jiaxing

this was my first real international tournament (alcan doesn't count, cause vancouver is pretty much just like the united states.) i went with the uscdbc team as their caller and "chaperon" for lack of a better word. honestly, they didn't need any looking after, but i did a lot of headcounts and and made sure everyone had their meal tickets for every meal, lol. the "real adults" (dr. chen, mike, mary) stayed at the officials hotel while i stayed with with the team in the paddlers' hotel.

official team picture (i'm even paler than dr chen who doesn't paddle!)

wednesday night was spent in shanghai at our first banquet dinner with dr chen and assorted vips, then amy, mary and i went out walking, first to the bund then to xintiandi. the next morning, we had brunch of xiao long bao and more at a restaurant in yu yuan. (i got to tell you tho, the xiao long bao were just okay. i much prefer those at din tai fung.) the whole morning was pretty rushed, but it was nice to be able to walk around the city some more. after brunch we were whisked away by bus to jiaxing (our race city).

shitang, jiaxing

that night a few of us had to go to the captains' meeting at the officials' hotel. and goddamn that was the most boring meeting i've ever been to (kam actually fell asleep). worst yet, nearly all of it was in chinese. i actually switched seats with nick so i could translate for the new zealand team. about 1.5 hours into it, they suddenly announced that they had translators for those who couldn't understand chinese. ...um, thanks? when the four of us got back to the hotel (nick, kam, amy, me) we couldn't find the rest of the team. we figured maybe they had went out and decided to stay up to wait for them. kam fell asleep first, i about an hour later, then nick shortly after. i think amy stayed up until 3am or something. at that point nick and amy went knocking on doors, and wouldn't you know, lol, the whole team had been in one room, sleeping the whole time!

photo credit: john lian

the next morning we had to wake up early for the opening ceremony. we found out that we wouldn't get getting any real practice time, so i held the flag and mary took our spot on stage. the team went out on the water and waited and waited... turns out they only had like 15 minutes of paddling time and an hour of "sitting in the boat time." we did get a bit of practice in with the toronto team tho (with whom we did all our gendered races). (their coach blake actually recognized me from that paddler's clinic a couple years ago). that afternoon larry's cousins, who were with us pretty much the entire weekend, took us to shitang, an old town. we finally go the chance to sight-see, eat local foods, and shop. we were so lucky to have them! they even bought us dinner on friday and lunch on saturday! (we all felt pretty bad that they spent so much time and money on us. but we didn't really have anything to give in return [they wouldn't accept out money, not even cab fare]. thankfully at dinner on saturday night with the relatives, i received a number of gifts, including a set of beautifully boxed plums. we gave them a box and i gave dr chen the other. i do wish i had gotten to try a plum tho. they should've been pretty good, being in a fancy box and all. but oh well.)

2000m race that i bowed out for

race days were race days. the usual disorganization, boredom, and then intense rushing around. it rained a bit saturday, which turned everything to mud and caused some really gross bugs to come out. bleh. i can't remember how many races we did on saturday, but we did all the 200m and 500m for men's, women's, and mixed (maybe 11 races per person?) the "highlight" (if you can call it that) on saturday was the main official telling us that "no offense, but you've been here for two days, so it's your fault the translators weren't doing their job." i yelled at him. seriously. i was fucking pissed. you hired, trained, assigned these translators. it's an international tournament and your fucking rules say that everything will be announced in english. how the fuck is this our fault your staff is crap? he said something about how everyone there is a volunteer so i can't expect much. to which i replied that hey, our race is also volunteer basis and we aren't nearly as disorganized as this tourney is. anyway. i realized that this asshole wasn't about to take responsibility for anything, so i walked away from the conversation. whatever.

my favorite photo of the trip

saturday night i went out to dinner with my relatives. my great aunt, her husband, their daughter, her husband, and a bunch of other people including the former mayor of jiaxing. it was fancy. it was in a BEAUTIFUL hotel and omfg i wish i had a chance to take pictures during the day cause all my night ones didn't really turn out (it was raining and it's not a great camera and let's face it, i don't really know how to use it to full capabilities). i also had lunch with them the next day after we finished our 2000m and the awards ceremony. also fancy. and they made me eat snail. bah. a couple kids wanted to party that night so we went to a grocery store in the afternoon and bought a bunch of alcohol. dinner that night was banquet style. TONS of food. most of which did not get eaten. :( in any case, after dinner we went upstairs to pack. then we partied or should i say they partied? i, being the "chaperon", did not party. not that i would've wanted to, esp after what happened in portland! actually, to be precise, a couple of our kids partied, while the rest got scared and made sure everyone was alright. the malaysian team went nuts, and the singapore team also. i'm not terribly sure of what happened cause i left pretty early on to go ktv with toronto and harvard, who also went a little wild, lol. (i maybe should've stayed but i know i would've wanted to control the situation if i had [which was not my place to do so], so i left). ended up exploring the dark parts of the hotel and getting devoured by mosquitoes. it was an interesting night.

sunday's banquet   photo credit: lisa chou

the next morning we woke up early again and got on a bus to west lake in hangzhou. we also spent a little time shopping there after having lunch at kfc (i know. seriously. it wasn't my idea is all i can say). there was a bit of drama with that too, actually. the driver wouldn't take us shopping, when that was all the team really wanted to do. he didn't seem to understand we didn't really care to look at pagodas and stuff. so amy (who has the best chinese on the team) started yelling at him in high-pitched and fast chinese. "are you so stupid that you don't understand that all we want to do is buy souvenirs?" she's ballsy! (in case you don't know, however, yelling at people in china isn't the big deal it is over here. it's not great, but it's not horribly insulting.) we only had a couple hours there before we took the bus back to the the airport.

west lake, hangzhou

the only real downside of the trip was that it was way too short. all told, i was out of the house for about a week, but after adding travailing time, i had only about 5 days in china. the trip was pretty much all tournament, with very little time to sight-see. i'm lucky i've been to china before (and both shanghai and west lake) or i would've felt more disappointed that we didn't get much outside time. tho i still super regret not having extended my trip. bah!!

have about 30 mosquito bites, and like 20 on my right arm alone :( 

honestly, it was a great trip. the whole time, i kept thinking "i'm so lucky." and i know the whole team felt the same way. periodically someone would say "we are so spoiled." me, even more so. dr chen paid for my flight (and all other major transportation) and the city of jiaxing comped all our rooms and food. i spent ~$40 the whole week i was there (and the bulk of that went to my sim card and the kfc lunch, when mike and i treated the team). i also met my relatives, whom i've never before met, and whom showered me (well, my parents) with gifts and took me out to some of the fanciest chinese meals i've ever had. we were also so fortunate to have larry's cousins, who took us out to a place they'd just been the day before.

people kept telling me that this trip was dr chen's way of thanking me for the work i've put in for the scdbc over the years. but i'm totally blown away by his generosity (and everyone else's!). i hope i never forget how lucky i am to be a part of this sport and organization. seriously.