Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Be waterful.
Latest news....
I have a laptop again for the first time in over two months! It's great.
It's averaging between minus fifteen and minus twenty at the moment, walking home with my head exposed briefly I honestly got a brain freeze from the outside in. And I confess, sometimes I wear a face mask, but I will not provide pictures.
I'm in China for the holiday season and really sad not to be doing the normal Christmas traditions.
However, don't feel too sorry for me because we have Holly, Will and Alice from Qingdao staying with us, and my Aunt and Uncle are also here for the holidays too which has been so much fun. Hosting forces you to do fun things :)
Everyone is wearing vibrant coloured puffer jackets, but only the Koreans can actually pull them off. Koreans make everything look cool.
We have decorated the apartment with all the Christmas decorations kind people have sent us, and it feels very festive.
The lake in the university is now frozen enough that we can skate on it which I really want to do soon!
This christmas will probably be one of the strangest I have, being away from home and in China where the influence of Christmas only goes as deep as some tinsel in western hotel lobbies. We talk about the commercialisation of Christmas in the west, but in China christmas isn't moving from a place of meaning and family to become more commercial, it is either nothing, or meaningless tackiness for the sake of it.
Christmas Eve in China is a dating night really and I have heard that eating out is virtually impossible because everywhere is swarmed with couples. One of my Chinese friends said in his province they give apples to people on Christmas Eve because in Chinese chirstmas eve is Pinganye 平安夜 which means night of peace, and apples are called 苹果 pingguo, so they give apples to people because of the wordplay. I was talking to some Japanese people yesterday and they also celebrate Christmas as a dating holiday. A stranger Japanese tradition though is that they always buy KFC for christmas, and you have to order it well in advance for an extortionate amount of money to get it. They couldn't clarify the reason for this unfortunately.
On Tuesday Bethany and I did a christmas party for the Chinese friends we have from Qinghua, and when we asked them what they knew about Christmas, the answer was that they knew about the 'Christmas old man' ( the translation of Santa into Chinese) and one girl knew that it was celebrating when God was born, because she had read a short story from a very famous Chinese horror story writer who used the christmas events as an influence in one of his stories and summarised the original at the beginning. Which I confess I didn't see coming.
We made them some roast chicken and then had christmas cookies on the table ready for decorating after dinner, but one of the guys thought it was part of the main course, and ate it with his knife and fork along with the salad, which was really sweet, and our fault really for putting them out early. He's only ever used a knife and fork twice, and I have been there both times, it is an honour.
I have managed to get to some carol services though, my church did one yesterday and then there is caroling at a Korean cafe nearby tonight which I'm looking forward to. A couple weeks ago I went to a christmas concert at the big Chinese church nearby, it was a combined concert of international congregations as well as the Chinese. Each different culture did their own performance, and it was so interesting hearing traditional songs from so many different places.
My Christmas is going to be spent with my aunt and uncle, classmates and new friends I have made here, so excellent company really. The Christmas dinner has also been dealt with by us going to the Ritz Carlton for lunch, which aside from my family roast is about as good as I can get! It's all come together very nicely, and even though it won't be the same as the traditional one I love, I'm sure it will still be good fun.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
Saturday, 8 December 2012
Not according to the rules but according.
Updates: I have a proper winter coat now finally! That should have happened a long time ago but at least it has happened.
The ground is permanently frozen now, and so there are frozen oysters of spit from all the Chinese men all over the place.
Yesterday I had a mince pie, and it was beautiful. I don't expect that it will happen again this holiday season.
University stereotypes:
Beida (Peking university) and Qinghua
Beida and Qinghua are the two most prestigious universities in China, and as I have mentioned have a similar rivalry to the Harvard-Yale or Oxford-Cambridge ones except that they have clearer special fields and they are both on the same street (the one I live on).
Beida is older being founded in 1898, and was the first modern university in China. It's grounds are part of the old emperors gardens and whole swaths of it could easily be mistaken for a beautiful park with lakes and woods ( one time in between lectures I got completely lost in this area and ended up missing most of the next class trying to get back to civilisation...). The economics faculty is actually the building where the decree abolishing the ancient civil service examination system was signed, which if you know a bit about Chinese history is a pretty big deal. Mao was a librarian here in his youth, and in the nineteen twenties it was the home of all the new literary thinkers in who I've been studying lately. As I mentioned before as well, a lot of protests and free thinking movements have had their origin with Beida students.
Today, Beida is known for its prestige in humanities subjects, which isn't much of a surprise given its history. On the cycle ride up to the university there are words of inspiration intended for students such as myself, such as 不学礼无以立 (if you don't study ritual you won't be able to stand in society) and 美丽原美德 （beauty has its origin in beautiful wisdom). The average beida student won't see this very often though as the Chinese students live on campus and rarely actually leave. The campus is a pretty self contained village with very little need to leave it unless you want to, and most of the students just stick to their bubble rather than venture down the road to see all the other universities.
Qinghua is of equal prestige but the emphasis in Qinghua is more on sciences and engineering, and it is a newer university. The style is definitely an imitation of the American Ivy League style architecture, it's has an even bigger campus than Beida and it has lots of beautiful tree lined boulevards. The most famous department is the engineering department, because it is where most of the major politicians of recent times studied, and it is a well known networking centre for the communist party. If you are an engineer in Qinghua you have a bright future ahead of you.
I have become friends with a group of Qinghua guys over the past few months by meeting them for dinner every Tuesday night with some friends at a fast food restaurant on campus. They are former students of my friend who she got along well with and started meeting up outside class with last year. They are a group of five physical engineering majors who are all good friends, because they know us and each other so well, they act normally with us rather than it feeling formal or overly polite, and they are so funny. I have learnt a lot about Chinese student life from them.
