I realize I left my last entry on a somewhat ambiguous note, my fault for writing in a hurry. The haircut experience was an enjoyable one, and I quite like the cut, or at least I did until I discovered that there’s a slight (must be intentional) gradient from back to front, and a sizeable chunk of longer hair in the front. Ooops. I’ll figure that one out tomorrow.
Friday afternoon took Xueqin, Jingbo and me to Shanghai for the weekend, to exploit a loophole that left everyone in China working or in class this weekend, in preparation for a national week off, and also gives us a class-free Monday. The weekend was lots of fun, but consisted almost entirely of walking and eating, so I’ll try and make it sound more interesting.
We got out of the subway station at Renmin Square around 7:30, and my first thought was that this was my kind of city. Don’t get me wrong, I really like living in Hangzhou, but aside from the manicured parks and restored pathways along West Lake it’s not much to look at. Chinese architecture leaves a lot to be desired, and most of the growth in the last few decades consists of big, white-washed utilitarian blocks, with cages built around the windows for hang-drying clothing and rust stains below the air-conditioning units. When we emerged in Renmin Square I saw a brick church surrounded by several beautiful business towers, and the cool breeze coming through the wide streets definitely added something to the atmosphere. A short walk took us to East Nanjing Rd, a pedestrian-only street that struck me as a somehow less obnoxious version of Times Square. Maybe that’s because the lack of cars made it a more comfortable walk, because it was equally as lit up with ridiculously bright and large neon signs. We emerged awed on the other end and continued on to our hostel.
We planned to go to the Bund area (riverside strip previously home to most of the expats) to eat, but found many pretty buildings with few open storefronts, and instead headed back to Nanjing Road to eat at a Japanese restaurant. The next hour and a half or so consisted of wandering about looking for a good bar we could park in, but found not a single bar, and in fact discovered the previously bustling Nanjing Road completely deserted at 11:30. Unarmed with Lonely Planets or maps, we had no idea where to look for nightlife, and the people we stopped on the street to ask were of little help. Admitting defeat, we headed back to the hostel, bought some beers and pored over our maps to figure out what to do Saturday.
What we did Saturday was wander around the area known as the French Concession (I doubt they ever actually conceded anything), which is characterized by pretty tree-lined streets, lots of history and the occasional good bakery. We parked in a café for several hours to get some work done, and scoped out the Indian restaurant we wanted to go for dinner. In the afternoon we dodged the hawkers “Hello? Lady? Watch? Handbag?” and set off down the main shopping drag on Huaihan Road. Against all odds, we found a shop called “Mister Donut” that is apparently a Japanese chain, so of course we had to go in and have a taste. One chocolate-custard filled pastry later, we continued down the line of expensive shops which carried clothing much too small for me.
We got to the Indian restaurant around 6:30. The appeal of the restaurant was not only the fact that it was Indian, but also the fact that it was a buffet with bottomless beer. Over the course of about 3 hours we slowly ate our fill of curry and did our best to get our money’s worth of Chinese beer (the story of the night is that my stomach took much more of a beating than my liver). Sated almost to the point where we couldn’t walk, we set off to a nearby Irish pub, which turned out to feature a large outdoor beer garden and a Rugby game on a projection screen. Jingbo satisfied his craving for a good cider, and we contemplated the oddities of Rugby (having seen some cricket at the Indian restaurant, I was more open minded to seemingly strange sports). After hitting another bar we were ready to check out the bar scene, and went to a place called Bonbon which had an amusing bilingual American emcee and good music. Somewhere around this time, Jingbo decided it would be a good idea to finish other people’s drinks, though he didn’t tell us this until later.
Today we slept in a bit and actually spent the entire day on a single item of business; trekking back over to the French Concession for a Western-style brunch (with a stop along the way to find Jingbo a Western-style bathroom). The café we picked had a glorious courtyard seating area, and something called the “Big Breakfast” which was a tray piled with two pieces of toast, three eggs, a pile of thick bacon, roasted potatoes, tomatoes and mushrooms, plus a glass of the first real orange juice I’ve seen since getting here. It was wonderfully decadent, and eaten around 2:00, so about the only thing I needed to eat all day. After digesting for a while we headed back to the subway station, and collapsed on some benches outside a shopping center for about half an hour watching the tourists and flipping through our Lonely Planets. All in all it was a beautifully extravagant weekend, well worth every calorie and every aching muscle.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Haircut
I’ve never before had a haircut in a foreign country, though I’ve for several years thought it would be something I’d like to try. I almost did it in Italy two years ago, but time did not permit. This afternoon I got my $5 Chinese haircut, and I quite like it. It’s about chin length, just long enough that I can still put it up.
Xueqin has been saying for a while that she wants to “li ge fa” (trim a hair, an expression that is somewhat abbreviated and for some reason sounds funny to us), so I went with her to one of several salons near school. I had perhaps the longest hair wash of my life, using very little water (actually there was no sink, just a very lathery liquid poured on my head and worked through my hair), which was fabulous, and then rinsed sat down for my cut. At this point I should mention that I actually generally feel very uncomfortable talking to the people who cut my hair. I think it has something to do with the fact that the cape and wet hair make my neck and face look kind of fat, and I am forced to sit and make eye contact with myself, scrutinize every detail of my face, and simultaneously make small talk so someone who’s tugging away at my head. It’s harder when there’s a language gap.
When the stylist commented about my hair color, I mentioned that my sister has red hair. This news always seems to startle Chinese people. They of course understand genetics and that sort of thing, and if you shrug and say “it’s genetic” they concede that it makes sense, but these are people who are used to everyone having black hair, so the thought that within a single family there could exist several hair colors is a bit baffling. We hit on other various uncomfortable subjects like how much a hair cut costs in America, and how long I’ve been in China. This is an uncomfortable question for me, because due to the lack of verb tenses, continuing actions are a bit difficult, and I have trouble figuring out whether someone wants to know how long I’ve been in China or how long I plan to be in China. I generally answer both questions and hope they’re satisfied. So anyway my hair is now blow-dried and therefore the prettiest it’s been since I got here, and on one of the most humid days. Bad timing, I know.
Xueqin has been saying for a while that she wants to “li ge fa” (trim a hair, an expression that is somewhat abbreviated and for some reason sounds funny to us), so I went with her to one of several salons near school. I had perhaps the longest hair wash of my life, using very little water (actually there was no sink, just a very lathery liquid poured on my head and worked through my hair), which was fabulous, and then rinsed sat down for my cut. At this point I should mention that I actually generally feel very uncomfortable talking to the people who cut my hair. I think it has something to do with the fact that the cape and wet hair make my neck and face look kind of fat, and I am forced to sit and make eye contact with myself, scrutinize every detail of my face, and simultaneously make small talk so someone who’s tugging away at my head. It’s harder when there’s a language gap.
When the stylist commented about my hair color, I mentioned that my sister has red hair. This news always seems to startle Chinese people. They of course understand genetics and that sort of thing, and if you shrug and say “it’s genetic” they concede that it makes sense, but these are people who are used to everyone having black hair, so the thought that within a single family there could exist several hair colors is a bit baffling. We hit on other various uncomfortable subjects like how much a hair cut costs in America, and how long I’ve been in China. This is an uncomfortable question for me, because due to the lack of verb tenses, continuing actions are a bit difficult, and I have trouble figuring out whether someone wants to know how long I’ve been in China or how long I plan to be in China. I generally answer both questions and hope they’re satisfied. So anyway my hair is now blow-dried and therefore the prettiest it’s been since I got here, and on one of the most humid days. Bad timing, I know.
Soccer Postscript
One thing of note I forgot to mention was the writing I found on the back of my ticket. One column of logos cautioned me that the following items were prohibited in the arena: dogs, helmets, knives and guns, glass bottles and cans, alcohol, hammers, and explosives. It’s a good thing I read that before I left, or I might have had my hammer confiscated at the security check. And it’s probably good that the Brazil team did so well, and we weren’t playing Ireland, or else I think I may have needed the helmet. Further fine print informed me that it was forbidden to bring anything that could be considered a weapon, or “impair the enjoyment, comfort and safety” (It didn’t say of whom), or any “ostensibly visible promotional, commercial, political or religious item of whatever nature”. Oh, Chinese Communism. Where’s a giant crucifix when you need one?
Thursday, September 27, 2007
My Study Abroad is Cooler Than Yours
Sure, students studying here in the spring have the option of extending through the summer and going to Beijing to see the Olympics along with the hoards of other foreigners who will be there, but this fall in Hangzhou occurred a very cool event that involved less hassle, more personality and a lot of fun: The Semi-Finals of the Women’s Soccer World Cup. That’s right, the FIFA World Cup 2007 was hosted in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan, Tianjin and Hangzhou, and tonight was the semi-final between the US and Brazilian teams.
Of course, we bought the tickets before we knew who’d be playing, and were all the more excited when we found out. For less than 20 dollars, I got a seat fairly close to the action, and right at center field. Most of our classmates turned out for the event, along with a large percentage of the foreign population of Hangzhou, who were still a vast minority to the Chinese spectators. During the first half, we spent some time getting group shots with various people’s cameras. The funny thing was, every time we’d group up and smile, about five other cameras would point at us from the Chinese people sitting next to us. We thought it was kind of amusing, and would turn and smile at their cameras, too. Then it became halftime and all of a sudden we were the most interesting thing happening. People stopped waiting for us to pose, and would just sort of snap away, and many people would actually jump into photos with us, with or without asking. When I turned around, I was faced with rows of lenses pointed at the backs of our heads. It was a bit unnerving; I spent most of halftime posing next to strange Chinese men and flashing the peace sign. I think I’m in more pictures on Chinese cameras than American, though to be fair the odds were against me, as there were a lot more Chinese people taking pictures than Americans, and I’d be willing to bet there are many times more digital cameras in China than in America. I sort of wish I’d gotten a picture of a random Chinese person on MY camera, but alas, did not think of it.
To the dismay of many of my classmates, the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people were supporting Brazil. In an effort to turn the tables a bit, they started refusing to pose for pictures unless the person taking the picture said they supported America. Their enthusiasm worked, and during the second half the people in our vicinity erupted with cheers of “美国加油” and the English equivalent, “Let’s go, USA”. Sadly the team was beaten soundly (4-0), and we left dejectedly in search of a taxi. Several cabless and one bus that refused to stop because it was already full beyond capacity prompted Xueqin to declare that there are far too many people in China.
Of course, we bought the tickets before we knew who’d be playing, and were all the more excited when we found out. For less than 20 dollars, I got a seat fairly close to the action, and right at center field. Most of our classmates turned out for the event, along with a large percentage of the foreign population of Hangzhou, who were still a vast minority to the Chinese spectators. During the first half, we spent some time getting group shots with various people’s cameras. The funny thing was, every time we’d group up and smile, about five other cameras would point at us from the Chinese people sitting next to us. We thought it was kind of amusing, and would turn and smile at their cameras, too. Then it became halftime and all of a sudden we were the most interesting thing happening. People stopped waiting for us to pose, and would just sort of snap away, and many people would actually jump into photos with us, with or without asking. When I turned around, I was faced with rows of lenses pointed at the backs of our heads. It was a bit unnerving; I spent most of halftime posing next to strange Chinese men and flashing the peace sign. I think I’m in more pictures on Chinese cameras than American, though to be fair the odds were against me, as there were a lot more Chinese people taking pictures than Americans, and I’d be willing to bet there are many times more digital cameras in China than in America. I sort of wish I’d gotten a picture of a random Chinese person on MY camera, but alas, did not think of it.
To the dismay of many of my classmates, the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people were supporting Brazil. In an effort to turn the tables a bit, they started refusing to pose for pictures unless the person taking the picture said they supported America. Their enthusiasm worked, and during the second half the people in our vicinity erupted with cheers of “美国加油” and the English equivalent, “Let’s go, USA”. Sadly the team was beaten soundly (4-0), and we left dejectedly in search of a taxi. Several cabless and one bus that refused to stop because it was already full beyond capacity prompted Xueqin to declare that there are far too many people in China.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The Mid-Autumn Festival
Students of Chinese can appreciate the small sense of satisfaction I felt at being present for the passing of the Mid-Autumn Festival last night. For about the first three weeks of second year Chinese, we read texts revolving around celebrating the festival at a professor’s house, performed skits involving explaining the festival to American visitors, and spent countless classes repeating “No, I have never before tried mooncakes”. This mysterious holiday (our teachers’ explanations were vague at best) became a sort of a running joke among our class, all wondering exactly what the fuss was about, and what a mooncake was.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a celebration of the harvest, but also a time to gather together with family and celebrate this reunion. For weeks beforehand, people buy lavishly presented boxes of mooncakes and give them to friends, coworkers and relatives. I’d seen advertisements and price listings all over the place, but had not as yet encountered a mooncake until last Friday, when Yazhen managed to land a ridiculously expensive set of rounded boxes, lined in cloth and holding smaller emblazoned boxes of mooncakes. Since then I encountered several at breakfasts over the weekend, a few that were given to us by the teaching staff, and the piles that were being sold outside the cafeteria yesterday. A mooncake is somewhat larger than a hostess cupcake, and the outside is an intricately decorated cookie-like pastry with various designs on top. There are several different fillings, all equally dense. Most seem to be made from plums and other fruit, and is very similar in taste and consistency to a fig newton. I also encountered one more chocolatey one, several with egg yolks baked in, and one unidentifiable golden caky thing that was quite good.
