Date: Summer 2004 (duh!)
Pictures: 1569
A gallery of pictures I took between June and August 2004 on several different short journeys in China. I began with a boat ride from Incheon, Korea (after attending my Korean friend's wedding in Seoul) to Qingdao to visit another Korean friend working there. From Qingdao I took a bus south to Suzhou, where my Japanese friend was working. From there I hopped on a 40-something-hour train to Chengdu, Sichuan, where I was to begin a homestay while studying Chinese at Sichuan University. Using Chengdu as a base during the summer, I took one trip to Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan province in July, and then in August I begin a longer trip that took me to a Tibetan horse race in western Sichuan, the famed Grotto caves and massive sand dunes of Dunhuang in Gansu province, and the vast and beautiful Xinjiang, China's massive far western province that borders central Asia and is home to the Central Asian Uighur ethnicity. I designed this gallery myself, and despite having many more lovely pictures that I took later that year throughout Sichuan and in many other places more recently, this is the only proper gallery of my pictures I've ever taken the time to design and put up online.

Date: November 6-13, 2006
Pictures: 211
Production stills from the independent short film 'Bingren' (The Patient) which I acted in as Dr. Zhang. Yes, I'm very well aware that Dr. Zhang is a Chinese doctor's name, but this film is set in the future, and I guess in the future there are honkies like me with Chinese names. But anyway, the film is about a blind patient with a malignant tumor that is causing him to gradually lose his other senses. It is set in the year 2038 in a hospital full of patients with strange tumors. I won't tell you any more than that. Oh yeah, I guess I'm allowed to tell you it's a porno. But that's all I can tell you for now. Our producer Ron Jeremy would be upset if I told you any more than that. Ok, it's not really a porno. But I do get naked in the film!

Date: October 2-6, 2006
Pictures: 336
During the Chinese National Holiday, my American friends Crystal, Robin, Katie, and our Tibetan friend Zhaxi (and me!) braved the holiday crowds and headed to the Mongolian grasslands of Inner Mongolia, which is actually a Chinese province that stretches halfway across northern China and borders eight other provinces, as well as 'Outer Mongolia'. There is a large Mongolian population in Inner Mongolia, though they are now largely outnumbered by Han Chinese. Inner Mongolia is famous for its grasslands, which are the same as those found in Mongolia, and were the main reason we braved the nonexistent crowds (the Chinese were much smarter than us and realized it would already be ridiculously cold at night out on the grasslands, especially sleeping in Mongolian yurts that are standard lodging out there). We visited the provincial capital of Hohhot before venturing out to our first grassland area, where we spent a VERY cold night. The next day we went to the next largest city in the province, called Baotou. The next day we went out to one of China's two famous sand dune sites. That night we went back to Baotou and hopped on an overnight train back to Beijing.

Date: June 14-25, 2006
Pictures: 594
Over ten days of fantastic film festival fun for us Academy for Creative Media students and staff who went to screen our films in the very first SMART (Student Media Art) Exchange between Shanghai University/Shanghai International Film Festival and the Academy for Creative Media/Hawaii International Film Festival. It was the first time abroad for the other four ACM students on the trip, so I ended up playing babysitter/guide/translator/pimp for these boys in their virgin trip outside the protective borders of the US of A. We had loads of fun as we terrorized the festival and women of Shanghai, and despite our crazy antics, they still agreed to show our films at the festival. We also shot a nice little short film during our two-hour layover at Narita Airport in Tokyo, which you can view here if you are brave enough. I won't take up space here describing the rest of our crazy antics throughout the trip, as fellow student Seong Whang already did a fairly good job of that in his daily blogs in his Myspace page. I of course take no responsibility for the accuracy of any of the claims he makes in his blog, as he was doing crack with his partner in crime Jeremiah Tayao the entire trip and I seriously doubt most of that stuff actually happened. I wouldn't know though, as I was doing crack the entire time also. As if the pictures weren't evidence enough of this...