A few weeks ago my friend and I went to watch them take part in an annual kind of cultural/ talent show run by their department which was hilarious. We were literally the only two non Chinese people in the entire auditorium and our presence was pretty confusing to a lot of people, we really stuck out. Just before the programme started a girl awkwardly announced in English that there would not be any translation of the programme, and the whole audience started laughing at us, the clear target of this notice. I have never felt so self conscious as a member of what should have been an anonymous crowd, and never shrunk so low in my seat...
The show had different sections each organised and performed by different grades and classes, some were prefilmed videos, some were choirs, dance routines, plays or an eclectic combination of all multiple media. The content of the performances and the jokes spoke volumes about the type of people who studied in the department, which were mostly slightly socially awkward but well meaning guys who would like a girlfriend but mostly just play video games. I will illustrate this with an example: in one story a guy has a girlfriend but doesn't pay her enough attention because he is always playing video games, she leaves him and he realises his mistake. He then chases after her and finds himself in a parallel world where he has to battle through various popular video games to reach her, such as angry birds where people are running around actually being the targets and birds. In the end she still leaves him. In other ones there are a lot of geeky protagonists developing an obsession with a girl that doesn't notice them, and stressing out about how much physics work they have to do.
Something else you really noticed was the gender ratio, which in Qinghua is 3:1 guys to girls, and probably higher than that still in the physics department. There were very few girls on stage at all, and when one did come on the audience audibly gasped. The Qinghua guys I know have found their girlfriends in the nearby universities or from their hometown, a popular girl hunting location for Qinghua guys is the forestry university which has a 4:1 girl to guy ratio I have been told. Beida has an equal ratio apparently (the Qinghua guys clearly made it their business to know these things) and two of them are dating girls from there too, despite the fierce university rivalry. It's all very Romeo and Juliet.
The Forestry University
The forestry university is definitely where all the cool, arty students go. All the most alternative and creative Chinese people I've met so far are all from the forestry university, and there is a strong emphasis here on art, interior design, woodwork, fashion and so on. I've only just started getting to know people at the forestry university but I am intending on spending a lot more time here (in the vain hope that some of their cool will rub off on me).
I'm actually writing this entry in the forestry university, at a cafe which is a perfect example of how cool the people here are.
The cafe is called Nian cafe, and it is run entirely by three final year students of the university who fit in keeping it open for twelve hours a day on top of their degree. The whole interior decor was designed and built by the guys themselves and it looks incredible. One of them specialises in woodwork and built the tables and lights, the sign has the cafe name characters carved out of wood and there are cool objects all over the place, cute ornaments like a mini model piano and a retro radio inside, and a giant wooden pencil taller than me by the gate. They rent the building from a teacher and fund it from the profits they make, they have two white cats that just wander round the shop, one called little nian, and her daughter is called little little nian. They also make great, cheap coffee.
I was introduced to the place by my friend Bethany who had an art show here last weekend which I was helping out with, her paintings are still on display now and they look awesome. There was a massive turnout and on the second day some of the forestry girls came to show her their own art, and ask her about the meanings in hers which was awesome.
Then another student called Warsaw (after the original band name of the joy division) came and played some of his own songs for a while, and engaged us in a discussion on psychology and musicians who became icons through dying young. So edgy.
Bethany's website is bethanyeden.com
and one of the forestry university student's website is:
http://xiaoheiyuben.diandian.com/ , I highly recommend you take a look!
The ground is permanently frozen now, and so there are frozen oysters of spit from all the Chinese men all over the place.
Yesterday I had a mince pie, and it was beautiful. I don't expect that it will happen again this holiday season.
University stereotypes:
Beida (Peking university) and Qinghua
Beida and Qinghua are the two most prestigious universities in China, and as I have mentioned have a similar rivalry to the Harvard-Yale or Oxford-Cambridge ones except that they have clearer special fields and they are both on the same street (the one I live on).
Beida is older being founded in 1898, and was the first modern university in China. It's grounds are part of the old emperors gardens and whole swaths of it could easily be mistaken for a beautiful park with lakes and woods ( one time in between lectures I got completely lost in this area and ended up missing most of the next class trying to get back to civilisation...). The economics faculty is actually the building where the decree abolishing the ancient civil service examination system was signed, which if you know a bit about Chinese history is a pretty big deal. Mao was a librarian here in his youth, and in the nineteen twenties it was the home of all the new literary thinkers in who I've been studying lately. As I mentioned before as well, a lot of protests and free thinking movements have had their origin with Beida students.
Today, Beida is known for its prestige in humanities subjects, which isn't much of a surprise given its history. On the cycle ride up to the university there are words of inspiration intended for students such as myself, such as 不学礼无以立 (if you don't study ritual you won't be able to stand in society) and 美丽原美德 （beauty has its origin in beautiful wisdom). The average beida student won't see this very often though as the Chinese students live on campus and rarely actually leave. The campus is a pretty self contained village with very little need to leave it unless you want to, and most of the students just stick to their bubble rather than venture down the road to see all the other universities.
Qinghua is of equal prestige but the emphasis in Qinghua is more on sciences and engineering, and it is a newer university. The style is definitely an imitation of the American Ivy League style architecture, it's has an even bigger campus than Beida and it has lots of beautiful tree lined boulevards. The most famous department is the engineering department, because it is where most of the major politicians of recent times studied, and it is a well known networking centre for the communist party. If you are an engineer in Qinghua you have a bright future ahead of you.
I have become friends with a group of Qinghua guys over the past few months by meeting them for dinner every Tuesday night with some friends at a fast food restaurant on campus. They are former students of my friend who she got along well with and started meeting up outside class with last year. They are a group of five physical engineering majors who are all good friends, because they know us and each other so well, they act normally with us rather than it feeling formal or overly polite, and they are so funny. I have learnt a lot about Chinese student life from them.