When the day itself comes, the celebration seems to be limited to sitting outside and looking at the harvest moon. I could have gone to the most touristy site in Hangzhou, an island in the lake that has some sort of lunar significance, but a birthday party and better sense about avoiding big crowds kept me back, so I got my moon-enjoyment in while walking from the dorm to the taxi stop to hit a bar as part of the birthday celebration. To give some better perspective, Xiaojun met up with some classmates and sat on a bench in a campus park eating snacks. All in all, not the most boisterous holiday, but I like the simplicity of it, especially given all the hype (Chinese people love explaining their traditions to foreigners). And anyway, now I can no longer truthfully say “我从来没吃过月饼”.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is a celebration of the harvest, but also a time to gather together with family and celebrate this reunion. For weeks beforehand, people buy lavishly presented boxes of mooncakes and give them to friends, coworkers and relatives. I’d seen advertisements and price listings all over the place, but had not as yet encountered a mooncake until last Friday, when Yazhen managed to land a ridiculously expensive set of rounded boxes, lined in cloth and holding smaller emblazoned boxes of mooncakes. Since then I encountered several at breakfasts over the weekend, a few that were given to us by the teaching staff, and the piles that were being sold outside the cafeteria yesterday. A mooncake is somewhat larger than a hostess cupcake, and the outside is an intricately decorated cookie-like pastry with various designs on top. There are several different fillings, all equally dense. Most seem to be made from plums and other fruit, and is very similar in taste and consistency to a fig newton. I also encountered one more chocolatey one, several with egg yolks baked in, and one unidentifiable golden caky thing that was quite good.
When the day itself comes, the celebration seems to be limited to sitting outside and looking at the harvest moon. I could have gone to the most touristy site in Hangzhou, an island in the lake that has some sort of lunar significance, but a birthday party and better sense about avoiding big crowds kept me back, so I got my moon-enjoyment in while walking from the dorm to the taxi stop to hit a bar as part of the birthday celebration. To give some better perspective, Xiaojun met up with some classmates and sat on a bench in a campus park eating snacks. All in all, not the most boisterous holiday, but I like the simplicity of it, especially given all the hype (Chinese people love explaining their traditions to foreigners). And anyway, now I can no longer truthfully say “我从来没吃过月饼”.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Battling Murphy's Law
This past weekend we had our group travel, our final formal activity geared toward familiarizing us with Zhejiang Province. Our trip took us South to the area around Wenzhou. Friday afternoon students and roommates alike packed into a neon green tour bus (about 55 of us altogether), and we set off on what turned out to be a rather interesting but definitely enjoyable weekend.
We spent Friday night in the small city of Rui’an (yes, 瑞安，the same name as our beloved stateside classmate). Unfortunately this Rui’an is not as much fun as the other one, and after walking around aimlessly for a while, we ended up packing in and resting up for Saturday.
Saturday breakfast was definitely a highlight: an epic buffet in the hotel restaurant featuring several choices but also (miraculously) Western-style choices. I chose to ignore some of the interesting looking Chinese choices and a rather out-of-place salad, and reveled instead in my eggs and toast with jam. After breakfast we set off for the “Nine Pools”, which turned out to be just that. We spent the morning hiking along a gorgeously pristine river to a mountain top (abandoning our boots at the first river crossing and hiking barefoot), and then making our way back down, jumping off of rocks into deep swimming holes, standing under waterfalls and swimming. I was exhausted by the time we got back to the bus around 3:00, in time to change and order some lunch. And that’s when the trouble started.
At four when we were scheduled to depart, the driver discovered that we had some engine trouble. When the key was turned, the bus would rev for a while and then stall, and refused to start. Flexible college students we are, we filed off the humid bus and started tossing a Frisbee, making extra bathroom runs, etc. The bus started up, and we all piled back on, backed up about five feet, and stalled again. This continued for a little over an hour, when the driver finally got the bus going and we set off for the mountaintop Daoist temple/monastery we were to hike to and spend the night.
I’ll say this about our driver: he is good at his job. The roads we were on contained such obstacles as low-lying cables, passages just barely wider than the bus, chickens and bikers and things in the road at every turn (he would honk in warning before every such bend). And then we hit the switchbacks, and our respect for the driver doubled. We drove up a darkening, narrow mountain road for quite a ways, and never once did he think twice about whether or not he could make the turn. Several times we had to stop the bus and wait while several volunteers moved large rocks out of the way. Somewhere around this time it started raining. After the second such rock-moving expedition, the bus stalled again. It took about an hour and a half to fix. During this time, several people’s (mostly the boys) well-trained college mentalities kicked in, bottles of beer and rice liquor emerged from backpacks, and the back of the bus got drunk and rowdy. This is always a good state to be in before a hike in the rain at night. The rest of us alternated between humid hot bus and rainy cold outside, eating various snacks and speculating about when exactly we would get there. The bus finally roared back to life, and we made it to the trailhead with little interference, except the comically large pile of sand we drove over (I swear it was just looming ahead like something from a cartoon or bad video game). Relieved, we said goodbye to the bus and started slowly filing up the mountain to the temple. The hike was pretty steep in parts, and though it was dark and foggy we could tell that daylight would offer some great views. The hike only took about 45 minutes, but when we arrived it felt like much longer. We were greeted with a wonderfully simple vegetarian meal with dishes of lotus root, beans, mushrooms, bamboo and the like. Probably one of my best meals since I’ve been here, though that’s partially because I was so exhausted.
We were planning to get up at 5 to walk to the summit for sunrise, but we were told it was still raining and shooed back to bed. At 7:30 when we went back downstairs, we discovered that the problem was not rain (the rain had stopped) but the fog that poured into every courtyard, obscured anything more than 15 feet away, and sadly made even photographing the buildings we were in difficult. We explored the place a bit and set off down the mountain, assured that the driver had eaten well before us and departed a half an hour earlier. The hike down was gloriously comfortable, with occasional large gusts blowing up at us. The views were as obscured as the night before, but the feeling of being entirely surrounded by fog was pretty cool. Jingbo at one point seemed pretty impressed that he’d essentially run up the same route drunk the night before. The downside was that half an hour of descending jagged stairs does a number on your knees, and by the time we reached the bus, our legs were shaking, our previously clean clothes were damp, and…what? You guessed it: our driver was nowhere to be found. So we waited, watching the fog and demolishing our remaining snacks, as everyone else came down the mountain. Turns out he’d gone back to sleep, and not decided to run off and abandon the defective bus and crazy Americans on it, so about an hour later we finally started the descent from the mountain. Sunday was taken up almost entirely by driving, with the exception of an hour stop for lunch in the city of Wenzhou. We made it back around 9:00 at night, smelly, tired and ready for class the next morning.
We spent Friday night in the small city of Rui’an (yes, 瑞安，the same name as our beloved stateside classmate). Unfortunately this Rui’an is not as much fun as the other one, and after walking around aimlessly for a while, we ended up packing in and resting up for Saturday.
Saturday breakfast was definitely a highlight: an epic buffet in the hotel restaurant featuring several choices but also (miraculously) Western-style choices. I chose to ignore some of the interesting looking Chinese choices and a rather out-of-place salad, and reveled instead in my eggs and toast with jam. After breakfast we set off for the “Nine Pools”, which turned out to be just that. We spent the morning hiking along a gorgeously pristine river to a mountain top (abandoning our boots at the first river crossing and hiking barefoot), and then making our way back down, jumping off of rocks into deep swimming holes, standing under waterfalls and swimming. I was exhausted by the time we got back to the bus around 3:00, in time to change and order some lunch. And that’s when the trouble started.
At four when we were scheduled to depart, the driver discovered that we had some engine trouble. When the key was turned, the bus would rev for a while and then stall, and refused to start. Flexible college students we are, we filed off the humid bus and started tossing a Frisbee, making extra bathroom runs, etc. The bus started up, and we all piled back on, backed up about five feet, and stalled again. This continued for a little over an hour, when the driver finally got the bus going and we set off for the mountaintop Daoist temple/monastery we were to hike to and spend the night.
I’ll say this about our driver: he is good at his job. The roads we were on contained such obstacles as low-lying cables, passages just barely wider than the bus, chickens and bikers and things in the road at every turn (he would honk in warning before every such bend). And then we hit the switchbacks, and our respect for the driver doubled. We drove up a darkening, narrow mountain road for quite a ways, and never once did he think twice about whether or not he could make the turn. Several times we had to stop the bus and wait while several volunteers moved large rocks out of the way. Somewhere around this time it started raining. After the second such rock-moving expedition, the bus stalled again. It took about an hour and a half to fix. During this time, several people’s (mostly the boys) well-trained college mentalities kicked in, bottles of beer and rice liquor emerged from backpacks, and the back of the bus got drunk and rowdy. This is always a good state to be in before a hike in the rain at night. The rest of us alternated between humid hot bus and rainy cold outside, eating various snacks and speculating about when exactly we would get there. The bus finally roared back to life, and we made it to the trailhead with little interference, except the comically large pile of sand we drove over (I swear it was just looming ahead like something from a cartoon or bad video game). Relieved, we said goodbye to the bus and started slowly filing up the mountain to the temple. The hike was pretty steep in parts, and though it was dark and foggy we could tell that daylight would offer some great views. The hike only took about 45 minutes, but when we arrived it felt like much longer. We were greeted with a wonderfully simple vegetarian meal with dishes of lotus root, beans, mushrooms, bamboo and the like. Probably one of my best meals since I’ve been here, though that’s partially because I was so exhausted.
We were planning to get up at 5 to walk to the summit for sunrise, but we were told it was still raining and shooed back to bed. At 7:30 when we went back downstairs, we discovered that the problem was not rain (the rain had stopped) but the fog that poured into every courtyard, obscured anything more than 15 feet away, and sadly made even photographing the buildings we were in difficult. We explored the place a bit and set off down the mountain, assured that the driver had eaten well before us and departed a half an hour earlier. The hike down was gloriously comfortable, with occasional large gusts blowing up at us. The views were as obscured as the night before, but the feeling of being entirely surrounded by fog was pretty cool. Jingbo at one point seemed pretty impressed that he’d essentially run up the same route drunk the night before. The downside was that half an hour of descending jagged stairs does a number on your knees, and by the time we reached the bus, our legs were shaking, our previously clean clothes were damp, and…what? You guessed it: our driver was nowhere to be found. So we waited, watching the fog and demolishing our remaining snacks, as everyone else came down the mountain. Turns out he’d gone back to sleep, and not decided to run off and abandon the defective bus and crazy Americans on it, so about an hour later we finally started the descent from the mountain. Sunday was taken up almost entirely by driving, with the exception of an hour stop for lunch in the city of Wenzhou. We made it back around 9:00 at night, smelly, tired and ready for class the next morning.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Being Touristy
This week has been largely uneventful, comprised mostly of dodging large downpours of rain resulting from a nearby typhoon, making various afternoon excursions to grocery stores and to find new cafes, poring over maps and entertainment guides, and making various culinary discoveries. It’s been great, largely because I’m making a point of staying away from campus in the afternoons when I’m not in class.
This afternoon I didn’t have anything to do after 2:00, and since I don’t have much to prepare for tomorrow, either, I decided to go to the South end of town and see some of the historic sights of West Lake. Most of the interesting places are on an island in the middle of the lake, but there’s a pagoda and some pretty park areas along the Southern perimeter which I hadn’t yet been to. I got Jingbo to go with me, since he didn’t have class either. The two of us took the bus past the swankier West Lake area with all of the Western style restaurants and got off at a park full of sculptures, willow trees, touring rowboats and, apparently, a miniature version of Seaworld. We walked the stone pathways around the perimeter of the lake to the Pagoda, took the escalator up the hill (yep, that’s right) and spent a good bit of time taking in the scenery from the top.
The Pagoda, it seems, is a relatively recent reconstruction, but it’s quite pretty and offers a good vantage of West Lake and downtown Hangzhou. You can walk around and see the islands, the site of some old imperial buildings, the tree-lined parks encircling the Eastern side of the lake, the towering office buildings behind them, and the essentially untouched mountains immediately to the South. It’s strange, you can literally walk five or ten minutes from the largest tourist center probably in the province, and find yourself in a Zen temple at the feet of several entirely undeveloped mountains. The city basically stops just South of the lake. I’m sure it’s the sudden spike in elevation that’s slowed sprawl in these areas, but I’m curious what it’ll look like in ten years.
After perusing the pagoda and the excavation of the original foundation beneath, we headed back through the walkways to a quite reasonably priced teahouse we’d seen coming in. I’m pretty sure in the West such prime real estate would have already been bought up and replaced with an upscale alternative, but that particular sort of development seems to be confined to the lakeside “Tiandi” district farther North. We sat outside and slowly sipped our tea (which came with a really large pitcher of hot water for refilling), and did a bit of studying. Jingbo was hungry so we ordered some snacks. I let him choose and we ended up with a plate of individually wrapped Necco wafers that turned out to be hawthorn flavored (thank you, beloved dictionary, answerer of inane but pressing questions). Luckily, I learned the word for peanuts yesterday at the grocery store, so I quickly added a plate to our order. It was quite nice, whiling away the afternoon by the lake, listening to outdated pop music, browsing our dictionaries for particularly interesting words, cracking peanuts and throwing in the occasional bit of study.