Date: January 1, 2005
Pictures: 24
My homestay family, my adorable 6-year-old English student Flower and her policeman father, and my dear friends Li Miao, Yang Sha, and Lina all came to see me off when I left Chengdu on New Year's Day. It was a very sad goodbye, and one of the few times I've let tears slip out at the airport (which I forgot to take pictures of... sorry), but it was also a nice finish to a wonderful half year in Chengdu. By the way, if my hair looks ridiculously straight in the pictures, that's because it was ridiculously straight. I straightened it that morning before I left because it's only about US$12 to do it in China and at the very least a whopping US$50 to do it back in Hawaii. And if you think I'm silly for straightening my hair, go look at some older pictures of me and you will see what a difference $12 at a Chinese hair salon can make!

Date: December 18-19, 2004
Pictures: 93
I accompanied my Chinese (well, ethnically Manchurian to be politically correct) friend Philip, also an aspiring filmmaker, and his girlfriend Bailin to Dujiangyan, Bailin's hometown. Located about 100km northwest of Chengdu, this city is most famous for an engineering feat accomplished well over 2000 years ago by an engineer of the name Li Bing. This badass engineer (must have been a mechanical engineer... they are always the most clever) invented a special weir irrigation system that was able to harness the Du river and bring a steady water supply to the entire Chuanxi plain. Without this invention, there would probably be no Chengdu today, and Sichuan definitely wouldn't have the largest population of any province in China! Anyway, we arrived in the afternoon and on the first day the three of us kids just wandered around town a bit. The next morning, Bailin's mom took Philip and I (Bailin opted out on waking up at 5am with us) to gander at the mouth of the irrigation system, and the many temples that have been built along the river edge there over the years.

Date: November 26, 2004
Pictures: 66
Having heard of the splendid beauty of the new Sichuan University campus on the outskirts of Chengdu, and a little sick and tired of the complete lack of beauty at the old Sichuan University campus where we wiled away our days, Li Miao, Xiao Ma, Yang Sha, unknown friend (?), and decided to hop on the inter-campus bus one day and check out what everyone had been raving about. And we figured we take some silly group pictures while we were at it. The campus was indeed very nice, even though it was a typical cloudy, gloomy day in Chengdu, and I was able to get some cute pictures of the girls together... oh, plus Li Miao, who I often confuse for a girl anyway. Maybe that has to do with the fact that he grew up in Thailand...?

Date: November 20, 2004
Pictures: 25
The sexy international soccer boys of Sichuan University, right here for your viewing pleasure. We had originally planned to put out a swimsuit calendar to raise funds for our team parties, but we never got around to taking the pictures (or having any parties!). Besides, none of us brought our bikinis with us to China. So you'll just have to settle for photos of us before and after one our random matches at Sichuan U's decent turf field where we played almost all of our games. We actually had a game on a grass field once, but I think it had more patches of dirt and holes than patches of grass on it. Our team was comprised of guys from Japan (over half the team), Korea, Germany, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and one crazy guy from America who pretended to play soccer even though everyone in Asia knows that Americans can't play soccer worth a flip because we are always too busy throwing touchdowns, hitting home runs, slam dunking, and occasionally smashing hockey sticks over each others heads. But come on, who ever heard of an American who could bicycle kick or nutmeg with the best of them...?