A few weeks ago my friend and I went to watch them take part in an annual kind of cultural/ talent show run by their department which was hilarious. We were literally the only two non Chinese people in the entire auditorium and our presence was pretty confusing to a lot of people, we really stuck out. Just before the programme started a girl awkwardly announced in English that there would not be any translation of the programme, and the whole audience started laughing at us, the clear target of this notice. I have never felt so self conscious as a member of what should have been an anonymous crowd, and never shrunk so low in my seat...
The show had different sections each organised and performed by different grades and classes, some were prefilmed videos, some were choirs, dance routines, plays or an eclectic combination of all multiple media. The content of the performances and the jokes spoke volumes about the type of people who studied in the department, which were mostly slightly socially awkward but well meaning guys who would like a girlfriend but mostly just play video games. I will illustrate this with an example: in one story a guy has a girlfriend but doesn't pay her enough attention because he is always playing video games, she leaves him and he realises his mistake. He then chases after her and finds himself in a parallel world where he has to battle through various popular video games to reach her, such as angry birds where people are running around actually being the targets and birds. In the end she still leaves him. In other ones there are a lot of geeky protagonists developing an obsession with a girl that doesn't notice them, and stressing out about how much physics work they have to do.
Something else you really noticed was the gender ratio, which in Qinghua is 3:1 guys to girls, and probably higher than that still in the physics department. There were very few girls on stage at all, and when one did come on the audience audibly gasped. The Qinghua guys I know have found their girlfriends in the nearby universities or from their hometown, a popular girl hunting location for Qinghua guys is the forestry university which has a 4:1 girl to guy ratio I have been told. Beida has an equal ratio apparently (the Qinghua guys clearly made it their business to know these things) and two of them are dating girls from there too, despite the fierce university rivalry. It's all very Romeo and Juliet.
The Forestry University
The forestry university is definitely where all the cool, arty students go. All the most alternative and creative Chinese people I've met so far are all from the forestry university, and there is a strong emphasis here on art, interior design, woodwork, fashion and so on. I've only just started getting to know people at the forestry university but I am intending on spending a lot more time here (in the vain hope that some of their cool will rub off on me).
I'm actually writing this entry in the forestry university, at a cafe which is a perfect example of how cool the people here are.
The cafe is called Nian cafe, and it is run entirely by three final year students of the university who fit in keeping it open for twelve hours a day on top of their degree. The whole interior decor was designed and built by the guys themselves and it looks incredible. One of them specialises in woodwork and built the tables and lights, the sign has the cafe name characters carved out of wood and there are cool objects all over the place, cute ornaments like a mini model piano and a retro radio inside, and a giant wooden pencil taller than me by the gate. They rent the building from a teacher and fund it from the profits they make, they have two white cats that just wander round the shop, one called little nian, and her daughter is called little little nian. They also make great, cheap coffee.
I was introduced to the place by my friend Bethany who had an art show here last weekend which I was helping out with, her paintings are still on display now and they look awesome. There was a massive turnout and on the second day some of the forestry girls came to show her their own art, and ask her about the meanings in hers which was awesome.
Then another student called Warsaw (after the original band name of the joy division) came and played some of his own songs for a while, and engaged us in a discussion on psychology and musicians who became icons through dying young. So edgy.
Bethany's website is bethanyeden.com
and one of the forestry university student's website is:
http://xiaoheiyuben.diandian.com/ , I highly recommend you take a look!
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
There are no full stops in quality
Since my last entry I have:
-Had more stuff stolen (purse, bike batteries, bank card)
-Had two thanksgiving meals
-Been on a great trip to Qingdao
-Suffered my first food poisoning!
-Paid my next bout of rent
-Forgot to top up our electricity card and left poor Anna cooking rice by candlelight for a few hours....
-Been given a weeks vacation for no real reason
-Had mulled wine in the hutongs
-Made origami advent calendars with Anna and Dani
-Done more extreme christmas decorations than I've ever bothered with in the UK
-Helped run an art show of my friend Bethany's amazing watercolours for the weekend.
-Started doubling clothing when I go out. Two pairs of jeans, two scarves, two jumpers...it is freezing.
-Got my bike brakes completely replaced for £1.20
Universities in Beijing
There are over 70 universities in Beijing, and a large amount of them are in the area of wudaokou where I live, which gives it the student centred feeling and also makes it a hub for internationals. As I meet more people from different universities I'm finding out how the dynamics are different in each, and also learning more about what traits of Chinese universities are pretty consistent throughout.
The first thing you'd find strange is probably their names, most of which are named after very specific fields and many of which you wouldn't really associate with higher education. The Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) and the Geosciences University which are across the street from each other probably don't sound very catchy but the Forestry University and the Mining University down the road are probably a bit more confusing. They do live up to their titles in many ways as well, BLCU has so many foreign language students, and the forestry university is full of beautiful tree lined avenues, as well as a large number of landscaping majors. It's origin is from the communist era when they really only taught one field, now they all teach a much wider spectrum but with their own specialties.
Another pretty difference which is pretty alien to us is that Chinese students don't get to choose what university they go to, nor do they get to even have complete say over their majors when they get there. The whole Chinese education system is geared towards the infamous GaoKao exam (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6727143.stm) that all tiger mothers are pushing their children from the moment they can talk (my flatmates are being made to teach English to two year olds, it's not an exaggeration), and then their point score decides what university if any they can get into. To get a place is extremely difficult, particularly for the prestigious ones like Peking University and Qinghua, the Oxford and Cambridge or Harvard and Yale of China.