This afternoon I didn’t have anything to do after 2:00, and since I don’t have much to prepare for tomorrow, either, I decided to go to the South end of town and see some of the historic sights of West Lake. Most of the interesting places are on an island in the middle of the lake, but there’s a pagoda and some pretty park areas along the Southern perimeter which I hadn’t yet been to. I got Jingbo to go with me, since he didn’t have class either. The two of us took the bus past the swankier West Lake area with all of the Western style restaurants and got off at a park full of sculptures, willow trees, touring rowboats and, apparently, a miniature version of Seaworld. We walked the stone pathways around the perimeter of the lake to the Pagoda, took the escalator up the hill (yep, that’s right) and spent a good bit of time taking in the scenery from the top.
The Pagoda, it seems, is a relatively recent reconstruction, but it’s quite pretty and offers a good vantage of West Lake and downtown Hangzhou. You can walk around and see the islands, the site of some old imperial buildings, the tree-lined parks encircling the Eastern side of the lake, the towering office buildings behind them, and the essentially untouched mountains immediately to the South. It’s strange, you can literally walk five or ten minutes from the largest tourist center probably in the province, and find yourself in a Zen temple at the feet of several entirely undeveloped mountains. The city basically stops just South of the lake. I’m sure it’s the sudden spike in elevation that’s slowed sprawl in these areas, but I’m curious what it’ll look like in ten years.
After perusing the pagoda and the excavation of the original foundation beneath, we headed back through the walkways to a quite reasonably priced teahouse we’d seen coming in. I’m pretty sure in the West such prime real estate would have already been bought up and replaced with an upscale alternative, but that particular sort of development seems to be confined to the lakeside “Tiandi” district farther North. We sat outside and slowly sipped our tea (which came with a really large pitcher of hot water for refilling), and did a bit of studying. Jingbo was hungry so we ordered some snacks. I let him choose and we ended up with a plate of individually wrapped Necco wafers that turned out to be hawthorn flavored (thank you, beloved dictionary, answerer of inane but pressing questions). Luckily, I learned the word for peanuts yesterday at the grocery store, so I quickly added a plate to our order. It was quite nice, whiling away the afternoon by the lake, listening to outdated pop music, browsing our dictionaries for particularly interesting words, cracking peanuts and throwing in the occasional bit of study.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Xiaojun
My roommate’s name is Xiaojun. Her name means something like “Sovereign of the Dawn” which I think is pretty cool (my name, for those who don’t know, means something along the lines of “Happy Root Vegetables”). She is (I think) studying mechanical engineering. She is from the South, just across the strait from Taiwan, which means she drops the ‘h’ out of her ch, sh and zh sounds. For someone who has spent two years trying to master Chinese phonetics, it is frustrating to suddenly lose several sounds, and have the word for “pig” start to sound like “rent”. Though I’d encountered this accent before in movies and such, I’d never had to understand it, and it took some adjusting, even for the simpler stuff. The first day I got here she asked me if I’d eaten yet, and I probably made her repeat the question three times. The worst was when she offered to take me to a supermarket. The word I learned was “chaoji shichang” which she abbreviated to “chao shi” and said as “cao si”, which sounds sort of like “grass four”. Now of course I rarely have to think about her accent, and can’t help but be amused when my classmates don’t understand her simple questions.
Xiaojun puts her arm around my shoulder to steer me down the street. She seems convinced I will get hit by a car or particularly aggressive bicycle. When she comes in the door she announces, “I’ve come back!” and she makes a similar declaration when I return. She spends a lot of time online talking to friends and family, or watching illegally downloaded movies, thus proving that college students everywhere are mostly the same. Also it gives me a chance to watch my much beloved Asian soap operas.
Xiaojun snacks a lot, which is dangerous for me because it means she’s constantly handing me fruit, pumpkin seeds, fried crepes from the back gate stands, and various rice-based snack items. The first week I was here she handed me half a watermelon in a plastic bag, and a spoon (it was a watermelon about the size of a cantaloupe, but still).
I’m definitely enjoying living with her, though our interaction has dwindled since we’re now both in class. This seems to be the case for a lot of people. I think once our schedules even out we’ll see more of each other during the day.
Xiaojun puts her arm around my shoulder to steer me down the street. She seems convinced I will get hit by a car or particularly aggressive bicycle. When she comes in the door she announces, “I’ve come back!” and she makes a similar declaration when I return. She spends a lot of time online talking to friends and family, or watching illegally downloaded movies, thus proving that college students everywhere are mostly the same. Also it gives me a chance to watch my much beloved Asian soap operas.
Xiaojun snacks a lot, which is dangerous for me because it means she’s constantly handing me fruit, pumpkin seeds, fried crepes from the back gate stands, and various rice-based snack items. The first week I was here she handed me half a watermelon in a plastic bag, and a spoon (it was a watermelon about the size of a cantaloupe, but still).
I’m definitely enjoying living with her, though our interaction has dwindled since we’re now both in class. This seems to be the case for a lot of people. I think once our schedules even out we’ll see more of each other during the day.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Too Many Cooks
Today was my third (and final) cooking class in China. Part of our curriculum here includes once or twice weekly extra-curricular “culture” activities, of which our choices include several traditional Chinese instruments, calligraphy, watercolor, go, martial arts, street dance and ping pong. Another girl and I chose the cooking class, which was held in the kitchen of a hotel near the school.
I have now forced my grinning self on grudgingly acquiescent cooks in three different countries, eagerly offering to chop things for prep and ask the names of all the basic ingredients. In Thailand, my language relevant to the matter was limited to “I want to help!”, “Yes, it tastes good” and “I like spicy”. In Italy I could name several of the vegetables I was handling, check my progress with the cook (“va bene?”) and respond with an enthusiastic “si, si, capisco” to her various instructions.
In China it was much the same, though I already knew how to name most of the basic items we were dealing with (short of a few condiments and more obscure vegetables). The class structure went something like this: We would enter the kitchen (which was my favorite part of the class: I love a good large-scale kitchen, and the oversized cooking implements that come with it) and stand mute as the chef regarded us blandly and asked what we wanted to cook. By chance, I can name one of my favorite dishes (that old first year favorite, tang cu yu, sweet and sour fish) so that’s what we made last time (actually we used pork ribs, but same idea). Then he’d grunt assent, pull out the relevant materials, cut them up, and set them out at the cooking station. We’d shuffle obediently after him and watch as he pointed to each ingredient and named it, poured large amounts of oil into the wok, and start stir-frying. When he was done he would put the contents on a plate, hand us each a pair of disposable chopsticks and let us stand around for five or so minutes as we tried a few bites and commented that it was quite good. I kept trying to ask questions about the process or ingredients, but it was all very much the same: fry items, remove. Add oil, soy sauce, MSG, various. Mix together and then recombine with previously fried items. Then, depending on what day it was, he’d let one of us step up to the plate and basically hold the spoon and mix as he added ingredients, occasionally wresting the heavy wok away from us as we tried in vain to elicit some sort of encouragement or feedback on our handiwork. Then we’d repeat the bit with the plate and the nodding agreement that yes, this was in fact the same dish we’d just tasted, pack the leftovers into boxes, and head off. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, perhaps a bit more room for technique, practice, experimentation and explanation about seasoning combinations, dish histories, variations etc. It was an interesting class maybe once, but I could see getting less rather than more excited about it as the term went on.
Today’s dish of choice was fried noodles, plus an additional plate of greens, and it was my turn to take the helm. Today I actually got to do some of the prep, too, which involved chopping up some lettuce greens and slicing thin strips of some sort of root vegetable. My knife skills are nowhere near perfect, but by the time I finished my American cooking class last year I could turn out a halfway decent chiffonade (Bill Gates thinks I spelled that wrong, but he has no better suggestions so I choose to ignore him), and chop most anything you tossed at me efficiently if not elegantly. In China, they use not the long, tapered chef’s knife I’m used to but a large rectangular cleaver, and the chopping motion comes not from the wrist but the shoulder, a sort of full-arm swinging motion, like feeding thick paper into a shredder you can’t quite reach. This is the same knife the chef used last week to hack up a rack of pork ribs. The lettuce was no problem, but I was somewhat less successful producing minutely thin and parallel slices of the root. At least my digits are still in tact.
As I was frying the lettuce earlier, in what I am mostly sure was oil and lard, the chef grabbed the giant ladle I was using from me and dipped it into the nearby seasonings. He withdrew a few teaspoons of salt and carefully tapped a few shakes off of the spoon before rinsing it off. He then drew out about a tablespoon of MSG and dumped it into the wok. I’m lost entirely.
In any case it turns out my fellow classmate, though more curious about the basic stuff, was equally unimpressed with the class as a whole, and we just went tails between our legs to drop the class. I’ll be switching into either a painting or calligraphy class later on, depending on which has space.
I have now forced my grinning self on grudgingly acquiescent cooks in three different countries, eagerly offering to chop things for prep and ask the names of all the basic ingredients. In Thailand, my language relevant to the matter was limited to “I want to help!”, “Yes, it tastes good” and “I like spicy”. In Italy I could name several of the vegetables I was handling, check my progress with the cook (“va bene?”) and respond with an enthusiastic “si, si, capisco” to her various instructions.
In China it was much the same, though I already knew how to name most of the basic items we were dealing with (short of a few condiments and more obscure vegetables). The class structure went something like this: We would enter the kitchen (which was my favorite part of the class: I love a good large-scale kitchen, and the oversized cooking implements that come with it) and stand mute as the chef regarded us blandly and asked what we wanted to cook. By chance, I can name one of my favorite dishes (that old first year favorite, tang cu yu, sweet and sour fish) so that’s what we made last time (actually we used pork ribs, but same idea). Then he’d grunt assent, pull out the relevant materials, cut them up, and set them out at the cooking station. We’d shuffle obediently after him and watch as he pointed to each ingredient and named it, poured large amounts of oil into the wok, and start stir-frying. When he was done he would put the contents on a plate, hand us each a pair of disposable chopsticks and let us stand around for five or so minutes as we tried a few bites and commented that it was quite good. I kept trying to ask questions about the process or ingredients, but it was all very much the same: fry items, remove. Add oil, soy sauce, MSG, various. Mix together and then recombine with previously fried items. Then, depending on what day it was, he’d let one of us step up to the plate and basically hold the spoon and mix as he added ingredients, occasionally wresting the heavy wok away from us as we tried in vain to elicit some sort of encouragement or feedback on our handiwork. Then we’d repeat the bit with the plate and the nodding agreement that yes, this was in fact the same dish we’d just tasted, pack the leftovers into boxes, and head off. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, perhaps a bit more room for technique, practice, experimentation and explanation about seasoning combinations, dish histories, variations etc. It was an interesting class maybe once, but I could see getting less rather than more excited about it as the term went on.
Today’s dish of choice was fried noodles, plus an additional plate of greens, and it was my turn to take the helm. Today I actually got to do some of the prep, too, which involved chopping up some lettuce greens and slicing thin strips of some sort of root vegetable. My knife skills are nowhere near perfect, but by the time I finished my American cooking class last year I could turn out a halfway decent chiffonade (Bill Gates thinks I spelled that wrong, but he has no better suggestions so I choose to ignore him), and chop most anything you tossed at me efficiently if not elegantly. In China, they use not the long, tapered chef’s knife I’m used to but a large rectangular cleaver, and the chopping motion comes not from the wrist but the shoulder, a sort of full-arm swinging motion, like feeding thick paper into a shredder you can’t quite reach. This is the same knife the chef used last week to hack up a rack of pork ribs. The lettuce was no problem, but I was somewhat less successful producing minutely thin and parallel slices of the root. At least my digits are still in tact.
As I was frying the lettuce earlier, in what I am mostly sure was oil and lard, the chef grabbed the giant ladle I was using from me and dipped it into the nearby seasonings. He withdrew a few teaspoons of salt and carefully tapped a few shakes off of the spoon before rinsing it off. He then drew out about a tablespoon of MSG and dumped it into the wok. I’m lost entirely.
In any case it turns out my fellow classmate, though more curious about the basic stuff, was equally unimpressed with the class as a whole, and we just went tails between our legs to drop the class. I’ll be switching into either a painting or calligraphy class later on, depending on which has space.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Taking in some Culture
This weekend we were encouraged to go for a solo travel weekend. Since my opportunities for solo travel after the semester are boundless (okay, about three weeks) I decided not to do a big trip, plus there is a small day-trip worthy water village (canals and wooden boats and tourist traps aplenty: think Venice but smaller, and with more Asians) that piqued my interest, so I decided to hang around except for a day trip on Saturday. Of course, when I woke up Saturday I felt like doing anything OTHER than hauling myself over to the bus station and going away all day, so I decided to stay in the city after all, especially since I haven’t had a proper weekend here yet, and next weekend we have more mandatory fun away from Hangzhou.
