The sun has just set over the Olympic Torch Building out my twelfth-story window. I've been gathering and organizing all the footage from this incredible 5 day trip to the southern part of China. It feels incredibly home-like here in my Beijing apartment, much more so than I ever would have thought, and not a little relieving that I am no longer living out of a suitcase. For the first time in a few days, sweat is not pouring down my face Airplane-style, and there are no mosquitoes to be heard, but I am also sad to face the work ahead for my thesis. I want to keep exploring this place. I've clearly just scratched the surface, and a trip from one city to two others is not even close to allowing for a full understanding of this country. Although I will say that after three days in Shanghai I have a pretty good feel for how it differs from my home port of Beijing. For one thing, it is a lot more vibrant. Beijing is a city of nonstop movement, but that movement seems always related to work and completing the never-ending set of tasks that develop when erecting a city of 20 million in half a decade. On the other hand, twenty years ago Shanghai was a bunch of rice paddies, and since then has become the second largest urban center in China. But it feels as though its growth and development have long ago slowed to normal heightened Chinese levels. The city's vibrancy comes from a strong night life, and a younger-skewed populace that thrives on modern convenience. If you want to make some comparisons, Beijing's endless urban sprawl is similar to Los Angeles', and Shanghai's density and youth is similar to New York's. These are obviously gross generalizations, but they can work on the surface.
--Our nonstop shot from Hangzhou to Shanghai came after an amazing tour through a Hangzhou bamboo plantation and factory. I'm still scratching at the volcanic bumps left behind by some of the biggest and, according to the plant manager, fiercest mosquitoes in the world. You could feel them landing on you, not by stinger or wing flaps, but by weight. 'Oh, haha! A puppy just jumped on my shoulder! Now where did you come from little fella-OHMYGODWHATTHEHELLISTHAT-GETITOFFGETITOFF!' And then the weakness sets in, your knees buckle, and you're scratching in another spot for the rest of the month. But aside from that, they might easily have filmed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in this plantation, because it is nauseatingly beautiful. The factory ran like a swiss watch, with a surprising number of women 'throwing the slats'. That's what they call working in a bamboo factory. Actually, I just made that up. But that's what it should be called. And now it is. By the time we were out of the 156 degree factory heat we were almost unable to muster the strength to get to the train station. I was worried that our 'hard seat' tickets would give us 10" of butt space upon which to hang on for two and a half hours of dear life, bone-rattling 20mph rail travel. Imagine my surprise, for the second and last time on this trip, when the sleekest, modernest, shiniest bullet train pulled up to the platform and silently halted before us. The wide, comfortable seats were anything but 'hard', and could be labeled more accurately as 'ohlordthat'snice' or maybe 'doweeverhavetogetoffthisheavenlything'. The hour flitted past quick as a trackside bamboo shoot, while the sky got darker and more menacing as we approached Shanghai. By the time we arrived lightning was constant through the ebony clouds, illuminating tiny parts of the massive skyline one fragile blink at a time. Our mad, haphazard scramble through the muddy streets of Shanghai left us and our belongings all manner of soaked, and I considered myself a genius for having stuffed an umbrella in the outside pocket of my bag, despite the 75 degree weather of Beijing when I left. Always be prepared, and such. After several wrong turns, a similar number of frantic phone calls to the hostel, and even a couple of verbal directions from passing Europeans, we found our glass hole in the wall and slipped inside...into the greatest hostel my meager travels have ever brought me to. It's difficult to describe how nice this place is, but I would liken it to a W hotel. If you've ever seen one of those, you'll get the idea. If you haven't, check one out. It may be cheesy as a hotel chain, but as a hostel it's heaven on earth, especially for $18 a night. And the fleet of young ladies who staffed the place all spoke excellent english, and were invaluable in navigating the city over the coming days.
--Our (meaning me, Jamie, Mark, and Sean) first dinner was inside a place recommended to us by my Beijing roommates, who had been in Shanghai for one day before we arrived. I got a hamburger, fries, and a coke, which was the first such dish I've had here, and it only cost $25. Not 25 Yuan, as you would expect in Beijing. My can of Coke, no refills, was $5. Five. Dollars. It almost made the burger and fries a good deal. Needless to say, we all returned to the hostel fuming. If you're wondering why we even ate dinner there, it was because the district we were in, on that particular day of the week (Tuesday), shuts down at 10. We arrived starving at 9:55. It was either eat expensively or not at all. We ate. And fumed.
