The end of an era, tune in for the thrilling conclusion to two great radio shows. Thanks to special guests Zach and Collin for doing the weather, and to Dr. Wood, Mat, and Ari for stopping by and helping out with the show. We couldn&#8217;t have done it without all of you.

<description>The end of an era, tune in for the thrilling conclusion to two great radio shows. Thanks to special guests Zach and Collin for doing the weather, and to Dr. Wood, Mat, and Ari for stopping by and helping out with the show. We couldn&amp;#8217;t have done it without all of you.
</description>

The end of an era, tune in for the thrilling conclusion to two great radio shows. Thanks to special guests Zach and Collin for doing ...

The end of an era, tune in for the thrilling conclusion to two great radio shows. Thanks to special guests Zach and Collin for doing the weather, and to Dr. Wood, Mat, and Ari for stopping by and helping out with the show. We couldn't have done it without all of you.

So long, and Thanks, part 2

Aural Fixation and The Humpday Meltdown say goodbye to their loyal listeners and fans for all these years in this two part episode. Thank you all for your support, and please, continue to support KGSM.

<description>Aural Fixation and The Humpday Meltdown say goodbye to their loyal listeners and fans for all these years in this two part episode. Thank you all for your support, and please, continue to support KGSM.
</description>

Aural Fixation and The Humpday Meltdown say goodbye to their loyal listeners and fans for all these years in this two part episode. Thank you ...

Aural Fixation and The Humpday Meltdown say goodbye to their loyal listeners and fans for all these years in this two part episode. Thank you all for your support, and please, continue to support KGSM.

So Long, and Thanks, part 1

Aural Fixation recently hosted a story slam as part of the Firethorne Literary Magazine&#8217;s Spring Release. We hear from story tellers Alex Messenger, Ahna Gilbertson, Marie Bushnell, Joel Carlin, Ethan Marxhausen, Mary Cooley and Jenna Chapman. After winning a slam off with Alex Messenger, Joel Carlin—Professor in the Biology Department—won the contest. Here is the audio so you can judge for yourself.

<description>Aural Fixation recently hosted a story slam as part of the Firethorne Literary Magazine's Spring Release.</description>

Aural Fixation recently hosted a story slam as part of the Firethorne Literary Magazine's Spring Release. We hear from story tellers Alex Messenger, Ahna Gilbertson, ...

Aural Fixation recently hosted a story slam as part of the Firethorne Literary Magazine's Spring Release. We hear from story tellers Alex Messenger, Ahna Gilbertson, Marie Bushnell, Joel Carlin, Ethan Marxhausen, Mary Cooley and Jenna Chapman. After winning a slam off with Alex Messenger, Joel Carlinmdash;Professor in the Biology Departmentmdash;won the contest. Here is the audio so you can judge for yourself.