I didn’t do anything particularly exciting other than explore a few neighborhoods I’d yet to really look at, and spend a nice late morning on Saturday strolling around a very busy park by West Lake, weaving through the Chinese tourists and trying to find a shady spot to sit. I would have been content to settle on the grass somewhere and write postcards and the Chinese language journal I am keeping for one of my Midd professors, but unfortunately two barriers stood in my way. The first is that it seems to be impossible to buy postcards in China. No matter how many souvenir shops I pass with loud hawkers pushing boiled corn, film, paper parasols, beaded cell phone fobs, fans, jewelery, embroidered change purses and the like, I have yet to find the familiar rack of postcards featuring firework-lit skies over recognizable memorials. Once this thought occurred to me, I remembered that the only way I got my hands on any postcards in Beijing was to buy a pre-arranged set of ten unimpressive cards sold at a single shop off of Tiananmen Square. Had I remembered this ahead of time, I would have bought the tackiest New York postcards I could find to send out. Alas.
The second problem is that Chinese people do not walk on their grass. It is just not done. Practically every small patch of grass I pass has a small sign on it requesting or sometimes demanding that you stay away. In the park, all of the grass areas were fenced off, and while I did see one couple settling down under a tree, I also witnessed the security officer who arrived moments later and chased them off, not by asking them to leave but by rather insistently blowing a whistle at them as he approached to shoo them away. There is reason to this, I think, and it is the same reason that admission to many parks is on the expensive side: there are a lot of people in China. Not only that, but they all love to travel, and generally do so at the same time, on weekends and the “golden holiday” weeks that occur several times a year. Were all of these Chinese people allowed to traipse about through the grass or crowd en masse into the parks and scenic attractions, well, the scenery would be lost and the landscaping bills would be astronomical.
Saturday I went out with a few others who’d stayed behind this weekend. We headed to the Zhejiang University campus across town, the vicinity of which houses about half of the noteworthy bars in the Hangzhou guide magazines we’ve been perusing. (The other half are along a second road along the Southeastern side of West Lake). The bar we went to first was called “Reggae Bar”, and while the décor did feature lots of pictures of Bob Marley, nothing else about the place was reggae. (I mean they played that Umbrella song…come on). The other noteworthy thing about the bar was the inordinate amount of foreigners; among others, we sat next to some Germans, and there were white and black people of various nationalities everywhere. Hey, you know who’s German…? (Sorry, that was a two person joke). We were going to head off to a supposedly more interesting place, when, well, let’s call it “Chiang Kai-Shek’s Revenge” cut my night short. So my friends put me in a cab and sent me back.
It being my first time in a cab solo since getting here, I hadn’t previously had much chance to talk to the brave (or crazy) men who drive quite aggressively across the city to get us from A to B. Chinese drivers, of cabs and buses alike, have great faith in their brake systems, and exercise that faith regularly. They also like to play games of Chicken that involve pulling into oncoming traffic to make a light or cutting off small cars with big big buses. But back to my cabbie: he started chatting me up about my Chinese, where I was studying, etc. Then changed the subject to the fact that he’d just picked me up outside a bar. He mentioned that young Chinese girls pretty much just don’t go to bars or smoke or drink beer (this is mostly true: there are of course girls at the bars, but none of our roommates ever really go out, and neither do their friends). He didn’t say it judgementally, in fact he was impressed and said that Chinese people should be open minded about that kind of thing. Chinese people actually do not seem to insult easily, and take most of what we do in stride as being the way foreigners do things. I can’t think of a time I’ve seen a Chinese girl wearing a tank top, and yet I doubt of us feel uncomfortable wearing them. One of our classmates had someone ask her if she thought the weather was especially hot that day, but any cultural modesty on the part of the Chinese doesn’t transfer to us. I told him that America isn’t necessarily that open minded when it comes to alcohol (eg: drinking age), but that yes, in general, there’s less difference between male and female college students.
I didn’t do anything particularly exciting other than explore a few neighborhoods I’d yet to really look at, and spend a nice late morning on Saturday strolling around a very busy park by West Lake, weaving through the Chinese tourists and trying to find a shady spot to sit. I would have been content to settle on the grass somewhere and write postcards and the Chinese language journal I am keeping for one of my Midd professors, but unfortunately two barriers stood in my way. The first is that it seems to be impossible to buy postcards in China. No matter how many souvenir shops I pass with loud hawkers pushing boiled corn, film, paper parasols, beaded cell phone fobs, fans, jewelery, embroidered change purses and the like, I have yet to find the familiar rack of postcards featuring firework-lit skies over recognizable memorials. Once this thought occurred to me, I remembered that the only way I got my hands on any postcards in Beijing was to buy a pre-arranged set of ten unimpressive cards sold at a single shop off of Tiananmen Square. Had I remembered this ahead of time, I would have bought the tackiest New York postcards I could find to send out. Alas.
The second problem is that Chinese people do not walk on their grass. It is just not done. Practically every small patch of grass I pass has a small sign on it requesting or sometimes demanding that you stay away. In the park, all of the grass areas were fenced off, and while I did see one couple settling down under a tree, I also witnessed the security officer who arrived moments later and chased them off, not by asking them to leave but by rather insistently blowing a whistle at them as he approached to shoo them away. There is reason to this, I think, and it is the same reason that admission to many parks is on the expensive side: there are a lot of people in China. Not only that, but they all love to travel, and generally do so at the same time, on weekends and the “golden holiday” weeks that occur several times a year. Were all of these Chinese people allowed to traipse about through the grass or crowd en masse into the parks and scenic attractions, well, the scenery would be lost and the landscaping bills would be astronomical.
Saturday I went out with a few others who’d stayed behind this weekend. We headed to the Zhejiang University campus across town, the vicinity of which houses about half of the noteworthy bars in the Hangzhou guide magazines we’ve been perusing. (The other half are along a second road along the Southeastern side of West Lake). The bar we went to first was called “Reggae Bar”, and while the décor did feature lots of pictures of Bob Marley, nothing else about the place was reggae. (I mean they played that Umbrella song…come on). The other noteworthy thing about the bar was the inordinate amount of foreigners; among others, we sat next to some Germans, and there were white and black people of various nationalities everywhere. Hey, you know who’s German…? (Sorry, that was a two person joke). We were going to head off to a supposedly more interesting place, when, well, let’s call it “Chiang Kai-Shek’s Revenge” cut my night short. So my friends put me in a cab and sent me back.
It being my first time in a cab solo since getting here, I hadn’t previously had much chance to talk to the brave (or crazy) men who drive quite aggressively across the city to get us from A to B. Chinese drivers, of cabs and buses alike, have great faith in their brake systems, and exercise that faith regularly. They also like to play games of Chicken that involve pulling into oncoming traffic to make a light or cutting off small cars with big big buses. But back to my cabbie: he started chatting me up about my Chinese, where I was studying, etc. Then changed the subject to the fact that he’d just picked me up outside a bar. He mentioned that young Chinese girls pretty much just don’t go to bars or smoke or drink beer (this is mostly true: there are of course girls at the bars, but none of our roommates ever really go out, and neither do their friends). He didn’t say it judgementally, in fact he was impressed and said that Chinese people should be open minded about that kind of thing. Chinese people actually do not seem to insult easily, and take most of what we do in stride as being the way foreigners do things. I can’t think of a time I’ve seen a Chinese girl wearing a tank top, and yet I doubt of us feel uncomfortable wearing them. One of our classmates had someone ask her if she thought the weather was especially hot that day, but any cultural modesty on the part of the Chinese doesn’t transfer to us. I told him that America isn’t necessarily that open minded when it comes to alcohol (eg: drinking age), but that yes, in general, there’s less difference between male and female college students.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Life as a Sore Thumb
In case it’s not obvious, I have a pretty good sense of humor about the various adventures and misadventures tied in with study abroad here. I’m enjoying myself here and enjoying familiarizing myself with the city and it’s culture. The aspect of life here that is most amusing, but also most trying, is my status as blatantly obvious outsider.
The first week I encountered very little direct interaction due to my foreign looks. There was an older woman working at a supermarket who half seriously asked if my freckles were dirt, and I got used to receiving sideways glances as I passed people on the street, and the occasional oddly pronounced “hello” wafting my way from children and adults alike. My second day here my roommate eagerly asked if she could touch my hair, because she’d never felt blonde hair before. I don’t really mind except for the occasional blatant stare. I’ve perfected my “I’m aware that you’re looking at me” smile with an occasional wave to get the point across. If I feel brave I may try a more upfront “Can I help you?” type face. There has been, however, the occasional incident worth comment.
One day I was walking with my roommate and a girl about 5 years old passed by with her mother, exclaiming “Look at THAT person!” My roommate and I both heard, of course, and laughed about it for a while.
Most people I talk to, especially shopkeepers, all seem impressed at my grasp of the Chinese language. One asked how long I’d been studying, and I told him I’d started studying two years ago. He remarked how well I spoke for only having studied for two years. Seeing as the extent of our conversation was “Where are you from?” and “How long have you studied Chinese”, I’m less flattered. I should certainly HOPE that after two years I could talk about those things.
Last Friday on a Hangzhou city bus, a woman started chatting up my roommate. I could tell they were talking about me, but I wasn’t sure what they were saying. After she discovered that I could speak Chinese, she got out of her seat and walked across to me, asking earnestly about my freckles. Her daughter, about 3 years old, has recently been afflicted with a similar problem, and the doctors don’t seem sufficiently concerned. I sat, next to a somewhat more amused Yazhen, and chatted with her for several stops about the history and nature of my freckles.
This morning I passed by a flock of freshman boys, who are perhaps not yet used to the foreigners living on campus and throughout the city. One of them laughed and in a rather sing-song voice said to his friends “Foreigner”. As I passed I retorted with an equally sing-song “I understand you”. Ugh. Boys.
The first week I encountered very little direct interaction due to my foreign looks. There was an older woman working at a supermarket who half seriously asked if my freckles were dirt, and I got used to receiving sideways glances as I passed people on the street, and the occasional oddly pronounced “hello” wafting my way from children and adults alike. My second day here my roommate eagerly asked if she could touch my hair, because she’d never felt blonde hair before. I don’t really mind except for the occasional blatant stare. I’ve perfected my “I’m aware that you’re looking at me” smile with an occasional wave to get the point across. If I feel brave I may try a more upfront “Can I help you?” type face. There has been, however, the occasional incident worth comment.
One day I was walking with my roommate and a girl about 5 years old passed by with her mother, exclaiming “Look at THAT person!” My roommate and I both heard, of course, and laughed about it for a while.
Most people I talk to, especially shopkeepers, all seem impressed at my grasp of the Chinese language. One asked how long I’d been studying, and I told him I’d started studying two years ago. He remarked how well I spoke for only having studied for two years. Seeing as the extent of our conversation was “Where are you from?” and “How long have you studied Chinese”, I’m less flattered. I should certainly HOPE that after two years I could talk about those things.
Last Friday on a Hangzhou city bus, a woman started chatting up my roommate. I could tell they were talking about me, but I wasn’t sure what they were saying. After she discovered that I could speak Chinese, she got out of her seat and walked across to me, asking earnestly about my freckles. Her daughter, about 3 years old, has recently been afflicted with a similar problem, and the doctors don’t seem sufficiently concerned. I sat, next to a somewhat more amused Yazhen, and chatted with her for several stops about the history and nature of my freckles.
This morning I passed by a flock of freshman boys, who are perhaps not yet used to the foreigners living on campus and throughout the city. One of them laughed and in a rather sing-song voice said to his friends “Foreigner”. As I passed I retorted with an equally sing-song “I understand you”. Ugh. Boys.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Trial and Error, Part Two
First off, I neglected to mention the punch line to the pen story, which was that it turned out to be a fountain pen, for which I of course have no ink. Serves me right for being excessively tight-fisted. Today I again only had one class, so I took the bus to Starbucks to get some work done. Truthfully, I rarely go to Starbucks in America, but having dropped my coffee habit I thought a cup would be nice, plus it was a convenient change of scenery, and a good study spot. Also very Chinese, as there were many other people there doing the same thing I was. The shopkeeper definitely spoke passable barista English, but graciously stuck to Chinese as I returned her “Hello” with a “Ni hao” and proceeded to place my order (“This week’s flavor of coffee, in the 15kuai size”, since I couldn’t find the word for “tall” in Chinese on the menu: I wasn’t willing to guess gao, the word used to describe height). The most clear improvement I’ve had since getting here is in dealing with shopkeepers and the like. Not only am I much less nervous to talk to them, I respond more quickly to questions regarding my purchase that I’m generally not expecting. Example: later when I bought a crepe thing at a convenience store, the woman asked if I wanted it heated. She only had to repeat it once for me to get what she meant.
Getting some work done meant hand copying the 1000 character essay I’d typed up (my longest Chinese composition to date) onto gridded character composition paper. If my handwriting is bad, it’s worse when I try to fit it into the tiny squares all crammed together. Of course the goal in writing Chinese is perfect symmetry and balance of the characters neatly spaced within the boxes. I’m nowhere close. I’m pretty sure I’ve written a paper approximately on a par to the first five paragraph essay I wrote for Ms. Wylie in the seventh grade, full of painfully simple phrases, casual syntax, poor dictionary lookup skills and repeated use of “although,….however…”.
