"Play with the Border" Road Trip to Police Station?!

The first road trip in America ended up super surprising. For the first time, I was caught by the police and went into the border police station!!!

Now, I have three life time friends!

Tiezheng Zhu was my high school classmate, who attends Purdue U. Since I came to America, we planed to do some trip together.

Finally, the "play with border" road trip gang has two guys and two girls. Though it was the first time I met the other girl and guy, we'll never forget each other now.

We picked the Niagara Falls as our destination. But the road trip was not smooth at the very beginning.

My roomie' school mom gave me a ride to the airport. After I successfully arrived in Chicago and waited my friends for 4 hours, they finally made it to the airport.

CHICAGO!!!

BUT. After we look to each other for a half hour, Xueying Wang, the other girl said over the phone: " I feel we are not in the same place!"Then we found out we were at different airports. They were at O'hare while I was at Midway.

Because the heavy traffic, I took the train to Chinatown and they drove to there as well. It began to snow. I walked around for more than one hour in the Chinatown at the snowing night, looking at the people sitting in the restaurants.

Had an awesome REAL Chinese food, we left modern Chicago, heading to Niagara Falls!!!

12 hours later, 3 a.m., snowing Niagara Falls city, here we are!

It was the thanksgiving day! So obviously, no restaurants!

Wandering in the small city with snow, life became peaceful.

Just SNOW everywhere!!!

The pigeons were super lazy.. I had to get off the car to drive them away...

The way I walked..

The other side is Canada!

Walking on the thick ice with rains... It actually colder than it looks!

Beautiful Iced Chairs!

Lovely Snowy Car!

We left in the second day morning.

I admit that the Google Maps is handy at the most times. But not this time.

We chose a way without going to Canada but somehow it led us across the border. 

We paid $3.5 and then, we were on the Rainbow Bridge. (US citizens don't need Visa to enter Canada)

Until then, we realized we were on the wrong way. The google maps showed us across the border!

There's an arrow sign before we got to the Canada tolls. So we followed the sign and took photos of the Niagara Falls on the Canadian side.

Out of America!

I thought it was a toll station...

"Yeah! We traveled to another country!" We were super excited and waited in the line to go back to America until we realized the line was not a toll station.

The police were checking the Visas and Passports...

Obviously, we had no visa to travel in Canada.

The police asked us for the passport and I-20. (Zhu and Wang happen to have the papers with them)

We were asked to park the car and went into the police station.

Sitting together, we signed, laughed, talked about the future and guessed what would happen.

"Will we be deported back to China?"

"What if we can never come back to America?"

"It's not a big deal, don't worry!"

"I wanna finish the study and become a journalist!!!"

"Maybe we have to pay a large amount of money."

"We should write the experience down! We can tell our kids this magic trip!"

We were asked to stay in the building!

I imagined thousands of results in the half hour. Almost crying..

It turned out we were free easily!

A staff called us and asked us what happened. We told everything. The staff checked our visas.

He could not help but laughed after knowing what happened to us.

5 mins later, we were signed to leave.

I never thought I would have this special experience.

The half hour was like ages. It was long enough to make us life time friends.

Walking outside the police station, I breathed the air of freedom again!

The first road trip in America, travelled one thousand miles to the Niagara Falls, enjoyed the snow and the amazing Falls, caught by the police for the first time ever.

Super happy to see this toll bridge when we drove back to Chicago!

The Big Bean!

Walking in the super cold and windy Chicago!

Where is your BLOOD comes from?

Scene #1/ Sep.10, 2013 / OU Cousins Matching Party
Almost one month after I came to America.
I met a girl there. I am so sure she is a Chinese, at least an Asian.
We start to talk. 
I was surprised, because of her English.
She was adopted from China when she was a little kid. 
"I cannot remember anything about China," she said.

Scene #2 / Sep. 19, 2013 / My OU cousin's car
We matched at the matching party. 
She told me she was a Germany American. Some of her uncles are still in Germany.
Some of her relatives are from other countries in Europe.

Scene #3 / Oct. 2013 / Tarah & Brittany's place
I still remember it's my first time to go their place. A lovely home!
They showed me the YouTube clip What kind of Asian are you? 

To be honest, I didn't really get the video at the first time. (Maybe because of the  exaggerated British accent.LOL)
Found this comment.. Hahahahahahahaha

But after this video, I began to realize that the people in this country are not as I thought...