Story Slam

Welcome to Aural Fixation the podcast for this final episode from Zhuhai. The story is a bit shorter this week than you are used to, but it summarizes what has been one of the semester&#8217;s slowest and most relaxing weeks. The new year is here, and in many ways a new year can symbolize a fresh start, a clean slate, for different parts of our lives. For me it will be returning to the United States with a fresh perspective on the world, and a better understanding of humanity and myself. Tune in next week for the first, and only podcast of this series, produced outside of China. It will likely cover my experience with reverse culture shock and readjustment. Enjoy, and thank you for listening.
It seems only appropriate that the tropical storm of rain and humidity that welcomed me to China would be bookended by a spell of cold, biting wind and rain on my way out. The rain this time is not nearly as torrential nor brutal as that which welcomed me but remains, nevertheless, rain and brings with it the same mess of mud and similar dangers as usual; my shoes are not caked in mud but the Student Hostel Cultural Village&#8217;s unpaved driveway-turned-mudslide still cases me to leave shoe prints all over the freshly mopped dormitory floors. This is my last weekend in China and to celebrate mine and Cynthia&#8217;s imminent departures from Zhuhai we gathered our friends together for some spicy and magnificently delicious Sichuanese food at Lao Sichuan, a restaurant in Zhuhai&#8217;s Xiangzhou District.
Apart from Sichuanese food, Lao Sichuan specializes in the high art of Kung-Fu-style Ba Bao Cha whereby each person is given a small cup with eight different ingredients inside and a lid—used both to keep your tea warm while it steeps and to prevent you from sucking down one of the herbs giving your tea its sweet flavor—into which a professional shoots water from what looks like an oversized watering can from across the wide round table; it&#8217;s difficult to put into words what exactly happens during this exquisite preparation exercise or what makes it so much fun to watch; perhaps it&#8217;s the brilliant accuracy of the artistic server&#8217;s ability to position the device&#8217;s spout inches from the tiny cup and spray a concentrated and high pressure stream of boiling water while holding the canister upside down, behind his head, and arching his back so that the whole device doesn&#8217;t hit the ceiling once he finishes pouring a perfect cup full of water and promptly snaps his wrist back to bring the instrument back to rest without soaking anyone in his audience in scalding hot water; it is, to be sure, a spectacle to behold. The food is served in the traditional “family style” wherein the group orders and consumes all of the dishes which are served en masse atop a rotating platform in the center of the table, which circular buffet allows just enough room for each person&#8217;s table setting:a small bowl and saucer, chopsticks and spoon and the aforementioned tea cup—with a little extra room for a bowl of rice, should you request one. The food is served as it becomes available and a good meal is one where everyone is surprised by the seemingly endless encore of culinary delight, and leaves feeling satisfied, stuffed even, while not having actually eaten an entire, singular, meal. It&#8217;s like thanksgiving dinner.
We were celebrating with Dee, Jack, Nicole, Ann, Nancy, Tommy and Alex. Like any or most attempts at organizing an outing in China, we invited 15, expected 20, and got nine; the only difference, logistically, was that we were only 15 minutes late instead of the customary 30 (on a good day) to 120 (on a not-as-good-day) minutes. During the bus trip on the way out the Xiangzhou we swapped various accounts of our respective New Year&#8217;s Eve adventures and reminisced about the semester rapidly nearing its end. At some point I stared out the tall windows of the bus&#8217;s rear door lost in thought, as I often am on bus trips, as I watched the Zhuhai cityscape pass by for what was likely one of the last times ever. I started remember my first encounters with people like Tommy and Nancy, appreciating their generosity and helpfulness the first few weeks while I was Growing Up, if you will—learning how to get money, food, soap, and other things—and reflecting on the parts of China I will surely find myself nostalgic or wistful for in the near future: the food, obviously; the language, which, while I did not learn much of practically, continues to intrigue me in it&#8217;s grammar and tonal structure to this day; the history and culture or, rather, the sense that in China I have felt part of such a long and vibrant narrative of dynasties, communism, and today&#8217;s quasi-capitalist neo-communism, a story beloved, owned really, by all the people I have called friends for the last three months; the imported culture, for better or worse, borrowed from the so-called western world and reinterpreted with Chinese characteristics; while simultaneously thinking about how great it will be and how ready I am to get home and be back on familiar soil once again.
It&#8217;s been interesting saying goodbye to my friends here, their first question is often related to when I will be back and when I tell them it will not be for a while many of them do not seem to understand just how long it will be before I return and assume that “not this summer” means I will never return. There is, however, a lot of reason to return. I have yet to see Yunnan Province&#8217;s beautiful stone forests and everlasting spring, the Three Gorges Dam, or the Terra Cotta Warriors to name just a few of the many attractions both historic and touristy that will one day bring me back to China. It seems unrealistic to spend three months of my adult in a place and not have this drive to return sometime when I have more money and time to explore and appreciate the scenery and aesthetic power of the country. That trip, I&#8217;m afraid, will have to wait a long time.
This has been a production of the Gustavus Department of Communication and Marketing in association with KGSM Radio and for the final time, this podcast was recorded at United International College in Zhuhai, China. My name is Greg Boone and this is Aural Fixation the Podcast from China. Thanks for listening.