But once you get offered a place, you are quite often told what you are going to study by the university itself. I met a student who's major was English at the Forestry Univerisity last week, and after she had asked me why I chose to study Chinese I asked her why she wanted to do English. She said she didn't, she was told that if she wanted to study at the university, it had to be English. She didn't think she'd ever have the opportunity to go abroad, and she didn't really care about talking to foreigners, but her plan was to do a masters and then teach because that was the path she'd been started down. I know other people at Peking University who applied wanting to do Chemistry and got moved to doing Biology by the university, without having any say in the matter. Even if your preference did get taken into consideration, your choices are very often decided by your parents based on what their future plans. Several I've met are studying business or management even though they hate it because they are expected to take over their parents company.
For a lot of people I've met university degrees here aren't to help you discover yourself but rather for being told who you are, and where you have to go next.
Also, in case my blog titles are confusing people they are all just Chinglish I've seen here that's made me laugh, and I wanted to preserve! In my next entry I will write in more detail about some of the unique traits of the universities I know better, I find this topic really interesting so one entry isn't enough! I'm trying to stop writing reams of random information like I have been doing, it's overwhelming and no doubt pretty tough to follow!
-Had more stuff stolen (purse, bike batteries, bank card)
-Had two thanksgiving meals
-Been on a great trip to Qingdao
-Suffered my first food poisoning!
-Paid my next bout of rent
-Forgot to top up our electricity card and left poor Anna cooking rice by candlelight for a few hours....
-Been given a weeks vacation for no real reason
-Had mulled wine in the hutongs
-Made origami advent calendars with Anna and Dani
-Done more extreme christmas decorations than I've ever bothered with in the UK
-Helped run an art show of my friend Bethany's amazing watercolours for the weekend.
-Started doubling clothing when I go out. Two pairs of jeans, two scarves, two jumpers...it is freezing.
-Got my bike brakes completely replaced for £1.20
Universities in Beijing
There are over 70 universities in Beijing, and a large amount of them are in the area of wudaokou where I live, which gives it the student centred feeling and also makes it a hub for internationals. As I meet more people from different universities I'm finding out how the dynamics are different in each, and also learning more about what traits of Chinese universities are pretty consistent throughout.
The first thing you'd find strange is probably their names, most of which are named after very specific fields and many of which you wouldn't really associate with higher education. The Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) and the Geosciences University which are across the street from each other probably don't sound very catchy but the Forestry University and the Mining University down the road are probably a bit more confusing. They do live up to their titles in many ways as well, BLCU has so many foreign language students, and the forestry university is full of beautiful tree lined avenues, as well as a large number of landscaping majors. It's origin is from the communist era when they really only taught one field, now they all teach a much wider spectrum but with their own specialties.
Another pretty difference which is pretty alien to us is that Chinese students don't get to choose what university they go to, nor do they get to even have complete say over their majors when they get there. The whole Chinese education system is geared towards the infamous GaoKao exam (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6727143.stm) that all tiger mothers are pushing their children from the moment they can talk (my flatmates are being made to teach English to two year olds, it's not an exaggeration), and then their point score decides what university if any they can get into. To get a place is extremely difficult, particularly for the prestigious ones like Peking University and Qinghua, the Oxford and Cambridge or Harvard and Yale of China.
But once you get offered a place, you are quite often told what you are going to study by the university itself. I met a student who's major was English at the Forestry Univerisity last week, and after she had asked me why I chose to study Chinese I asked her why she wanted to do English. She said she didn't, she was told that if she wanted to study at the university, it had to be English. She didn't think she'd ever have the opportunity to go abroad, and she didn't really care about talking to foreigners, but her plan was to do a masters and then teach because that was the path she'd been started down. I know other people at Peking University who applied wanting to do Chemistry and got moved to doing Biology by the university, without having any say in the matter. Even if your preference did get taken into consideration, your choices are very often decided by your parents based on what their future plans. Several I've met are studying business or management even though they hate it because they are expected to take over their parents company.
For a lot of people I've met university degrees here aren't to help you discover yourself but rather for being told who you are, and where you have to go next.
Also, in case my blog titles are confusing people they are all just Chinglish I've seen here that's made me laugh, and I wanted to preserve! In my next entry I will write in more detail about some of the unique traits of the universities I know better, I find this topic really interesting so one entry isn't enough! I'm trying to stop writing reams of random information like I have been doing, it's overwhelming and no doubt pretty tough to follow!
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!
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.
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.
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Hold the handrail and stand firm, be careful chothes sandwich
The last few weeks have had far too much worth writing about for me to actually get around to doing so!
Summary
Happenings of the fortnight
Today I wandered through the Olympic forest park which was beautiful, the leaves are all changing and it was full of colour. Speakers down all the paths gently playing lullaby versions of songs like 'Scarborough Fair' and 'Can you feel the love tonight', facilitated the peaceful atmosphere, and we had a good time watching parents posing their children beside tress with reeds or leaves in their hands to document autumn.
Xian
Last weekend's trip to Xian initially made me a little depressed about Chinese tourism and in particular the preservation of genuine culture. I've been to Xian before, it was on my school trip where I was innocent and starry eyed about everything I saw, each stop on the package tour was fascinating and I trusted the authenticity of each exhibit. I am definitely a lot more jaded now and know a lot better than I did then, revisiting the Wild Goose Pagoda for the second time I saw that the Classical Chinese signs were screwed in by metal bars and couldn't be older than about fifteen years, and our tour guide happily told us about how there was a very famous building which got too old so they were in the process of knocking it down and rebuilding it all again. Sure enough I passed by the building full of paints and ladders inside, with newly carved wood panels. I concluded pretty fast that returning to these places would not have the magic which their novelty had brought my fifteen year old self the first time. The next day my classmate Laurence and I did the unthinkable and missed the Terracotta Warriors out of our tour to explore the city of Xian itself, and I do not regret the choice. Exploring the calligraphy streets that morning, eating the amazing local foods like biangbiang noodles (the character for the noodles is so complicated that it hasn't been computerised and has over fifty strokes!) was so nice, we actually ended up being filmed for Shanxi television as part of a documentary on ancient Steele inscriptions as we had studied them a bit and bumped into a film crew interviewing a specialist. Token westerners who can speak Chinese are clearly good fleshing out footage for documentaries.
