I am going to be studying abroad in China this summer and plan to stay a few extra weeks. I was wondering if anyone has ever been there and could maybe give me some good advice on places to go and what to expect. The study tour will be based in Beijing and Xian. I am looking at going to Guilin, Hong Kong, Shanghai and maybe even doing a short river cruise. Thanks Jason

3/3/2006 10:46:04 PM

i hope you like filth!

Also, I hope you like cheap everything. Food, clothes, hookers.

[Edited on March 3, 2006 at 11:05 PM. Reason : sdfsdf]

3/3/2006 11:04:54 PM

talk to Dr. Ambaras... Asian history prof. at State. cool guy, very knowledgable, lived in Japan 9 years or so

3/4/2006 12:42:45 AM

china =! japan

but anyways that's actually a sound suggestion...

just dont mention you are a capitalist pig

3/4/2006 4:23:49 AM

china =! japan

but anyways that's actually a sound suggestion...

just dont mention you are a capitalist pig, please take pics and tell us all how the Chinese have destroyed the once free-est market on Earth in Hong Kong...

3/4/2006 4:24:25 AM

expect to be treated like a celebrity, especially in the more provincial cities... i can't count the number of times i was stopped and asked to be in a picture with someone... of course, if you like to have your ego stroked (and who doesn't?), spend some time at english corner at the universities, its usually on fridays... just show up and hang out, you'll have an adoring crowd hanging on your every word in no time

things to kiss goodbye: western toilets (hello hole), utensils (hello sticks), cleanliness (hello constant filth) and logic (hello some of the dumbest shit for no reason you will ever see)... don't count on air conditioning either

the muslim quarter in xian is a good place to shop (also where i had to chase down the punk that stole my camera)... 'course there's the white goose pagoda, the stella forest and the terracotta solidiers...

beijing... find one of the old school restaurants for the peking duck, hella good stuff... dirt market to shop... spend some time in the hutongs (ancient city neighborhoods), they're getting leveled fast... the chinese don't really have much use for historic preservation... forbidden city, tiananmen, etc... i'm sure 'the egg' and other new archistuffs will warrant some exploration as well... if you can find a dai restaurant, be sure to check it out... dai food is from the southern, more tropical, region of china and it is awesome...

be sure to visit the bootleg dvd shops... they're ubiquitous and the chinglish on the backs of the boxes can be priceless...

3/4/2006 8:26:53 AM

^now you've got everyone reading this thread wanting to go to china...

If you're doing a study abroad, let us know how much work the class is. My friend from China told me it's hard and competitive in college there.

3/4/2006 8:52:49 AM

'hard' is relative; i graded papers at the university in qufu for a lil bit... the students couldn't understand why they were getting failed for cheating; a lot of the time it was even encouraged by the profs... its all about 'face'...

i had dinner with the president of the university before i left... he was a big commie hotshot (you have to be to get any power around there)... he was treated like royalty; showed up in an oldschool rolls limo. had to be the most pimped out meal i've ever had... gold-plated platters, bowls of spun suger... crazy food. first time i'd ever had thousand-year old eggs... he gave me a rice bowl as a gift, it was the thinnest ceramic i'd ever seen... amazing i got it back to the states in one piece

3/4/2006 9:16:46 AM

thousand year old eggs

3/4/2006 9:45:05 AM

i concur, but everything else was awesome... lycee fruit, taro root, dumplings, filleted shrimp (ok that was bad too, cause it was raw and slimy), caramelized corn in a sugar bowl, steamed eggplant, canteloupe in yogurt and, good god, i love sticky rice... definitely not my best meal in china, but presentation goes a long way... and you've got to love nubile, young serving girls waiting attentively at your shoulder...

3/4/2006 9:57:16 AM

^and that will cost like 5$. you could go around yelling "i'm rich, bitch!" and it's be true. One time i saw this woman punch this police officer, and I thought shit was going to go down. But it didn't

3/4/2006 11:53:35 AM

Go to hong kong, english is everywhere so even if you don't speak it you can get around.
I love that place. its my 2nd home

3/4/2006 12:28:41 PM

Quote :

"i had dinner with the president of the university before i left... he was a big commie hotshot (you have to be to get any power around there)... he was treated like royalty; showed up in an oldschool rolls limo. had to be the most pimped out meal i've ever had... gold-plated platters, bowls of spun suger... crazy food. first time i'd ever had thousand-year old eggs... he gave me a rice bowl as a gift, it was the thinnest ceramic i'd ever seen... amazing i got it back to the states in one piece "

dude

uncool

3/4/2006 12:45:29 PM

hmm... now that i reread that it sounds pretty damn gay... maybe i should point out that i wasn't the only one at dinner and that there was no buttsex involved... just the customary circle-jerk at the end of the evening

3/4/2006 1:19:50 PM

hong kong is fun... go in the winter, also check out the pizza hut... it'll blow your mind. And plan your bathroom stops ocordinaly, any can be hard to find let alone a clean one. But most american owned resturants have them and they are used. Watch out for dead birds

3/4/2006 2:27:17 PM

shanghai has a kick-ass antiquity museum... try to find a hotel in hong kong with a good view of the harbor, its like a constant traffic jam... and the junks are cool to watch... if you're looking to visit other coastal cities, i've heard good things about dalian, too... lots of old european architecture and quite a bit of soviet remnant... i've heard it called the paris of north china

3/4/2006 2:43:58 PM

Quote :

"cleanliness (hello constant filth)"

oh yeah. water quality is rather bad there. they don't take showers everyday. you'll go to a foreign office building and the office workers on the elevator will smell and have matted hair. it's just the way it is.

don't ride in those dilapidated taxi's either, those fuckers are sketchy. so are the local police.

def. check out the bootleg dvd/shopping places, don't be like those kids in the classifieds who sell fake lacoste shirts and claim them as real though...