<description>Welcome to Aural Fixation the podcast for this final episode from Zhuhai. The story is a bit shorter this week than you are used to, but it summarizes what has been one of the semester&amp;#8217;s slowest and most relaxing weeks. The new year is here, and in many ways a new year can symbolize a [...]</description>

Welcome to Aural Fixation the podcast for this final episode from Zhuhai. The story is a bit shorter this week than you are used to, ...

Welcome to Aural Fixation the podcast for this final episode from Zhuhai. The story is a bit shorter this week than you are used to, but it summarizes what has been one of the semester's slowest and most relaxing weeks. The new year is here, and in many ways a new year can symbolize a fresh start, a clean slate, for different parts of our lives. For me it will be returning to the United States with a fresh perspective on the world, and a better understanding of humanity and myself. Tune in next week for the first, and only podcast of this series, produced outside of China. It will likely cover my experience with reverse culture shock and readjustment. Enjoy, and thank you for listening.

It seems only appropriate that the tropical storm of rain and humidity that welcomed me to China would be bookended by a spell of cold, biting wind and rain on my way out. The rain this time is not nearly as torrential nor brutal as that which welcomed me but remains, nevertheless, rain and brings with it the same mess of mud and similar dangers as usual; my shoes are not caked in mud but the Student Hostel Cultural Village's unpaved driveway-turned-mudslide still cases me to leave shoe prints all over the freshly mopped dormitory floors. This is my last weekend in China and to celebrate mine and Cynthia's imminent departures from Zhuhai we gathered our friends together for some spicy and magnificently delicious Sichuanese food at Lao Sichuan, a restaurant in Zhuhai's Xiangzhou District.

Apart from Sichuanese food, Lao Sichuan specializes in the high art of Kung-Fu-style Ba Bao Cha whereby each person is given a small cup with eight different ingredients inside and a lidmdash;used both to keep your tea warm while it steeps and to prevent you from sucking down one of the herbs giving your tea its sweet flavormdash;into which a professional shoots water from what looks like an oversized watering can from across the wide round table; it's difficult to put into words what exactly happens during this exquisite preparation exercise or what makes it so much fun to watch; perhaps it's the brilliant accuracy of the artistic server's ability to position the device's spout inches from the tiny cup and spray a concentrated and high pressure stream of boiling water while holding the canister upside down, behind his head, and arching his back so that the whole device doesn't hit the ceiling once he finishes pouring a perfect cup full of water and promptly snaps his wrist back to bring the instrument back to rest without soaking anyone in his audience in scalding hot water; it is, to be sure, a spectacle to behold. The food is served in the traditional ldquo;family stylerdquo; wherein the group orders and consumes all of the dishes which are served en masse atop a rotating platform in the center of the table, which circular buffet allows just enough room for each person's table setting:a small bowl and saucer, chopsticks and spoon and the aforementioned tea cupmdash;with a little extra room for a bowl of rice, should you request one. The food is served as it becomes available and a good meal is one where everyone is surprised by the seemingly endless encore of culinary delight, and leaves feeling satisfied, stuffed even, while not having actually eaten an entire, singular, meal. It's like thanksgiving dinner.

We were celebrating with Dee, Jack, Nicole, Ann, Nancy, Tommy and Alex. Like any or most attempts at organizing an outing in China, we invited 15, expected 20, and got nine; the only difference, logistically, was that we were only 15 minutes late instead of the customary 30 (on a good day) to 120 (on a not-as-good-day) minutes. During the bus trip on the way out the Xiangzhou we swapped various accounts of our respective New Year's Eve adventures and reminisced about the semester rapidly nearing its end. At some point I stared out the tall windows of the bus's rear door lost in thought, as I often am on bus trips, as I watched the Zhuhai city...

