Taste of DOWNTOWN.

Xiamen University is about a 6-minute bus ride away from downtown Xiamen. Downtown Xiamen is one of my favorite places in the city. Here’s a short video of downtown at night using the wonderfully low quality Blogspot video.

Why downtown is great:

1. My favorite Taiwanese food vendor is found in a back alley. A local had to show me.

2. There are tons of people. After studying at a coffee shop downtown named Deep Coffee, I met two Thai sisters who own the place and I’m helping them learn English while they teach me and a friend Chinese. (They deserve a separate blog post which is soon to come)

3. Shops are everywhere. From super high end with Mustangs inside to the hole-in-the-wall restaurant or knock-off brand clothing lines.

4. Downtown at night is BRIGHT.

5. Exploring random streets makes me feel adventurous.

6. Xidi Coffee Street – high-class/socialite Chinese! (It also deserves a separate blog post)

The ease of getting to and from downtown makes the experience all the more satisfying. To get around town (and even to class sometimes), I bought a Xiamen bus card.

This baby is the traveler’s bread & butter. And that super awesome salmon-colored 100 yuan bill?! Not worth much actually.

So yeah, a quick scan is all it takes because it functions as a debit card. It’s cheaper for bus cardholders (0.80 yuan instead of 1.00 yuan)! The amount I use the thing, though, I’ll have to add some money soon for sure.

I’ve learned to read some of the bus destinations on the front of the buses so as to make sure I’m going to the right place. I look for Xiada, the shorthand for Xiamen University, and specifically the Chinese character for "da" because it looks like a man stretching his arms out. It has a falling tone and means "big". In this case, "da" is short for "daxue", or "big study", or "university". Yep, something just clicked, eh. Chinese is beautifully practical.

PUBLIC TRANSITTING LIKE A BEAST IN CHINA,

Kev

Zhōngshān (JOE-NG-SHAWN) Park (PARK)

A quick video of Zhōngshān Park:

One Saturday, I encountered an elderly man. I never caught his name. I never saw him again. But, he gave me the true welcome to China that I think I’d needed.

I went to go see a concert at the park downtown. A stage and plastic chairs were all set up in a small plaza. I found a single empty seat on the left side of the audience, right next to a small, old man with beady and aged eyes. He was wearing traditional Chinese garb, and when I sat down, he had to double take. Upon seeing me, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette for him, but also for me. He offered it and I beamed, but I rejected it with a “xiè xiè”, or “thank you.” He wasn’t offended; more for him I suppose. He then began trying to converse with me in his broken English. He attempted telling me about the music, and how it was a traditional Chinese song. We sat there, enjoying the strums of an ancient instrument. I left with a thankful “zài jiàn”, or “see you at another time.”

Being white and blue-eyed, I’m always just a foreigner. I’m tragically conspicuous. Today I wore my hood up, not just because of window-rattling wind speeds, but it made me feel less… Lithuanian. The idea of never being able to truly fit in, even after someone has had decades of language and culture studies, is disheartening.

My attempted glass-half-full mindset certainly doesn’t ignore benefits, however. The “you’re one of us” welcome was actually due to the fact I was a foreigner when I sat next to him. Strange that the feelings of acceptance were a result of what I try to hide from.

- Kev

I can see Taiwan from here.

I live by a beach. Although it’s been rather cool every day, people still love the beach, and so do I.

On the way to the beach, there are random vendors selling fresh food, coconuts, Xiamen maps for Chinese tourists, and sugary-fruit kebabs (I om-nomed a seed and hurt myself but I made sure no one could tell so as not to lose face). They also sell hats with wings on them, and when I asked my Chinese friend, Shelly, about the significance of them, she said, “Can’t you tell they’re just cool?!” I’ll probably end up buying one.

Once at the beach, plastic shovels are sold for the young families that bring their children to the beach to play. Single bikes with one to four seats are available for rent, which I have to dodge while I make my way to the bus to head around town.

The people at the end of this video may have been warning me they were BOOKIN' IT BEHIND ME.

On a side note, I had this for lunch today:

- Kev