The remainder of the week was spent in the city of Kashgar in Western Xinjiang, a stop over for people traveling from Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikstan into China, or the reverse. I arrived after my hitchhiking adventure and, since my phone was dead, borrowed a cell phone to get in touch with my friends.
I found them at the hotel and managed to get a bed in their room (after a bit more arguing at the reception desk). I showered and we compared Karkoram Highway experiences and pictures, before strolling through part of Old Town on our way to dinner. Kashgar is a small place, and they’d already spent a day in the city, so they’d pretty much seen all that was worth seeing of the old, Muslim city center, but humored me by pointing out the elaborately decorated musical instruments, various foods they’d tried and the buildings of aptly named Old Town, a rundown set of alleys and brick houses with vendors selling naan and bagels, grapes and other fruit, and junk that, within any given store, would range from embroidered purses to beaded jewelry to “antique” rice bowls and tea pots to communist memorabilia.
Dinner featured, among other things, lamb chops roasted on grills on the front sidewalk, spicy stewed chicken and rice, and cold, spicy chick peas (we passed on the 500 yuan whole roast sheep). The lamb was wonderful and very different from anything I’ve had while in China. The evening took us to the night market to search in vain for some yummy sounding desserts we’d read about in Lonely Planet, and on the way back we paused at the square in front of the old mosque where a giant screen was showing movies to crowds of spectators.
Thursday was a trip to the desert which meant long but entertaining hours in the car, with a stop briefly in nearby Yengisar, a town known for its many expert knife makers, and another town where we had lamb kebabs and pumpkin dumplings, sitting on a large day bed with a short table in the middle.
The desert appeared suddenly, a huge expanse of sandy hills emerging from a wooded are with grape vines and trees. We were put on camels and led a ways in to look around. It was fun, but on the downhills I had to brace myself and close my eyes, as there were no stirrups and a rather crude saddle. Camels are not the nicest animals, but ours were at least complacent, except for Bamu’s which refused to sit, forcing her to have to climb up. Overall lots of fun, though my leg muscles were less than comfortable in the evening.
Dinner we had at the night market, sitting on benches in front of food carts and moving from stall to stall, trying one or two of each thing (we passed on the boiled goat heads), and actually found the sweet, fried raisin pastries we’d been looking for the day before. We finished the meal off with freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, which was served in small glasses set out in front of the juicer, meant to be finished in a few quick gulps. It was so good I had two more glasses on Friday.
Friday morning Bamu and Huijuan left for Urumqi and I had the day to kill before a late evening flight. I went to the Sunday market, operational (even on weekdays) for about 2000 years, saw the old mosque, and spent a good bit of the day wandering around Old Town, though I wasn’t in the market for much of what was for sale (carpets, big gaudy knives, fur hats, etc.) I bought some golden raisins and pistachios, both foods I can’t find in Hangzhou, and admired some brass tea kettles, though as a coffee drinker without a kitchen it’s probably better I ended up not buying one. I spent some time at a pretty cool upstairs tea house on a balcony overlooking the streets of old town. The place was crowded and by default I ended up getting seated with the only other tourists in the place (everyone else was Uighur, male, old, and wearing a dark coat and green embroidered cap), an American couple who had just crossed in from the West having spent several months in the former Soviet Union as part of an epic tour. I gave them what wisdom I could about Chinese practicalities, and was glad for a bit of conversation. The rest of the day consisted mostly of wasting time: I sat in the main square for a while perusing Lonely Planet and watching the men slowly pack into the mosque for afternoon prayers. When they all came pouring out, however, an old woman sinning near me started trying to read words aloud from my book, and I suddenly became the focus for LOTS of passersby, looking an my book and sounding out words (the Uighur script uses the Arabic alphabet, but it used to use the Roman). I obliged for a while, flipping to the part on Kashgar and pointing to the name of the mosque, but when it became clear that no one was losing interest and new people wanted to know what the excitement was, I pulled out my cell phone, looked at the time, feigned surprise and set off.
In all, Kashgar is a very cool place, but only for a short stay unless you have something to do there. Anyone who reads this and decides to go, I’ll gladly go with you, and give you the name of a nice guy with a yurt on Karakul Lake.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Xinjiang: Time Management
For some reason, all of China is officially on Beijing time, so no matter how far West you go, you remain in the same time zone. I’m not sure of the political or economic reasoning behind this system, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say it’s some sort of communist symbolic move to remind people that Beijing decides everything, even the time, and is the functional if not geographical center of the country. Indeed, as I traveled through Xinjiang I found propaganda billboards and signs urging cooperation and extolling the contributions to the city brought by the People’s Republic of China.
Of course, when you’re closer to the border with Kyrgyzstan than the nearest Chinese province, and the majority population is not Confucian, Han Chinese but Muslim and Uighur, most people don’t pay much attention to Beijing, and make the time two hours earlier. The effect is that officially scheduled things are done on Beijing time, but day to day life occurs on local time.
I should make it a personal policy, in fact I think it should be a general rule never to arrive in a new city after dark. It is inevitably too late and I am inevitably too tired to do anything, and things are generally much more disappointing than they seem the next morning. I arrived at my hotel in Kashgar around 11:00, or 3 hours after sunset. I navigated the confusing reception desk system which involved multiple buildings and, after a short argument, secured a bed in a dorm room. The room, as I found out later, was occupied by two Tajik men, one of whom spoke English and was very friendly. I went to sleep almost immediately.
I woke up at 7 to catch a bus at 10, figuring I’d walk to the bus station through old town and maybe buy some snacks along the way. What I forgot was that it was really 5, so few people were around except a few sidewalk sweepers, taxis, and the occasional old man driving a two-wheeled donkey cart. By the time I got to the Mosque I’d found a few places open and bought some steamed buns before heading on to the bus station.
At this point I should note, nothing in my suburban New Jersey upbringing prepared me for the informality of many things involved in travel in China. Sure, I’ve gotten used to buying things in markets and haggling when occasion calls for it, but after arriving in Kashgar I experienced a whole new level of informal. To start, the taxi driver who took me to my hotel from the airport didn’t put on the meter. The price he gave me seemed fair and I was too tired and taken aback to argue. He then proceeded to give me his card and tell me he could take me out of the city on day trips to all the places tourists like to go. At this point I’ve only haggled for souvenirs, not services, and the idea of hiring a guide or going where public transportation does not was a strange one to me. I boarded a bus Tuesday morning to Karakul Lake, almost 200 km out of town on the Karkoram Highway, which has existed since before there were highways as a mountain pass connecting China and the Silk Road to Tajikstan. Karakul Lake is a glacial lake amongst the icy Pamir mountains, and it seemed like a good destination for an overnight trip. The bus left at 8:30/10:30 and stopped about five minutes later at the gravel parking lot that is the international bus station, where it stayed for about an hour and a half. We finally got going again, and 10 minutes later stopped for a bathroom break. Though initially I was irritated by this system (none of the officiousness of the transportation I’m used to), I quickly decided to let it go; I was in no rush, after all. At the third stop I got off to buy some snacks: bagels, of all things, seem to be a staple around here, along with a naan hearth bread the size of a dinner plate.
I should also mention that making the decision to not worry about the pace of the bus, or what time it was or using informally arranged services was helped immensely by a phone call from two classmates, Huijuan and Bamu, whose itinerary I was roughly following at a 24 hour lag and would meet up with Wednesday in Kashgar. They called to give me the number of the man who’s yurt they’d stayed at at Karakul lake, and tell me they’d probably hitchhike on to a further destination, and pick me up on their way back the next day. Also, they’d arranged for a driver to take us on a day trip to the desert on Thursday.
Well, Karakul Lake was nothing short of incredible. I met up with Muhui, the 20 year old who, with his father and two sisters, takes in tourists while his mother stays with his eleven year old brother at school in Kashgar. The lake was shaded by huge icy peaks, and its shores were dotted with yurts, camels, yaks and sheep. This was a new kind of tourism for me, and yet if felt comfortable and familiar. Mahui could speak a little English and a little Mandarin, but his sisters just whispered in Uighur, busying themselves making yak milk tea on the stove in the center of the yurt and setting out mats to sit on.
The tea had a very earthy green flavor, and was accompanied by hearth bread which I nibbled at while watching the sisters bake new loaves in a dutch oven on the stove. On my second bowl of tea, I realized I was out of breath, and had to start eating and drinking more slowly while intermittently taking deep breaths.
After the tea, Muhui took me on his motorbike around the lake, to take some pictures and see a bit of the area., which is truly scenery like I have not seen before. There was nothing, there was nobody, except the occasional shepherd or tan building. As crowded as China’s eastern cities are, I had found a place that was empty.