3/4/2006 2:52:21 PM

thre is no way you will pass off a bootleg dvd as real....

You can also pick up a modded PS2 there, too, but I recommend testing a bunch of games on it first. Also, you can ask them to show them what you are buying works. It's not worth it to spend too much time doing this, though. Just do a couple so they don't try to unload all of their defective stock on you.

^In peking, at least, Taxis are apparently supposed to be strictly regulated. YMMV. If anyone rips you off, it's only going to be for 5-10$. Even getting ripped off is cheap!

Also, spend your money on experiences rather than things. The shit you buy there will break!

[Edited on March 4, 2006 at 3:04 PM. Reason : ad]

3/4/2006 2:59:50 PM

new dvd's were about 10 yuan most places i went (a little more than $1); war of the worlds was on the shelves in beijing the day it came out in theaters here... only problem was that my copy had all of morgan freeman's narration in russian... wtf? rest of the movie was in english tho... i really wish i would have bought a ton more, considering the disney movies i saw with porn blurbs on the back and the ones with horrible reviews downloaded directly off the internet (ie 'do not watch this movie, two thumbs down, etc..)

you'll find broken english on many products, but don't expect it to be cogent thought... its just considered a mark of quality there and is applied liberally to all sorts of things with often hilarious results... (aka chinglish... or engrish)

3/4/2006 3:09:14 PM

Thanks everyone for the useful info. I think we will be staying mostly hostels but may try to stay were we can see the harbor in Hong Kong. Does anyone know anything about hostels in general in china, are they like the ones in europe? Me and my buddy pretty much have it planned out. We are going to Kunming (2days), Lijiang (1day), Tiger Leaping Gorge (2 days), Guilin (3 days), Hong Kong (3 days), Huangshan (1 day), Shanghai (2 days), and Jinan (1 day). Does anyone have any info on Kunming, Lijiang or the Gorge. We are also wondering about the train situation. Are tickets as easy as going to the station and buying them the day of departure or do we need to purchase ahead of time? Thanks Jason

4/4/2006 1:34:23 PM

Sounds like fun. I did a Study Abroad in Peru, and it was awesome. People are talking about it being dirty but it still lets you see firsthand another part of the world. Have fun.

4/4/2006 1:36:49 PM

I have a friend who went on a trip to China, and all she could talk about when she came back was the bathrooms and how they're all basically just holes in the ground.

4/4/2006 8:59:23 PM

the facilities on the trains were always interesting... same old hole, but you get to watch the ground rush by below. make sure you have decent balance before attempting one of those... bump in the tracks and you might meet the floor (and whatever is on it).

i won't even go into my toilet experiences in the mountains of tibet... lets just say no running water + no ventilation + 100 years of shit = ... i have never gagged so violently. just find a tree

4/4/2006 11:01:28 PM

Quote :

"things to kiss goodbye: western toilets (hello hole), utensils (hello sticks), cleanliness (hello constant filth) and logic (hello some of the dumbest shit for no reason you will ever see)... don't count on air conditioning either"

goddamn I thought Africa was bad, nevermind then

4/5/2006 2:47:38 PM

^ yeah, minus the chops sticks it sounds like a few places in eastern europe that i have been to.

4/5/2006 2:52:46 PM

its a big country... so the differences from city to city can be really dramatic. (custom, culture, cleanliness, climate...) especially climate... i left qufu, where it was 107 degrees (coulda really used ac), and it was 40 degrees when i arrived in lhasa

4/5/2006 4:43:50 PM

f'n a we have it made in America

'cept DVD's aren't $1

4/5/2006 5:19:05 PM

fuck it

ill pay $15 bucks for a dvd so people will shower everyday and we have toilets

4/5/2006 5:57:17 PM

Actually, Dr. Ocko (I believe the History Dept Head) would be better to ask than Ambaras. Ocko does the Chinese History (and of course, spent time there), whereas Ambaras did Japanese.

4/5/2006 5:59:41 PM

this shit makes india seem like a cakewalk

4/6/2006 12:12:21 AM

its really not so bad. just don't fuck with the police...

4/6/2006 11:28:39 AM

Quote :

"ill pay $15 bucks for a dvd so people will shower everyday and we have toilets"

4/6/2006 11:43:14 AM

I would suggest making sure you get out to the great wall, the summer palace, and the silk market. All of these places were very cool.

and the celebrity thing is right on. I was there in summer of 2000 in beijing and it was nuts. I am a big dude and I stand out pretty easily, so I had hordes of people getting their photo with me. It was a total ego stroke!

4/6/2006 12:40:19 PM