The thing that stands out about Starbucks (and I think Western hotel lobbies) is that the restroom has a Western-style toilet that, wait for it...... supplies you with toilet paper. I'm pretty much used to the bathroom procedure by now, but it was a pleasant surprise nonetheless. Also, after using all of the various terms we've learned over the past two years, I've finally fit upon the proper euphemism for bathroom "洗手间" or "hand-washing room".
I headed back to school in high spirits, feeling like I was really getting into life in the city and making the most of my daily schedule. Walking back from the bus stop I stopped off at my favorite baozi place (steamed buns with various fillings) and bought a couple to top off my earlier snack.
To give you the postscript to the cooking in the dorm debacle, I bought some noodles at the convenience store, and planned to cook my food tonight while the veggies were still good, despite my lack of garlic. When I got to the kitchen, I discovered I also had a lack of cooking oil, which I thought was in the cabinet with the salt, vinegar and soy sauce. Thwarted at every turn, I started boiling my pasta and cutting my veggies. I concocted a passably edible meal, but also decided that it was way too much hassle to assemble even a few basic ingredients. Perhaps if I ever buy a bag of those frozen dumplings… In any case I ate some of the broccoli and pasta, dumped the rest, grabbed one of my yogurts and put an end to my cooking experiment. I left the remaining uncooked pasta and wine (which was about as horrendous as I guessed, I tried a sip) with a note inviting other curious eaters to take them, washed the wok and left my pride somewhat injured but my stomach placated. I’m contented to stick to my current strategy of avoiding fried rice, eating simple lunches and keeping yogurt on hand. I’ve ventured somewhat farther from the back gate and discovered some different choices, and as the weeks progress I’ll take some afternoon-evening excursions in search of new options.
Getting some work done meant hand copying the 1000 character essay I’d typed up (my longest Chinese composition to date) onto gridded character composition paper. If my handwriting is bad, it’s worse when I try to fit it into the tiny squares all crammed together. Of course the goal in writing Chinese is perfect symmetry and balance of the characters neatly spaced within the boxes. I’m nowhere close. I’m pretty sure I’ve written a paper approximately on a par to the first five paragraph essay I wrote for Ms. Wylie in the seventh grade, full of painfully simple phrases, casual syntax, poor dictionary lookup skills and repeated use of “although,….however…”.
The thing that stands out about Starbucks (and I think Western hotel lobbies) is that the restroom has a Western-style toilet that, wait for it...... supplies you with toilet paper. I'm pretty much used to the bathroom procedure by now, but it was a pleasant surprise nonetheless. Also, after using all of the various terms we've learned over the past two years, I've finally fit upon the proper euphemism for bathroom "洗手间" or "hand-washing room".
I headed back to school in high spirits, feeling like I was really getting into life in the city and making the most of my daily schedule. Walking back from the bus stop I stopped off at my favorite baozi place (steamed buns with various fillings) and bought a couple to top off my earlier snack.
To give you the postscript to the cooking in the dorm debacle, I bought some noodles at the convenience store, and planned to cook my food tonight while the veggies were still good, despite my lack of garlic. When I got to the kitchen, I discovered I also had a lack of cooking oil, which I thought was in the cabinet with the salt, vinegar and soy sauce. Thwarted at every turn, I started boiling my pasta and cutting my veggies. I concocted a passably edible meal, but also decided that it was way too much hassle to assemble even a few basic ingredients. Perhaps if I ever buy a bag of those frozen dumplings… In any case I ate some of the broccoli and pasta, dumped the rest, grabbed one of my yogurts and put an end to my cooking experiment. I left the remaining uncooked pasta and wine (which was about as horrendous as I guessed, I tried a sip) with a note inviting other curious eaters to take them, washed the wok and left my pride somewhat injured but my stomach placated. I’m contented to stick to my current strategy of avoiding fried rice, eating simple lunches and keeping yogurt on hand. I’ve ventured somewhat farther from the back gate and discovered some different choices, and as the weeks progress I’ll take some afternoon-evening excursions in search of new options.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Trial and Error
There’s definitely a learning curve for life in China. Lots of aspects of living here just don’t translate well to suburban America; where to buy things, how to buy them, how to cook, where and how to spend your time, is all fit into a strange network of customs, traditional venues, foreign businesses and trends.
Airline tickets get cheaper as the date approaches; you’re better off buying about a week or so before you want to leave. I’ve seen people buy shoes from street vendors, electric bikes from supermarkets and fruit from outdoor pushcarts and market stands. The several large supermarkets in the city are much more like your typical superstore, with everything from school supplies to clothing to electronics to food. Still, there are fruit vendors and convenience stores everywhere, and if you know where to look you can also find outdoor food markets and indoor markets that sell everything from snacks to clothing to furniture, all out of small stands where you negotiate your prices with the shopkeepers.
The first week or so I was here, I could post to this blog but couldn’t read it or anyone else’s because the “Great Firewall of China” has blocked blogspot, along with wikipedia and a few photo-sharing sites. Luckily I’ve got around it with the help of a handy-dandy proxy site provided by the ever-helpful Jeremy, but I’m not sure I would’ve figured it out otherwise.
On Tuesday I didn’t start class until 2:00 (because I’ve changed from my discussion class to a newspaper reading class, which believe it or not includes more discussion about more interesting topics), so I decided to go to the nearest supermarket, which is a comfortable walk away, to buy a few necessities. Pens seem to be expensive, but I found a relatively reasonable singly packaged one, because one of my neuroses involves running out of ink in my favorite pen. I also bought a folder for the above mentioned newspaper class. I then perused the food choices, hoping to get enough to cook some sort of meal later in the week. I found some promising looking fresh pasta, and bought to go with it some veggies, garlic and (to my surprise and delight) parsley. I also chose a promising looking stuffed bun for lunch, yogurt for breakfasts, and a loaf of bread. I then spent a good bit of time perusing and considering the numerous choices of frozen dumplings, microwavable steamed buns, and countless sweet hard biscuit pre-packaged biscuit things. The Chinese seem to stick to what they know in terms of condiments, which were limited to oil, soy sauce, sesame oil and the really harsh rice vinegar that is pretty much ubiquitous. In order make my food taste less like Chinese food, I found a 12 yuan bottle of red wine that I’m sure is horrendous but might be a close substitute for red wine vinegar. I waited in line for about half an hour, despite the fact that there were only about 4 people in front of me. Only too late did I discover that when buying non-prepackaged produce, one must label the price oneself. I watched in helpless disbelief as the woman at the register confiscated my parsley, my garlic, my pasta and (alas!) my lunch. The line was getting longer and I had to get back to school, so I now find myself with a head of broccoli, some carrots, a bottle of wine, and no clear opportunity for another excursion.
Sometime last week, I decided to get some work done and then grab a quick dinner at the cafeteria. Around 6:15 I entered the cafeteria, waved to my classmates finishing their meals, and walked the long path to the other end where the register is, only to discover that they were cleaning up for the close of their shift. I asked hopefully if there was any food left, and was returned an amused negative. Now I know, if you want to eat dinner on campus, you’d best get there before 6.
Ordering food is definitely a shot in the dark, though I enjoy the element of surprise. Generally I make someone give me a recommendation, but the problem is that I generally have no idea what the food will look like when it comes, even if I can read the name. Once at a Sichuan restaurant I saw an item called “Water-boiled Fish” and eliminated it immediately as sounding thoroughly unappealing. One of the roommates ordered for us and the dish was among the choices, but when it came it turned out to be a really rich, spicy fish soup. I’ve encountered several times when I could read something along the lines of “pork ____ soup” or “dry stir-fried chicken _____” which I try to avoid because you never can be sure whether “____” is some cut of meat you’d rather not eat. I definitely once saw pork stomach on the menu. Luckily, to end our menu illiteracy, we have a twice a week dinner with our elective classmates at a nearby restaurant, at which we take it in turns to order dishes for the table. That starts next week, so I’ll be sure to report back. In the meantime I’ll have to keep practicing being in China, yes?
Airline tickets get cheaper as the date approaches; you’re better off buying about a week or so before you want to leave. I’ve seen people buy shoes from street vendors, electric bikes from supermarkets and fruit from outdoor pushcarts and market stands. The several large supermarkets in the city are much more like your typical superstore, with everything from school supplies to clothing to electronics to food. Still, there are fruit vendors and convenience stores everywhere, and if you know where to look you can also find outdoor food markets and indoor markets that sell everything from snacks to clothing to furniture, all out of small stands where you negotiate your prices with the shopkeepers.
The first week or so I was here, I could post to this blog but couldn’t read it or anyone else’s because the “Great Firewall of China” has blocked blogspot, along with wikipedia and a few photo-sharing sites. Luckily I’ve got around it with the help of a handy-dandy proxy site provided by the ever-helpful Jeremy, but I’m not sure I would’ve figured it out otherwise.
On Tuesday I didn’t start class until 2:00 (because I’ve changed from my discussion class to a newspaper reading class, which believe it or not includes more discussion about more interesting topics), so I decided to go to the nearest supermarket, which is a comfortable walk away, to buy a few necessities. Pens seem to be expensive, but I found a relatively reasonable singly packaged one, because one of my neuroses involves running out of ink in my favorite pen. I also bought a folder for the above mentioned newspaper class. I then perused the food choices, hoping to get enough to cook some sort of meal later in the week. I found some promising looking fresh pasta, and bought to go with it some veggies, garlic and (to my surprise and delight) parsley. I also chose a promising looking stuffed bun for lunch, yogurt for breakfasts, and a loaf of bread. I then spent a good bit of time perusing and considering the numerous choices of frozen dumplings, microwavable steamed buns, and countless sweet hard biscuit pre-packaged biscuit things. The Chinese seem to stick to what they know in terms of condiments, which were limited to oil, soy sauce, sesame oil and the really harsh rice vinegar that is pretty much ubiquitous. In order make my food taste less like Chinese food, I found a 12 yuan bottle of red wine that I’m sure is horrendous but might be a close substitute for red wine vinegar. I waited in line for about half an hour, despite the fact that there were only about 4 people in front of me. Only too late did I discover that when buying non-prepackaged produce, one must label the price oneself. I watched in helpless disbelief as the woman at the register confiscated my parsley, my garlic, my pasta and (alas!) my lunch. The line was getting longer and I had to get back to school, so I now find myself with a head of broccoli, some carrots, a bottle of wine, and no clear opportunity for another excursion.
Sometime last week, I decided to get some work done and then grab a quick dinner at the cafeteria. Around 6:15 I entered the cafeteria, waved to my classmates finishing their meals, and walked the long path to the other end where the register is, only to discover that they were cleaning up for the close of their shift. I asked hopefully if there was any food left, and was returned an amused negative. Now I know, if you want to eat dinner on campus, you’d best get there before 6.
Ordering food is definitely a shot in the dark, though I enjoy the element of surprise. Generally I make someone give me a recommendation, but the problem is that I generally have no idea what the food will look like when it comes, even if I can read the name. Once at a Sichuan restaurant I saw an item called “Water-boiled Fish” and eliminated it immediately as sounding thoroughly unappealing. One of the roommates ordered for us and the dish was among the choices, but when it came it turned out to be a really rich, spicy fish soup. I’ve encountered several times when I could read something along the lines of “pork ____ soup” or “dry stir-fried chicken _____” which I try to avoid because you never can be sure whether “____” is some cut of meat you’d rather not eat. I definitely once saw pork stomach on the menu. Luckily, to end our menu illiteracy, we have a twice a week dinner with our elective classmates at a nearby restaurant, at which we take it in turns to order dishes for the table. That starts next week, so I’ll be sure to report back. In the meantime I’ll have to keep practicing being in China, yes?
Monday, September 10, 2007
Out of Dodge
This weekend was our chance to get out of the city with our roommates. Xiaojun and I were originally going to go to Suzhou, another city near Shanghai, but I think she was a little uncomfortable navigating a new city, and we ended up getting an invitation to go to her friend’s house (Her friend, Lifang, is Yazhen’s roommate). So on Friday morning the four of us got on the city bus to go to the bus station and head out to Shaoxing.
When we got off the bus, Xiaojun seemed to be asking Lifang where to find something. I asked her what we were doing, and she said “Big Head Card”, which of course made no sense to me, so I followed along compliantly as we entered a big indoor market. Yazhen again tried to ask exactly what was going on, and they told us something about pictures. I thought we were looking for a camera, which seemed like a mildly logical last minute purchase. And then suddenly we rounded a corner and were faced with several large photo booths, and it all came together. We were seated around a table and the salesclerks (who thought our roommates were hired guides) thrust various catalogs at us and told us to choose ten frames for our pictures. I chose an assortment of very asian-teenager flowery ones, plus one or two truly tacky shots of scenery and Chinese tourist attractions. I then went into a booth to take the pictures for the frames. As some of you may know, Asians strive for beautiful, pale complexions. With this in mind, the booths are lined with harsh white fluorescent lights. True enough, Xiaojun and Lifang came out with glowing white faces. I, on the other hand, was practically invisible on the screen as I tried in vain to pose in such a way that looked mildly flattering and fit in the frame. It was the first of many “really really Asian things” I got to experience this weekend.
