This Just In: Bungee Jumping Pictures From China

the best/worst way to die

ps- here is my article about china, published on autotraddle.com

Hui Jia - Return Home

Well, I'm back from Beijing and finally have access to my own blog. Being home is entirely weird and also entirely natural. Habits are hard to break.

Since I haven't done a music Monday in about 2 months, here are a bunch of songs I've been listening to while in China. I may or may not ever get around to writing a big post about my feelings, but I'll definitely post some pictures when I get them developed. In about 4 days I'm off to Cincinnati to visit Laura (who has been posting stuff for me) and then I need to go back to wooorrrkkk.

So, both Bon Iver and Death Cab for Cutie have recently released new albums and I love them both intensely.

Here are my favourites from each album (wow, so glad I can use youtube again!):

Bon Iver - Beth/Rest

Death Cab for Cutie - Stay Young, Go Dancing

Some other stuff:

The Velvet Underground - Sunday Morning

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - They All Laughed

Also I saw Fatboy Slim DJ at the Great Wall of China and it was pretty much one of the sickest parties I've ever been to.

abre los ojos/i saw a shooting star in inner mongolia

in the back of a taxi,
my head out the window,
rain on my tongue,
eyes open enough to see gray concrete buildings
and the left side of beijing blurring by.

from above i was staring at the ground,
by the rosebush crying, with bruises on my chin.
just a tree and a concrete wall,
freshly rained upon dirt,
black dirt and choking up my insides.

lying on my right side,
blinking slowly at two seats in front of me,
dirty beige, ripped, and bumping drunk
in the back of a bus somewhere.

“i love you” slides off my tongue
dripping with heavy,
the lingering taste of alcohol,
my stomach empty and filled with sad,
and, i loved you suddenly after i said it.

from the earth i was staring at the sky,
a sudden sobriety, eyes open to
une année sans lumière, pitch black earth,
and blinded, i had been blindsided. then
lying on my back, in inner mongolia
i saw a shooting star.

all walls are great if they don't fall

sometimes i still think about the emptiness in my stomach, leaving my stomach in the air and my breath hovering around my ears, sucking in the world through my mouth. it passes right through me.

bungee jumping is like this:
a heaviness around your ankles
falling into absolute nothingness
and by contrast falling into everything.

the stars above the great wall of china are like this:
explosions in the sky
falling into absolute nothingness
and by contrast falling into everything.

the great wall of china at night; looming towers above us and spotlights on the mountain.
i am on a ledge and i can see everything and i can see nobody until we are all under a blanket shivering with the stars.

i am happy.

there are things i want, people i miss, an emptiness in my heart
but also a duty, also a feeling of fullness
all so full in my heart.

i will stand on this ledge and see the world displayed on the great wall of china.
the great wall of china, tumbling into nothingness, falling into everything.

nostalgia forever bike

Hello, this is Laura. Emily's in China and can't get to Blogger because of the Great Firewall, so I'll be posting blogs she sends me from now until she gets back. xo

++

dear friends,

beijing is strange/amazing. parts of it are super modern and fancy, and other parts of it are just...exactly what you might picture when you think of china. there are these small streets where people share the road with bikes, scooters, cars, rickshaws, food stands, and restaurants. there are no stop signs or street lights or lines dividing the road in half. cars will honk but they won't slow down and my number one fear is getting my toes run over. but the street food is so good. they have these long grills where they grill meat on a stick and it only costs 2Y (about $0.25). yesterday i bought one and it was so spicy but so delicious.

on sunday we went to the silk market. it was like canal street in new york city times 1000, but in a mall. there were different floors for all kinds of fake things. one floor was devoted entirely to shoes and bags, and every stall had the exact same shoes. every time you walk past a stall the vendors try and get you to buy things in broken english. i think there were more white people than chinese people there. on our way back to the subway (which costs 2Y one way, btw), i passed someone selling photographs on the stairs. there was a sign that explained how the pictures captured all of beijing, including "nostalgic Forever bikes". languages are weird/beautiful.

mandarin is hard to learn but fun. i had my first class this morning and all we did was learn the basic phonetics. there are so many, and half of them aren't pronounced the way they're spelled. there are even some sounds that sound like french words, which makes it easier. there are also 4 different tones in mandarin. so the word "ma" can mean 4 different things depending on how you pronounce it, which means that half the time i'll probably be saying completely random things.

i'm taking a lot of pictures and walking a lot. my feet hurt and i'm still jet lagged, but everything is so incredible that i don't mind. i woke up at 530am this morning which is kind of a nice habit to have, but by 5pm i'm exhausted again.

tonight i walked in a big circle twice looking for the street with all the food and eventually gave up and had some disgusting flavoured milk for dinner. too tired to even make an effort to eat.

nostalgia Forever bike,
emily

So I'm Going to China This Summer

I might have told you already, but I guess it's time for me to "officially" announce that I'm going to China this summer!

This is what's going down:

It's an 8 week program with Concordia, kind of like an exchange except I don't think anyone is coming to Montreal. I'll be getting 12 credits, taking a 9-credit Mandarin course and a culture course. I'll be staying at the Communications University of China in Beijing with a bunch of other Concordia students and also other students from who knows where. The dates of my trip are May 20-July 16 so mark that on your calendars.

I don't speak any Chinese and I've never been to China so this is really exciting and I'm 95% sure I will start speaking to people in French when they don't understand me in English.

Because I'm going to China for 2 months, I'm also moving out of my apartment on May 1. I feel sad about this because I've really enjoyed living in my little room and living close to downtown. I'm happy to be closer to work for the next ~3 weeks until I leave, but doing anything besides work is going to suck because it'll take me an hour to actually get anywhere.

When I get back I'll probably live with my parents for the rest of the summer, or I might get an apartment for August. I'll probably be looking on craigslist again because I don't want to sign a lease, but if you know anyone who needs a roommate for the fall (in the Plateau area) let me know!

That's basically my life right now, besides working a lot because going to China is expensive and I have a lot of summer shopping to do.