Date: November 3-7, 2004
Pictures: 476
I have to admit that the language school at Sichuan University, for all it's faults and deficiencies, did take us on several good field trips. Our trip to Lugu Lake on the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces was by far the best though, and it was a destination that had long been on my travel list anyway, especially since my classmate in Hawaii did her thesis documentary on the Mosuo people that call this lake home. The Mosuo are famous throughout China as the only extant matriarchal society left amongst China's many minority groups, although most Chinese I talk to about them just seem to be interested in their concept of 'walking marriage' wherein a couple doesn't formally enter into a marriage agreement but instead the guy just comes and stays with the girl's family when he wants. Sounds rather promiscuous and liberated, although that's of course just how it's been portrayed in the Chinese (and now foreign) media. So our motley crew of international students invaded the lake for several days in early November, many of us (myself not included of course) looking for our own 'walking marriage' (ok, just the Korean guys really). We first took the overnight train to Xichang, where we had a rather disgusting breakfast at a local hotel before hopping on buses and starting our 7-hour treacherous journey out to the lake. Actually, it only got treacherous as we neared the lake, as our accommodation was on the south side of the lake and we had to circumnavigate the lake on a narrow road that had been submerged by the lake at parts or was smothered by a landslide at other parts. It also didn't help that the road was barely wider than the bus at many passes that were well over 100 meters above the lake and a straight drop down to our deaths. How said the young Korean men would have been to die before they experienced a 'walking marriage'. After two hours of bumping along the tortuous dirt road, we finally arrived in one piece at our small hostel on the Yunnan side of the lake. Thankful to still be alive, the more energetic half of the group (mainly the ones who'd actually been able to sleep on the train and bus rides) decided to go out for drinks that night. The next we got out on the lake and visited a small island with a temple in the middle of the lake, then in the afternoon split up and ventured off in small groups. That night we all attended the bonfire and watched traditional Mosuo dance (which I imagine contains very few vestiges of their real traditional dances, as with so many minority tourist regions throughout China this show was only taking place for the tourists). The next day it was already time to go, and fearing an accident on the treacherous road back around the lake, our teachers decided to send the buses with our bags on ahead and we all took boats across the lake, which was much safer and a hell of a lot more fun. Especially if you were in or near Bodo's boat, who whipped out his guitar and sang sappy love songs to the poor, unsuspecting Mosuo woman rowing behind him. He even improvised some Chinese lyrics so that she would know he was trying to woo her. Before leaving the area, we stopped at one last spot on the outskirts of the river. There was an old bridge here that was famous for young couples meeting there at night, and even though it wasn't nighttime when we visited and none of the Korean guys were able to meet with lovely young Mosuo girls on the bridge, it was well worth seeing. We headed back to Xichang and stayed the night in a boat-shaped hotel on Lake Qionghai, a fairly attractive and relaxing getaway (for China at least!). The next day we boated out on the lake and a few of us headed over to see the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture Museum, which was chock full of info about the former slave-holding Yi minority spread throughout that region of southern Sichuan (and other parts of Western China). It was definitely one of the best museums I've visited in China (or anywhere for that matter), up there with the Museum of Japanese War Atrocities (or whatever it's called) in Nanjing. We left that afternoon and returned by train to Chengdu, exhausted but filled with camaraderie and good memories of our time together at two of Sichuan's best lakes.

Date: October 21-23, 2004
Pictures: 151
My good friend Li Miao and I ventured off to Emeishan (Emei Mountain) to visit several of his friends going to school in that area, and of course so I could climb the famous mountain solo while they drank and partied for two days down below. Being one of China's four famous Buddhist mountains, Emeishan is cluttered with temples and other Buddhist structures and monuments that dot the mountain the entire way to the top and making for a very interesting climb. It's also famous for a rare phenomenon popular with Chinese tourists known as Buddha's Aureole, where a rainbow of colors surrounds a person's shadow on the sea of clouds that linger below the peak. You must remember, however, that this is Sichuan, and there are very few days of the year where the sun actually comes out and a nice fluffy layer of clouds will actually sit nicely below the peak of the mountain. Thus the 'rare' attached to phenomenon above, as this is actually something that can be seen in many other parts of the world given the right conditions. Anyway, after a night of hanging out with my new friends, I started the hike the next morning, planning to hike as much of the way up as I could over the next two days. Unfortunately it was so misty that it was almost impossible to see more than 30 feet in front of you, it was miserably cold, and I wasn't making good time, so I took a bus up from one of the lower temples to the last hostel area still several kilometers shy of the peak. I planned to get up early the next morning and hike the rest of the mountain, but ridiculously overpriced food I ate at my ridiculously overpriced hostel ended up giving me food poisoning, which meant I spent an entire night in my ridiculously cold room with a ridiculously crappy heater puking into my ridiculously dirty toilet and getting ridiculously little sleep. Needless to say, the next morning I was in no mood to do any hiking, but still wanted to make it to the peak, so I cheated and took the cable car to the top, refraining from puking on my fellow passengers only because there was nothing left in my stomach at that point. Why do all my travel stories in China involve me getting strange illnesses anyway? There were no Buddha's Aureole's to be seen that day, as the mist was even thicker than it had been down below the day before, and I had to settle for bumming around the temple at the top for about 20 minutes (most of that time spent warming my hands in front of the massive burning candles there) and taking a hazy picture next to the unofficial Emeishan peak sign carved into a big (probably fake) rock. Although still feeling ridiculously crappy, I spent the next hour walking back down to the cable car station below so that I could at least see a bit more of the mountain, and then I hopped on a mini-bus for a death-defying journey to the bottom of the mountain, which definitely helped my ailing stomach. By the late afternoon, I had pretty well recovered and hung out with the guys, taking crazy pictures and harassing young coeds brave enough to venture in our direction as we were capturing our Kodak (well, Canon actually) moments.