We were greeted at Lifang’s house with a home-style lunch (several various dishes to pick off of, finished off with a bowl of rice). Early afternoon we were enjoying some glorious Asian soap operas (there are no words, they’re truly fabulous), when Lifang asked if we wanted to sing Karaoke. I thought she meant later that evening, but before I could blink I was presented with a stack of CDs and out came the microphones. Though my knowledge of Chinese pop is limited, it must at least me relatively current because the CDs, bought probably 3 to 5 years ago, had only one or two songs I recognized on them. Though the singing was mostly dominated by our roommates, Yazhen and I belted out a few nervous rounds of “Lao Shu Ai Da Mi” and “Ni Shi Wo De Mei Gui Hua”, and I attempted a few songs I’d never heard before, at least the ones that were a bit slower. The fun had wound down when in walked Wang Jianhong and his roommate (I’m still not sure how they ended up in the picture, but they spent Friday and Saturday with us).
The six of us, plus Lifang’s 10 year old brother, walked to a nearby “scenic area” to walk around a bit before dinner. Her brother was thoroughly impressed by Jianhong, and was constantly poking at him, comparing their heights, and trying on his sunglasses. Dinner was a lot like lunch, with the addition of a few extra dishes. During the meal, it actually took me quite a while to figure out that the reason I couldn’t understand most of the conversation was that the family was not speaking Mandarin, but their local dialect. Lifang’s mother put in a few sentences of Mandarin for us, but in general it seemed like the parents couldn’t really speak Mandarin. The brother’s speech was also heavily peppered with the dialect, and if you add in the fact that he was a loud ten year old who wanted to explain everything to everyone without making much sense, you can understand that I ended up tuning out a lot of what he said.
In the evening, we went to a nearby park. This is what my Chinese experience has been missing. The Chinese know how to do parks. When I was in Beijing, I loved walking through and seeing the various goings on in the several parks near where I was staying. In the morning was the taiji and various strange looking exercises of the older men, that I am convinced are remnants of some communist daily aerobics plan. In the early evening was the ballroom dancing, and as it got later the tables were all filled with people playing cards and Chinese chess. I haven’t found any good parks near ZUT (the University where I am), and I haven’t gotten up early enough to see whether or not there’s good taiji on campus, so a good stroll through the park was exactly what I needed. There were people playing badminton, watching a movie on a large TV, and sitting around the big fountain in the center of the park. Though there was no informal dancing, we did stumble upon a wonderfully extravagant dance contest, and stayed long enough to see a couple wearing the most outrageous clothing (she a pink sequined top and short skirt, he high waisted dance pants and a black lace top, both dancers were over 50) dance a cha-cha, and a veritable army of expressionless women in white T-shirts and red pants dance some sort of traditional march while grasping bundles of chopsticks in each hand.
Saturday was the true adventure. We went to “Keyan Scenic Area” which was effectively a state park. It had a rather steep entrance fee of 100 yuan, one of my more expensive single purchases, but I decided rather quickly that it was worth it. This place had everything you could want in a tourist attraction, and so much more. When we entered, we found ourselves in the midst of several old style houses, which we were told were the home of the wife of a famously revered author. The houses were mostly converted into souvenir shops, but one had several traditionally clad men sitting outside. When we went in to investigate, we found the room decorated as a provincial court, and within a few minutes a judge had appeared and the men who’d been outside came in and acted out a trial scene. When we went back outside, a beggar woman (also part of the show) appealed to us for help, saying that her son had died. Lifang explained that these people, of whom there were several throughout the little village, were characters written by the author, acting out bits of his stories. We went in to a teahouse where one (a scholar of some sort) was camped out, and sat down for a pot of tea. Lifang also ordered a local specialty for us to try. Anyone who’s familiar with Chinese food has probably heard of chou dofu (stinky tofu), a dish that is famously offered up to foreign guests, who politely try a bite and then refuse to go near the stuff again. This was what was presented to us (it was literally available everywhere we went, they take their local specialties seriously here). I am here to say that it’s not that bad. (The other two were revolted by it, so I’ll leave you all to make your own decision) True, when it’s on the table you think you are standing distantly downwind from a porta-potty, but there’s none of that in the taste. It’s just a crumbly tofu taste, dipped in hoisin sauce. The key is not to inhale through your nose while eating. I doubt I’ll order it willingly, just because there’s not too much appeal besides the weird factor, but I suppose it’s a good party trick to be the foreigner who will willingly eat chou dofu.
The next series of buildings had been converted into museum-ish things, mostly just empty rooms with a few signs hanging around. One room, called “Room of the Crazy Man”, proved somewhat more interesting. When you enter, there is a small doorway to your right, which puts you into a hallway with black and white linoleum tiles and a slanted floor. Turn into the next room, and you discover the whole room is tilted, with various odd pieces of furniture plus a tank of water sticking out at an odd angle from the wall, indicating which way is level. The whole thing is a gloriously pointless construction, vaguely reminiscent of a diorama of an Escher painting. Out the other end of the room, you come across a plaster cave with teeth around the opening. Enter the cave and you find yourself in a long tunnel, designed with pink rubber floors and walls to resemble the insides of some strange creature, who has apparently just eaten a person, because there are plaster arms strewn about. The whole thing was thoroughly comical, and also very much out of place. The next few rooms more closely resembled the museum feel, except they contained hallways of one-way glass that occasionally lit up to reveal really hideous mannequin reenactments of various undistinguishable historical events. The final museum building proved far less interesting, with rather typical display cases, save the two foot wide bust of Deng Xiaoping placed among the antique shoes and fans.
After a boatride to a nearby island, we cashed in our tickets for free cups of the local alcohol (sort of like saltless soy sauce mixed with whiskey) and ordered a few dishes for lunch. The afternoon contained almost equally interesting activities, including walks through some park areas, an archery range, pony rides, feeding the armies of giant goldfish, a lake cruise, a children’s sculpture garden/playground and a Buddhist site. All in all a full day, with new surprises around every bend.
In the evening we went in to town to walk around a bit, but didn’t spend too much time as Yazhen wasn’t feeling well. We did, however, stay long enough to go sit in the McDonalds for a while (See pictures). Later, I played cards with the roommates and Lifang’s mother (and figured out most of the rules by the end) The game was pretty similar to “President”, but much harder, and much more reliant on strategy. Lifang’s mother was exceptionally good, and I felt like an idiot every time I got down to one or two seemingly really good cards, and then sat around for five rounds until everyone else had played all of theirs.
Sunday brought more surprises. At breakfast, Xiaojun was talking to Lifang’s brother, and the two were having some sort of jokingly argumentative conversation. I wasn’t really listening, but I got curious enough and started trying to figure out what they were talking about. Turns out they were playing a game, which Chinese speakers might appreciate as a really difficult but useful way to practice the language: one of them would say a word, generally two characters long, and then the other would say a word that started with the last character of the previous word (办法，法律，律师，师父，etc). My vocabulary’s not big enough to play, but it was exciting when I could follow them for several rounds. As we head off to buy our return tickets, the girls explained to us that we were going to a youlechang. I knew I’d studied that word, but I couldn’t place it for some reason. Yazhen helped me out, but I still had no idea where we were going, as youlechang means amusement park, and that didn’t make sense as a way to kill time before boarding a train. I was again proved wrong, as we crossed the street from the train station to a very large indoor arcade. I bought 20 yuan worth of tokens and set off. After variously attempting a motorcycle racing machine and knock off DDR (I don’t understand the appeal of DDR), I settled on my old favorite (skeeball) for several rounds. The girls wanted to go to the haunted house, so I grudgingly shelled out another 20 (I know I sound cheap here, and indeed I am a bit, but although 20 yuan is only about $2.70, I can buy lunch for a week for less). Lifang got cold feet, so the remaining three of us, holding hands, wove our way through the dark haunted house, with various mechanical creatures and eerily-clad actors stepping in our path along the way. (Chinese people scare very easily) Yazhen and I mostly rolled our eyes, though I was put off by the two actors I knew were right behind me but couldn’t see. I was actually a bit more scared the second time I went through, with the lights on, trailing behind two guys who worked there looking for my camera (found). Anyway, all in all a great weekend, and I’ve finally got some pictures up for you.
When we got off the bus, Xiaojun seemed to be asking Lifang where to find something. I asked her what we were doing, and she said “Big Head Card”, which of course made no sense to me, so I followed along compliantly as we entered a big indoor market. Yazhen again tried to ask exactly what was going on, and they told us something about pictures. I thought we were looking for a camera, which seemed like a mildly logical last minute purchase. And then suddenly we rounded a corner and were faced with several large photo booths, and it all came together. We were seated around a table and the salesclerks (who thought our roommates were hired guides) thrust various catalogs at us and told us to choose ten frames for our pictures. I chose an assortment of very asian-teenager flowery ones, plus one or two truly tacky shots of scenery and Chinese tourist attractions. I then went into a booth to take the pictures for the frames. As some of you may know, Asians strive for beautiful, pale complexions. With this in mind, the booths are lined with harsh white fluorescent lights. True enough, Xiaojun and Lifang came out with glowing white faces. I, on the other hand, was practically invisible on the screen as I tried in vain to pose in such a way that looked mildly flattering and fit in the frame. It was the first of many “really really Asian things” I got to experience this weekend.
We were greeted at Lifang’s house with a home-style lunch (several various dishes to pick off of, finished off with a bowl of rice). Early afternoon we were enjoying some glorious Asian soap operas (there are no words, they’re truly fabulous), when Lifang asked if we wanted to sing Karaoke. I thought she meant later that evening, but before I could blink I was presented with a stack of CDs and out came the microphones. Though my knowledge of Chinese pop is limited, it must at least me relatively current because the CDs, bought probably 3 to 5 years ago, had only one or two songs I recognized on them. Though the singing was mostly dominated by our roommates, Yazhen and I belted out a few nervous rounds of “Lao Shu Ai Da Mi” and “Ni Shi Wo De Mei Gui Hua”, and I attempted a few songs I’d never heard before, at least the ones that were a bit slower. The fun had wound down when in walked Wang Jianhong and his roommate (I’m still not sure how they ended up in the picture, but they spent Friday and Saturday with us).
The six of us, plus Lifang’s 10 year old brother, walked to a nearby “scenic area” to walk around a bit before dinner. Her brother was thoroughly impressed by Jianhong, and was constantly poking at him, comparing their heights, and trying on his sunglasses. Dinner was a lot like lunch, with the addition of a few extra dishes. During the meal, it actually took me quite a while to figure out that the reason I couldn’t understand most of the conversation was that the family was not speaking Mandarin, but their local dialect. Lifang’s mother put in a few sentences of Mandarin for us, but in general it seemed like the parents couldn’t really speak Mandarin. The brother’s speech was also heavily peppered with the dialect, and if you add in the fact that he was a loud ten year old who wanted to explain everything to everyone without making much sense, you can understand that I ended up tuning out a lot of what he said.
In the evening, we went to a nearby park. This is what my Chinese experience has been missing. The Chinese know how to do parks. When I was in Beijing, I loved walking through and seeing the various goings on in the several parks near where I was staying. In the morning was the taiji and various strange looking exercises of the older men, that I am convinced are remnants of some communist daily aerobics plan. In the early evening was the ballroom dancing, and as it got later the tables were all filled with people playing cards and Chinese chess. I haven’t found any good parks near ZUT (the University where I am), and I haven’t gotten up early enough to see whether or not there’s good taiji on campus, so a good stroll through the park was exactly what I needed. There were people playing badminton, watching a movie on a large TV, and sitting around the big fountain in the center of the park. Though there was no informal dancing, we did stumble upon a wonderfully extravagant dance contest, and stayed long enough to see a couple wearing the most outrageous clothing (she a pink sequined top and short skirt, he high waisted dance pants and a black lace top, both dancers were over 50) dance a cha-cha, and a veritable army of expressionless women in white T-shirts and red pants dance some sort of traditional march while grasping bundles of chopsticks in each hand.
Saturday was the true adventure. We went to “Keyan Scenic Area” which was effectively a state park. It had a rather steep entrance fee of 100 yuan, one of my more expensive single purchases, but I decided rather quickly that it was worth it. This place had everything you could want in a tourist attraction, and so much more. When we entered, we found ourselves in the midst of several old style houses, which we were told were the home of the wife of a famously revered author. The houses were mostly converted into souvenir shops, but one had several traditionally clad men sitting outside. When we went in to investigate, we found the room decorated as a provincial court, and within a few minutes a judge had appeared and the men who’d been outside came in and acted out a trial scene. When we went back outside, a beggar woman (also part of the show) appealed to us for help, saying that her son had died. Lifang explained that these people, of whom there were several throughout the little village, were characters written by the author, acting out bits of his stories. We went in to a teahouse where one (a scholar of some sort) was camped out, and sat down for a pot of tea. Lifang also ordered a local specialty for us to try. Anyone who’s familiar with Chinese food has probably heard of chou dofu (stinky tofu), a dish that is famously offered up to foreign guests, who politely try a bite and then refuse to go near the stuff again. This was what was presented to us (it was literally available everywhere we went, they take their local specialties seriously here). I am here to say that it’s not that bad. (The other two were revolted by it, so I’ll leave you all to make your own decision) True, when it’s on the table you think you are standing distantly downwind from a porta-potty, but there’s none of that in the taste. It’s just a crumbly tofu taste, dipped in hoisin sauce. The key is not to inhale through your nose while eating. I doubt I’ll order it willingly, just because there’s not too much appeal besides the weird factor, but I suppose it’s a good party trick to be the foreigner who will willingly eat chou dofu.
