Oh China.

China China China.

Yesterday, we visited a "fishing village" that was supposed to illustrate the differences between the developed and developing areas of China. Little did we know that the directors of our Flagship Chinese program were actually brainwashing us with their Chinese propaganda. Thursday (see previous post), we went to a REAL Chinese fishing village. Yesterday, however, we went to a developed tourist city/tourist trap that they called a fishing village. We stayed in a hotel, ate a nice restaurant (that served awful food), and went on a boat tour of Rongcheng City, which happens to be one of the most polluted stretches of ocean on the Chinese coast.


The first night (Thursday), we had a "party" where we danced around a bonfire, sang karaoke and played some games. It was pretty fun.


The next morning, we ate a less-than-delicious (read: awful) breakfast that consisted of flavorless bread, white rice and flower roots (among other non-breakfast foods). Later, we took a boat tour around the city.




On the boat tour, we got the chance to pull mussels off of the anchor rope, which we ate. I ate two, just to be polite. I'm scared to death that I'm going to die of mercury poison now (Interesting sidenote: "mercury" in Chinese is 水银 or water silver).



The mussels weren't too bad, but like I said earlier, this is one of the most seriously polluted stretches of beach in China (and likewise, the world). The upside: they were the freshest seafood you can get.



Speaking of pollution, it was horrible. There were plastic bags and other debris floating around everywhere in the ocean, and most of the water was covered with a thin film of gasoline. There are some serious environmental issues that China needs to take care of, and their oceans should be one of the first priorities.


After the boat tour, we were bureaucratically forced to go to this smelly meat market and ask Chinese people how difficult their lives are. As if that wasn't awkward enough, we also had to walk around for an hour - we could easily have been the only foreigners most of these people had ever seen. It was gross, and I didn't take any pictures because I was nauseous the whole time, but imagine fish guts and pork tongues every way you turned.

When we got back today, we celebrated our classmate Richard's 22nd birthday. We went to a pretty good Japanese restaurant and then, of course, to our favorite late night spot Le Bang. It's been a good day, overall.

Tomorrow, we are celebrating the end of the program by taking our roommates out to dinner and then to karaoke. It should be a fun night!

Until then,

Matthew