I returned and had some more tea, though I declined the freshly baked bread as I’d been eating bread all day and expending very little energy. I planned to walk around the little yurt encampment, but I instead lay down for a bit and actually fell asleep. When I got up, one of the girls was making dinner, and I sat around the stove with the family to warm up a bit and watch. I’m not the greatest conversationalist, especially when I’m not sure of myself, but I did my best in varying languages, trying to learn the names of the family and a few basic words, before finally asking the question I’d been avoiding: Where is the bathroom? I was directed to an area a couple dozen yards off with a stone screen and a pit. It was cold, so I hurried back to the yurt, and found myself panting when I got there; the cleanest air in China, and my first slight asthma problem? Only then did I finally realize that I’d gained a significant amount of altitude, and the cold, thin air was the likely cause for my shortness of breath and lack of energy.
Trying to mentally work up an appetite, I watched the older sister make pasta, to my surprise with a pasta machine, which she clamped to her cutting board and used to roll out the dough. The pasta was served with a simple stew, of which I ate as much as I could before declaring I was really, really full. As it was too dark and too cold to do much else, we went to sleep soon later on the mats and warm duvets the girls had just laid out.
In the morning it turned out my classmates had in fact decided to return to Kashgar the night before, so after breakfast of more tea and bread, I asked Muhui how I could get back to Kashgar. He said a bus should be through in half an hour, and we should go up to the road now to wait. Perhaps because of Muhui’s lack of hesitation at flagging down the first passing car, and perhaps because my sense of adventure had been piqued, I instead negotiated a ride back in a pickup truck with several Uighur men and four or five sheep on the back. An excellent way to round off my adventure into uncertainty.
Of course, when you’re closer to the border with Kyrgyzstan than the nearest Chinese province, and the majority population is not Confucian, Han Chinese but Muslim and Uighur, most people don’t pay much attention to Beijing, and make the time two hours earlier. The effect is that officially scheduled things are done on Beijing time, but day to day life occurs on local time.
I should make it a personal policy, in fact I think it should be a general rule never to arrive in a new city after dark. It is inevitably too late and I am inevitably too tired to do anything, and things are generally much more disappointing than they seem the next morning. I arrived at my hotel in Kashgar around 11:00, or 3 hours after sunset. I navigated the confusing reception desk system which involved multiple buildings and, after a short argument, secured a bed in a dorm room. The room, as I found out later, was occupied by two Tajik men, one of whom spoke English and was very friendly. I went to sleep almost immediately.
I woke up at 7 to catch a bus at 10, figuring I’d walk to the bus station through old town and maybe buy some snacks along the way. What I forgot was that it was really 5, so few people were around except a few sidewalk sweepers, taxis, and the occasional old man driving a two-wheeled donkey cart. By the time I got to the Mosque I’d found a few places open and bought some steamed buns before heading on to the bus station.
At this point I should note, nothing in my suburban New Jersey upbringing prepared me for the informality of many things involved in travel in China. Sure, I’ve gotten used to buying things in markets and haggling when occasion calls for it, but after arriving in Kashgar I experienced a whole new level of informal. To start, the taxi driver who took me to my hotel from the airport didn’t put on the meter. The price he gave me seemed fair and I was too tired and taken aback to argue. He then proceeded to give me his card and tell me he could take me out of the city on day trips to all the places tourists like to go. At this point I’ve only haggled for souvenirs, not services, and the idea of hiring a guide or going where public transportation does not was a strange one to me. I boarded a bus Tuesday morning to Karakul Lake, almost 200 km out of town on the Karkoram Highway, which has existed since before there were highways as a mountain pass connecting China and the Silk Road to Tajikstan. Karakul Lake is a glacial lake amongst the icy Pamir mountains, and it seemed like a good destination for an overnight trip. The bus left at 8:30/10:30 and stopped about five minutes later at the gravel parking lot that is the international bus station, where it stayed for about an hour and a half. We finally got going again, and 10 minutes later stopped for a bathroom break. Though initially I was irritated by this system (none of the officiousness of the transportation I’m used to), I quickly decided to let it go; I was in no rush, after all. At the third stop I got off to buy some snacks: bagels, of all things, seem to be a staple around here, along with a naan hearth bread the size of a dinner plate.
I should also mention that making the decision to not worry about the pace of the bus, or what time it was or using informally arranged services was helped immensely by a phone call from two classmates, Huijuan and Bamu, whose itinerary I was roughly following at a 24 hour lag and would meet up with Wednesday in Kashgar. They called to give me the number of the man who’s yurt they’d stayed at at Karakul lake, and tell me they’d probably hitchhike on to a further destination, and pick me up on their way back the next day. Also, they’d arranged for a driver to take us on a day trip to the desert on Thursday.
Well, Karakul Lake was nothing short of incredible. I met up with Muhui, the 20 year old who, with his father and two sisters, takes in tourists while his mother stays with his eleven year old brother at school in Kashgar. The lake was shaded by huge icy peaks, and its shores were dotted with yurts, camels, yaks and sheep. This was a new kind of tourism for me, and yet if felt comfortable and familiar. Mahui could speak a little English and a little Mandarin, but his sisters just whispered in Uighur, busying themselves making yak milk tea on the stove in the center of the yurt and setting out mats to sit on.
The tea had a very earthy green flavor, and was accompanied by hearth bread which I nibbled at while watching the sisters bake new loaves in a dutch oven on the stove. On my second bowl of tea, I realized I was out of breath, and had to start eating and drinking more slowly while intermittently taking deep breaths.
After the tea, Muhui took me on his motorbike around the lake, to take some pictures and see a bit of the area., which is truly scenery like I have not seen before. There was nothing, there was nobody, except the occasional shepherd or tan building. As crowded as China’s eastern cities are, I had found a place that was empty.
I returned and had some more tea, though I declined the freshly baked bread as I’d been eating bread all day and expending very little energy. I planned to walk around the little yurt encampment, but I instead lay down for a bit and actually fell asleep. When I got up, one of the girls was making dinner, and I sat around the stove with the family to warm up a bit and watch. I’m not the greatest conversationalist, especially when I’m not sure of myself, but I did my best in varying languages, trying to learn the names of the family and a few basic words, before finally asking the question I’d been avoiding: Where is the bathroom? I was directed to an area a couple dozen yards off with a stone screen and a pit. It was cold, so I hurried back to the yurt, and found myself panting when I got there; the cleanest air in China, and my first slight asthma problem? Only then did I finally realize that I’d gained a significant amount of altitude, and the cold, thin air was the likely cause for my shortness of breath and lack of energy.
Trying to mentally work up an appetite, I watched the older sister make pasta, to my surprise with a pasta machine, which she clamped to her cutting board and used to roll out the dough. The pasta was served with a simple stew, of which I ate as much as I could before declaring I was really, really full. As it was too dark and too cold to do much else, we went to sleep soon later on the mats and warm duvets the girls had just laid out.
In the morning it turned out my classmates had in fact decided to return to Kashgar the night before, so after breakfast of more tea and bread, I asked Muhui how I could get back to Kashgar. He said a bus should be through in half an hour, and we should go up to the road now to wait. Perhaps because of Muhui’s lack of hesitation at flagging down the first passing car, and perhaps because my sense of adventure had been piqued, I instead negotiated a ride back in a pickup truck with several Uighur men and four or five sheep on the back. An excellent way to round off my adventure into uncertainty.
Chengdu: Double Talk
Last Saturday I flew to Chengdu to attend a conference on Public Administration, at which I was presenting a paper for my grandfather. Overall the experience was interesting and, I suppose, worthwhile. I presented the paper, heard several other lectures, and got to meet professionals and academics in the field of Public Administration from America and China. Things were a bit on the surreal side, however, and I felt very much out of place.
This discomfort was heightened by the existence of Lizzie, the Chinese volunteer who met me at the airport (useful) and had apparently been told not to let me out of her sight (annoying). She’d show up at the end of the morning session to walk me back to lunch, which was a block away at the hotel where I’d spent the night and where I’d eaten breakfast. Also, she seemed unwilling to believe that I spoke Chinese. Consider: At the airport I mentioned to her that I was studying in Hangzhou for the semester. I then asked her Chinese name and repeated it back to her. She commented that I’d pronounced it well, and by way of explanation I said, in Chinese, “I am here studying Chinese.” A while later on the bus, she is talking to a Chinese professor on the bus. She explains the contents of the conversation to me, and I reply in Chinese “Yes, I understood it”. Which startles her and impresses the professor, to whom I speak with briefly in Chinese. Later in the hotel, as she continued to serve a translator function for me through check-in, she was searching for a word, and I supplied her with the Chinese one, which was more succinct. She gave me a strange look as if she wasn’t sure what language I’d addressed her in. On Sunday morning I explained to her that I was planning to leave before dinner and meet two classmates who were in Chengdu, and she seems to think I want to leave for the whole day. I explained it again, and when she left I sent her a text message in Chinese to avoid confusion. As we leave the meeting, I hear her commenting to a friend in disbelief about the long message, but of course the attitude with which she speaks is still one which assumes I don’t know she’s talking about me.