Date: October 15, 2004
Pictures: 66
Ummm, I don't know if words can describe the chaos that erupted at this party held in the meeting hall in front of the international student dorm at Sichuan University. The party was originally held for a Japanese student's birthday, although I'm not really sure if most people even knew who's birthday it was, as they were really just the 'sake no sakana' (the fish of the alcohol... the excuse for drinking) as the Japanese would say. At any rate, by the time the party was finished, most people were covered in beer, food, cake, and all sorts of other junk, and I don't even think it was 10pm yet at that point. Gotta love those Japanese... strait-laced and polite when confined by their strict cultural boundaries in Japan, but let them loose in another country (especially China!) and it's a whole different story!

Date: October 20, 2004
Pictures: 52
Wow, less than a week after the first night of madness, the Japanese exchange students hosted another party for another unknown birthday which resulted in even more chaotic results than their first shindig. The amazing thing is that most people were only drinking beer. And those that weren't drinking beer were drinking orange juice. Or having it poured over their head. And yes, I was stupid enough to bring my digital SLR camera again to this party after foolishly bringing it along to the first party and nearly getting it doused with beer. Now I know how photojournalists in Iraq must go through on a daily basis!

Date: October 8, 2004
Pictures: 46
So there was this great little massage 'parlor' (for lack of a better word) right around the corner from my apartment in Chengdu that offered one-hour full body massages for the amazing price of only 10 RMB (about US$1.25!!!). Needless to say, I spent much of my time there, and not just for the cheap massages. And NO, not for that either. This wasn't place isn't like the Thai massage parlors that offer massages with 'happy endings'. This place was perfectly legit, with none of the ubiquitous 'sex parlor' pink lights in the window. But most of the staff was comprised of young females, most of them from the countryside or smaller cities, willing to work for paltry wages in the big city since it was still much more profitable than staying back home. These girls were of course very curious the first time this Chinese-speaking white boy walked through their door (as were many of the other customers in the middle of their massages), and after several visits we were all on a first name basis and teasing each other and cracking jokes throughout my massage. They'd always try to keep me around after my massage to chat and hang out, as I was pretty much the only contact most of them had ever had with the outside world, or even the world outside of Sichuan. I always enjoyed my time with them, and have some very memorable experiences from my massage visits (again, not those kind of experiences!). One day I decided to bring my camera along and take some pictures of them, and they were delighted when I returned a week later with enlargements of the pictures for them to hang up on the wall in the shop and take home with them. I think for most of them it was the first time anyone had ever taken more than just a random snapshot for them. Although most of them don't use the Internet and will probably never see these pictures online, I couldn't resist putting them up here to show other people the real charm of the average Chinese 'laobaixing' (everyday people).