My faith in genuine Chinese culture was restored by the Xian Muslim quarter, which was just so cool in every way, great street food, really fun shops and lots of little alleyways with cool things happening. We stumbled on a courtyard where some local Chinese Muslims had brought out a speaker system and were dancing together to traditional music. Some of them were in traditional dress, some were just in casual clothes, it was too structured to join in if you didn't know the moves but also very free, same sex or different partners were both acceptable and some just moved around alone. It was strange seeing the Chinese looking so relaxed, it's not what you'd really associate with them, and it was really mesmerising!
Naming people
One thing that I've had the honour of doing is giving Chinese people English names. Giving yourself either a Chinese name as a westerner or an English name as a Chinese person feels very odd, names are so important but not something you are used to having control over, even nicknames aren't something we get much of a say in. Now suddenly you have the right to decide how a whole ethnic group will address you in a totally new language, and I have to say that most of the time I don't think any of us are very good at it. Picking a nice and normal name in an alien language and culture mostly comes from being lucky.
I will use my two attempts at a Chinese name as an example. My first one, 李心结 or Li Xinjie, was given to me by my Chinese teacher when I began Chinese. I think, the logic was that Li (means plum tree) sounds like one of the syllables in Macleod if you mispronounce it as I expect he did, and Xinjie means pure or clean heart, a bit like the meaning for Catherine. So far, pretty normal. However, what I discovered the hard way was that it also happens to be the name of a very well known actress and singer from Taiwan. Introducing myself in Taiwan last summer provoked laughter everywhere I went, much like if a Chinese person went around in England saying their name was Britney Spears. Very unfortunate, or very cruel of my Chinese teacher. I realised after that summer that I needed a new name for my year abroad, and resumed the hunt, but it is very hard to figure out on your own and eventually went to a different teacher for help, who gave me the name 李恺婕, or Li Kaijie, Kai meaning joyful and happy, and Jie meaning beautiful or something like that. On trying this name out in China I have yet again been met with some laughter though, because apparently the characters used in my name are not used in any words, and most Chinese people don't recognise them at all. The sound of the name is fine from what I can tell, but it's virtually impossible to tell people how to spell it because each sound has at least thirty possible ways it can be written. Chinese people always use other words that the character is in to help them write it, so that makes my name a bit of an issue. Still, I can't get a third name, it just feels too picky! My course coordinator was in hysterics at both my names and suggested I get business cards with my characters and their pronunciation to help people, which is never a good sign.
Naming Chinese people so far has been harder than I expected, one that sticks out in my mind for its comic value was one of the Chinese students that comes to English corner, which is where we go for dinner with them and talk in English. He had a girlfriend back home who he didn't think had a Chinese name so a friend and I decided to help and name her, by asking questions about her hobbies and interests. Eventually based on her taste in films and love for theme parks we decided to call her Daphne, as in the one from Scooby Doo. However when he came back from October holiday he told us that she already had an English name, and she was called Blue. There are worse I've heard, one friend has taught a child called Hannibal, another called Lucifer. It's a complicated process which is humorously unsuccessful on both ends I think.
Chinese people really struggle to understand how English names don't necessarily have meanings, because the meanings are really important in their culture. I was explaining how I am named after my grandma and how that was common to one Chinese girl this evening, and she just thought the whole thing was ridiculous. It's funny how things that I take for granted as normal seem so strange to someone looking from a different perspective, why does badminton have 'bad' in it? Why would it be bad? And why do we say 'watch your head' when the doors are low? It makes no sense.Things like this are being shown to me daily by my Chinese friends and pupils.
Summary
Happenings of the fortnight
- Travelled to an unrestored section of the Great Wall and camped in the mountains! The area was found by my friend Chris a few years ago and he organised a trip for a group of us to go, we camped in a clearing that could only be accessed by an hours hike through farmers trails so our equipment was carried by donkey across the mountains. The wall was Ming dynasty and totally untouched, we were the only ones there as its not a tourist destination at all.
- Unfortunately I had my laptop stolen from on top of my mailbox (I am now trying to get used to using an iPad and downloading all the gadgets, still not very used to touch typing though!
- Went to Xian with my class and the Oxford group as well, all inclusive trip organised by Peking University as a treat for us, transport, food, accommodation and sights all covered for a fee of twenty pounds! Such a bargain.
- Last night was invited by our neighbours to their sons second birthday party at a karaoke bar. As the native English speakers we were invited to sing all their favourite western songs, so lots of Adele and Taylor Swift renditions!
- The road outside my flat has been dug up by lots of migrant workers for no reason as far as I can see, they've paved some of it back up in a patchy way, but in the middle they've dug shallow metre wide holes and then put cones on top. Because the traffic needed more obstacles than the cars, scooters, bikes and pedestrians offered already.
- I've tried donkey burgers, which are burgers that have donkey meat in them and not a fast food brand as I initially presumed. They are actually a Chinese traditional food and really good! There are big helpful photos of donkeys in the window to make sure you can find the restaurants that serve it, as well as the signs that say DONKEY MEAT on them.
Today I wandered through the Olympic forest park which was beautiful, the leaves are all changing and it was full of colour. Speakers down all the paths gently playing lullaby versions of songs like 'Scarborough Fair' and 'Can you feel the love tonight', facilitated the peaceful atmosphere, and we had a good time watching parents posing their children beside tress with reeds or leaves in their hands to document autumn.