Farewell Zhuhai

“It&#8217;s safe to say that Charlie Brown would probably find Christmas in China the most vulgar and offensive exploitation of the holiday imaginable,” was my first thought after watching the timeless Christmas feature in which he stars on a brisk—but far from cold—Christmas morning just before calling my family on Skype. The expat bar called “Ryan&#8217;s Bar” owned by an irish-canadian transplant in Zhuhai&#8217;s Xiangzhou district was hosting an all-you-can-eat buffet dinner event this Christmas Eve for 140¥ (or a little under $20) I thought I was slated to attend with my roommate and some friends of ours. The plan was to leave UIC around 7:30 putting our arrival somewhere in the 8 or 8:30 range depending on whether we took the public bus, a cab, or one of those faux taxi mini-busses; a perfect time to eat my only real meal of the day, I thought. When my roommate, Tommy, and I arrived at the bus stop and met up with our friends the plan slowly and mysteriously changed.
My first clue that something was going awry was when Tommy told me the bus I was prepared to board would not go to where we needed to be for the Christmas party. For a little background, I had been to Ryan&#8217;s the previous night and took the same bus I was not being told would not take me there as my mode of transit. When my companions began negotiating prices I managed to pick up on enough of the conversation to know they were trying to get to Jiuzhoucheng and not Xiangzhou (where Ryan&#8217;s is located) and at that point I knew that where I thought we were going and where we were actually going were in fact two very different places. “Stop,” I shouted, “Where are we going?” When it finally came out, I learned we were not going to Ryan&#8217;s but were instead spending Christmas Eve in a KTV or karaoke club called “Seven Eight Nine” at which point I became irritated; I felt deceived and I was still hungry—and getting hungrier the longer we spent negotiating with the minibus drivers<a name="id394062" href="https://podcast.gac.edu/groups/studyabroad/weblog/a992f/Christmas_in_China.html#ftn.id394062#utm_source=feed&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=feed">*</a> to get a price that was not outrageous—and beginning to realize that my Christmas dinner would be neither satisfying nor delicious.
While in transit to the KTV I found myself day dreaming, trying to stay optimistic and take my mind off of how hungry, famished really, I was, and—as I foten do—watching the driver and bracing myself for any and all possible varieties of traffic accidents; I am really looking forward to getting back to road traffic that does not pose such imminent and realistic threats to my life on a regular basis, among other things. The best case scenario, I decided was ending up in Xiangzhou anyway and convincing everyone to go to Ryan&#8217;s instead of this mysterious Seven Eight Nine place—“did you know,” someone interrupted my train of thought, “if we had gone to the Seven Bar it would cost us 1,800¥?” I had no idea where this was coming from, Seven Bar was the site of the incredibly over-the-top party I went to back in November where the drinks cost 50¥ for the cheap stuff, we weren&#8217;t going there were we? “What are you talking about,” I asked with an air of confusion and irritation in my voice, “we aren&#8217;t going to Bar Street are we?” I didn&#8217;t know what I wanted but I knew that Bar Street food was expensive if existent and that cheaper food would mean leaving the party for a jaunt into another part of town, “no, we are going to the Seven Eight Nine.” Well that&#8217;s helpful, I thought.
We were greeted with a red carpet and an entourage of Chinese “Pretty Girls”—young women hired by the club for the sole fact and purpose of looking pretty—in Santa Hats and red coats who blew party horns and popped party poppers all while welcoming us and wishing us Shengdan Kuaile (圣诞快乐）or Merry Christmas. Inside the door is a life-size mechanical Santa singing Christmas songs surrounded by a more and similarly dizzying exhibition of cliché ornamentation putting me into a state of intense sensory overload. 
It&#8217;s worth mentioning here what exactly is meant by KTV or karaoke club, which terms are used interchangeably throughout to describe a multiplex building usually with some kind of discotheque style dance club with hallways of independent karaoke rooms flaking the dance floor which rooms may be rented out for the night to host private karaoke parties separate from the club&#8217;s complete with a karaoke machine, tables and two microphones. One of the things that makes karaoke a fun thing to do at say, Patrick&#8217;s or any other bar anywhere else in the world I&#8217;ve ever been, is the mutually assured ebarrasment among yourself and everyone else in the room, as well as the anonymity of yourself to both the people you&#8217;re laughing at and the people laughing at you; in China there appears to be a completely different motivation at work wherein you are in the room to show off and compete your superior singing abilities, against everyone elses, in conquering the most difficult or famous pop songs. Most places have English tunes in their libraries, but not the ones you might expect. Absent from Seven Eight Nine&#8217;s lbrary were some of the karaoke standard classics like “Sweet Caroline,” “Beat It,” “Thriller,” and the all important “It&#8217;s Raining Men,” as well as the lesser classics from the likes of Steve Miller, Journey, Neil Diamond, and (in my case) The Beastie Boys. There was some Michael Jackson and Price and other favorites or popular karaoke artists. The only thing close to a classic song was John Denver&#8217;s “Take me Home, Country Roads,” which I performed, substituting Minnesota for West Virginia—naturally—with extra gusto on the refrain.