Sunday evening I took a cab into town to do some exploring. I found a Tibetan neighborhood and a really cool souvenir shopping area with a Sichuan snack street, where I tried a few gloriously spicy snacks before wandering farther uptown, eventually meeting up with Xueqin and Shushan for an authentic hotpot dinner. Not exactly taking in all the sights, but it got me thinking about what to do when I go back in December.
This discomfort was heightened by the existence of Lizzie, the Chinese volunteer who met me at the airport (useful) and had apparently been told not to let me out of her sight (annoying). She’d show up at the end of the morning session to walk me back to lunch, which was a block away at the hotel where I’d spent the night and where I’d eaten breakfast. Also, she seemed unwilling to believe that I spoke Chinese. Consider: At the airport I mentioned to her that I was studying in Hangzhou for the semester. I then asked her Chinese name and repeated it back to her. She commented that I’d pronounced it well, and by way of explanation I said, in Chinese, “I am here studying Chinese.” A while later on the bus, she is talking to a Chinese professor on the bus. She explains the contents of the conversation to me, and I reply in Chinese “Yes, I understood it”. Which startles her and impresses the professor, to whom I speak with briefly in Chinese. Later in the hotel, as she continued to serve a translator function for me through check-in, she was searching for a word, and I supplied her with the Chinese one, which was more succinct. She gave me a strange look as if she wasn’t sure what language I’d addressed her in. On Sunday morning I explained to her that I was planning to leave before dinner and meet two classmates who were in Chengdu, and she seems to think I want to leave for the whole day. I explained it again, and when she left I sent her a text message in Chinese to avoid confusion. As we leave the meeting, I hear her commenting to a friend in disbelief about the long message, but of course the attitude with which she speaks is still one which assumes I don’t know she’s talking about me.
Sunday evening I took a cab into town to do some exploring. I found a Tibetan neighborhood and a really cool souvenir shopping area with a Sichuan snack street, where I tried a few gloriously spicy snacks before wandering farther uptown, eventually meeting up with Xueqin and Shushan for an authentic hotpot dinner. Not exactly taking in all the sights, but it got me thinking about what to do when I go back in December.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Breaking the Fall
I’m leaving tomorrow morning for my fall break. If it’s possible I’ll update you from the road, but otherwise know that I’ll be off doing other things. I’m flying to Chengdu for the weekend where I’ll meet up with a couple of friends Sunday afternoon, then flying further West on Monday to Kashgar, Xinjiang, which is closer to Pakistan than anything in China and full of Muslim heritage, silk road history and the like. I’m traveling by myself, but I’ll meet up with some classmates for a day or so who are in Xinjiang all week. For now, I’ll leave you all with a few anecdotes from the week.
We had midterms this week, which meant a lighter schedule, so I had a lot of leisurely trips around town and to various shopping spots. I went to nearby Qiantang market with Xueqin and Shushan, where I haggled a really good price on a pair of shoes (she originally quoted 150, but I let her know I knew what the price SHOULD be by saying I really didn’t want to spend more than 30, and she quickly changed her tune and gave me 45). As we left, some high school or college age kids walked past and one of the guys, clearly trying to show off, said something along the lines of “These foreigners are so ugly”. Acting almost entirely on reflex, I shouted after him “These foreigners understand what you’re saying”, spun around and looked at him with my best “What now, bitch?” look as he stared dumbly and his friends muttered embarrassed apologies. It was a proud moment.
Dinner that day was quite excellent; we went to a really traditional Hangzhou-style restaurant and ordered all of the dishes that people here keep telling us we should try. One, called “Dongpo Pork” was basically stewed pork fat in a sweet, rich sauce. Another, called “Sweet and Sour Fish” came in a very sticky, sweet gingery sauce. I now finally understand what Chinese people are talking about when they say that Hangzhou food is very sweet, with lighter flavoring. Until recently, the 8 regional cuisines all seemed to run together; though there is a Sichuan restaurant nearby and their food is clearly spicier and has a few dishes the others don’t, you can buy Kung Pow Chicken (a Sichuan dish) almost anywhere. What I put together was that while the Sichuan dish has more hot peppers than peanuts and chicken, the dish you order in the school restaurant has no peppers and is sort of sweet and soy saucy. Not sure I could eat such rich and sweet foods all the time, but they were goood. I also don’t really know how the other regional cuisines are distinguished.
Oh and Tim, I’ve been won over by milk tea, but I prefer the coffee ones to the tea ones, and I still don’t like the bubbles. Fair compromise?
We had midterms this week, which meant a lighter schedule, so I had a lot of leisurely trips around town and to various shopping spots. I went to nearby Qiantang market with Xueqin and Shushan, where I haggled a really good price on a pair of shoes (she originally quoted 150, but I let her know I knew what the price SHOULD be by saying I really didn’t want to spend more than 30, and she quickly changed her tune and gave me 45). As we left, some high school or college age kids walked past and one of the guys, clearly trying to show off, said something along the lines of “These foreigners are so ugly”. Acting almost entirely on reflex, I shouted after him “These foreigners understand what you’re saying”, spun around and looked at him with my best “What now, bitch?” look as he stared dumbly and his friends muttered embarrassed apologies. It was a proud moment.
Dinner that day was quite excellent; we went to a really traditional Hangzhou-style restaurant and ordered all of the dishes that people here keep telling us we should try. One, called “Dongpo Pork” was basically stewed pork fat in a sweet, rich sauce. Another, called “Sweet and Sour Fish” came in a very sticky, sweet gingery sauce. I now finally understand what Chinese people are talking about when they say that Hangzhou food is very sweet, with lighter flavoring. Until recently, the 8 regional cuisines all seemed to run together; though there is a Sichuan restaurant nearby and their food is clearly spicier and has a few dishes the others don’t, you can buy Kung Pow Chicken (a Sichuan dish) almost anywhere. What I put together was that while the Sichuan dish has more hot peppers than peanuts and chicken, the dish you order in the school restaurant has no peppers and is sort of sweet and soy saucy. Not sure I could eat such rich and sweet foods all the time, but they were goood. I also don’t really know how the other regional cuisines are distinguished.
Oh and Tim, I’ve been won over by milk tea, but I prefer the coffee ones to the tea ones, and I still don’t like the bubbles. Fair compromise?
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Confucius Say
Being able to read and understand Chinese slogans is a special thing. You get used to the set up; the slogans, whether advertising shampoo, promoting a soccer tournament or issuing a helpful warning, are generally written as two parallel phrases of four to six characters. They sometimes rhyme, and often have symmetrical grammatical structures or breakup of words (two two-character words, for example). It’s a fun linguistic exercise to try and understand why it’s a clever slogan, and how it might translate. The fact is that these don’t translate very well into English, and I’m convinced this is a part of the Engrish problem that is common on signs and advertisements. The slogan for the FIFA tournaments was “美丽足女 美丽世杯” which means “beautiful women’s soccer, beautiful world cup” The English slogan, however, said “Beautiful Game, Beautiful Goals”.
In many parts of China, litter is pretty commonplace. There are trash cans everywhere, but it’s not uncommon to see small plastic bags, cigarette butts and food scraps scattered through the smaller alleys, especially near where these things are bought. Sometimes at back gate (pictures are coming, I promise) there is just a pile of trash and waste waiting to be put in a dumpster, sitting against a wall. Things never get too bad, because of China’s remarkably efficient trash system. There are lots of people hired throughout the city to clean up the trash, and they do their jobs well. Also, though there are trash bins and recycle bins placed on street corners, people just toss things willy-nilly. This is because there are lots of peasants who come to the city to go through the trash cans, pull out anything and everything that’s recyclable, and take them to recycling centers to exchange for cash. There are literally hundreds of people who do this for a living. To the westerner who’s used to sorting the trash and putting it on the curb for someone to take away it seems like an odd system, but it works.
In any case, there’s no one hired in the school to pick up litter, and there are metallic bins set up maybe every 30 feet. Each bin has a sign on top bearing a slogan urging passers by to deposit their trash. The great thing is, these signs are all different. Each one maybe repeats once or twice, but there’s got to be at least 20 different trash slogans around the campus. Yesterday I took the liberty of jotting a few down and translating them:
Increase hygiene consciousness
Cherish the beautiful campus
Don’t spit on the ground
Don’t carelessly toss fruit rinds and paper scraps
Let the Gongda Campus
Always preserve life’s green color
Care for nature
Care for life
Cultivate the flowers and trees like a gardener
Together, greenify the new landscape
Pay attention to hygiene
Trash goes in the bin
Diligent study can initiate
A rise in culture and civilization
The school is my home
Sanitation relies on everybody
(This one’s especially cool in Chinese: 学校是我家 卫生靠大家)
In many parts of China, litter is pretty commonplace. There are trash cans everywhere, but it’s not uncommon to see small plastic bags, cigarette butts and food scraps scattered through the smaller alleys, especially near where these things are bought. Sometimes at back gate (pictures are coming, I promise) there is just a pile of trash and waste waiting to be put in a dumpster, sitting against a wall. Things never get too bad, because of China’s remarkably efficient trash system. There are lots of people hired throughout the city to clean up the trash, and they do their jobs well. Also, though there are trash bins and recycle bins placed on street corners, people just toss things willy-nilly. This is because there are lots of peasants who come to the city to go through the trash cans, pull out anything and everything that’s recyclable, and take them to recycling centers to exchange for cash. There are literally hundreds of people who do this for a living. To the westerner who’s used to sorting the trash and putting it on the curb for someone to take away it seems like an odd system, but it works.