Xian
Last weekend's trip to Xian initially made me a little depressed about Chinese tourism and in particular the preservation of genuine culture. I've been to Xian before, it was on my school trip where I was innocent and starry eyed about everything I saw, each stop on the package tour was fascinating and I trusted the authenticity of each exhibit. I am definitely a lot more jaded now and know a lot better than I did then, revisiting the Wild Goose Pagoda for the second time I saw that the Classical Chinese signs were screwed in by metal bars and couldn't be older than about fifteen years, and our tour guide happily told us about how there was a very famous building which got too old so they were in the process of knocking it down and rebuilding it all again. Sure enough I passed by the building full of paints and ladders inside, with newly carved wood panels. I concluded pretty fast that returning to these places would not have the magic which their novelty had brought my fifteen year old self the first time. The next day my classmate Laurence and I did the unthinkable and missed the Terracotta Warriors out of our tour to explore the city of Xian itself, and I do not regret the choice. Exploring the calligraphy streets that morning, eating the amazing local foods like biangbiang noodles (the character for the noodles is so complicated that it hasn't been computerised and has over fifty strokes!) was so nice, we actually ended up being filmed for Shanxi television as part of a documentary on ancient Steele inscriptions as we had studied them a bit and bumped into a film crew interviewing a specialist. Token westerners who can speak Chinese are clearly good fleshing out footage for documentaries.
My faith in genuine Chinese culture was restored by the Xian Muslim quarter, which was just so cool in every way, great street food, really fun shops and lots of little alleyways with cool things happening. We stumbled on a courtyard where some local Chinese Muslims had brought out a speaker system and were dancing together to traditional music. Some of them were in traditional dress, some were just in casual clothes, it was too structured to join in if you didn't know the moves but also very free, same sex or different partners were both acceptable and some just moved around alone. It was strange seeing the Chinese looking so relaxed, it's not what you'd really associate with them, and it was really mesmerising!
Naming people
One thing that I've had the honour of doing is giving Chinese people English names. Giving yourself either a Chinese name as a westerner or an English name as a Chinese person feels very odd, names are so important but not something you are used to having control over, even nicknames aren't something we get much of a say in. Now suddenly you have the right to decide how a whole ethnic group will address you in a totally new language, and I have to say that most of the time I don't think any of us are very good at it. Picking a nice and normal name in an alien language and culture mostly comes from being lucky.
I will use my two attempts at a Chinese name as an example. My first one, 李心结 or Li Xinjie, was given to me by my Chinese teacher when I began Chinese. I think, the logic was that Li (means plum tree) sounds like one of the syllables in Macleod if you mispronounce it as I expect he did, and Xinjie means pure or clean heart, a bit like the meaning for Catherine. So far, pretty normal. However, what I discovered the hard way was that it also happens to be the name of a very well known actress and singer from Taiwan. Introducing myself in Taiwan last summer provoked laughter everywhere I went, much like if a Chinese person went around in England saying their name was Britney Spears. Very unfortunate, or very cruel of my Chinese teacher. I realised after that summer that I needed a new name for my year abroad, and resumed the hunt, but it is very hard to figure out on your own and eventually went to a different teacher for help, who gave me the name 李恺婕, or Li Kaijie, Kai meaning joyful and happy, and Jie meaning beautiful or something like that. On trying this name out in China I have yet again been met with some laughter though, because apparently the characters used in my name are not used in any words, and most Chinese people don't recognise them at all. The sound of the name is fine from what I can tell, but it's virtually impossible to tell people how to spell it because each sound has at least thirty possible ways it can be written. Chinese people always use other words that the character is in to help them write it, so that makes my name a bit of an issue. Still, I can't get a third name, it just feels too picky! My course coordinator was in hysterics at both my names and suggested I get business cards with my characters and their pronunciation to help people, which is never a good sign.
Naming Chinese people so far has been harder than I expected, one that sticks out in my mind for its comic value was one of the Chinese students that comes to English corner, which is where we go for dinner with them and talk in English. He had a girlfriend back home who he didn't think had a Chinese name so a friend and I decided to help and name her, by asking questions about her hobbies and interests. Eventually based on her taste in films and love for theme parks we decided to call her Daphne, as in the one from Scooby Doo. However when he came back from October holiday he told us that she already had an English name, and she was called Blue. There are worse I've heard, one friend has taught a child called Hannibal, another called Lucifer. It's a complicated process which is humorously unsuccessful on both ends I think.
Chinese people really struggle to understand how English names don't necessarily have meanings, because the meanings are really important in their culture. I was explaining how I am named after my grandma and how that was common to one Chinese girl this evening, and she just thought the whole thing was ridiculous. It's funny how things that I take for granted as normal seem so strange to someone looking from a different perspective, why does badminton have 'bad' in it? Why would it be bad? And why do we say 'watch your head' when the doors are low? It makes no sense.Things like this are being shown to me daily by my Chinese friends and pupils.
Friday, 12 October 2012
Mushrooms quote be or not to be?
My Golden Week
- number of trains taken: 7
- number of nights spent on trains: 2.5
- total number of hours on the train: 45
- distance travelled by train in total according to
google: 2433 kilometres
My first proper
experience travelling in China was not made alone, but with the whole of China,
who decided to travel with me! I should have understood this when we had such a
hard time buying tickets to any destination but it was one of those facts that
didn't become true until we were living through it, such as the standing train
back to Beijing at 2am when I was pushed up against a bin in the train with a
sleeping chinese man on top of it, with as much personal space as my shoes took
up on the floor, or waking up at 4am to queue for Changbaishan nature reserve,
only to find that the queue was already stretching back 20km from the entrance
to the park, and we woke up too late (we should have been wise and slept in the
car from 2am apparently)! The two most lasting impressions I think I came
away with from the week which also were facts that I already knew, and have now
lived through to some extent. One is just how many people there are in
China, and the other is how incredibly vast China is. If you look at a map of
China and see the distance between Beijing and Changbaishan nature reserve, it
looks like a day trip comparative to most other places, but I assure you it is
so far! I spent the whole week marveling at the fact that somewhere this huge
could ever be unified, let alone when the fasted mode of transport was horse!
