Saturday, 10 November 2012

When we are in love we love the grass. and the barns and the light poles

The contrast between the two leadership transitions this week is pretty incredible really. It feels a bit beyond me to make any sweeping conclusions about the events themselves, and there are countless articles doing that from every angle anyway with far superior contributions to the debates! But I will briefly summarise how they impacted me here, and what I've heard and seen.

The US election in Wudaokou
The American election felt a lot closer to me here in China than it ever has in the
UK, mainly because of the huge international community here, a large proportion of which are American. It might even be a more balanced spread of American opinions here than I'd be able to find in the states, because of the variety of states represented here among my friends. Asking each person who they were voting for or what their state was normally aligned with was so interesting because I would hear about their state's majority view, their family's view, and then their own as well. These little snapshots of the various demographics helped me to see the diversity of perspectives within the US and how people viewed the significance of their vote. Some people were very ambivalent, their states were already strongly aligned with a particular party and it was a done deal. Some of my friends were very passionately affiliated with a party, one friend did some house calling to Colorado the night before the election to try and convince swing voters from China! A lot of people I spoke to voted but weren't wholly satisfied with either candidate, and felt like they were choosing between a rock and a hard place rather than actually being able to select someone who stood for their views.
I went with friends to watch the votes come in live from the Stanford Centre in Peking
University from 8am ( on a side note, the centre is amazing and I'm so jealous), we were given a great complimentary breakfast and watched the CNN coverage before class. We returned for lunch in time to see Obama win, and then I caught his speech live in the Bridge cafe down my road a couple hours later, which was also packed with Americans. The bridge cafe had been advertising free beer for all if Obama won, and delivered on this promise which was very popular! There was a lot of celebrating on the streets and in the bars that night where I live, and cries of 'God bless America' all over the place.

The 18th Party Congress
The next morning at the start of our Classical Chinese lesson, Nick asked our teacher what she felt about the American election, and who she wanted to win. She was very pro Obama and gave reasons why. Then he commented that that morning was the important one with the start of the 18th congress and leadership transition, how did she feel about that? She said it didn't really concern her, she would just hear how it went and that was it.
The impact of the party congress session on my everyday life has been as follows:
- there are lots of volunteers wandering around the streets wearing communist armbands pinned onto their coat sleeves, apparently there are more volunteers for this than there were for the Olympics in Beijing, but I still don't really understand what they are actually doing, nor have I witnessed them doing anything except walking around.
- big posters and banners have appeared on the roads and in my apartment complex, and like during national week someone has put Chinese flags at the entrance to every part of the compound.
- the entrance to Peking University campus has upped the security at the gate and is asking for your cards to be let in which it has never done before. They are still pretty easy to slip thorough but it is a lot more strict than before. This is because most of the political protests and student movements of the past century have their roots at Peking University. Whenever the government is anxious about uprising or civilian unrest, they always make sure that the Peking University campus is being monitored very closely.
-the biggest annoyance is that the Internet is extremely slow because everything is being read. Not only are networks failing all the time but vpns, which are the way people can access banned websites are being hacked all the time and stop working for long periods of time. The Internet disruption has been going on for about two weeks and is expected to continue for roughly another fortnight.
-I watched CCTV ( China's version of BBC) for news about the party congress but the coverage was really very minimal. The first piece of news was about how supermarket workers were learning dance routines to improve fitness and work enjoyment, the second was about Chinese officials documenting the number of endangered birds in another province's marshland, and then finally they showed two minutes of footage about the congress, a sweeping shot of the delegates, individual shots of some of the big names and then some silent footage of Hu Jintao speaking with the news reporter talking over him the entire time. Not particularly in depth or groundbreaking, I will need to try and stream the foreign news to get any substantial footage or analysis. Although from articles I've read about how dull the speech was, maybe the Chinese public have been spared!

Saturday, 3 November 2012

Please press 1 to conform

An advert from the Beijinger magazine this week:

Weath of nations
Meet, mingle, make money

Beijing's most exclusively club and caviar cafe
-Beijing's 100 richest Chinese men
-the number one richest foreigner from every country who also reside in Beijing
-anyone named Adam Smith
Address: We'll tell you
Email: membership@weathofnations.com

I don't think I qualify but it made me laugh! I heard today that there are actually more multimillionaires in Beijing than there are foreigners. This city is crazy.

What have I done this week?
-Classical Chinese exams
-ThinkInChina, a group that I'm involved in ran an awesome talk by Prof Xie Tao on Sino-American relations
-ate a lot of Taiwanese pancakes...
-ran out of English teabags. This is the beginning of a serious problem
- discovered that only British people put 'x's at the end of texts and messages! We have been confusing Americans we know here for so long without even realising! I had no idea that it was a British quirk, it's blown my mind.

In other news...
The heating has just turned on! Heating is provided by the government in the northern part of china from November 15th to March 15th, individual buildings have no control over it. However this year because the 18th Party Congress is coming up so all the government officials will be in town, and because there was forecast a snowstorm soon, we have had the heating turned on ahead of schedule! The heating will be at 18 degrees or higher inside for the rest of winter, and I'm so glad! At the moment the temperature is still bearable but it is just about to plummet into the minus numbers and will become drastically cold very soon, too cold for snow even apparently. I'm bracing myself for that, jaded Beijingers have not spoken favourably of the winter here.
My Internet and particular access to the blocked websites has got so much slower because of the upcoming party congress, it's so annoying.


Shopping

Shopping etiquette in China is very different from in the UK and I feel obligated to attempt some kind of explanation. Here are some basics for your typical shopping experience in Golden Towers indoor market near where I live, which is where we buy almost everything now excluding food. It's four stories of little stalls, two floors are exclusively clothes and shoes and the upper two have stalls selling almost anything else you can think of.

If there isn't a price on it, you should never accept the price the shop owner asks for. Haggling is a must.
You can't try on clothes, which makes it an issue for things like jeans. Coats and jumpers are sometimes allowed to be tried but only if you ask nicely, and it depends on the stall. Luckily they are so cheap you can normally justify taking a chance on them.
If they tell you that the item is a genuine brand, pure wool, silk, leather, good quality, or original- these are all lies. Nothing is going to be real, and never pay for something based on that sort of justification.
None of the stalls have any names and are unlikely to be particularly identifiable. Most of the shop owners are playing music loudly on their laptop which means that the songs all combine with the next door stalls music and create an incoherent noise. If they aren't doing that they are sitting watching Chinese tv dramas on their smart phones.
Never appear to really like something, because then they know for sure they have a buyer. It's a bit like flirting with a shop owner and their product, you have to play hard to get! For example i say in a very uninterested tone to whoever I'm with that I have to have that hat no matter what, but examine the hat, find a loose thread, act shocked and disgusted at whatever price the stall person gives and appear to be on the point of leaving, citing the quality and extortionate price as my reason. Then I give an offer about thirty percent lower than I would be willing to pay, pitifully describe myself as a broke student and plead for a lower price, or accuse them of trying to rip me off because I'm a westerner and say I've already passed three other stalls with the same product who are willing to give me cheaper. At the end, put the item down and start to walk away slowly until they run after you agreeing. This charade has to be performed with every individual purchase, and I have to admit, it's really fun! Buying things like this is so addictive, and a lot more fun than when the price is set because it feels like you're earning your own deal in a way. It gets easier to gage what is a reasonable price to settle on when you start figuring out how much each item should cost, at first it was very hard to know if we were getting a good deal or not.