The next series of buildings had been converted into museum-ish things, mostly just empty rooms with a few signs hanging around. One room, called “Room of the Crazy Man”, proved somewhat more interesting. When you enter, there is a small doorway to your right, which puts you into a hallway with black and white linoleum tiles and a slanted floor. Turn into the next room, and you discover the whole room is tilted, with various odd pieces of furniture plus a tank of water sticking out at an odd angle from the wall, indicating which way is level. The whole thing is a gloriously pointless construction, vaguely reminiscent of a diorama of an Escher painting. Out the other end of the room, you come across a plaster cave with teeth around the opening. Enter the cave and you find yourself in a long tunnel, designed with pink rubber floors and walls to resemble the insides of some strange creature, who has apparently just eaten a person, because there are plaster arms strewn about. The whole thing was thoroughly comical, and also very much out of place. The next few rooms more closely resembled the museum feel, except they contained hallways of one-way glass that occasionally lit up to reveal really hideous mannequin reenactments of various undistinguishable historical events. The final museum building proved far less interesting, with rather typical display cases, save the two foot wide bust of Deng Xiaoping placed among the antique shoes and fans.
After a boatride to a nearby island, we cashed in our tickets for free cups of the local alcohol (sort of like saltless soy sauce mixed with whiskey) and ordered a few dishes for lunch. The afternoon contained almost equally interesting activities, including walks through some park areas, an archery range, pony rides, feeding the armies of giant goldfish, a lake cruise, a children’s sculpture garden/playground and a Buddhist site. All in all a full day, with new surprises around every bend.
In the evening we went in to town to walk around a bit, but didn’t spend too much time as Yazhen wasn’t feeling well. We did, however, stay long enough to go sit in the McDonalds for a while (See pictures). Later, I played cards with the roommates and Lifang’s mother (and figured out most of the rules by the end) The game was pretty similar to “President”, but much harder, and much more reliant on strategy. Lifang’s mother was exceptionally good, and I felt like an idiot every time I got down to one or two seemingly really good cards, and then sat around for five rounds until everyone else had played all of theirs.
Sunday brought more surprises. At breakfast, Xiaojun was talking to Lifang’s brother, and the two were having some sort of jokingly argumentative conversation. I wasn’t really listening, but I got curious enough and started trying to figure out what they were talking about. Turns out they were playing a game, which Chinese speakers might appreciate as a really difficult but useful way to practice the language: one of them would say a word, generally two characters long, and then the other would say a word that started with the last character of the previous word (办法，法律，律师，师父，etc). My vocabulary’s not big enough to play, but it was exciting when I could follow them for several rounds. As we head off to buy our return tickets, the girls explained to us that we were going to a youlechang. I knew I’d studied that word, but I couldn’t place it for some reason. Yazhen helped me out, but I still had no idea where we were going, as youlechang means amusement park, and that didn’t make sense as a way to kill time before boarding a train. I was again proved wrong, as we crossed the street from the train station to a very large indoor arcade. I bought 20 yuan worth of tokens and set off. After variously attempting a motorcycle racing machine and knock off DDR (I don’t understand the appeal of DDR), I settled on my old favorite (skeeball) for several rounds. The girls wanted to go to the haunted house, so I grudgingly shelled out another 20 (I know I sound cheap here, and indeed I am a bit, but although 20 yuan is only about $2.70, I can buy lunch for a week for less). Lifang got cold feet, so the remaining three of us, holding hands, wove our way through the dark haunted house, with various mechanical creatures and eerily-clad actors stepping in our path along the way. (Chinese people scare very easily) Yazhen and I mostly rolled our eyes, though I was put off by the two actors I knew were right behind me but couldn’t see. I was actually a bit more scared the second time I went through, with the lights on, trailing behind two guys who worked there looking for my camera (found). Anyway, all in all a great weekend, and I’ve finally got some pictures up for you.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Like A Whole Other Country
My favorite scene in “Forrest Gump” is when Forrest appears on some talk show or other after finishing a tour in China to compete in Ping Pong (yes, it really is that big here). Also appearing on the show is John Lennon. The host asks Forrest how China is different from America. The dialogue goes something like this:
Gump: In China, people don’t have a lot of nice things.
Lennon: No possessions?
Gump: And they don’t go to church on Sundays.
Lennon: No religion, too?
Host: That’s hard to imagine.
Lennon: Well, it’s easy if you try.
After a week, I have noticed a few American things that are different in China. See if you can imagine:
-Pizza Hut is a relatively high-end restaurant, with several hostesses, plush booths, elegant decor, nice cutlery and ceramic dishes. There's one on the trendiest street by West Lake.
-The potato chips in the campus store are Lays, but they come in flavors like “Cool and Refreshing” (cucumber) “Italian Red Meat” and “Mexican Spicy Chicken”. Supermarkets have still more options
-You can buy beer at the cafeteria.
-Condiments in the cafeteria include soy sauce, salt, hot sauce and MSG. A whole shaker of it, not kidding.
-A taxi to most places is cheaper than a cup of coffee.
Okay, that’s actually all I’ve got right now, but rest assured I will come up with others. Now if you’ll all forgive me, I’m going to whine about a few things, some more amusing than others.
Our classes for the most part are in this one big building that houses most of the classrooms. My electives are in 508 and 608 on alternate days. There are two elevators that serve that part of the hall. From the second (ground) floor, you get on whichever elevator opens first. On one elevator is a sign proclaiming that it only stops on odd numbered floors, on the other one that say even numbered. In the middle, a third sign helpfully informs you that there is no elevator that will stop on floors 3, 4 or 5. Basically, there is only a 1 in 4 chance that I will be able to take an elevator directly to my class. It was amusing at first, but I can tell it will get old fast.
Food is quickly becoming an annoyance. Breakfast is simple enough: I generally go to the cafeteria and choose one of an assortment of bready things, generally indicating “one of the yellow things and one of that one with the sesame” or “That one, no, the other one, on the left…” At first I sort of tried various things, willing to be surprised (after ruling out the tasteless rice pudding watery gruel soup thing that most Chinese people seem to like), but I’ve more or less settled on steamed buns with meat or veggies as my preferred morning meal. Eventually I’ll get to a supermarket and buy some yogurt, which I can just eat in the dorm and do some work before going to class at 10.
Lunch at the cafeteria is not as good, generally various choices of veggie and meat dishes and rice. I’ve only gone twice since it’s a lot of food, not as good, and I’ve wanted to explore the assortment of food stands outside our back gate. Since someone always has a 1:00 class, the last few days I’ve grabbed fried dumplings and meat buns with Yazhen, Xueqin and Jingbo for dirt cheap to bring back and eat in the common room, but that’s no way to eat on a regular basis. I think I’m going to have to alternate between finding someone who has time to get lunch and just going to the cafeteria.
Dinner is the worst, because there’s only so many times I can eat greasy fried rice at the back gate. There are several other options at the back gate area, but with more than 4 or 5 people it’s a nuisance. I’m more than happy to pick a restaurant out of a review and go, but it’s of course more expensive and can’t be done often. I’m really hoping to get a chance to try various regional specialties. Chinese restaurants (the ones with table service and menus, not small noodle shops), really require at least 3 or 4 people to be worthwhile, so eating alone is less of an option, and I’m pretty sure that sort of meal is pretty expensive for your average Chinese college student. I think cooking for myself will be a good idea, but our kitchen consists of an electric wok and a microwave. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep it interesting, plus the nearest grocery store is not near. Maybe once the other cafeterias open (class is not in session at the University yet) choices will improve.
Lastly, classes are proving frustrating (to most people, as far as I can tell) as they rely largely on rote. Texts must be prepared ahead of time (yuxi, yuxi, yuxi), and then are discussed painstakingly slowly, requiring us to repeat inane details repeatedly or answer absurd questions (it's somehow more annoying when you're not practicing a new grammar pattern, but repeating every detail of a short story you understood the first time you read it. My Literature class seems to be more reading comprehension than anything else). I'm holding out for conditions to improve, plus I think classes in China are just going to be different.
Keep leaving comments, it makes me feel important!
Gump: In China, people don’t have a lot of nice things.
Lennon: No possessions?
Gump: And they don’t go to church on Sundays.
Lennon: No religion, too?
Host: That’s hard to imagine.
Lennon: Well, it’s easy if you try.
After a week, I have noticed a few American things that are different in China. See if you can imagine:
-Pizza Hut is a relatively high-end restaurant, with several hostesses, plush booths, elegant decor, nice cutlery and ceramic dishes. There's one on the trendiest street by West Lake.
-The potato chips in the campus store are Lays, but they come in flavors like “Cool and Refreshing” (cucumber) “Italian Red Meat” and “Mexican Spicy Chicken”. Supermarkets have still more options
-You can buy beer at the cafeteria.
-Condiments in the cafeteria include soy sauce, salt, hot sauce and MSG. A whole shaker of it, not kidding.
-A taxi to most places is cheaper than a cup of coffee.
Okay, that’s actually all I’ve got right now, but rest assured I will come up with others. Now if you’ll all forgive me, I’m going to whine about a few things, some more amusing than others.
Our classes for the most part are in this one big building that houses most of the classrooms. My electives are in 508 and 608 on alternate days. There are two elevators that serve that part of the hall. From the second (ground) floor, you get on whichever elevator opens first. On one elevator is a sign proclaiming that it only stops on odd numbered floors, on the other one that say even numbered. In the middle, a third sign helpfully informs you that there is no elevator that will stop on floors 3, 4 or 5. Basically, there is only a 1 in 4 chance that I will be able to take an elevator directly to my class. It was amusing at first, but I can tell it will get old fast.
Food is quickly becoming an annoyance. Breakfast is simple enough: I generally go to the cafeteria and choose one of an assortment of bready things, generally indicating “one of the yellow things and one of that one with the sesame” or “That one, no, the other one, on the left…” At first I sort of tried various things, willing to be surprised (after ruling out the tasteless rice pudding watery gruel soup thing that most Chinese people seem to like), but I’ve more or less settled on steamed buns with meat or veggies as my preferred morning meal. Eventually I’ll get to a supermarket and buy some yogurt, which I can just eat in the dorm and do some work before going to class at 10.
Lunch at the cafeteria is not as good, generally various choices of veggie and meat dishes and rice. I’ve only gone twice since it’s a lot of food, not as good, and I’ve wanted to explore the assortment of food stands outside our back gate. Since someone always has a 1:00 class, the last few days I’ve grabbed fried dumplings and meat buns with Yazhen, Xueqin and Jingbo for dirt cheap to bring back and eat in the common room, but that’s no way to eat on a regular basis. I think I’m going to have to alternate between finding someone who has time to get lunch and just going to the cafeteria.
Dinner is the worst, because there’s only so many times I can eat greasy fried rice at the back gate. There are several other options at the back gate area, but with more than 4 or 5 people it’s a nuisance. I’m more than happy to pick a restaurant out of a review and go, but it’s of course more expensive and can’t be done often. I’m really hoping to get a chance to try various regional specialties. Chinese restaurants (the ones with table service and menus, not small noodle shops), really require at least 3 or 4 people to be worthwhile, so eating alone is less of an option, and I’m pretty sure that sort of meal is pretty expensive for your average Chinese college student. I think cooking for myself will be a good idea, but our kitchen consists of an electric wok and a microwave. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep it interesting, plus the nearest grocery store is not near. Maybe once the other cafeterias open (class is not in session at the University yet) choices will improve.
Lastly, classes are proving frustrating (to most people, as far as I can tell) as they rely largely on rote. Texts must be prepared ahead of time (yuxi, yuxi, yuxi), and then are discussed painstakingly slowly, requiring us to repeat inane details repeatedly or answer absurd questions (it's somehow more annoying when you're not practicing a new grammar pattern, but repeating every detail of a short story you understood the first time you read it. My Literature class seems to be more reading comprehension than anything else). I'm holding out for conditions to improve, plus I think classes in China are just going to be different.
Keep leaving comments, it makes me feel important!
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Puddle Stomping
Umbrellas seem almost to be a way of life in China. When I was in Beijing several years ago, I grew accustomed to carrying a wonderfully light, collapsible yellow umbrella wherever I went, holding it high to shade the harsh May sunlight, which actually comes from everywhere because of the white dome of smog that covers the city. People don’t use raincoats, except for these really cool poncho things I saw today that are built for use on bikes and electric scooters. The front is long enough and shaped perfectly to cover the arms all the way down to the handlebars, and drape over the front basket. It was kind of cool to see all of the bikers in identical, brightly colored ponchos speeding through an intersection. Next time it rains I’ll be sure to get a picture.
It’s not as sunny in early September Hangzhou, so I planned to wait until my first market shopping expedition to buy one this time around, mostly to have something small and simple to look for and practice bargaining with. My hand was forced when I woke up this morning and discovered a persistent downpour outside.
