06-17-13 | Qufu and Jinan - Visiting Family

Wow so it's 11:30PM, and I've finally gotten the internet to work. I'm using my grandpa's 7-year-old Dell laptop, since I couldn't get a connection on mine (who even still uses DSL anyway??). While I was futzing with it, my grandpa was like "don't students go to you to fix their computers at school?" (#STC)


Had to install the legacy VPN on this thing, since it's so old, but I finally have Blogger and Facebook. The saddest thing is, even though the original keyboard doesn't work and it's running on a 10+ year old OS, this laptop still works better than my Asus (which is duck-taped together and hangs every 10 minutes). Oh well. Hopefully this will bring forth somewhat regular posting from now on. --End computer rant.

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China's fastest trains come in modern packages. There are many types; this one's a "gao tie"

Today my yeye (爷爷, paternal grandfather) dropped me off at the Jinan train station after a day in Qufu, which is my father's hometown and incidentally also the hometown of Confucius (孔子), who is incidentally who I get my last name from.

A pretty standard street-side view

Qufu isn't the most modern of cities (though it contains three Confucius-related tourist sites, which even draw the occasional 老外 (lao wai, foreigner/white dude). My previous visit there wasn't all that comfortable, but this time was completely different, thanks to this past year of Chinese study. Being able to communicate with my grandparents and san gu (3rd aunt) was invaluable. (The Qufu accent is also interesting in that it switches a lot of tones around - mei3guo2 becomes mei4guo2
and so on - but that's beside the point).

Buying sesame seed paste at a small shop. Sanitation seems to be heat and cotton-cloth based.

Talking to my relatives and stumbling on interesting facts (that my cousin works for a video-game company whose game I used to play) as well as more serious things (how my san gu spends every weekend taking care of her parents and in laws) - it made me feel like I was meeting them for the first time.

Side Note: BIRDS

The day I was there, san gu took my dad and I to see Kongmiao (The Temple of Confucius) and Konglin (The cemetary of the aforementioned) - though, like Mozart, Confucius died poor and nobody knows where he's really buried. That and the fact that he was really ugly composed much of what I gleaned from our tour guide's rapid Chinese.(A few pics of these places to follow. So many, the tech problems). In the end, I missed out on the "Kong Family Mansion." (Though if it were me, I'd put the family mansion somewhere more convenient. Probably Short Hills, NJ or something.

A nice traditional meal at the end of the day. Afterward, a nice traditional quiz on the name of each dish

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A Chinese ink painting by 姥爷．It was hanging in my dorm room this year.

In Jinan, I haven't really done anything yet, but my lao ye (老爷，maternal grandfather) has some things planned: looking at some anatomical samples and talking with some seniors from the local Shandong University. Apparently they want me to give a presentation on Yale...so looking at iPhone photos it is. Though I Skype vid-chat them often (Jinan actually has internet hence this post), it was nice to hold a conversation with them in Chinese as well. My grandfather here is a doctor, former chairman of the public health school, and current artist so I'll be looking forward to more of that.

Also, above is a testament to how things haven't changed at all. That Hitmonlee has been there forever. Literally since the dawn of McDonalds happy meal toys.

It's quite later here, I'd rather not wake my hosts, and I don't really know what I'm even writing at this point, so I'll stop here. Hope you enjoyed the photos/words. Questions/comments welcome. Etc etc. 等等。

Cheers,

孔令鑫