--The next morning, however, we awoke with an air of optimism. Shanghai was before us, waiting. This time it was me, Jamie, Mark, and Matt. You might be able to tell who all these people are if you look at my flickr page (www.flickr.com/photos/chrisward23). We set out to find the French district, which we'd been told was very quaint and interesting, along with a good place to eat breakfast called the Mansion Hotel. We left at nine, arrived bedraggled and hungry at 10:05, and were told that the place closed at 10, and opened again for lunch at 1. What IS it with this place? So we went to McDonald's, where I had a coconut pie and a shot of oj to tide me over. We found ourselves on the main shopping street, and strolled along until Jamie was inexplicably sucked into the black hole that is H&M. There's a spot of oil on the street below my window that looks exactly like a bunny. Hi Sonia! Where was I? Oh, right, H&M. After some cajoling, canoodeling, and conversing, we convinced H&M to let our little comrade slip through its mighty capitalist digits intact. Phew, that was too close. Our next stop was the People's Square, where we met a die-hard Wisconsin fan who ran up to us screaming about some Rose Bowl or other, not knowing that Matt's MICHIGAN ARCHITECTURE shirt pretty much eliminated him from any knowledge of such events. I chuckled and remained silent.
--Our goal was a new-ish building called the Chinese Urban Planning Museum, which has the largest scale model of a city in the world. How big could a scale model of a city be? It's half scale. Ok, not that big. But one of my feet would only crush one of its buildings. And every structure in the city over 3 stories is represented in one gigantic room. Pictures are on Flickr. It's an amazing exhibit, one that must continually be updated as new iconic buildings are erected every 6 months or so.
--The next stop was the Oriental Pearl tower, a Space-Needle-esque thing standing on the other side of the Yangtze from the Urban Planning Museum. A couple subway stops later we emerged underneath it, gawking at the ridiculousness of the thing. It's a gigantic cement tower covered in big metal balls. Pictures are on Flickr. A young Chinese man came up to us and began rattling away in insistent Mandarin, and we stood for a few moments with our heads cocked listening for any uttered word we might latch onto to gather his intentions. We finally were able to communicate that we were architecture students from the US, at which point he switched to his native English and told us that he was from Georgia Tech. It was all a little practical joke to make us look stupid. Ha. Ha. All his asian-american friends laughed heartily at our expense, and we sort of looked at each other with an air of 'um...ok'. Jamie felt especially offended, and invited the lot of them to join us that evening for dinner (with the intention of making them eat something horrible). Admiring the tower for a few minutes, our stomachs tapped us on the shoulder and reminded us that it was 2 in the afternoon, then pointed to a nearby Subway. Mmm...shrimp sandwiches. They don't make them like that back home. Sated, we could have gone back into the subway tunnels for a complicated, crowded ride back across the river, but something about the words 'Tourist Tunnel' in rainbow text on our map managed to snag our attention. What in the world was a 'Tourist Tunnel'? It must be amazing, seeing that it has the adjective 'Tourist'. 'Tourist Anything' is always better than just 'Anything'. It went under the river, and nearby posters had pictures of fish. Maybe it was a 'Tourist Glass Tunnel Across the River'. Or a 'Tourist Aquarium for Easy River Egress'. Or maybe it was just a 'Tourist Tram with Terrible Lights and Cheesy Music Behind Announcements of CONSTANT MAGMA or SPATIAL VACUUM'. It was the lattest. I was excited enough to pay half of Mark's entrance fee, he being the only sane one of our group in his refusal to pay 40 Quai for a stupid tram surrounded in Christmas lights. It actually looks pretty neat in the pictures, but that's only because my camera is so bad at snapping low light. We immediately recommended the 'Tourist Tunnel' to everyone in Shanghai. The other side of the tunnel was a grand riverwalk City Improvement Project designed to concentrate the most amount of tourists into a skinny, unexitable walkway with at least half of the city's beggars, sellers, and pickpockets. I left with a fake Rolex watch and an utter sense of shame. Since it was getting toward the end of the day, and we were in danger of losing what money/dignity we had left, we ducked into a nearby lighthouse and ordered some drinks. The place was empty, so we convinced the owner to allow access to the top of the spire, and we stood up there talking and laughing and looking out over the city for an hour before everyone but Matt and I returned to the hostel. We ate dinner at a nearby cheap, tasty Chinese restaurant, took a bunch of nighttime photos along the riverwalk (the most famous and scenic part of the city), and then crashed into the hostel.
