the States, and I'll be leaving China next Thursday afternoon.

Two More Photo Albums

As I said in my last post, I'll be gradually posting photos from my family's trip to Harbin, Beijing, and Chengdu. Here are the next two installments of that.

First, pictures from our trip to the Ice Festival:

http://calvin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044684&id=15302001


Next, pictures from our first day in Beijing, when we walked around Tiananmen Square and toured the Forbidden City:

http://calvin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044862&id=15302001

In other news, I have decided that I'm definitely going back home to the U.S. at the beginning of February. I realize that I need time to think and reflect on where I'm heading in my life, and I also miss my friends and family very much. I will probably spend part of my time in Northeast Ohio and part of my time in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

That is all for now. I'll post again with more photos and any further developments.

Tiger Park Pictures

In the next few days, I plan on posting all the good pictures from my recent trip with my family. The only problem with this is that my internet connections here (in Chengdu) are fairly slow, so it's taking a while. Here's a link to the album of our first full day in Harbin and our trip to the Tiger Park:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044630&id=15302001&ref=mf

In other news, I'm in Chengdu right now, as alluded to above, and saw my family off today. The trip was very fun, and it was good to see them all again.

Right now, I'm hanging out at a Tex-Mex restaurant, enjoying chimichangas and a milkshake. It's the first time I've had Mexican food in about five months! I'm also currently staying at a youth hostel for the next few days while I explore a little more of the city. The place is nice, the people are friendly, and they've even got a bar/lounge on the top floor with a pool table.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more pictures and news and maybe literary exercises describing things I've seen.

Pictures from the Ice Festival

Here's a link to an album of photos taken at the Ninth Annual Harbin Snow & Ice World. Now you know what they do for fun here in the dark Manchurian winters.

http://calvin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044068&l=273ce&id=15302001

Single-Party Government

It's been a while since I've posted. I have several excuses for that, the foremost among them being that Lisa was heading home for Christmas and wanted to surprise everyone, and therefore we couldn't write anything on our blog without getting it away. Another excuse is that I've been busy with the last few weeks of class (exams today and tomorrow) and with preparing everything for when my mom and brothers arrive tomorrow.

But to write candidly, the main reason is that I've simply been in a bit of a depression as of late. Blame it on what you will – loneliness during the holidays, lack of sunlight in a far-northern city around winter solstice, the influence of the conclusion of the semester, the vicissitudes of human emotions, my own introverted personality – but in any case it's been real. I've been having a hard time doing anything in the past few weeks, much less write in this blog.

But last night, I believe I pulled myself out of it. Oddly enough, this happened by reading some entries from an older journal of mine, back from my last semester in college. It put things in a larger perspective for me, reminded me of the story of my life (at least as I told it to myself), of a time when I felt like I was accomplishing things, of days that I felt I could take on the world with a few swipes of my pen.

I think that one reason why I lost that larger perspective is because of the Sisyphean struggle that is foreign language study, especially with a language such as Chinese. It's strange, but you're never exactly sure how much progress you're making or how natural you do or do not sound. Some days, the boulder seems to be nearly at the top of that steep and craggy cliff; other days, it feels like I've moved it about three inches over the past four and half years.

Anyway, I'm sure you would all like to find out what I've been doing for the last few weeks. The truth is far less interesting that what you've been imagining, I assure you. Most days (and this includes New Year's Eve), I eat out, go to a café for internet access, watch a movie, study vocab words, and do laundry. For Christmas I took a trip down to Central Street to see how the young Chinese celebrate Christmas, and, since I had no camera with me, I'll try to capture it in words. That, however, will have to wait 'til my next post.

For now, that is all. Signing off, the sole party of this PRC,

Mask-on-neck