Blog #9: The Equestrian Club Makes Me Want to be Rich

Wednesday, May 20th 

Michelle, our Beijing tour guide, explained a little bit about living in Beijing. Apparently, most average apartments are $7000/sq meter...This sounds unbelievably high to me, but China overall sounds expensive to live, especially in Hong Kong in Beijing...

Everyone also carries multiple cards of identification. They have their ID card and family card, which shows where you and your family are from(i.e. if you're a native Beijinger). Plus, their driver's licences. I can't understand why anyone would want to drive a personal car in China.

We had one our best lunches today! Everyone seemed very happy with it. 
Toffee apples were perfection; this was definitely my favorite Chinese food. Cooked pork fat, which no one else seemed to like, but myself. The sweet and sour pork was one of the best we had our trip(plus, no bones) and peppered beef was to die for! 

The Equestrian Club--the moment that Jordan and I had been waiting for. What lay in store for us had my jaw dropping. Here were some of the stats for being a member of the Equestrian Club we toured: 
-$15,000 initiation fee
-$500 every year for continued membership
-$20,000 to board a horse. I'm hoping this was for a year and not a month. 
-There were 500 members, but only 60 of them owned horses. 

-139 horses resides on the premises 
-The Club transports all its hay from Northern China. Nothing is internationally imported. 

To make the point clear, this was top-notch, high level, and for China's elite. People who had money to burn. Horses aren't just hay burners, you know. They burn your wallet pretty fast too--especially in China. 

The breeds that resided in the barns were American quarter horse, warm bloods, and we spotted an Andalusian. 
There are shows and competitions that many of the boarders and members partake in. Its  called the China Equestrian Tour. They compete from April to November. 

European and American trainers are invited to train and teach. 

The club we visited was famous mostly because actors/celebrities came there. Overall, it was a beautiful facility with three indoor arenas, an outdoor arena, two-story lounge, a wine and cigar cellar(what the heck is that anyway?), professional buildings and lawn work(presentation matters), and best of all--beautiful horses. 

We attended a meeting with DuPont/Pioneer, where the speaker happened to have lived in Nebraska for a short time and made a joke about Nebraska roads that I openly laughed along with. I get you, man. 

One of the things he said was that the government likes to keep the farmers happy. The reason? Because most of the revolutions that overthrew Chinese governments were started by farmers. 

The tea house was very educational and entertaining. We sampled a wide variety of teas from a basic black tea to a fruit tea that was made with dried fruit. They all were delicious and had their own distinct flavor and use for something in the human body. 

Our group was welcomed to MAFIC(Ministry of Agriculture Feed Industry Center) in the warmest ways possible. We each were paired with one of the students; my partner's name was Emily. She was almost 30 years old and working on her PHD in swine nutrition. 

I learned about Chinese modern culture, what they thought of us and our culture, and it was all very eye-opening. My entire trip I had been looking for the actor/singer Han Geng(because he is life) and I found out the reason he was no where to be found was because he wasn't the most popular. And the reason for him not being the most popular was because he "wasn't that handsome", according to Emily. 

I beg to differ...

I just loved the experience at MAFIC. It was great to get to know the students and bond in only a few short hours. Katrina(a former SDSU student) is currently teaching English there and we discussed that as a career choice for myself. Its a possibility...She was just starting there and didn't have a whole lot to share with me yet. I might have to find a way to contact her in the future. 

Blog #8: Train to Beijing

Tuesday, May 19th 

(This is being posted almost a month later because I got busy and now am posting these myself. Sorry about the long wait.)

Xi'an's meat market was the place I drew the line.

I had been open to China and its culture and enjoyed it all. I had come to understand their lesser sanitation than us. I could not look at the meat market in a positive light. There was trash everywhere on the ground, piled high in some spots. Meat lay out in the open air, carcasses hung from hooks. Scales, meat cleavers, cutting boards--they all were caked with drying blood from the previous uses. However much meat you wanted was hacked off from an uncleaned cleaver on an uncleaned cutting board, slapped onto an uncleaned scale and then you take it home and cook it. And cook it good. 

Most of it was open-air, meat being sold by the street. However, there was a building. A building that displayed the internal organs and things I would choose to never eat: tongues, stomachs, hearts, heads, other things I wished to not identify. We also found a Styrofoam container of skinned rabbits.

A lot of people in the group complained about it and seemed shocked. I wasn't, in most ways. We had been prepared for this. No, I didn't like it, but I still handled it with an outlook of learning something and trying to see it from the Chinese's eyes. 

The train we take to Beijing is a mass of chaos in the beginning because we have to pack our luggage on the car with us and other people are trying to get seated and telling us we're in wrong seats. 

Some people in our group were eager to take the "sit where you want" advice from faculty when someone not in our group had the seat they took. Huh. 

However, finally we get going. The train was supposed to reach a max speed of 325 kph(201 mph) though I don't know if we ever got to that point. The ride was smooth; I didn't get motion sickness thanks to the patches. The scenery--beautiful. I did not know China had so much mountainous terrain and greenery. Some parts looked like the Midwest to me, a little piece of home. 

We entertained ourselves with Uno and eventually crossed over a riveting game of Hangman. That was one of the moments I actually interacted with members of the group and hung out. It was actually quite enjoyable and we got laughs out of it. 

--What you are about read is a segment from my handwritten journal shortly after I had a mental breakdown. What had been a decent day turned for the worst when I attempted to be social. This is something that has never worked for me; forgive the major pity-party I throw here.--

Today, I hit the travelers low. I should be used to not fitting in, but when you're promised you're going to become like a family and you witness that from the outside...it can kinda hurt. Bawled my eyes out for about half an hour, threw a pity party and wondered why I'm so different. Finally assured myself that in the end, I needed to achieve my goal of being successful, not popular. You can't wish for something that's not meant to be--fitting in. Decided to quit openly interacting with others; it gets me no where and they all find me annoying and strange. It's better to just stay to myself the rest of the trip. 

--I did take this advice for the most part. Still didn't feel like "a family" to me, but I did make some--what I hope I can say--"friends".