June 17, 2012
Return From Whence I Came

I leave China tomorrow to go back to the States. 

…all right, well, it’s not that simple. I fly from Wuhan to Shanghai to Vancouver to Chicago to Philadelphia. It’s gonna take 21 hours in all, including layovers. Regardless, my time here in Wuhan, China has (finally) come to an end. Unsurprisingly, I’m excited to go back to the US.

This visit to China made things quite evident. For starters, while I am proud of my Chinese heritage, I’m starting to realize that I consider myself American much more. That sounds pretty ignorant of me, I know, but I think it’s fair for me to say that. After all, I was born in the States and have lived there all of my life. It just became more apparent to me that I could never actually see myself living in China - well, at least, not right now. Despite meeting some awesome people - shout out to Antony, thanks so much for introducing me to everyone! - through Tumblr (yeah, I did that. Suck it.), the US is the place for me.

God, I sound like such a traitor. I suppose I should end this post by saying that I DID have fun here. I enjoyed buying clothes that were cheaper here than how much they would be in the US. I had fun meeting up with Fiona and her brother, Kevin, in Hong Kong. I loved the fun nights going out and drinking with Antony, Steven, & the gang. I also enjoyed the fictional times when I bought a spicy chicken sandwich at KFC (they are absolutely insane, I’m gonna miss them) after going out. Despite all of my bitching and moaning, I’ll concede that good times were had here.

Wait a second, I just remembered that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube AREN’T blocked in America. Well, hot damn. This changes everything.

10:34pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z1HwDvNZZKxq
  
Filed under: wuhan china 
June 11, 2012
Last night, I drove past a store called “Glittering Oriental”

I have a number of questions about this.

  1. What kind of a fucking store is this?
  2. Why is it just one Oriental who is glittering? Why not the rest of them?
  3. How can an Oriental glitter? Did I miss the memo?
  4. What the hell constitutes as an “Oriental”?
  5. Why is it that the more I type “Oriental”, the more baffled I get by the word “Oriental”?
  6. How do I sign up?

10:24pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z1HwDvNBCsnn
Filed under: wuhan china chinglish 
June 11, 2012
9 mosquito bites in 5 minutes.

Well, goddamn. This sucks.

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Filed under: wuhan china mosquito 
June 2, 2012
How to Drive in Wuhan, China

I’ve been to China a few times already and I can’t help but notice that, each time, the driving gets worse. As ashamed as I am to say this, the stereotype that Asian drivers are the worst drivers…may be right. Does that make me a self-hating Asian? We’ll see.

In any case, I’d like to give you a step-by-step guide on how to drive in Wuhan, China. If you think driving in New York is bad, you haven’t seen a damn thing yet.

  1. Get in the car. Are you in a taxi that doesn’t have seatbelts? Get used to it. Those “hassles” are always pulled out of the car. Enjoy your metal cage of death!
  2. Honk. Honk like every one is deaf and you are the only person who is in charge of the road. Someone else is honking? Fuck that! Retaliate and honk some more.
  3. Edge so close to the next lane always and, more often than not, always drive half in one lane and half in the other.
  4. Continue to honk even more. Is there a pedestrian? Honk at him/her/it. The right of way means absolutely nothing here.
  5. Trying to merge into the next lane and there’s a car there? Fuck it! Merge anyway until he/she horns at you and stay in your lane until you can merge without using your turn signal. No worries, no one else is driving in Wuhan at all!
  6. Red light? In the Kingdom of China, red means go and green means…go. You win!
  7. Is there a big ol’ bus there? See step 1.
  8. Stuck in traffic and no one can move? See step 1 again and repeat over and over. Sure, no one else is moving, but it doesn’t matter! 
  9. Repeat steps 1 - 7 until you reach your destination.
  10. Later, rinse, repeat.

As you can see, driving here is pretttttyyyyy fun and extremely reckless. I know I should feel frightened as hell but, for some reason, I never feel like I’m about to die. Odd.

2:32pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z1HwDvMbIEbu
  
Filed under: wuhan china driving 
June 1, 2012
Well, duh. I’m obviously gonna go to Uniqlo.

Well, duh. I’m obviously gonna go to Uniqlo.

9:19am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z1HwDvMWQuuw
Filed under: uniqlo china 
May 23, 2012
So.

Tomorrow, I leave for a month-ish-long trip to China with my parents. I haven’t visited in three years, so I’m actually pretty excited to see relatives (and shop…yeah, definitely excited to do this).

However, like I said, I’ll be going with my parents. This kind of situation equates a dissent into insanity, so this will definitely an interesting experience. I hope this piques your interest enough to keep track of this blog - I can only hope that I’ll be able to access Tumblr in China. If not, then enjoy this shitty introductory post!

BUT, if I do have access, expect blog posts and pictures of things that I found amusing and titillating (see, this blog is both entertaining and vocabulary-expanding!). This is going to be an interesting vacation, but I’m glad to document it.

ETA:
JESSICA CHU, EXPECT LOTS OF FOOD PORN. MY WAISTLINE WILL NOT FORGIVE YOU. 

12:22pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Z1HwDvL_G6BW
  
Filed under: vacation china