After breakfast, Weilin, Xueqin and I had a rather leisurely hour and a half to kill before class, so we went over to the campus convenience store to buy our yucan (umbrellas: I’m continuously tempted to pepper this with Chinese phrases, please forgive the occasional vocabulary lesson). I took some time to peruse the selection of largely unidentifiable snacks which take up the bulk of shelf space in the store. It seems Chinese people like their snacks small, sweet, crunchy, and often with various strange fillings. There’s also an entire aisle devoted to cup-of-noodles in diverse flavors and containers, most slightly larger than a pint of ice cream. It seems whether in China or America, college students really like to eat fangbian mian (literally “convenient noodles”). Xueqin and I picked out brightly colored umbrellas with flower decals, while Weilin settled on a more suitable dark plaid.
My last class ended at 2:30, and I really didn’t want to sit in my dorm all day, so I seized on a bit of advice offered up from semesters past: “Don’t wait around for a group of people to decide when to eat, where to go, etc. If it’s not going to get decided, leave and do your own thing” (the speaker was apparently diabetic, and said if he’d waited each time people couldn’t decide where to eat, his health would have been at risk). So I grabbed some Hangzhou magazines and set off on a bus toward a coffee house I’d seen reviewed and knew I could find. I had quite a nice afternoon sipping my espresso and reading up on Hangzhou life and events, and perusing the maps to further fit together in my head exactly where things are. I managed to figure out a route to yet another sight of interest, which I walked to and got on a different bus to come back.
It’s not as sunny in early September Hangzhou, so I planned to wait until my first market shopping expedition to buy one this time around, mostly to have something small and simple to look for and practice bargaining with. My hand was forced when I woke up this morning and discovered a persistent downpour outside.
After breakfast, Weilin, Xueqin and I had a rather leisurely hour and a half to kill before class, so we went over to the campus convenience store to buy our yucan (umbrellas: I’m continuously tempted to pepper this with Chinese phrases, please forgive the occasional vocabulary lesson). I took some time to peruse the selection of largely unidentifiable snacks which take up the bulk of shelf space in the store. It seems Chinese people like their snacks small, sweet, crunchy, and often with various strange fillings. There’s also an entire aisle devoted to cup-of-noodles in diverse flavors and containers, most slightly larger than a pint of ice cream. It seems whether in China or America, college students really like to eat fangbian mian (literally “convenient noodles”). Xueqin and I picked out brightly colored umbrellas with flower decals, while Weilin settled on a more suitable dark plaid.
My last class ended at 2:30, and I really didn’t want to sit in my dorm all day, so I seized on a bit of advice offered up from semesters past: “Don’t wait around for a group of people to decide when to eat, where to go, etc. If it’s not going to get decided, leave and do your own thing” (the speaker was apparently diabetic, and said if he’d waited each time people couldn’t decide where to eat, his health would have been at risk). So I grabbed some Hangzhou magazines and set off on a bus toward a coffee house I’d seen reviewed and knew I could find. I had quite a nice afternoon sipping my espresso and reading up on Hangzhou life and events, and perusing the maps to further fit together in my head exactly where things are. I managed to figure out a route to yet another sight of interest, which I walked to and got on a different bus to come back.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Weekend Whatnot
Last night included several fun and new experiences, beginning with a dinner banquet (at which my roommate helpfully and somewhat jokingly pulled a chicken head out of a large soup tureen Honggang was messing with and placed it in his bowl for him) with more kinds of dishes than I can remember (off the top of my head, a duck-skin mushu thing, bean sprouts with pork, fish, spicy tofu, cucumbers in soy sauce). Later, a bunch of people went to this really smoky dive bar outside the back gate of the school. My roommate actually came for a while and tried to learn how to play quarters, which was lots of fun, but she left when it got too loud. I had my first encounter with a gross bar bathroom, complete with squat toilet, with a rather good Karaoke rendition of “Layla” as background noise. The night ended at a gigantic nightclub, complete with professional dancers performing on a platform and a subwoofer so big it could function as a pacemaker. Early bird that I am, I held out until around 1:00 when, thankfully, three other people were willing to get in a cab with me and come back. Not a bad night considering I spent less than 50 yuan, about $6.
To give everyone an idea what exactly I’ll be doing for the next semester, I’ll fill you in on some of the activities we’ve had yesterday and today. Yesterday was our final orientation meeting (no more English allowed “in the air”), and then a meeting about our classes. I am taking two elective courses. One is called, vaguely, “Discussion and Debate” and is basically aimed at strengthening and broadening our spoken Chinese by discussing contemporary issues of society and culture in China. The other is called “Contemporary Literature”, and is just that, complete with 1000 character bi-weekly essays. In addition everyone is taking a one-on-two dialogue class, aimed at drilling pronunciation and speech patterns into our heads by running set dialogues with a speaking partner. My partner is not a Middlebury student, in fact she’s in China for over a year on a Fulbright grant.
My fourth class was discussed over lunch today. The one-on-one is basically an opportunity to study anything we want that has to do with China. We’ve all been paired up with graduate students or recent graduates who specialize in the field we requested, and we will work with them to develop a curriculum of research and prepare presentations on our topics. At lunch today we met our one-on-one teachers to discuss the proposals we wrote months ago and get to know each other a bit. My topic is Urbanization in China, and since that’s a really broad topic we spent some time today trying to figure out exactly what I’ll be studying. I think a lot will have to do with urban policies and housing rights, but also the effects of rapid urbanization on city infrastructure, rural economies and the like.
This afternoon we went on a hike (by we I mean almost all 58 students and roommates). The initial climb was a rather miserable rainy, sweaty, out-of-shape mess, but we had a chance to look around a very tranquil monastery most of the way up, and after that the rain let up a bit, and we had an easier up-and-down climb along a ridge overlooking Hangzhou’s famous tea fields (Hangzhou is the tea drinking capital of the world, and also apparently grows a lot of it). On the climb down, as we actually passed through one of the post-downpour fields, I realized how fragrant the bushes really are. Combined with the muggy atmosphere, the smell really made it seem as if I were walking through a pot of Jasmine tea. I’m sure there’s some sort of pun or metaphor that can be drawn from that, perhaps something about steeping oneself in a new culture?
We were surprised to find a large room with tables at the bottom of the mountain. We sat down, and when dinner arrived I laughed aloud: trays and trays of wraps and subs, brought from Hangzhou’s only Subway, chock full of every pickle, pepper and dressing available, plus boxes of cookies. I think everyone enjoyed the hint of home, and I spent the meal explaining why the sandwich is called a submarine and talking about American eating habits. I think the roommates were all pretty gracious about the food, which I’m not sure whether or not they liked.
To give everyone an idea what exactly I’ll be doing for the next semester, I’ll fill you in on some of the activities we’ve had yesterday and today. Yesterday was our final orientation meeting (no more English allowed “in the air”), and then a meeting about our classes. I am taking two elective courses. One is called, vaguely, “Discussion and Debate” and is basically aimed at strengthening and broadening our spoken Chinese by discussing contemporary issues of society and culture in China. The other is called “Contemporary Literature”, and is just that, complete with 1000 character bi-weekly essays. In addition everyone is taking a one-on-two dialogue class, aimed at drilling pronunciation and speech patterns into our heads by running set dialogues with a speaking partner. My partner is not a Middlebury student, in fact she’s in China for over a year on a Fulbright grant.
My fourth class was discussed over lunch today. The one-on-one is basically an opportunity to study anything we want that has to do with China. We’ve all been paired up with graduate students or recent graduates who specialize in the field we requested, and we will work with them to develop a curriculum of research and prepare presentations on our topics. At lunch today we met our one-on-one teachers to discuss the proposals we wrote months ago and get to know each other a bit. My topic is Urbanization in China, and since that’s a really broad topic we spent some time today trying to figure out exactly what I’ll be studying. I think a lot will have to do with urban policies and housing rights, but also the effects of rapid urbanization on city infrastructure, rural economies and the like.
This afternoon we went on a hike (by we I mean almost all 58 students and roommates). The initial climb was a rather miserable rainy, sweaty, out-of-shape mess, but we had a chance to look around a very tranquil monastery most of the way up, and after that the rain let up a bit, and we had an easier up-and-down climb along a ridge overlooking Hangzhou’s famous tea fields (Hangzhou is the tea drinking capital of the world, and also apparently grows a lot of it). On the climb down, as we actually passed through one of the post-downpour fields, I realized how fragrant the bushes really are. Combined with the muggy atmosphere, the smell really made it seem as if I were walking through a pot of Jasmine tea. I’m sure there’s some sort of pun or metaphor that can be drawn from that, perhaps something about steeping oneself in a new culture?
We were surprised to find a large room with tables at the bottom of the mountain. We sat down, and when dinner arrived I laughed aloud: trays and trays of wraps and subs, brought from Hangzhou’s only Subway, chock full of every pickle, pepper and dressing available, plus boxes of cookies. I think everyone enjoyed the hint of home, and I spent the meal explaining why the sandwich is called a submarine and talking about American eating habits. I think the roommates were all pretty gracious about the food, which I’m not sure whether or not they liked.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Get on the Bus
In addition to the numerous orientation meetings we have had with our residential director Jeremy, our main assignment these past two days has been to familiarize ourselves with the city of Hangzhou, by way of its bus system. Though I can easily maneuver my way through the subway systems in most major cities, I have never set foot on a public bus without someone who knew where we were going. I’m apprehensive about buses in English, so this seemed like a suitable if scary challenge for us, and I was excited to do it, since I really hope to spend a lot of time away from the university campus.
The map Jeremy gave us is actually quite useful, though it’s taking me a while to get used to reading it. It features an almost illegible map of the city with various areas of interest highlighted in boxes, with logos that are color coded for the stop from which we can get there (our campus is close to four different bus stops). The areas are then blown up next to the map, with landmarks, bus stop names, line numbers and other relevant information. This is less overwhelming than a big diagram of bus lines and stops I am unlikely to use, but I’m having trouble changing this network of nodes and arbitrary bus numbers into a mental picture of where things are in the city.
Yesterday we mostly failed in our mission of practicing using the buses. Instead, five of us set out with three roommates to take care of some banking business and buy cell phones, a major order of business as apparently cell phones are vital for integration into Chinese youth culture, and text messages are more common than emails. Buying five cell phones proved more difficult than one might expect: the first store we went to had many models available, but didn’t seem to have any phones that were actually for sale. The second place had sold out of the cheapest model, and had only one of our next choice, which Xueqin bought (I’m going to use Chinese names on this, if you really want to know who these people are you can ask). Finally we found a place with four acceptable phones, and spent a ridiculous amount of time processing the paperwork to buy them. A phone is not complete, however, without a SIM card plan and phone number, which is bought at a China Mobile store. By the time we got back to campus, the stores were closing, so we had to go out again today to finish the task. We again spent lots of time today buying a plan that would work, but eventually got our phones up and running. If only we’d had the relatively calm experience of a few of our classmates, who found these things easily, and were handed a six-pack of beer upon purchase of their phone plans.
Since we let the roommates tell us when to get on and off the buses yesterday, today we picked a suitable destination and set off. The harder part was, of course, finding a suitable return bus after we’d wandered from our original destination. Xueqin and I, the only ones who had not turned back earlier, checked maybe three different bus stops before (figures) finding the one we used to get back yesterday. In such a big city, we’ve managed to walk the same one stretch along the West Lake twice in two days.In the end, though, I’ve learned that it’s really easy to get to interesting places on the bus, and only slightly harder to get back, as long as you don’t mind searching a bit.
The map Jeremy gave us is actually quite useful, though it’s taking me a while to get used to reading it. It features an almost illegible map of the city with various areas of interest highlighted in boxes, with logos that are color coded for the stop from which we can get there (our campus is close to four different bus stops). The areas are then blown up next to the map, with landmarks, bus stop names, line numbers and other relevant information. This is less overwhelming than a big diagram of bus lines and stops I am unlikely to use, but I’m having trouble changing this network of nodes and arbitrary bus numbers into a mental picture of where things are in the city.
Yesterday we mostly failed in our mission of practicing using the buses. Instead, five of us set out with three roommates to take care of some banking business and buy cell phones, a major order of business as apparently cell phones are vital for integration into Chinese youth culture, and text messages are more common than emails. Buying five cell phones proved more difficult than one might expect: the first store we went to had many models available, but didn’t seem to have any phones that were actually for sale. The second place had sold out of the cheapest model, and had only one of our next choice, which Xueqin bought (I’m going to use Chinese names on this, if you really want to know who these people are you can ask). Finally we found a place with four acceptable phones, and spent a ridiculous amount of time processing the paperwork to buy them. A phone is not complete, however, without a SIM card plan and phone number, which is bought at a China Mobile store. By the time we got back to campus, the stores were closing, so we had to go out again today to finish the task. We again spent lots of time today buying a plan that would work, but eventually got our phones up and running. If only we’d had the relatively calm experience of a few of our classmates, who found these things easily, and were handed a six-pack of beer upon purchase of their phone plans.
Since we let the roommates tell us when to get on and off the buses yesterday, today we picked a suitable destination and set off. The harder part was, of course, finding a suitable return bus after we’d wandered from our original destination. Xueqin and I, the only ones who had not turned back earlier, checked maybe three different bus stops before (figures) finding the one we used to get back yesterday. In such a big city, we’ve managed to walk the same one stretch along the West Lake twice in two days.In the end, though, I’ve learned that it’s really easy to get to interesting places on the bus, and only slightly harder to get back, as long as you don’t mind searching a bit.
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