Scene #4 / Oct. 2013 / Huff Gym, outside the racketball room
I take the racketball class this semester.(Super love it!!!)
Somehow, two other students and me becomes parter every class.
One of them is a guy. He seldom smiles (getting better now!) and looks like an Asian.
I was thinking he was from Korea or Japan or Vietnam every class.
Finally, I asked after one class.
"Hey, where are you from or where your parents from?" 
"My parents are from Vietnam," he answered.
Maybe because I've been to Vietnam before, I was excited and wanted to which city.
"Hey, which city are your born? Saigon?" I asked.
"I was born here. I'm an American," he answered.
I wish I could disappear at that moment after his answer.

Scene #5 / Nov. 8 2013 / New York Pizza 
After Gary's great talent show, all Gary's fans went to New York Pizza for dinner together.
(I'll just use letters instead of names)
Because girl A said something like I wanna learn more native American things so we began to talk about the native American.
Girl T told us a part of her blood is native American.
Girl B said "Well, maybe just your left hand is native American."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. 
Then somehow, my brain stopped working. 
I asked Girl B "Where is your blood comes from?"

Scene #6 / Nov. 8 2013 / Maria's place
I talked about the funny native American thing with Maria's roommate.
She said she was asked  "What are you?" after she said her parents or grandparents(I'm not sure..) are from India.  
Maria asked me "where are you from?" 
Hmmmm.. I think I'm just Chinese, or more specifically, my blood is from Wenzhou City.
And she asked Maggie, a girl from Hong Kong. 
It's a more complicated question. 
Since Hong Kong has been under China since 1997, only 16 years after 156 years under British rule, few Hong Kong people would say they are from China.


---------------
I come from a small city in Wenzhou, where the families' per capita incomes are relatively high but still conservative, especially when involves marriage.
"First criterion, he should be a Wenzhounese," my mom said to me when she thought I was old enough to have a boyfriend.

It takes two and a half hours to fly from my hometown to Xi'an, where my university locates.
I was shocked when my roommate told me her grandmother is from Sichuan, a province in middle part of China.
Another girl's father is from Shandong, a city in east part in China, while her mom is from a city near to Xi'an.
(The reasons that their grandparents and parents can meet each other are all history reasons.)

In China, the controversial household registration system causes many conflicts.
For example, students cannot attend the college entrance examination in other cities except where their household registered.
Also, it is super attractive if the company can help you move your registered permanent registration.
So everyone has a permanent tag. Beijinger, Shanghainese, Xi'anese....


--------------
We always say America is a melting pot. 
And now, people begin to try to show their distinctions.

Forgive me, I'm still the "frog in a well," still feel it is wonderful to find out people from different continents can live together so well.


------------
Ok, last question. Where is your blood comes from? 

What do you do with the Internet in China?

What do you do with the Internet in China?
An exchange student from Spain asked me when he got to know that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were blocked and even Google cannot work well in China.


The Great Firewall of China
Our ancient built the Great Wall to defense other nations' offense and made it a wonder of the world.
During the last ten years, the high-tech government has been building an invisible great wall to prevent his people to be "eroded" by the whole world.

The huge amount of people is isolated from the whole world.

Back in China, I tried a lot of ways to "climb over" the wall.
Thanks to the smart high-tech geniuses, it's not that difficult to jump out and explore the world outside of China.

Usually, I used a VPN to fake my IP address. But as you can imagine, it worked not very well. I was kicked-off by the world sometimes.
And you have to pay if you want more stable Internet.

The Great Firewall is really powerful and loyal.
The New York Times was blocked in China after a long story about our premier Wen Jiabao's rich family.
And the next day, you cannot find the website anymore.

The story about Wen Jiabao. It's a fun read!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wen-jiabao-holds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html

And yes, even the Blogger is blocked in China.
So my friends cannot read my blog in a normal way.
But the strange thing is there were two hits from China and after half months, they disappeared.

Pictures from Internet

Facebook & Twitter
In the past two months, one of the most frequent questions I was asked was "can you use Facebook in China. When I answered "no," everyone was shocked.

It is most probably because the July 2009 Urumuqi Riots. Urumuqi is the capital city of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The government believed they used Facebook and Twitter to organize the riot and spread the information. After that, you'll find fewer and fewer Chinese on Facebook.

Because there are few friends on Facebook and we have a Chinese version of Facebook, so we basically don't use it.

But when I travelled out of mainland China, I was so excited that I can log into Facebook without a VPN.

But something interesting happened.

When Wen Jiabao, the sixth Premier of China gave a speech last year (I cannot remember the exact time), he mentioned he used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube several times.

The 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games will be held in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. 

The government decided to tear down the Great Firewall for the athletes live in a certain area.

"The young athletes need to contact and share photos with their friends back home."

I have to say sometimes my dear government is very considerate.