--Our final day of the trip was a frantic dash to cover whatever ground we didn't tread the day before. Matt and I had only one thing on our minds: the top of the Oriental Pearl. After an hour and a half subway ride, we bought the most expensive tickets to the topmost observation deck, stepped into the elevator, and ascended into dense, visibility-slaughtering clouds. They started at about 50 feet off the ground, and were still very door-not-window-like at the tippy top. We stared out at the white nothingness, looked at each other with 'well, this is what we asked for' faces, got back in the elevator, and began the return journey home. There was just enough time to pack all our belongings and cab it to the train station, where we all instantly fell asleep, and woke up 12 hours later in Beijing. It's good to be home.
--It's time now to really hunker down and get some solid work done on thesis. I have three more weeks until I return home to LA, and I still have so much I want/need to do. On monday morning, I'm going to stand up on a guy's balcony in our little village and film everyone's morning routine in the square below me. Then, that night, I'm going to project the morning's film onto the square to create a new ground plane. The place is small enough that people might begin to recognize themselves, and if I do it for several days in a row people in the morning might catch on and alter the way they move through the space, knowing that that night everyone will be able to see it. If you're wondering what this has to do with Architecture, I can only tell you that it does not. And yet it does. Touristly.
-c
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
ChinaBlog MiniTrip photos
It's been a hectic bunch of days in Shanghai, so while I write about it I uploaded some new flickr photos for your distraction. Enjoy.
-c
-c
Sunday, May 25, 2008
ChinaBlog MiniTrip Day 2
Hangzhou. The most beautiful city in China is right now the most humid city in China. Actually, I can't confirm that, but it's in the top ten, or maybe the top ten of beautiful cities in China. It's 75 degrees with 430% water in the air. It's so humid you have to wear a face mask to keep from swallowing passing fish. After disembarking our train we herded 18 people through the complex and crowded station to a well-marked line of taxis. There was one set of directions between the throng of us, so we each took the phone number of the hostel, intending to contact the front desk and have them tell the cab driver where to go. Well, imagine the poor guy behind the counter who gets 6 simultaneous phone calls asking for directions. Only one cab made it unscathed, and it happened to be the one I was in. We began as an intimidating line of aggressive (more so than Beijing, it seems) blue and silver Hundais, and then one after another dropped away, taking wrong turns, stopping in wrong places, and getting forced onto conveniently placed dirt flipping ramps designed to throw wayward speeding Hundais onto large parked panel trucks. With explosions. Without a single incident, the Hundai we were in arrived at the hostel with us alone and confused, because none of the people in our cab had the check-in information. Ten minutes later, the next cab arrived, it's contents shaken, singed, and bleary-eyed. A third cab approached with its roof caved in, missing five hubcaps, but still operational. The last cab was being pushed by some nearby old Chinese men. We never saw the rest.
--Our hostel is situated right across the street from West Lake, a grand central lake in the middle of Hangzhou. It is famous across China for it's 'eight scenes', fixed picturesque spots with names like "Autumn Breeze over Moonlit Water" and "Melting Snow with Flakes of Sea Cucumber". They are designed to be seen on specific days throughout the year, based on their titles. They were made hmbafld years ago, and are the reason Hangzhou is pushed heavily by the Chinese government as a tourist spot. There is no construction in this city.
-- We took some time to eat breakfast, shower, walk around the lake a bit, and shower. On our itinerary was a visit to the Chinese Academy of Art, which has its impressive campus just down the road from our hostel. We put our stuff in the rooms, showered, gathered our cameras and cell phones and maps, showered, and left. Getting 18 people into cabs on the street is hilarious and exhausting, but we somehow managed. They had some showers in the dorms at the Academy, so we went there first to clean up, and then perused the interesting architecture, art, and gardens of the scenic place. We spent a good 2 hours there, including visits to nearby Porsche, Aston Martin, Maserati, and Ferrari dealerships. The Michigan people were completely astounded at these vehicles, and I began to realize just how skewed my perspective on cars really is.
--After piling everyone into the backs of five frantic people-movers, we returned to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner. We're going out to a specific restaurant to meet up with someone who is going to give us a personal tour of the famous Hangzhou bamboo factory on Tuesday morning, and it's a really fancy place. I've been told that it might be expensive, which means dinner might be 10 bucks instead of 5. And we have to dress up, which means I'm going to be wearing a polo shirt with jeans. I know, you're having trouble picturing it. Anyway, maybe I'll be able to give an update when I get back. Hope all is well back home.
