Text message breakup

So I decided I was getting sick of living with the family...They treated me like an employee, which I was but they were not friendly or warm at all. I liked the daughter and the dad was ok but the mom was quite unpleasant.

I started to realize that I wasn't very comfortable living there. For example, not only was I using a hand towel as a bath towel, they stopped feeding me. They would make the normal amount of food that they used to make but would only offer me two of the four dishes. And when I would go in the fridge, the mom would firmly say, "你干什么？“ ("ni gan shenme?", a rude way of saying "what are you doing"). I was getting hungry and frustrated.

So I called my friend on Friday to ask him if I could sleep on his couch for the next couple weeks. I thought I would gently break the news to Melody, the girl I was teaching the next day. I texted her to see when she had time to meet and she informed me that she was not accepted into the school in the UK and was therefore not moving. Then she said:

"i am sorry that my parents let me tell you you cannot live here cause i wont go to uk this year."

TEXT MESSAGE BREAK UP! And she beat me to it! I was going to break up with her, not the other way around! Anyway, I got out of there fast.

It wasn't all that bad. I learned a lot about Shanghainese culture, ate a lot of really good Shanghainese food and saved quite a bit of money in rent! And I will start traveling in less than three weeks! Can't wait!

Rocking out in Zhenjiang: The Festival

The festival was amazing! It was a rock festival but there was an eclectic mix of rock, folk, heavy metal, funk, electronica and a wide array of Chinese and western bands (three being from Canada). There were two stages - the main stage had all the live music while the side stage had a dj with electronica music. I spent minimal time listening to the DJs as I spend most of my weekends listening to them. I instead wanted to be engaged in the live music scene in China.

There were food stands set up in the festival, just like at any festival in Canada. Although I wasn't a huge fan as the food was just a bunch of 小吃（'xiao chi', or small eats). 小吃 also mainly consisted of 羊肉串 （'yang rou chuan' or lamb on a stick). Not the biggest fan...Luckily street food vendors took advantage of the festival and set up right outside of the entrance. Street food, soo good...

Anyway, onto the music. I'm not much of a metal head but it was fun partying with a bunch of metal heads...I crowd surfed for the first time and was thrown into the mosh pit a couple of times. I have never been felt up so many times in my life! These little Chinese boys who are usually so polite were just grabbing everyone and everything. I got out of there fast...

There was one really good Canadian band, which I missed! I was out getting food and could hear them from a distance. They are called So Called and supposedly they will be playing at folk fest!

The Chinese bands were awesome. There was a pretty cool "folk rocker" group called Cold Fairyland with a woman singer who played this Chinese type violin (don't know what its called).
















I think my favourite act though was the Subs which had this amazing female lead who was just giving her all! it was cool seeing such a powerful Chinese woman on stage. I went to see her again in Shanghai after and she was just as amazing. She had a great style, an interesting voice and a lot of power.

The last act was amazing too. Everyone was looking forward to 痛仰. It was one of those bands that every country has; a sort of alternative sound that young people are familiar with. I think of them as the Counting Crows of China. It was cool to be in the middle of a Chinese crowd that was singing their hearts out.

Overall it was a random and great experience. I am finally at the level with my Chinese where I can have a fairly deep conversation and understand fairly well what's going on. I am also finally getting comfortable living here and exploring new and different circles. This experience was definitely new and different and I was able to (and forced to) use my Chinese. There is so much more for me to see and do here but I am leaving in less than two months! Hopefully I can experience more things like this and soak up as much as possible before I leave!

peace out!

Rocking out in Zhenjiang: The Campground

I never would have thought I would attend a three day rock music festival in a random Chinese city. Bit I did. And it was Amazing.

I found out about the festival from a friend who lives in Hangzhou. I love music festivals and I love camping so I called my friend Geoff and two days later, we pulled up in the Zhenjiang train station. Walking into the music festival was a surreal experience. I was all of a sudden welcomed into a China I had never met; a subculture of weed smoking, tattoo wearing, rebellious Chinese rockers. The whole experience of a music festival was so familiar but so different than anything I would experience in Canada. Let's start with the campground.


We arrived at the campsite and because it had rained the entire night before, it was covered in mud. Security guards lined up at the entrance helping people along the way so they wouldn't slip. On top of that, just like any Chinese public space, there was garbage everywhere! In the city I don't mind it. There is just a different philosophy here than there is in the west. Drop your shit on the ground and clean it up later. This philosophy has employed many service people in terms of sweeping up and cleaning up the streets. But it
was so hard to see a campsite like that! The trough was covered in shit.

Then there was the construction. If you wonder why buildings get built so quickly in China, its because these people work non stop. I fall asleep to construction and wake up to it. But I never imagined I would hear it while camping! At 6:30 on Sunday morning I was woken up by construction that sounded like it was coming from right beside our tent...That's because it was. The development in China is crazy. Everywhere you turn there are old buildings coming down and new buildings coming up. (I will definitely write more about this in upcoming entries).

Anyway, I will always be amazed by the blatant contrasts in China. While we were partying and listening to music and hanging out by the tents, workers were watching us trying to figure out what the hell we were doing sleeping in this landfill next to their construction site. A lot of the workers snuck into the festival the last night and danced the night away.




























While the campsite was a new and different experience, there were some familiarities. Mainly, the fact that we were camping next to two Winnipegers! What! Ya, they're going to folk fest this summer! It was interesting meeting these people because although we lived basically down the street from each other and all live in China, we had and have such different lives, perspectives and stories about Canada. These people were obsessed with Canada. They carried this huge Canadian flag with them wherever they went and this guy had a tattoo of 加拿大 ('jianada' or Canada) on his leg. Not that I don't love Canada but I just dont really think about it that much. When I asked a Torontonian from their crew why he loved Canada so much, he provided me with the only plausible answer. He had been in the army. The patriotism was insane.















Winnipeg, Manitoba represent!

We camped next to some really cool Chinese guys from Anhui. Two of the guys are doing a bike trip from Sichuan province to Tibet this summer. They added a level of comfort and familiarity when they started singing 'Vincent' on their guitar. This turned into a singalong of a bunch of pretty famous western songs. It was lovely to reminisce and to share an interest in music with these Chinese guys. I usually have very different music tastes from my Chinese friends. After all the reminiscing, they sang us Chinese folk songs as we fell asleep. It was beautiful.















三， 土 and 吴 something something (San, Tu and Wu Something Something)















Geoff and I and our lovely tent!