America grew in size with the railways being built along the way, but China
never had any of that. Yet somehow it has largely remained under the control of
one government for thousands of years! It really makes you look down on England
for failing to keep the Scotland or even Durham under control for so long to be
honest.
Tourism
The amount of travelling
in the first week of October in China is totally mind blowing both as
statistics and experiencing it first hand. According to the Finincial Times
there were 425 million visitors to national tourist destinations during Golden
Week this year, 660 million travelled by either road or sea, and in one day the
Forbidden City had 148,000 visitors. To Changbaishan, China’s largest nature
reserve on the North Korean boarder there were over 40,000 visitors on the
Wednesday. We attempted to be six of those 40,000 and failed! When we arrived
in Baihe Tuesday evening, we quickly realised that presuming we would be able
to find a hotel on the night was naïvely optimistic. There was nothing in Baihe
except for cheap looking little hotels, but none of them had any room, or would
even let us into their lobby to ask. It felt a little like a nativity journey re-enactment
with no rooms in any inns, moving down the streets rejection by rejection. At
one point, I went up to hotel owner who also said she had no room and in a fit
of despair asked her ‘if there is no room with you, and you say that there is
no room with anyone else, then what should we do?’ She took pity on us and gave
us the stable equivalent of our story, which was a room in her mother’s house
about 20 minutes’ drive away from town, with a home cooked dinner and bus to
take us to the park in the morning for a very reasonable price. Her mother
lived out in the mountains in a tiny little bungalow with all her own
vegetables and hens, there was no toilet or running water except boiled rain
water, her oven was an open fire and our heating was that we were sleeping on a
kang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_bed-stove).
The food was amazing, we were roasting warm and it was all a pretty crazy
experience! We were very lucky to befriend the driver as well because not only
did he take us to Changbaishan but when we failed to get tickets on the
Wednesday he took us to do lots of other things we would have never found on
our own, like white water rafting and beautiful walks.
The next day we got a room in the woman’s hotel and the little group of
people we’d befriended mothered us for the rest of our time there in a lovely
way, we found out that people had been forced to pay to sleep on the hotel
lobby floors and in their cars because there were no rooms in any hotels that
night. We were very close to a night on the streets and hadn’t even realised.
Changbaishan on our last day as well was not what we had imagined.
After our failed attempt to get into the park on Wednesday because we arrived
too late, we woke up at 330am on Friday to go and queue in the dark by the
entrance along with hundreds of Chinese people. Just before it opened, lots of
Chinese soldiers arrived to man the queues, the gates opened and the mass
charged into the centre to buy tickets. We got our tickets, took our bus up
into the park, had a long walk through hot springs and around a waterfall
wearing massive red coats that we’d rented when we realised how freezing it was
on the mountain and when we walked back to the main area looked at our watches
to discover that it was 630am. It felt totally surreal.
The main attraction of Changbaishan is the Heaven lake right up at the
top of the mountain which is reputed to have it’s own mythical sea monster and
be extremely beautiful. We were taken further up the mountain in little buses
which swerved around the sharp corners and hit everyone into one another, then
were pushed off the buses and left at the top. The top of the mountain felt
like a little Everest or something, snow covered with snow and dust pelting
your face in a way that actually caused pain. You could see only a few feet
ahead of you before the whole landscape disappeared into cloud, and in the
distance was an eerie trail of puffer coated pilgrims one by one leading off
into the whiteness. We joined the trail and braved the winds up the little
steps feeling extremely vulnerable and wondering when the lake would appear. At
one point, everyone seemed to stop, and we discovered that if we had any
visibility at all, the lake would be below us. However us being in a cloud at
this point, it just looked like more unknown. A couple of times the cloud
cleared briefly and a cry would rise from the Chinese people who rushed to the
edge and attempted to see the lake. I am going to say that I saw the water bank
for a moment, but I can’t be a hundred per cent certain. Mentally, physically
and emotionally drained we joined the queues to get back on the buses, and discovered
that it was only 850am.
Losing Face
Something that we really
encountered on the holiday was the importance of saving face for Chinese
people, and how bad it is when they lose face. There is a lot of emphasis in
Chinese culture on public appearance and blatant admission of failure. It is
acceptable to get things wrong and have faults or mistakes, but it is not
acceptable to have them publically acknowledged or made known outside of
private situations. Sometimes this results in very annoying attempts to avoid
admitting defeat.
One example of this for
us on the trip were that in small talk with the woman who owned the little
hotel we were staying in, we mentioned that we hadn’t tried some of the local
delicacies yet, such as dog. This offhand remark was taken on as a challenge
and resulted in her husband driving all around the back alleys of Baihe trying
to find us a dog restaurant at ten pm on our last night, becoming more and more
anxious as we drove to many that were already closed. We didn’t even want dog,
we were at most considering sharing some side dish at some point to say that we’d
tried it or something, it wasn’t a big deal. Instead, we ended up in a private
room of a dog restaurant with about eight different types of dog dishes such as
dog skin, dog sausage and boiled dog, with her anxious husband waiting to see
our reaction to the famed delicacy.