In any case, there’s no one hired in the school to pick up litter, and there are metallic bins set up maybe every 30 feet. Each bin has a sign on top bearing a slogan urging passers by to deposit their trash. The great thing is, these signs are all different. Each one maybe repeats once or twice, but there’s got to be at least 20 different trash slogans around the campus. Yesterday I took the liberty of jotting a few down and translating them:
Increase hygiene consciousness
Cherish the beautiful campus
Don’t spit on the ground
Don’t carelessly toss fruit rinds and paper scraps
Let the Gongda Campus
Always preserve life’s green color
Care for nature
Care for life
Cultivate the flowers and trees like a gardener
Together, greenify the new landscape
Pay attention to hygiene
Trash goes in the bin
Diligent study can initiate
A rise in culture and civilization
The school is my home
Sanitation relies on everybody
(This one’s especially cool in Chinese: 学校是我家 卫生靠大家)
Monday, October 15, 2007
Character Lessons and Conversion Experiences
To start off, I’d like to say that I thought of the title “Character Lessons” before I realized it was a great pun since I’m talking about calligraphy. What does this mean? My English has now been suppressed to the unconscious and is punning of its own free will.
I do at times feel like there is a part of me that is suppressed by the language change. I’ve started to hear my name being called while walking through crowds. This is strange because Chinese really has few sounds that come close to “Sarah”, and everyone here uses my Chinese name, Xinru. Xinru has been my predominant form of address since the beginning of the summer; I’ve formed entire friendships as Xinru. Xinru’s personality is about the same as Sarah’s, short perhaps the occasional bad joke or obscure movie reference, but though I feel I’ve changed little, perhaps Xinru has just taken been carrying on business as usual while Sarah is suppressed and evolving, ready to reclaim control when I start using English again.
Sorry for that surreal interlude, but it was an actual thought that occurred to me, especially as I had an interesting break to use English when a group of visitors (Midd parents and Alumns) led by Middlebury’s Bai Laoshi came through today to have lunch with us and marvel at our study habits. We had a pleasant hour or so, ordering lunch for them and chatting about life in China. The alumn sitting next to me grew up in Maplewood, and his wife in Ridgewood, thus confirming in my mind the theory one in every ten people is from New Jersey, usually Essex, Union, Morris and Bergen Counties. In any case it was strange to be casually chatting in English with complete strangers and my classmates, and made me think a bit about whether or not I actually have a Chinese persona. Also my turns of phrase are suffering; I have recently used the phrases “far and few between” and “point in case”.
I’ve been studying Calligraphy for a few weeks now, and I’ve gotten down all of the basic brush strokes (to give you an idea, there are four components to writing a horizontal line, and two for writing a dot). Calligraphy relies on precision, uniformity and focus, attributes I categorically lack (I remember trying to build a rectangular box out of clay about five years ago: there was not a single even edge or right angle in the entire thing). At the start, the teacher would write outlines for us to trace, showing us the progression and having us repeat a single brush stroke or character several times. This guy is pretty young, but he’s been studying for about two decades, and he’s so incredible he can take a pen and quickly outline, in perfect proportion, the strokes for an entire character for us to trace. He also showed us a poem he copied onto a scroll; the scroll is about four feet tall and a foot across, the characters each maybe an inch square: he wrote it for seven hours straight without food, water, or breaks to regain feeling in his hand (you have to hold your elbow really high). This week we’ve graduated from tracing his characters and then attempting our own to writing characters from a book that has guidelines to show the proportions of each character.
I am often tempted to revert to my painting days and quickly trace out the characters, but the problem is that the character requires balance; it must fit evenly inside a box, with symmetrical proportions and regular stroke length and width. Anyone who’s seen my handwriting knows that consistency and balance are not my strong points. I’m confident that forcing myself to really study calligraphy may help not only my handwriting and character writing ability, but also help me find more patience for detail and precision in other areas of my life. I also think this is a ridiculously Chinese notion of self-discipline and training, but at least my teacher liked it.
This afternoon, having finished one of my exams, I took off in my bike (which I love and have named Tingting, which means Dragonfly and is also the sound its bell makes) and went to the silk market, which is much quieter than the other markets I’ve been to, a beautiful pedestrian street full of silk shops selling bolted fabric, scarves, embroidered crafts, shirts, ties and mandarin dresses. I bought a few souvenirs, restricting my purchases of big silk scarves for myself to one, and perused the various wares, musing about buying a length of silk fabric which I’d inevitably not turn into anything. I did a bit of haggling, but the prices were already pretty reasonable so I didn’t fight too hard. When I bought my scarf, the woman said it was 20 yuan. This sounded good but I wanted to play along, so I asked her if she could do 15 yuan. She replied the lowest she could go was 18. Suddenly, it somehow seemed like she was saying 180, and I stood around frantically trying to remember what she had quoted, simultaneously remembering that an equal or somewhat lower quality product in Beijing three years before had cost me 100 yuan. I decided it must be the higher figure, and handed her 200 yuan. Luckily, I picked up almost instantly that she was confused about the sum, so I hastily said a few confused sentences, took the money back, examined it, muttered something about not having change, and handed her back one bill. Whoops, that was embarrassing. More culturally embarrassing than anything else, because I’d clearly demonstrated that an American would pay 10 times the going price for a silk scarf.
I do at times feel like there is a part of me that is suppressed by the language change. I’ve started to hear my name being called while walking through crowds. This is strange because Chinese really has few sounds that come close to “Sarah”, and everyone here uses my Chinese name, Xinru. Xinru has been my predominant form of address since the beginning of the summer; I’ve formed entire friendships as Xinru. Xinru’s personality is about the same as Sarah’s, short perhaps the occasional bad joke or obscure movie reference, but though I feel I’ve changed little, perhaps Xinru has just taken been carrying on business as usual while Sarah is suppressed and evolving, ready to reclaim control when I start using English again.
Sorry for that surreal interlude, but it was an actual thought that occurred to me, especially as I had an interesting break to use English when a group of visitors (Midd parents and Alumns) led by Middlebury’s Bai Laoshi came through today to have lunch with us and marvel at our study habits. We had a pleasant hour or so, ordering lunch for them and chatting about life in China. The alumn sitting next to me grew up in Maplewood, and his wife in Ridgewood, thus confirming in my mind the theory one in every ten people is from New Jersey, usually Essex, Union, Morris and Bergen Counties. In any case it was strange to be casually chatting in English with complete strangers and my classmates, and made me think a bit about whether or not I actually have a Chinese persona. Also my turns of phrase are suffering; I have recently used the phrases “far and few between” and “point in case”.
I’ve been studying Calligraphy for a few weeks now, and I’ve gotten down all of the basic brush strokes (to give you an idea, there are four components to writing a horizontal line, and two for writing a dot). Calligraphy relies on precision, uniformity and focus, attributes I categorically lack (I remember trying to build a rectangular box out of clay about five years ago: there was not a single even edge or right angle in the entire thing). At the start, the teacher would write outlines for us to trace, showing us the progression and having us repeat a single brush stroke or character several times. This guy is pretty young, but he’s been studying for about two decades, and he’s so incredible he can take a pen and quickly outline, in perfect proportion, the strokes for an entire character for us to trace. He also showed us a poem he copied onto a scroll; the scroll is about four feet tall and a foot across, the characters each maybe an inch square: he wrote it for seven hours straight without food, water, or breaks to regain feeling in his hand (you have to hold your elbow really high). This week we’ve graduated from tracing his characters and then attempting our own to writing characters from a book that has guidelines to show the proportions of each character.
I am often tempted to revert to my painting days and quickly trace out the characters, but the problem is that the character requires balance; it must fit evenly inside a box, with symmetrical proportions and regular stroke length and width. Anyone who’s seen my handwriting knows that consistency and balance are not my strong points. I’m confident that forcing myself to really study calligraphy may help not only my handwriting and character writing ability, but also help me find more patience for detail and precision in other areas of my life. I also think this is a ridiculously Chinese notion of self-discipline and training, but at least my teacher liked it.
