Despite my dad's family being from Qingdao and its close proximity to Jinan, my trip out to visit my friend Hunter was my first time seeing the city. Qingdao is a coastal city, and so while the ocean has a moderating effect on the temperature, making it roughly ten degrees Fahrenheit cooler than it has been in Jinan, it is also incredibly humid. Case in point: when I did my laundry in Qingdao, it took roughly three times as long for it to dry hanging in the sun.
Its position as a port city also gives it an outsized reputation compared to its relative size and domestic influence. This openness to the rest of the world, its history as a former German protectorate, and the global popularity of Tsingtao beer (though let's be honest, the latter two points are basically the same thing), form a confluence of factors such that more people internationally have heard of Qingdao than Jinan, despite Jinan being the larger city and the provincial capital.
This time around, Qingdao also proved to be the place where my stomach finally capitulated to Chinese street food. I spent two separate days here drenched in cold sweats, chills, and the anxious anticipation of my next trip to the toilet. No matter. If anything, I hope this serves as a sort of inoculation for my digestive system that prepares me for the rest of my travels this summer.
Even when I wasn't feeling ill, while I did spend a good amount of time outside and walking around the city and checking out the shoreline, to me the most memorable part of the stay was just being able to stay inside and binge watch Community and play card games with Hunter and his friend/coworker Dexie. Shoutouts to you two for teaching me how to play gin rummy.
On that end, I have to thank Hunter not only for providing me a place to stay, but also for dealing with my stomach issues while balancing an airtight schedule of work and drinking at the local shanty. The place we went to is one of the few remaining outdoor Biergartens in this part of China that hasn't been shut down by the government in its latest effort to clean up the country and protect the environment (of course, the heavy increase in automobile traffic and single-use plastics suggests strongly that this move is definitely more about appearances than anything else). A pint of beer here was 2.5 RMB, or roughly 38 cents, and you could also get small side dishes and 燒烤, Chinese barbecue, for similarly cheap prices. In other words, heaven. We went there almost every night, and I made some friends in the locals there, who were taken aback at how Chinese of an American I was.
Some friends we made at the shanty.
They had already been friendly to Hunter and his friends/coworkers that he had been coming with, but were obviously very excited to have a translator that could work both sides of the language gap. It was a privilege being able to communicate with both sides, and on my last night there, the night of the Fourth of July, we had a great conversation about what it meant to be Chinese-American, and how I should reconcile both halves of my identity. More on that at a later time.
Celebrating the Fourth in China was a memorable experience in a country that couldn't have cared less about the date and at a time when American patriotism couldn't have been more contentious. It seemed to me that what was connecting us wasn't necessarily a sense of patriotism or ego or pride, but more our shared position as outsiders in a land that was very obviously not our own. I spent that night with Hunter's coworkers, and we got a keg, some barbecue, and two bags of Lay's chips for dinner. A Chinese twist on an American classic. We even hung up a US flag and posed for pictures. Amazing.
I returned back to Jinan the next day, July 5th, in the afternoon, and am now back at my grandma's apartment, catching up on sleep and prepping for my next trip, which is to Xian. This time, I'll be leaving on the 10th and staying there till the 13th, a short detour westward to a city steeped in thousands of years of history.
I had a great time in Qingdao, and am definitely planning on returning there at some later point this summer. The people, the food, and the beer were outstanding. And at the heart of it all: an honesty sharp enough to scrape the reflection off of a mirror.