The penultimate moment, the catastrophe up to which this entire drama has thus far been building, was at the stroke of midnight when this Christmas Eve party—which already felt more like a New Year&#8217;s Eve party—erupted in a torrent of celebration for the final arrival, the moment we had all been waiting for, of Christmas Day. The karaoke machine shut down and suddenly the projector was turned off and all I remember hearing was “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” seemingly endlessly repeating over the room&#8217;s sound system while the lights changed to red and green strobes and lasers darted around the room; meanwhile the “pretty girls” came back and sprayed glitter infused silly string across the room, popped more party poppers and passed around glasses with which we toasted to the new year—I mean Christmas; I felt like I should have someone to kiss and half expected Auld Lange Syne when, as if it wasn&#8217;t bad enough, the DJ began playing an awful, eardrum rupturingly bad techno version of Jingle Bells complete with that awful overdriven high frequency synth so common to Chinese electronic music; I felt my ears just to make sure they were not bleeding.
Plans have changed like this on me before, it&#8217;s pretty common actually and with two weeks left I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if it happens again, but never before have I felt as much like a bait and switch victim as I did on Christmas Eve. All in all it was a fun night—funny even, in an absurd sort of way—in retrospect, that probably would have been a lot easier to handle if I weren&#8217;t so hungry and expecting Christmas dinner. Looking back on it several hours later I have come to the realization that, like Charlie Brown, I believe there is more to Christmas than rampant commercial- and consumerism, something that cannot just be imported into a culture the way Christmas exists in China—dropped, like a child orphaned on a cold winter night in front of a complete stranger&#8217;s house—even if you do not celebrate Christmas, the holiday season which may generally be known as “Christmas Time” is an expression of the spirit of a people taking a moment out of their lives to do something, to show their own form of generosity or kindness to another person. Christmas is anonymous donors forking over $1 million to the hundreds of victims now homeless from the tragically untimely apartment fire in Burnsville, or simply taking time to slow down and intentionally appreciate the company of family and friends, or seeing the kindness of others manifest itself in volumes of stories, pictures and memories compiled for a tired friend struggling from cancer during the holidays; these things are quintessentially Christmas. They are the things that make the holiday more than just a celebration day for the devout and pious, rather a holiday that transcends these artificial boundaries of race, gender, politics, even religion and a host of other social constructions, to a higher plenary existence and reverence I wish I could say I experienced first hand this year.
<div><a name="ftn.id394062" href="https://podcast.gac.edu/groups/studyabroad/weblog/a992f/Christmas_in_China.html#id394062#utm_source=feed&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=feed">*</a> Part of the endless internal debate I have is over the real value or savings of these fake cabs or minibusses, there are some obvious benefits—they are cheaper than a standard taxi, and quicker and more comfortable than an ordinary city bus—but also have their disadvantages—the drivers do not always know where they are going and they are illegal, meaning if they take me to Guangzhou and leave me on some street corner it is my own fault and no one could be held accountable—and what I fail to understand about them is why it usually (or at least seems to) takes a half an hour to negotiate a proper rate among several different drivers, usually settling on the one we started with in the first place. Tommy later tells me the reason we could not take the bus was that the bus would take “maybe one hour” to get to where we needed to go, but when we spend half an hour negotiating the price and it still takes at least half an hour to get where we need to go (often longer as the minibus drivers are not always the best of drivers and [as mentioned supra] often do not even know where they are going in the first place) we are really paying several times a standard bus fare for comfort, which, to me, is like driving to your mailbox instead of walking because driving hurts your feet less.</div>