All of us were thanking
him repeatedly in Chinese full of smiles and murmuring words of support to one
another in English that he couldn’t understand such as ‘Keep going it’s just
meat, don’t think about it’ ‘Cesar could you have a couple more pieces so that
it looks like we’ve eaten a reasonable amount?’, or from Will ‘I’m genuinely
going to throw up’. It wasn’t helping our appetites that they had two dogs one
of which was a puppy we’d been playing with all afternoon and grown quite fond
of. Our offhand comment and Chinese saving face had led to a situation now
completely out of our control. Then a new crisis ensued when we mentioned that
at some point we needed to go to a supermarket, all of which were closed at
this point yet still a wild goose chase ensued. We could only save his face and
stop the mayhem by telling him we only wanted to buy some bottled water,
knowing that he had these at home, and could give them to us instead.
Definitely the worst
loss of face I have brought about took place on the train from Qinhuangdao to
Shenyang. I was sitting in a carriage away from the others just because of how
the tickets worked out in a set of four seats with three Chinese people playing
a card game together. As the younger guy reached over to put his card on the
pile, he accidentally spilt the entirety of the older man’s flask of boiling
water onto my legs. It was all very dramatic, everyone around us jumped up, I
was in extreme pain, no one really knew what to do. I took some clothes to
change into and see how bad the burn was (it was ok in the end, I’m quite
accident prone and actually have done this to myself recently), and when I
opened the door again I was confronted with about five different types of
creams and ointments (one actually was toothpaste?) being thrust in my face by
his relatives in the vicinity and entreating me to put them all on my legs at
once. The girl next to me was frantically trying to dry my seat and items that
got wet, the mother was instructing me on how to apply the creams and the
father put his flask well away and did not refill it. The card game was
definitely over. The boy who knocked the flask onto me at this point looked as
though he had lost the will to live. The initial panic had resulted in rapid ‘I’m
so sorry I’m so sorry I’m so sorry’ with bowing and begging hand gestures, but
now the despair had set in he just sat opposite me and stared hollowly into the
distance, totally inconsolable. I repeated to him that he didn’t need to worry,
that my legs were a lot better, that I’d done this myself many times before, it
was an accident and to continue playing, but nothing worked. The whole carriage
of Chinese people had seen the incident and the loss of face, particularly
because I was a foreign girl, was extreme. In the end I managed to bring them
all into conversation about travelling, studying, moon cakes (I was forced to eat
one that he was bringing back to his family) and so on until the atmosphere
became more relaxed, but the initial tension made me realise just how seriously
losing face affected Chinese people, and that it wasn’t to be underestimated.
(http://voices.yahoo.com/the-concept-face-chinese-culture-566703.html,
http://www.culture-4-travel.com/losing-face.html)
Mid-Autumn Festival http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival
The Mid-Autumn festival
traditions seem to consist of buying loads of moon cakes and eating them with
friends and family while you look at the moon. That is pretty much it. If it is
possible then people will try to return to their families and be with them for
the holiday, and if you come from far away you will tend to bring the specialty
moon cakes from that area back with you for them to try.
We bought moon cakes and
milk tea which we ate out on the roof of our hotel while watching the moon. I
don’t really like moon cakes but talking to a lot of Chinese people they don’t
actually either, and just do it for the sake of tradition! They are so stodgy
and dry most of the time. Still- 入乡随俗(Chinese
version of when in Rome)！Also,
so many tacky marriages everywhere, so so many.
National Day- this is the celebration
of the Communist Party formation on October 1st 1949, flags appear
all over the place and there is increased patriotism a bit like July 4th
in the US, but otherwise little impact. One street seller who we were buying
breakfast off was criticised by a passer by for selling to foreigners on
National day but it wasn’t very serious. The nationalism is mostly directed
into anti-Japanese sentiment which we saw when we went for lunch at a Japanese
restaurant that day and it was completely empty. The waitresses seemed really
surprised to get any work at all that day! After that we then went to the
September 18th Museum which was pretty harrowing, very gruesome
depictions of Japanese atrocities and so on. I found it most interesting
watching the Chinese parents taking their children round the museum and
listening to how they would explain the events to them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China
Brief Outline of the trip (still unfinished as I haven't had time to write it all!)
Beijing-Qinhuangdao 3 ½ hours
with a seated ticket
Qinhuangdao is a seaside
city which China apparently decided a few years ago was going to be the Chinese
Miami and started making into a tourist destination as quickly as possible. It
is definitely not Miami yet, but flashy hotels are starting to increase along
the beach, even if you still have oil rigs and massive trading ships about a
mile away from them.
Highlights- amazing
weather, swimming in the sea and riding the motorboat, awesome Chinese barbeque
with all the staff from the sailing team that Will’s friend Tom works for, who
looked after us so well while we were there.
Qinhuangdao- Shenyang 5
hours with a seated ticket
Shenyang- population of
8 million people but not even worth more than half a page in our Chinese
guidebook because for China, that hardly qualifies it as large (Beijing has 20
million).
Highlights- Celebrating Mid-Autumn
Festival and National Day, Imperial Palace, Museum about the September 18th
invasion by Japan, going around asking a grumpy shop assistant how much lots of
items in a shop were worth before realising that it was a 10kuai store.
Shenyang-Tonghua
overnight 10 hours train hard sleeper ticket
Tonghua- there is
nothing in Tonghua. We had some dumplings for breakfast and were stared at a
bit.
Highlights…
Tonghua-Baihe 9 hours
seated ticket
The slowest train ever,
stopping at the most insignificant stations I have ever seen. One was literally
just a house, with nothing around it for miles. No one was there, but still a
half an hour break was clearly necessary. The scenery was stunning as we were
going through the mountains and the leaves were changing colour, but once you
have been watching said scenery for about 6 hours you end up a bit jaded about
it and just want to get off the train.
Tomorrow I am off to camp on an unrestored area of the Great Wall, and I'll let you know what that's like when I get back!
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