This afternoon, having finished one of my exams, I took off in my bike (which I love and have named Tingting, which means Dragonfly and is also the sound its bell makes) and went to the silk market, which is much quieter than the other markets I’ve been to, a beautiful pedestrian street full of silk shops selling bolted fabric, scarves, embroidered crafts, shirts, ties and mandarin dresses. I bought a few souvenirs, restricting my purchases of big silk scarves for myself to one, and perused the various wares, musing about buying a length of silk fabric which I’d inevitably not turn into anything. I did a bit of haggling, but the prices were already pretty reasonable so I didn’t fight too hard. When I bought my scarf, the woman said it was 20 yuan. This sounded good but I wanted to play along, so I asked her if she could do 15 yuan. She replied the lowest she could go was 18. Suddenly, it somehow seemed like she was saying 180, and I stood around frantically trying to remember what she had quoted, simultaneously remembering that an equal or somewhat lower quality product in Beijing three years before had cost me 100 yuan. I decided it must be the higher figure, and handed her 200 yuan. Luckily, I picked up almost instantly that she was confused about the sum, so I hastily said a few confused sentences, took the money back, examined it, muttered something about not having change, and handed her back one bill. Whoops, that was embarrassing. More culturally embarrassing than anything else, because I’d clearly demonstrated that an American would pay 10 times the going price for a silk scarf.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Fall is Here
I went out to lunch at a restaurant behind the school with my roommate and two of her classmates I hadn’t met before. I watched people walking past the window, slightly more bundled up because of a cool wind, and was instantly put in mind of a fall afternoon in New York. It was a nice feeling of familiarity, and though the weather’s been getting cooler all week, it was the first time I really felt like fall had arrived.
On a separate note, I’d like to write a bit about Chinese snacks. If there is one thing American cities lack, it’s street food, and China seems to be the capital of street eating. There’s a small alley behind the back gate of our school with various small restaurants and noodle shops, but the real spectacle is at night when the alley is chock full of vendors and carts selling anything from Chinese crepes, roasted pork sandwiches, dumplings, fried rice, stuffed pastries, all the way to these kebab things with various vegetables and meats that you can pick and have fried right in front of you. These various snacks are put in small plastic bags, which you can carry back to your room or eat from while walking down the street. On the weekends, vendors set up all over (mostly outside bars) with long metal boxes of lit coals and lamb skewers, fanning the flames and roasting the kebabs. I once saw one of these metal boxes, still glowing, on the back of someone’s bike riding down the street.
Though I have a few favorites, I’m always excited to try new snack foods, many of which are various bready pastries or fried dumpling type things. If I need change for the bus, I can just grab a sesame ball and nibble at it while I wait at the stop. I once had an octopus skewer, which was seasoned a bit oddly, and there’s a great crepe sandwich with some vegetables and a slightly sweet sauce. My favorite is a plain, puff-pastry type bread, sometimes with a bit of hot sauce thrown on.
On a separate note, I’d like to write a bit about Chinese snacks. If there is one thing American cities lack, it’s street food, and China seems to be the capital of street eating. There’s a small alley behind the back gate of our school with various small restaurants and noodle shops, but the real spectacle is at night when the alley is chock full of vendors and carts selling anything from Chinese crepes, roasted pork sandwiches, dumplings, fried rice, stuffed pastries, all the way to these kebab things with various vegetables and meats that you can pick and have fried right in front of you. These various snacks are put in small plastic bags, which you can carry back to your room or eat from while walking down the street. On the weekends, vendors set up all over (mostly outside bars) with long metal boxes of lit coals and lamb skewers, fanning the flames and roasting the kebabs. I once saw one of these metal boxes, still glowing, on the back of someone’s bike riding down the street.
Though I have a few favorites, I’m always excited to try new snack foods, many of which are various bready pastries or fried dumpling type things. If I need change for the bus, I can just grab a sesame ball and nibble at it while I wait at the stop. I once had an octopus skewer, which was seasoned a bit oddly, and there’s a great crepe sandwich with some vegetables and a slightly sweet sauce. My favorite is a plain, puff-pastry type bread, sometimes with a bit of hot sauce thrown on.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
A Pile of Neuroses and then Some
Well I went from a low point of boredom yesterday, shut in by the largest rainfall in Hangzhou in recent history due to a typhoon, to a day full of many ups and downs and fears and excitements, and several choice blonde moments.
This morning I got to talk to a couple of close friends I haven’t talked to since getting here (High point).
Then I set about figuring out how to buy plane tickets for my upcoming fall break. It seems I couldn’t use the phone service because they don’t take credit cards and a trip to the bank was just as much trouble, so I went to a ticket office in town. They organized my flights, asked for my information, and I discovered I’d of course neglected to bring my passport (Blonde moment). Luckily I was able to conjure the passport number out of nowhere on only the second try (the first try I switched two numbers). When it came time to pay, they insisted they only took Chinese credit cards. Flummoxed, I asked if there was a Bank of China (the bank I knew I could get money from) nearby. They smiled and pointed me down the road. The problem with asking Chinese people for help is that they will always gladly and helpfully answer you, whether or not they actually know the answer. I walked down a street containing I think every bank EXCEPT Bank of China, finally trying one of the bigger ones on a whim. It worked, and as the guy had said I needed 3450, I took out 3500 and went back. Of course he’d really said 3750. This was a slur of speech I’d never encountered before: four and seven should NOT sound alike, but he definitely said “qi” which should have an “ee”, with the “i” sound from “si” (“eh”) and lisped, so it came out like “tseh”. I had in total in my purse 3700. Irritated beyond belief and with no one actually at fault besides my carelessness, I trudged back to the bank to get more money, thinking all the while, of course, of the inferior exchange rate, and fighting back tears of frustration and proclaiming my hatred of China, all the while chastising myself because, after all, I was buying the tickets I wanted (Low point). Later Jeremy insisted that he’s used credit cards before there, and there really should be no problem (Lower point).
This afternoon I had my calligraphy class, and while I am still woefully behind the rest of the class, I am definitely enjoying the class. Today, our instructor demonstrated some writing for us. He wrote in five different styles, for each one choosing an appropriate thing to write. The oldest form was written on fan-shaped paper, and had a four-character phrase encouraging studying one thing to perfection. The somewhat looser style was a long poem that he said was slightly ironic in meaning. The more modern, expressionistic style was a single, bold “dragon”. Afterward he let each of us take one for our own. I liked them all, and ended up with the dragon, which while it doesn’t have as significant a meaning, is very asymmetrical and artistic, and I think I’ll like having it on my wall (High point).
Afterward I set off with a few friends on an errand I’d been considering at a distance for some time: buying an electric bike. By the way, I’ve edited a previous entry mentioning said bikes so that no one can try to use it to call me a hypocrite. The bike I bought looks more like a bike and less like a motorcycle, so it is lighter and theoretically can be mailed home. This forms the basis for my decision to buy it, plus the fact that it will definitely help me get out into the city more in a less structured manner, post “I’m bored and it looks like I’ll stay that way” rut. Of course most people who know me know I suddenly become a neurotic mess when I buy myself things that aren’t frequent and repeating purchases (and even sometimes then), so though I knew I’d regret not buying the bike, and that I would love having it to use, the second I started writing the paperwork I started having what felt like a miniature panic attack of “what did I get myself into?” (Low point). Xueqin had done more research than I had, and especially since I knew I was going to buy the bike but hadn’t told myself yet I felt unprepared for the buying process. She walked me through it, and I took deep breaths. By the time I got ten feet down the road, all that was gone (High point). The bike runs smoothly, and though it’s pickup isn’t great it can get up to about 18 mph, plus it has pedals. I love it and I’m not even sad I didn’t buy one sooner: I’m really glad that I now really know the bus system, and now have to learn the city from another angle. We rode back (with our friend riding on the back in true Chinese form), locked up our bikes, and then I threw out some packing material and the keys to my two locks (Blonde moment).
We had an evening meeting, which was neither high nor low but definitely thought provoking, as among other things we discussed a certain lax attitude toward the language pledge among a large portion of our group. It’s true that a lot of people use English as their default language away from classes, and though I don’t particularly care what other people speak, it’s a little weird to go out with a big group and suddenly realize that everyone is speaking English. Especially when these are not people you’re particularly close with, it’s a bit strange and I end up tending to just not talk at all. So the meeting ended with a new conviction in the language pledge, and I went back to my room and discovered my keys were missing (Low point), went to the downstairs trash can, found one set right off, then removed everything from both bins before finding the other (High point).
This morning I got to talk to a couple of close friends I haven’t talked to since getting here (High point).