What do we do with the Internet
Well, you may find strange that most Chinese post nothing on Facebook (if they have one account).
We do post photos and update the status like most people who have access to the Internet.

I met a girl who was going to do her Masters in history when I travelled in Vietnam.
She said that our government was so great. In order to protect the Chinese companies, they blocked the Facebook and Twitter. So the Chinese companies can earn more money.
I smiled all the way.

The Chinese companies created Weibo, Chinese version of Twitter; Renren, Chinese version of Facebook; Youku, the Chinese version of YouTube; Baidu, Chinese version of Google, etc.
Basically, we have everything in Chinese version, thanks to the Great Firewall.

All the websites are not bad and we had a lot of fun because of them.
But we are isolated from the world.


TV Programs
Most families don't have the foreign TV channels, which means we can only watch the Chinese TV channels.

Share an interesting story.
A visiting professor in my home university last year worked for CNN for 14 years. Though he left CNN, he still has friends there.
When he was in China, he could watch CNN and other American channel in his apartment, which was only for foreigners.
But when there's something negative or just sensitive things about China, the TV went black.
After the news finished, the TV came back again.
So sometimes, he had to ask his friends in CNN what did they talk about China.

Just imagine, there's a poor guy sitting in front of the TV with a button all day and all night.
He has to watch the CNN news carefully. When there's something not suitable to be on a TV in China, he pushed the button to block the news.
Oh, why we have this weird job!


Things are getting better
With the development of Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter since 2009, things are getting better.
More people have a place to speak out. Some government staff and even mayors were dismissed because people reported their misconduct on Weibo.

A high rank government official was sentenced for 14 years because of a photo.

Caida Yang smiled in a car accident spot. Then people found his watch was super expensive.

People found more photos of Yang and found he had a lot of expensive watches.
Finally, he was found guilty of corruption and sentenced 14 years.

This is one of the most famous case happened in recent years in China.

We begin to have voices and more power with the help of internet.
But still, the government, the Communist Party controls a lot.


I was really jealous and ashamed when Burma finally allowed their people to use Facebook and pulled down the censorship.
I really embarrassed and upset when people said "there's no press freedom in China" after they know my major is journalism.

Someday, I wish China, Chinese can really become a part of the Internet World.
The Great Wall is our pride forever, but the Great Firewall, should be torn down ASAP!

Incredible two months at OU

I can not believe in past two months I---

speak and type English all the time;

had cereal&milk&bread for breakfast all the time;

met a lot of new friends from the whole world who are super nice;

tried salty popcorn and homemade caramel popcorn;

have a host family and a cousin and we had great times;

cooked a lot of weird things, some were too weird to share;

work for the OUDaily, talked to a lot of strangers write several stories;

took some photos that made me love myself more;

baked chocolate cupcakes with friends and we succeed at the first time;

talked and changed email with Alexis (who I met on the plane), we had great time and I feel so lucky;

played more ukelele and at least I can play "somewhere over the rainbow";

started to learn Spanish, have so many awesome teachers, still can not pronounce "arroz";

went to some parties and a few bars,experienced different drinking culture;

tried a lot of different food from different countries--tortilla de patatas;비빔밥；American pies；German dessert; FRIED OREO;

made a short video that played in the whole city in China;

rode my bike to school everyday, which is my dream all the time;

had a bike accident and everything was well;

still keep in touch with Mr.蛋, he helped me a LOT;

have this blog and wrote several blogs and almost get 1,000 hits from different countries (Thank you Tinianow!!)(But people can not use this website in China..);

was told I'm the coolest Chinese they've met several times and they are Taiwanese;

got many free T-shirts and wore them often;Take the racquetball class and fall in love with Racketball;

gained weight though went to gym a lot :'(;

went into the stadium and a lot of tailgating, feel proud to be a SOONER;

Went to several different churches, felt be loved;

cried a loud once and felt better after that;

hit by the bird's poop!!!!!!!!!;Every day was a gift for me. 

It is my luck to meet everyone.

Time, please slow down, take your time.

I wanna see more, try more, experience more and love more!

Leo, what are you doing!!!!!!

I'm not a good cook but have fun cooking!

Photography classes

Name on OUDaily

Everyday's beautiful sunset

My dear lovely three Nikon kids!

Do Americans value life more than the Chinese? If So, why?

http://www.quora.com/Chinese-Culture/Do-Americans-value-life-more-than-the-Chinese-If-So-why

Where we live?

I went to a pool party last Sunday night. It was amaaaaaazing.
It was held by Grace Life Church(GIC). A family in GIC provided their house and many other families offered the food and came to help us.