Date: September 25-26, 2004
Pictures: 83
My Japanese friend Koutarou and I randomly took off one weekend for a trip to Chongqing, a metropolis rivaling Chengdu in size and culture and only four hours of smooth bus-riding away. Originally this city rich in history was part of Sichuan Province, but the Chinese government granted them 'special municipality' status in 1997 which put the three counties of Chongqing, including central Chongqing city, under direct control of the central government. Also served as the base for the Guomindang in their war against Japanese, making it a popular tourist spot for Chinese tourists interested in their Chinese history (i.e. all Chinese tourists). Yaddi yaddi. Good things about Chongqing: noise pollution is minimal because honking car horns is banned, the two major rivers that run through the city, the steep hills throughout the city that give Chongqing a very unique feel and make it the only Chinese city where you'll almost never see people riding bikes. Bad things about Chongqing: it's always ridiculously cloudy and depressing (and lacks the energy of most Chinese cities with honking horns and hordes of bicycle riders to dodge on the streets), the two rivers that run through the city are horribly polluted and ugly, and hills throughout town make it damn near impossible to wander around town on foot and take pictures. So yeah, it's a pretty cool city, and Koutarou and I enjoyed our brief two-day stay there, in which we managed to see a number of cool places, namely the Stillwell Museum housed at the former residence of US General Stillwell (who was in charge of US troops aiding the Guomindang during WWII... I figure the only reason the mainland Chinese - who like both the US military and Guomindang about as much as I like Chinese tourists... don't get me started - choose to commemorate him is because he hated Chiang Kai Shek's guts and thought he was a complete idiot), the US-Chiang Kaishek Criminal Acts Exhibition Hall & SACO Prisons complex (a museum dedicated to the many communist martyrs who were tortured and slaughtered by Guomindang and US forces during the war, a great exhibition to help increase that love the mainland Chinese already feel towards the US military and the Guomindang), Luohan Temple (a nice temple wedged between towering skyscrapers in one of the more interesting parts of town), Red Cliff Village (where Communist representatives to the Guomindang were housed during the very tenuous period of cooperation between the two), and of course the vast majority of the bars throughout the city. So yes, basically if you are a WWII history buff and would like to learn lots of glorious things about the Guomindang or the US military's presence in WWII China, Chongqing should definitely be at the top of your travel destinations list!

Date: September 16, 2004
Pictures: 33
So this was another interesting field trip the language school at Sichuan University took us on, and also our very first of the semester. We visited the popular Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center, regarded as pretty much the best place in the world to see Panda's in their "natural environment" (even though I put that in quotes, I give this place huge props for maintaining impeccably good conditions for the loveable furry creatures they house here, as there is a world of difference between the squalid conditions of a typical Chinese zoo and this place). It was also the first chance for many of us language students to meet other language students from outside of our class. A good time was had by all, especially the German known by women of disrepute around the world only as Bodo, who made his best efforts to personally feed every last panda in the center. That's before he killed those poor ducklings by feeding them his cigarette butts. Ok, just kidding. The ducklings lived (barely).

Date: June - December, 2004
Pictures: 35
Just a handful of random pictures I took with my homestay family, most in our apartment but also a few I took when we ventured out together. I met this family through a Sichuan University professor friend of my geography professor at the University of Hawaii, who agreed to help me find a homestay family in Chengdu. He knew a young female anthropology professor (don't worry, already married!) who was involved in the Tibetan Research Center at Sichuan University and lived near campus. She has recently spent a year doing research at Harvard, and was very happy to host an American student in her home with her husband, also a professor but at another university, their 3-year-old daughter Xiao Xue, and 'Nainai' (grandma). The vast majority of these pictures are of Xiao Xue, who was absolutely adorable and loved to come wreak havoc on my room every chance she got. I miss them all very much!

Date: September - December 2004
Pictures: 50
The title of this group of pictures may be a bit misleading, as these are not random pictures of the city itself (there are a few in there), but random pictures of friends (and silly ol' me) taken in Chengdu during my semester of study there. I actually have many more random pictures I took with my small camera, which someday I might put up in their own gallery. For now, you'll just have to take what you can get!