Then I set about figuring out how to buy plane tickets for my upcoming fall break. It seems I couldn’t use the phone service because they don’t take credit cards and a trip to the bank was just as much trouble, so I went to a ticket office in town. They organized my flights, asked for my information, and I discovered I’d of course neglected to bring my passport (Blonde moment). Luckily I was able to conjure the passport number out of nowhere on only the second try (the first try I switched two numbers). When it came time to pay, they insisted they only took Chinese credit cards. Flummoxed, I asked if there was a Bank of China (the bank I knew I could get money from) nearby. They smiled and pointed me down the road. The problem with asking Chinese people for help is that they will always gladly and helpfully answer you, whether or not they actually know the answer. I walked down a street containing I think every bank EXCEPT Bank of China, finally trying one of the bigger ones on a whim. It worked, and as the guy had said I needed 3450, I took out 3500 and went back. Of course he’d really said 3750. This was a slur of speech I’d never encountered before: four and seven should NOT sound alike, but he definitely said “qi” which should have an “ee”, with the “i” sound from “si” (“eh”) and lisped, so it came out like “tseh”. I had in total in my purse 3700. Irritated beyond belief and with no one actually at fault besides my carelessness, I trudged back to the bank to get more money, thinking all the while, of course, of the inferior exchange rate, and fighting back tears of frustration and proclaiming my hatred of China, all the while chastising myself because, after all, I was buying the tickets I wanted (Low point). Later Jeremy insisted that he’s used credit cards before there, and there really should be no problem (Lower point).
This afternoon I had my calligraphy class, and while I am still woefully behind the rest of the class, I am definitely enjoying the class. Today, our instructor demonstrated some writing for us. He wrote in five different styles, for each one choosing an appropriate thing to write. The oldest form was written on fan-shaped paper, and had a four-character phrase encouraging studying one thing to perfection. The somewhat looser style was a long poem that he said was slightly ironic in meaning. The more modern, expressionistic style was a single, bold “dragon”. Afterward he let each of us take one for our own. I liked them all, and ended up with the dragon, which while it doesn’t have as significant a meaning, is very asymmetrical and artistic, and I think I’ll like having it on my wall (High point).
Afterward I set off with a few friends on an errand I’d been considering at a distance for some time: buying an electric bike. By the way, I’ve edited a previous entry mentioning said bikes so that no one can try to use it to call me a hypocrite. The bike I bought looks more like a bike and less like a motorcycle, so it is lighter and theoretically can be mailed home. This forms the basis for my decision to buy it, plus the fact that it will definitely help me get out into the city more in a less structured manner, post “I’m bored and it looks like I’ll stay that way” rut. Of course most people who know me know I suddenly become a neurotic mess when I buy myself things that aren’t frequent and repeating purchases (and even sometimes then), so though I knew I’d regret not buying the bike, and that I would love having it to use, the second I started writing the paperwork I started having what felt like a miniature panic attack of “what did I get myself into?” (Low point). Xueqin had done more research than I had, and especially since I knew I was going to buy the bike but hadn’t told myself yet I felt unprepared for the buying process. She walked me through it, and I took deep breaths. By the time I got ten feet down the road, all that was gone (High point). The bike runs smoothly, and though it’s pickup isn’t great it can get up to about 18 mph, plus it has pedals. I love it and I’m not even sad I didn’t buy one sooner: I’m really glad that I now really know the bus system, and now have to learn the city from another angle. We rode back (with our friend riding on the back in true Chinese form), locked up our bikes, and then I threw out some packing material and the keys to my two locks (Blonde moment).
We had an evening meeting, which was neither high nor low but definitely thought provoking, as among other things we discussed a certain lax attitude toward the language pledge among a large portion of our group. It’s true that a lot of people use English as their default language away from classes, and though I don’t particularly care what other people speak, it’s a little weird to go out with a big group and suddenly realize that everyone is speaking English. Especially when these are not people you’re particularly close with, it’s a bit strange and I end up tending to just not talk at all. So the meeting ended with a new conviction in the language pledge, and I went back to my room and discovered my keys were missing (Low point), went to the downstairs trash can, found one set right off, then removed everything from both bins before finding the other (High point).
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Consumer Trends
As I was walking through the alley at back gate last week, I looked through a doorway I’d never noticed before and saw a big indoor food market. I have slightly more faith in my powers of observation than to think I could miss such a large and useful thing, and sure enough it turns out the market is newly-opened after being under renovation since I got here. A stroll through revealed vegetables of all kind (including a cucumber-type squash that was as big around as a salad plate) and a whole row of fish tanks, plus almost anything you could want to make a Chinese meal. Maybe I’ll have to give this cooking thing another shot, and just make Chinese food.
Last night for dinner six of us went to a Korean restaurant. I’d never had Korean food before, and I really liked it. Afterward we bought some ice cream from a convenience store and strolled down to a nearby street that is a main drag of bars near the other big university in town. We parked at “Black and White Bar” and I ordered a screwdriver, which was a mistake. I somehow forgot that there isn’t real orange juice in China. The stuff they sell everywhere labeled as OJ is watery, sweet and somewhat citrus tasting, and in small cups you can see straight through it. So my screwdriver was sweet, citrus tasting water with some vodka at the bottom. Still decent, but I should have just gotten a beer.
Today I dragged myself way across town to wander a bit, and I ended up going into a big shopping mall, only the second like it I’ve found in Hangzhou. The problem with shopping in China, however, is that I can’t actually do it. Chinese fashion is always interesting, and while there’s plenty of tacky silver-painted T-shirts and halter vests that I would never wear, there’s also a lot of pretty designs of dresses, blazers and shirts that I really like looking at. Of course, one gets self conscious walking into a store knowing nothing on the racks will actually fit, leafing through a few sweaters, noticing a shopclerk standing grinning over your shoulder, and then muttering something about nothing being the right size and leaving quickly before she tries to show you something large and hideous with an elastic waist that’s sitting in a box on the floor. The problem is not weight. I could lose 50 pounds and still not be able to buy clothing here. The problem is that my shoulders, ribcage, hips and thighs are just built significantly wider than those of most people here. Surprisingly, I do not feel fat here. I think I’m on such an entirely different level of body-type that my unconscious has just stopped making comparisons altogether. The thing is that there are fat people in China, and there are people with slightly wider frames, and they must buy clothing somewhere. I have no idea where it is, and I can’t exactly stop someone on the street and say “Excuse me, you’re a bit on the large side, where did you get those jeans?”. Anyway, the inability to actually try anything on takes some of the fun out of shopping, so I made a quick tour through the mall and headed back out.
Before getting on the bus I found yet another, larger indoor food market. This one had a whole row of butcher stands, spices, rice, vegetables and an aisle of poultry. They had chicken and duck, sitting in their cages, looking unalarmed and rather unlike the six-piece family tray at Shoprite. This reminded me of one time I saw a woman carrying her morning groceries in a shopping bag. Sticking out of the bag was a head of bok choy or some vegetable, and, after I did a double-take, a duck’s head bobbing along down the street.
Last night for dinner six of us went to a Korean restaurant. I’d never had Korean food before, and I really liked it. Afterward we bought some ice cream from a convenience store and strolled down to a nearby street that is a main drag of bars near the other big university in town. We parked at “Black and White Bar” and I ordered a screwdriver, which was a mistake. I somehow forgot that there isn’t real orange juice in China. The stuff they sell everywhere labeled as OJ is watery, sweet and somewhat citrus tasting, and in small cups you can see straight through it. So my screwdriver was sweet, citrus tasting water with some vodka at the bottom. Still decent, but I should have just gotten a beer.
Today I dragged myself way across town to wander a bit, and I ended up going into a big shopping mall, only the second like it I’ve found in Hangzhou. The problem with shopping in China, however, is that I can’t actually do it. Chinese fashion is always interesting, and while there’s plenty of tacky silver-painted T-shirts and halter vests that I would never wear, there’s also a lot of pretty designs of dresses, blazers and shirts that I really like looking at. Of course, one gets self conscious walking into a store knowing nothing on the racks will actually fit, leafing through a few sweaters, noticing a shopclerk standing grinning over your shoulder, and then muttering something about nothing being the right size and leaving quickly before she tries to show you something large and hideous with an elastic waist that’s sitting in a box on the floor. The problem is not weight. I could lose 50 pounds and still not be able to buy clothing here. The problem is that my shoulders, ribcage, hips and thighs are just built significantly wider than those of most people here. Surprisingly, I do not feel fat here. I think I’m on such an entirely different level of body-type that my unconscious has just stopped making comparisons altogether. The thing is that there are fat people in China, and there are people with slightly wider frames, and they must buy clothing somewhere. I have no idea where it is, and I can’t exactly stop someone on the street and say “Excuse me, you’re a bit on the large side, where did you get those jeans?”. Anyway, the inability to actually try anything on takes some of the fun out of shopping, so I made a quick tour through the mall and headed back out.