When we entered the community, I was astonished. "Are we going to a park or an arboretum?"
And when we arrived the house, many people welcomed us with sincere smiles.

The house, with a big kitchen, two swimming pools and a hot tub is so beautiful. And it even has an "outdoor stove," which helped a lot.

some crazy guys in the water :) (by Franz)

Super amazing(by Tanxi Bai)

It is so difficult to have a house in China since we have too many people.
My family is lucky to have a house at the cost of living in the countryside. At least we have a place to park our cars.


And most people live in apartments. It can be really expensive for an apartment, especially in Beijing, Shanghai and some other cities. (For example, my hometown.)
It can be more than ten thousand one square meter in some cities of the apartment.
In my small hometown, it started at 5 thousand one square meter.

When I travel in other countries, I can always find many lovely houses.

These are photos I took randomly in Malacaa, Malaysia(the first one) and Chiang Mai, Thailand.

So just judge by the place we live, we cannot enjoy our life very much..



-----
Responsibility

Of course, it is unfair and silly to judge it by houses.

In one of my stories I wrote before, I interviewed an awesome guy from Taiwan. He is a member of The Pride at OU.
One of the quotes I got from him is "I feel I have the responsibility to be perfect."

I didn't feel anything until my professor talked with me about the "responsibility."
He said almost no American kid would have this kind of responsibility. They just want to do what they want.

For me, for example, after I worked in OUDaily, somehow I feel I have the duty to do things better.
I don't want to mess up things because my broken English or any other reasons.
Every time when I feel I didn't do the story well, I feel so sorry.

(Out of track again.. Come back)

Most Chinese will feel the responsibility somehow.
Parents feel they have to raise their children, support them without anything in return.
Students feel they have to study harder, not only because of themselves, but also their parents.
Employees feel they have to work, finish their tasks so many of them often work more than 8 hours.

It may be one of the reasons Chinese cannot enjoy lives better.

      A dog slept on Koh Samet Beech.(Sometimes I wish I could be a dog or cat or pig...Life is eating and sleeping..)


-----
Money.

When I traveled to Bangkok, I slept on a guy's couch for one night. He asked me why the public toilets in China are so awful.
I thought for 5 seconds, answered "it may be because no one get money from the public toilets."
He was surprised and said "Really? Don't tell me money is only what the Chinese want."

Somehow, sadly, to some degree, it is.

Thanks to my parents, I was not really care about money (until I found the tuition fees of the graduate colleges in America.)

My parents run different small factories. They have no weekends, working at least 10 hours though they are "bosses".
I love the spring festival best because my parents can only holidays during spring festival for half month.

But I know I would have to work for money since people will judge you by how much you earn and the prices are abnormal high in many places.


Many people leave their hometowns and families to earn more money in bigger cities.
Especially a group of people called "Nong Min Gong." Every time when I read or watch their stories, I just feel they don't have lives. All they do is try to survive

Here is the link of a TED speech delivered by Leslie T.Chang about the millions of people who migrate to factories in China and other emerging countries to make goods sold all over the world..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc2wVyl8RLI


Here is another link. It is a documentary about a normal family in China. The father went to Japan to study and then stay there illegally to earn money. He never came back home for several years.
I cried the whole 2 hours, running out of my tissues when I first watched it.
But I cannot find one with the English subtitle.

泣きながら生きてhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm1B78afD_o&feature=youtu.be

The parents are so great but also, some people will find it insane.

They sacrificed everything just to support their daughter to study. At last, the daughter went to America and became a doctor, which was a huge comfort for everyone.

But did the whole thing worth it? I just wanna say " Hey man, YOLO!"

-----
Care about others' opinions. (mian zi)

Mian Zi (Face) is an interesting word in China.

• Face is the respectability and/or deference which a person can claim for himself from others, by virtue of the relative position he occupies in his social network and the degree to which he is judged to have functioned adequately in that position as well as acceptably in his general conduct. (Ho 1975:883) (Wikipedia)

This definition is quite close to Mian Zi.

Almost everyone values Mian Zi, which makes life more difficult.

I do believe the luxury goods have their own charm but most people in China buy them just because they are expensive.
Many people buy iPhones because everyone uses it and it is kind of a label of "rich" in China. Since it is more than one month payment for average people.
People will do a lot of "silly" decisions because of Mian Zi.

We value Mian Zi much more than LIFE.




When I made up my mind that I would try my best to be a journalist, I told my mom "never expect me to make lots of money."
I don't want my whole life be obsessed by money, reputation and Mian Zi.
But I'm a CHINESE, so who knows?

This one? I just love this one and wanna share with you!:)