<description>“It&amp;#8217;s safe to say that Charlie Brown would probably find Christmas in China the most vulgar and offensive exploitation of the holiday imaginable,” was my first thought after watching the timeless Christmas feature in which he stars on a brisk—but far from cold—Christmas morning just before calling my family on Skype. The expat bar called [...]</description>

ldquo;It's safe to say that Charlie Brown would probably find Christmas in China the most vulgar and offensive exploitation of the holiday imaginable,rdquo; was my ...

ldquo;It's safe to say that Charlie Brown would probably find Christmas in China the most vulgar and offensive exploitation of the holiday imaginable,rdquo; was my first thought after watching the timeless Christmas feature in which he stars on a briskmdash;but far from coldmdash;Christmas morning just before calling my family on Skype. The expat bar called ldquo;Ryan's Barrdquo; owned by an irish-canadian transplant in Zhuhai'snbsp;Xiangzhounbsp;district was hosting an all-you-can-eat buffet dinner event this Christmas Eve for 140yen; (or a little under $20) I thought I was slated to attend with my roommate and some friends of ours. The plan was to leave UIC around 7:30 putting our arrival somewhere in the 8 or 8:30 range depending on whether we took the public bus, a cab, or one of those faux taxi mini-busses; a perfect time to eat my only real meal of the day, I thought. When my roommate, Tommy, and I arrived at the bus stop and met up with our friends the plan slowly and mysteriously changed.

My first clue that something was going awry was when Tommy told me the bus I was prepared to board would not go to where we needed to be for the Christmas party. For a little background, I had been to Ryan's the previous night and took the same bus I was not being told would not take me there as my mode of transit. When my companions began negotiating prices I managed to pick up on enough of the conversation to know they were trying to get tonbsp;Jiuzhouchengnbsp;and notnbsp;Xiangzhounbsp;(where Ryan's is located) and at that point I knew that where I thought we were going and where we were actually going were in fact two very different places. ldquo;Stop,rdquo; I shouted, ldquo;Where are we going?rdquo; When it finally came out, I learned we were not going to Ryan's but were instead spending Christmas Eve in a KTV or karaoke club called ldquo;Seven Eight Ninerdquo; at which point I became irritated; I felt deceived and I was still hungrymdash;and getting hungrier the longer we spent negotiating with the minibus drivers*nbsp;to get a price that was not outrageousmdash;and beginning to realize that my Christmas dinner would be neither satisfying nor delicious.

While in transit to the KTV I found myself day dreaming, trying to stay optimistic and take my mind off of how hungry, famished really, I was, andmdash;as I foten domdash;watching the driver and bracing myself for any and all possible varieties of traffic accidents; I am really looking forward to getting back to road traffic that does not pose such imminent and realistic threats to my life on a regular basis, among other things. The best case scenario, I decided was ending up in Xiangzhou anyway and convincing everyone to go to Ryan's instead of this mysterious Seven Eight Nine placemdash;ldquo;did you know,rdquo; someone interrupted my train of thought, ldquo;if we had gone to the Seven Bar it would cost us 1,800yen;?rdquo; I had no idea where this was coming from, Seven Bar was the site of the incredibly over-the-top party I went to back in November where the drinks cost 50yen; for the cheap stuff, we weren't going there were we? ldquo;What are you talking about,rdquo; I asked with an air of confusion and irritation in my voice, ldquo;we aren't going to Bar Street are we?rdquo; I didn't know what I wanted but I knew that Bar Street food was expensive if existent and that cheaper food would mean leaving the party for a jaunt into another part of town, ldquo;no, we are going to the Seven Eight Nine.rdquo; Well that's helpful, I thought.

We were greeted with a red carpet and an entourage of Chinese ldquo;Pretty Girlsrdquo;mdash;young women hired by the club for the sole fact and purpose of looking prettymdash;in Santa Hats and red coats who blew party horns and popped party poppers all while welcoming us and wishing usnbsp;Shengdan Kuailenbsp;(圣诞快乐）or Merry Christmas. Inside the door is a life-size mechanical Santa singing Christmas songs surrounded by a more...

Christmas in China

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