Before getting on the bus I found yet another, larger indoor food market. This one had a whole row of butcher stands, spices, rice, vegetables and an aisle of poultry. They had chicken and duck, sitting in their cages, looking unalarmed and rather unlike the six-piece family tray at Shoprite. This reminded me of one time I saw a woman carrying her morning groceries in a shopping bag. Sticking out of the bag was a head of bok choy or some vegetable, and, after I did a double-take, a duck’s head bobbing along down the street.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Me and My Tapeworm
Faced with no real plans for the afternoon, and determined to get out of the Eeyore mode I’ve found myself in the last day or two, I decided to finally take care of an errand I’ve been avoiding for about a week and went to buy a mouse (I spilled water on my track bad a while a go, and while it’s still technically functional, the right click function occurs on a left click on my desktop, and not at all most other places, a small nuisance which prevents me somehow from dragging text and files, opening attachments or using gmail). The electronics market is near Wensan Rd, an area I’d been meaning to explore more, so I filled my bag with books, maps and busywork and took the bus across town. The electronics market was certainly no Best Buy; two flors of booths crammed with mp3 players, cameras, computers, cell phones and all of the accoutrements that come with them. One of my teachers had helpfully told me the word for mouse (NOT the word for the animal) and told me the approximate price of a bottom-line one. I dispatched the errand without too much trouble, though I of course just bought the first decent one I found. It was a bit overwhelming and I am happy with my purchase, so no matter.
I then set off for a café on a nearby street to kill some time and relax away from campus. This was my first chance to have a relaxing Friday afternoon in a while, and damn it, I was going to make use of it. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that though I was on Wensan Rd (3rd Wen Rd), the place I wanted was not on Wen’er (2nd Wen) Rd, but WEST Wen’er Rd, so I ended up trekking a fair bit across town. It was definitely walkable, and a rather pleasant walk at that, but by the time I arrived I was more than ready to collapse into an armchair on the second floor, order a drink and a sandwich, and not move for a long time.
I spent the next couple of hours working out travel itineraries, reviewing my 1 on 1 a bit and reading, while listening to a continuous loop of lounge piano recordings of, among others, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea”, “White Christmas” and another that I couldn’t place but is definitely in at least two Meg Ryan movies. In fact the whole CD may have been “Sounds of Meg Ryan Movies” as I’m pretty sure White Christmas is in Sleepless in Seattle, and Somewhere Beyond the Sea in When Harry Met Sally.
Coffee house music here never fails to amuse. One place had a recording of several Beatles covers, a few sappy 1990s love songs of the Patrick Swayze variety (one really was that song from Ghost with the pottery wheel; can’t place it now, but you know the one), “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” again, but with the lyrics, and a rock version of Auld Lang Syne. Still another had “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” sung in French, as well as several similarly moody selections, but the CD was replaced after only two repetitions by an excellent 80’s mix, every other track featuring Michael Jackson. This is rare; they usually don’t change the CD all day. You can actually measure the time you’ve spent in a café here by how many times the CD repeats.
At least it’s better than the street cleaning trucks that roll through several times a day. From all points on campus you can year the truck ambling past blaring an ice-cream truck medley of Christmas tunes, mostly “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, and one tune that I swear sounds like Scarborough Fair. If you go farther West, it’s Happy Birthday, London Bridge and Brahm’s Lullaby.
I then set off for a café on a nearby street to kill some time and relax away from campus. This was my first chance to have a relaxing Friday afternoon in a while, and damn it, I was going to make use of it. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that though I was on Wensan Rd (3rd Wen Rd), the place I wanted was not on Wen’er (2nd Wen) Rd, but WEST Wen’er Rd, so I ended up trekking a fair bit across town. It was definitely walkable, and a rather pleasant walk at that, but by the time I arrived I was more than ready to collapse into an armchair on the second floor, order a drink and a sandwich, and not move for a long time.
I spent the next couple of hours working out travel itineraries, reviewing my 1 on 1 a bit and reading, while listening to a continuous loop of lounge piano recordings of, among others, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea”, “White Christmas” and another that I couldn’t place but is definitely in at least two Meg Ryan movies. In fact the whole CD may have been “Sounds of Meg Ryan Movies” as I’m pretty sure White Christmas is in Sleepless in Seattle, and Somewhere Beyond the Sea in When Harry Met Sally.
Coffee house music here never fails to amuse. One place had a recording of several Beatles covers, a few sappy 1990s love songs of the Patrick Swayze variety (one really was that song from Ghost with the pottery wheel; can’t place it now, but you know the one), “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” again, but with the lyrics, and a rock version of Auld Lang Syne. Still another had “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” sung in French, as well as several similarly moody selections, but the CD was replaced after only two repetitions by an excellent 80’s mix, every other track featuring Michael Jackson. This is rare; they usually don’t change the CD all day. You can actually measure the time you’ve spent in a café here by how many times the CD repeats.
At least it’s better than the street cleaning trucks that roll through several times a day. From all points on campus you can year the truck ambling past blaring an ice-cream truck medley of Christmas tunes, mostly “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, and one tune that I swear sounds like Scarborough Fair. If you go farther West, it’s Happy Birthday, London Bridge and Brahm’s Lullaby.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Being Touristy, Part 2
This week hasn’t been immensely taxing, or even that eventful for that matter. Because class was canceled Monday, I effectively only had a half course-load this week, which I dealt with in one fell swoop at Starbucks Tuesday night. It was a rather sniffly swoop, as everone here seems to be sleeping poorly and coming down sick this week. I started getting the sniffles Monday evening, and by Tuesday I was in full-on head cold mode. I couldn’t sleep Tuesday night, a fact which was made worse by the fact that there were mosquitoes in my room. Chinese mosquitoes are quicker, and therefore harder to kill than the American ones. When I was in Beijing I bought a flyswatter, and it became a ritual every night to close the door and climb on every piece of furniture to kill my mosquitoes, each with a fast and supremely satisfying thwack. It was kind of fun, part vindictive pleasure, part prey-stalking.
Though there are mosquitoes here, they’re not as many and haven’t been a huge problem. But when you can’t sleep and you hear an occasional, ominous buzzing somewhere near your head, it can pretty quickly drive you crazy. I’d wave my arms wildly around my head, but a few minutes later they’d be back. I’d pull the covers over my head to keep them away, but quickly get too hot and decide that was a bad idea. It was awful. I’d get up to blow my nose, indignantly flick on the lights and swat at one perched on the wall over my bed. Of course, it would get away, and I’d scan the room for a minute before turning off the light and climbing back into bed. This went on for at least an hour, before finally I took out two of them with one of my textbooks, and (I hoped) shut a third in the bathroom. Left in peace, I settled into my ailing sleep for the night.
Wednesday I felt a bit better, but I also had well over five hours of class, and by the time I finished my one-on-one at 4:15, my brain was droning a monotonous mantra of “sleep…sleep…” and sleep I did, until 9:30 this morning, except for an hour and a half break around 8:00 when I sent off some emails and ate a granola bar. This morning I felt better, but a walk to the post office left me exhausted, and though I wasn’t exactly loving the idea of another afternoon in bed, I didn’t have any homework and wasn’t up for much activity.
Luckily my hand was forced by prior arrangements and a growing urge to get the hell away from campus, which I hadn’t ventured from since Monday night (Starbucks, though a 5-10 minute bus ride away, does not count as it is a place to sit and do work and come back, and has no sight-seeing aspects like other coffee houses). So this afternoon I set off with Xueqin, Shushan and Yazhen to the pedestrian area of Hefang Street, a street promising to give us the chance to haggle to our hearts content over jade cell phone fobs and Peking Opera masks. It still being the National Golden Holiday, the stores were crammed full of people, but it was lots of fun to see everyone’s wares, especially since the street seems to have been outfitted with a somewhat traditional façade, so the shops were all adorned with carved wooden signs and lanterns and such. There were also craft demonstrations of every type, which we were more than happy to gaze at in awe.
After walking the length of the street (and posing in only one picture with gaping tourists, who kept thinking poor Shushan, who’s Korean and lives in New Jersey, was our Chinese interpreter), we headed back to a teahouse we’d seen reviewed in a magazine, and were ushered to a private upstairs room. The waiters were all wearing somewhat traditional garb, and the service featured a tea ceremony that apparently takes two years of study to master. The tea, which was served cold, was refilled from a brass pot with a very long, narrow spout (we’re talking about four feet). The server could twirl the pot in all manner of configurations around his body, at last resting it on his head or behind his back, extending the other hand to the end of the spout and pouring the water, often from some distance, into the cup. Once he lunged at the cup from across the room, holding the pot high over his head, and once he even balanced the cup on his knee. We sat for quite some time, happily munching on the fruit, candies and sunflower seeds they provided us with. The place was terrific; it looked like a set from a kung fu movie, and we were definitely content to stay for as long as they kept bringing us more sunflower seeds, and refilling our beautifully painted teacups.
