The last time I wrote I was about to head into my last few days with Ning and her family, and they did their utmost to make them memorable. Originally, we had planned to go the movies Tuesday night, but our plans were postponed in honor of Derek's birthday. So we went on Wednesday instead. I had thought that a Chinese movie theater would be fairly similar to an American one, so I was surprised to find out that it's considered perfectly acceptable to walk into one with a full meal. In fact, I didn't see anyone selling food at all within the theater, one of the biggest sub-industries (or rip-offs) of American cinema. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that Chinese movies have no previews!
Thursday morning, Sandy and I took some time out of our morning classes (Chinese and calligraphy) to go to the Zhejiang Provincial Peoples' Hospital with Derek. We were shown around the premises by an off-duty surgeon whom Derek knew. The hospital is comprised of two main buildings, one for chronic cases, and the other for emergencies. Each building had many sub-departments, and I was particularly interested to learn that massage therapy and acupuncture were both offered as a valid remedies. I had thought that such treatments might be primarily handled by private practitioners, such as Dr. Lily in Yangshuo.
Because we were already at the hospital, Derek decided to show us how a typical visit might go. First, he had to register at the front desk. Within minutes, we were being usured into the doctor's office. I wondered whether Derek's insurance card, which identified him as a Party member, had sped the process up for us. He said that it was unusual for him to see a doctor so quickly, and that we would have had to wait for quite a while if we had come during a busier period.
On the other hand, Derek's "Party card" was a helpful medical record. All of his information was written in an attached booklet, which allowed the doctor to see very quickly what previous complaints he'd had, and the medicines he'd used. He was given a diagnosis and prescription, once again in under ten minutes. And how much does medicine cost in China? With his insurance, Derek payed a mere two yuan!
After looking around the many different departments of the hospital, the three of us returned to school. In the afternoon, Alaina and I went to Zhejiang University to visit Steve Landy (which I believe was covered in her last entry). I would just like to add that it was a pleasure to meet Steve, who offered a lot of great advice about tourist destinations in Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing!
Thursday night was quiet. I did not enjoy having to pack up all my things again. I was amazed at how big a job it was, since I had thought that I'd been pretty good about leaving most of my things in my suitcase! Packing was made more difficult by the fact that my suitcase had reached its absolute maximum capacity back in Xi'an, and would no longer hold all my things. But with creative use of space (and the loan of many bags from my host mom), I managed to get everything ready for the move.
Friday was bittersweet. I was excited to meet my new host family, but at the same time, I was sad to be leaving Ning and anxious about having to meet and adjust to a whole new set of family and friends. We began the evening by playing pool with our host siblings and the friends we'd made in the two weeks we'd spent in our first class. Some of us were better pool players than others, but we all had fun. After we had finished, Ning and I met up with my new host family to go out to dinner.
My new host sister, Pan Hongan, was more reserved than Ning, but equally sweet. At dinner, I was left mainly to my own devices, as Ning and my new host mother had conversed in Chinese (my name was mentioned a lot, so I suspect it was a crash course in my various likes and dislikes). The most unusual food we ate at dinner? Donkey meat. I have to say, of all the really exotic/strange foods I've tried in China, donkey is easily my favorite...though I'm not particularly anxious to eat more of it! We also had a really delicious type of warm black rice juice, which I hadn't tried before, but enjoyed a lot.
We headed back to Hongan's apartment, and after a little while, I said a reluctant goodbye to Ning. Shortly after, both Hongan and I went to bed, since we had to up early the next day to go to the Wu Zhen Water Town.
And now on to my actual day, Saturday, and our trip to Wu Zhen...
Early Saturday morning, Hongan and I drove to the school to meet up with the others. I was introduced to Cassie's new host sister, Jiawen, Alaina's sister, Yi Mei, and Alex's brother, Tianleng. Together with Sandy and William, we drove out to Wu Zhen, which is a small village located about an hour and a half drive outside of Hangzhou. It is a highly historic village, which the government has taken care to preserve. The people living there live in the same way as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. It is also a "water town," which means that rivers flow throughout the town and form the basis of its economy. Hongan likened it to Venice, based on its connection to the Hangzhou-Beijing canal and the fact that it is easiest to get from place to place by boat.
In Wu Zhen, we visited many small museums (each museum was only one or two rooms large). We visited a museum displaying traditional clothes, which in this area tended to be fairly dull-colored, loose silk pants and shirts for both men and women. Then we stopped at a currency exhibition. I thought it was going to be a display of old Chinese money, but it turned out to be a collection of all the different types of money that the Chinese get from foreigners. We saw money from Thailand, Uganda, Colombia, Paraguay, and Nigeria to name a few - but I couldn't find U.S. dollars anywhere!
Afterwards, we went to a tie-dye store. It wasn't as interesting as the one we visited in Dali (Sandy suspected that the products weren't really tie-dyed, but were really "boutiqued," which I think means stenciled - I'm sorry, I don't remember the term exactly). Even so, Alex and William amused themselves by playing around with the drying cloth, which in turn amused the rest of us. Last, we stopped at an old-style pawnshop. Its teller desk, for lack of a better term, seemed more appropriate for a prison than a pawnshop. We had a lot of fun taking pictures behind the bars of the desk.
After a very large lunch, we went back outside and saw a shadow puppet show. Since Alex had missed the show we saw at the Song Dynasty Theme Park a few weeks ago, he was really pleased that one was being performed. Once the show was over, the group split up to go shopping, but we only had a few minutes before it was time for our boat ride!
The boat ride through Wu Zhen was one of the highlights of the day for me. The boats were tiny, rickety things that constantly rocked from side to side, but I thought that was part of their charm. Cassie, who was in my boat, agreed with Hongan's Venice comparison, saying that the little boats reminded her of gondolas. The scenery of Wu Zhen, the rustic, typical Chinese old-style houses, seemed like something out of the wuxia movies that I'd seen, such as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." I really felt like I was seeing a China that so far had only existed in my imagination.
The boat ride was our last activity of the day, so we got back on the bus and returned to the school. Hongan and I walked back to our apartment and had dinner. Hongan's mom, a history and geography teacher, is also an excellent cook. I am now somewhat capable of eating long noodles with chopsticks (which is an impressive feat, for those who know how long the Chinese make their noodles!)
We ate dinner early, because Hongan has an extra math and physics class on Saturday nights. So while she was at her class, my host parents and I decided to go "climb a mountain," as my host mom would say. Actually, the mountain was more of a hill. We climbed up to the Baochu Pagoda overlooking the West Lake. The pagoda is about 1500 years old, and is a beautiful structure made out of white stones. Around it are a series of narrow rock fissures, which we squeezed through to get to the top of the hill. From the top, we had an excellent view of Hangzhou and the West Lake at night. It was absolutely gorgeous!
We made our way back down, and headed back to the apartment, where we were later joined by Hongan. I was very tired, so I headed to bed early. Tomorrow, we will visit three more scenic spots around the West Lake: the Jade Emperor Hill, the China Celadon Museum, and the Eight Diagonal Fields personally planted by the Song Emperor Gaozhong!
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