06-18-13 | Of Calligraphy, Cats, and Corpses

Apparently this broadband internet thing doesn't allow more than one computer to make a connection...Well, it's less than three days until PIB starts, so I had better start uploading pictures. Also I've never seen a keyboard with such a small return key. Anyway here's what happened yesterday.

---

Walking to the barber on Shandong University's campus. Pollution is down after the rain.

I woke up to the blare of ringing phones and Skype video calls. After eating a bowl of soupy yogurt (酸奶 suan1 nai3, literally “sour milk”), I got a much-needed haircut at a local place. I was amazed at the service given it only cost 10yuan. “That’s actually quite expensive,” said my grandfather afterward. “The really famous places can charge over 20yuan ($4), though.” Services are cheap here, though the food is pricier (relatively*) and sketchier. Brand name clothes are also (somehow) more expensive here than in America. (A pair of Vans was going for about 500yuan at the nearby mall)

After lunch (food pics eventually) I began the eponymous events of the title, in reverse order. Fair warning about the next paragraph.

This Shandong University has a sizable collection of human anatomical samples (biao1 ben3 标本). My grandpa had set up a visit for early afternoon, but when we got there, our intended guide was busy. So we were left to wander the many cases of formaldehyde ourselves. I’ve seen cadavers before at the U. Maryland medical school and at the NIH, (though I’ve never been to the bodies exhibit in New York), but I still found this particular set of samples a tad chilling…perhaps because of the smell, the scarcely labeled scarcely identifiable specimens, or the cases only half-filled with preservative fluid.Some were donations, others, former criminals. One wonders about the rest: the slides, the skeletons, and bodies small enough to fit into jars.(for the really non-squeamish, here are some photos of a head in a jar, a skeleton, some slices of brain tissue, and some abdominal cavities)

The Scottish dude who founded the medical school

We left and wandered around campus. Shandong University was apparently founded by European missionaries. Go figure.

We stopped at one of the more historic teaching buildings. Some recent grads were taking pictures out in front.

The cats are more straightforward. There are a lot of stray cats in China, especially where my grandparents live. So it makes for a good number of sightings. I saw a few orange cats the last time I visited (and coincidentally wrote them into my college essay…), but the two cats I saw today looked pretty old, and one had a droopy eye. 

One cat

Two Cats

It didn’t really seem to give a care about me sticking my iPhone camera up to its face, though.

The calligraphy is pretty straightforward as well. I basically copied random words out of a book using brushes, ink, and paper my grandfather had lying around. The rice paper is first folded several times to create a grid of creases. The words are painted with mo4 (墨) in the grid, traditionally from right to left, top to bottom. Here’s what I came up with:

What are words

Also:

Just kidding my grandpa drew these

I also bought this thing that you can paint on with water. Once the water dries you can reuse it. It’s like one of these. Except magnificently overpriced. Watch me use it to study for my first test … Oh, and tomorrow I suppose I’ll be giving that PowerPoint presentation. Well, 先到这儿吧。

Cheers,

孔令鑫