I’m a big fan of being touristy in Hangzhou. Much as I am getting used to living in this city for daily life, the touristy stuff has so much more stimulus, and there are better places to park and people watch downtown than on the outskirts. At the end of the day I don’t have to schlep my backpack to a hotel room, and I don’t have to think about whether or not I’m making use of my time, because I’ve got lots of time. I live here, though it’s definitely not home. Still, when I have the afternoon free, wandering around the touristy parts is an interesting and different, and somehow more cool than running an errand to buy a mouse (which I still need to do) or doing homework at Starbucks (which I will inevitably do again).
Though there are mosquitoes here, they’re not as many and haven’t been a huge problem. But when you can’t sleep and you hear an occasional, ominous buzzing somewhere near your head, it can pretty quickly drive you crazy. I’d wave my arms wildly around my head, but a few minutes later they’d be back. I’d pull the covers over my head to keep them away, but quickly get too hot and decide that was a bad idea. It was awful. I’d get up to blow my nose, indignantly flick on the lights and swat at one perched on the wall over my bed. Of course, it would get away, and I’d scan the room for a minute before turning off the light and climbing back into bed. This went on for at least an hour, before finally I took out two of them with one of my textbooks, and (I hoped) shut a third in the bathroom. Left in peace, I settled into my ailing sleep for the night.
Wednesday I felt a bit better, but I also had well over five hours of class, and by the time I finished my one-on-one at 4:15, my brain was droning a monotonous mantra of “sleep…sleep…” and sleep I did, until 9:30 this morning, except for an hour and a half break around 8:00 when I sent off some emails and ate a granola bar. This morning I felt better, but a walk to the post office left me exhausted, and though I wasn’t exactly loving the idea of another afternoon in bed, I didn’t have any homework and wasn’t up for much activity.
Luckily my hand was forced by prior arrangements and a growing urge to get the hell away from campus, which I hadn’t ventured from since Monday night (Starbucks, though a 5-10 minute bus ride away, does not count as it is a place to sit and do work and come back, and has no sight-seeing aspects like other coffee houses). So this afternoon I set off with Xueqin, Shushan and Yazhen to the pedestrian area of Hefang Street, a street promising to give us the chance to haggle to our hearts content over jade cell phone fobs and Peking Opera masks. It still being the National Golden Holiday, the stores were crammed full of people, but it was lots of fun to see everyone’s wares, especially since the street seems to have been outfitted with a somewhat traditional façade, so the shops were all adorned with carved wooden signs and lanterns and such. There were also craft demonstrations of every type, which we were more than happy to gaze at in awe.
After walking the length of the street (and posing in only one picture with gaping tourists, who kept thinking poor Shushan, who’s Korean and lives in New Jersey, was our Chinese interpreter), we headed back to a teahouse we’d seen reviewed in a magazine, and were ushered to a private upstairs room. The waiters were all wearing somewhat traditional garb, and the service featured a tea ceremony that apparently takes two years of study to master. The tea, which was served cold, was refilled from a brass pot with a very long, narrow spout (we’re talking about four feet). The server could twirl the pot in all manner of configurations around his body, at last resting it on his head or behind his back, extending the other hand to the end of the spout and pouring the water, often from some distance, into the cup. Once he lunged at the cup from across the room, holding the pot high over his head, and once he even balanced the cup on his knee. We sat for quite some time, happily munching on the fruit, candies and sunflower seeds they provided us with. The place was terrific; it looked like a set from a kung fu movie, and we were definitely content to stay for as long as they kept bringing us more sunflower seeds, and refilling our beautifully painted teacups.
I’m a big fan of being touristy in Hangzhou. Much as I am getting used to living in this city for daily life, the touristy stuff has so much more stimulus, and there are better places to park and people watch downtown than on the outskirts. At the end of the day I don’t have to schlep my backpack to a hotel room, and I don’t have to think about whether or not I’m making use of my time, because I’ve got lots of time. I live here, though it’s definitely not home. Still, when I have the afternoon free, wandering around the touristy parts is an interesting and different, and somehow more cool than running an errand to buy a mouse (which I still need to do) or doing homework at Starbucks (which I will inevitably do again).
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Expenses
Well I’ve now officially passed the one-month mark. I can mark my progress by announcing that yesterday Yazhen and I successfully ordered a delicious meal for four at a beautiful restaurant on West Lake to celebrate her birthday, that I rolled my eyes at the masses of tourists standing around on the bridges around the lake (of course I’m still more of an outsider than they are, but it’s nice to feel the distinction anyway), that I had nothing confiscated at the grocery store checkout this morning (though I didn’t buy any produce), and that I finally let myself eat fried rice again for dinner today.
Before I left for Shanghai, I took a look at my money situation. At the start I kept a close eye on where I spent my money, so if I were wasting a lot on one particular expense I would know, or I could consider buying a multi-use bus pass or such. I quickly decided that this was a bad idea, because I am not traveling but living here for a semester, and cataloguing everywhere my money goes will only make me anxious and unreasonably cheap. Still, I really haven’t been all that extravagant. I’m enjoying Hangzhou and getting out, and I even go for a cup of coffee to study once or twice a week. I’ve accepted taxi rides as an occasional necessity, and I’ve gotten used to watching a ticker on my desktop alert me to exactly how much I’m spending on internet time. I haven’t bought an electric scooter, or plane tickets for weekend trips, or daily lattes like some of my classmates (I can’t make that not sound judgemental, but it’s really not, I just have my own way of doing things and it involves not buying a 35 yuan latte every day).
Not including my Shanghai weekend (but to be fair, including the last two days of August), I figure in my first month I spent about 2000 yuan, or 260 dollars. This seemed pretty reasonable to me, especially considering that 500 went to a cell phone and five month phone plan. I’ve succeeded in passing an enjoyable and non-Puritanical month, and I am under budget. I was pretty proud of myself. And then I remembered that one of my teachers let it slip that his monthly salary is 3000 yuan.
3000 yuan! And then you need to pay taxes, pay rent, have some savings, etc. If most people live on maybe 1000 yuan or less spending money a month, where exactly are my luxuries? The occasional cab ride, a drink at a bar now and then. I don’t cook for myself, but I hardly dine five-star; I eat a lot at the cafeteria, and breakfast is usually yogurt or a roll. I’ve bought myself very little: a towel, some shampoo, some clothes hangers and laundry detergent, a pen case, notebooks, maybe a few other things. My weekend in Shaoxing put me back around 200 and I spent 150 on the soccer ticket. I’m not saying I have regrets about having fun around here, but it certainly puts things in perspective. All in all, you could definitely live on that little money for a month, but it would be a fairly simple life, with little entertainment and a lot of nights at home. Someone should tell Paris Hilton…could be a spinoff?
Before I left for Shanghai, I took a look at my money situation. At the start I kept a close eye on where I spent my money, so if I were wasting a lot on one particular expense I would know, or I could consider buying a multi-use bus pass or such. I quickly decided that this was a bad idea, because I am not traveling but living here for a semester, and cataloguing everywhere my money goes will only make me anxious and unreasonably cheap. Still, I really haven’t been all that extravagant. I’m enjoying Hangzhou and getting out, and I even go for a cup of coffee to study once or twice a week. I’ve accepted taxi rides as an occasional necessity, and I’ve gotten used to watching a ticker on my desktop alert me to exactly how much I’m spending on internet time. I haven’t bought an electric scooter, or plane tickets for weekend trips, or daily lattes like some of my classmates (I can’t make that not sound judgemental, but it’s really not, I just have my own way of doing things and it involves not buying a 35 yuan latte every day).
Not including my Shanghai weekend (but to be fair, including the last two days of August), I figure in my first month I spent about 2000 yuan, or 260 dollars. This seemed pretty reasonable to me, especially considering that 500 went to a cell phone and five month phone plan. I’ve succeeded in passing an enjoyable and non-Puritanical month, and I am under budget. I was pretty proud of myself. And then I remembered that one of my teachers let it slip that his monthly salary is 3000 yuan.
3000 yuan! And then you need to pay taxes, pay rent, have some savings, etc. If most people live on maybe 1000 yuan or less spending money a month, where exactly are my luxuries? The occasional cab ride, a drink at a bar now and then. I don’t cook for myself, but I hardly dine five-star; I eat a lot at the cafeteria, and breakfast is usually yogurt or a roll. I’ve bought myself very little: a towel, some shampoo, some clothes hangers and laundry detergent, a pen case, notebooks, maybe a few other things. My weekend in Shaoxing put me back around 200 and I spent 150 on the soccer ticket. I’m not saying I have regrets about having fun around here, but it certainly puts things in perspective. All in all, you could definitely live on that little money for a month, but it would be a fairly simple life, with little entertainment and a lot of nights at home. Someone should tell Paris Hilton…could be a spinoff?
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