**UPDATE**
--The aforementioned West Lake in the center of Hangzhou has several small islands, the largest of which is connected to the shore by a short bridge, and is covered in restaurants. At the point furthest into the lake, there is a very famous old eatery, and that's where we ate dinner, split up in two private rooms. The food was good, we sampled a lot of different dishes (and drinks) similar to the ones we've been having all throughout the trip, and the menu wasn't as strange as I've been told it might be in this part of the country. Our dinner was huge, magnificent, and 600 Yuan for 9 people. That's 67 Yuan per person, divide by 7, carry the one, jump around in a circle, and it comes out to about $9.50 a meal. I'm not usually one to say 'I told you so', so I'll just say 'look how amazing I am', and assume you're capable of reading between the lines.
--One of my roommates was anticipating his birthday last night. It came at about midnight. Maybe exactly at midnight. But we haven't gotten to that part of the story yet. In any case, when we emerged from the restaurant several days after arriving, we were confronted by the quaintest wooden Chinese gondolas in all the land, brought there by blind monks plank by plank, and operated by University PHD students. 10 of us couldn't resist celebrating early out on the water. It was still very hot, but on the lake there was a bit of a breeze, so we were immediately rewarded for our impulsiveness. We split into two boats, and the two Physics majors deftly sped us out to one of the islands in the middle of the lake with just one fixed oar each (it actually looked impossible to keep these things from simply drifting in large circles, what with the Physics problems of always paddling on one side of the boat, but these guys' advanced degrees had given them tremendous control over our world's natural forces). When we got there, it was clear that this was the Hangzhou equivalent of "Makeout Point". The couples among us melted quietly into the foliage, and the rest of us spent 20 minutes exploring this little place Tom-Sawyer-Island-style. There were all kinds of ancient structures covering the island, so it was a stretch to see everything before we had to leave again. The student drivers had to get back to their labs. It was a beautiful, relaxing, utterly pleasant hour spent out on the water, and would be the last moment of peace for the rest of the night.
--Still hours away from midnight, the next stop, after a hostel shower, was an en masse stampede to a local deserted jazz club. We heard everything from old standards to Dean Martin to Eric Clapton, all crooned out by a 70 year old woman and her two sons on piano and upright bass. There was also sax player and a drummer, but they were small and plastic and covered in multi-colered lights. The saxaphonist was especially accurate and on beat. One of our bunch, during a band break, was coaxed onstage to play piano for us, and we got the whole bar (just the group of us, really. I said it was deserted.) to sing Hey Jude while he accompanied. He'd never been to a bar before, is the youngest of us （at 19）, and after being the center of attention sat down at the table and confidently ordered a Long Island Iced Tea. He took one sip and crumpled to the floor. We had to carry him home. Those who didn't head back went with the rest of us out to the most Dance-iest Asian-ist Asian Dance Club you've ever seen. I felt like Sydney Bristow, or maybe Marshall, as the Michael-Jackson-green laser light show pounded us into the floor one heart-stopping beat at a time. There were no inked-up, besuited mobsters in this club for me to remotely access hard drives from using stylish infrared glasses. Instead there was just the bunch of us jumping and dancing and having a grand old time until midnight rolled around, at which point I had a beer with everyone, said happy birthday to my roommate, showered, danced some more, and finally came home to shower. My clothes still haven't forgiven me. So that was my night. If they're all like that on this trip I'll smell like smoke until my birthday. We'll see.
-c
--Our hostel is situated right across the street from West Lake, a grand central lake in the middle of Hangzhou. It is famous across China for it's 'eight scenes', fixed picturesque spots with names like "Autumn Breeze over Moonlit Water" and "Melting Snow with Flakes of Sea Cucumber". They are designed to be seen on specific days throughout the year, based on their titles. They were made hmbafld years ago, and are the reason Hangzhou is pushed heavily by the Chinese government as a tourist spot. There is no construction in this city.
-- We took some time to eat breakfast, shower, walk around the lake a bit, and shower. On our itinerary was a visit to the Chinese Academy of Art, which has its impressive campus just down the road from our hostel. We put our stuff in the rooms, showered, gathered our cameras and cell phones and maps, showered, and left. Getting 18 people into cabs on the street is hilarious and exhausting, but we somehow managed. They had some showers in the dorms at the Academy, so we went there first to clean up, and then perused the interesting architecture, art, and gardens of the scenic place. We spent a good 2 hours there, including visits to nearby Porsche, Aston Martin, Maserati, and Ferrari dealerships. The Michigan people were completely astounded at these vehicles, and I began to realize just how skewed my perspective on cars really is.
--After piling everyone into the backs of five frantic people-movers, we returned to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner. We're going out to a specific restaurant to meet up with someone who is going to give us a personal tour of the famous Hangzhou bamboo factory on Tuesday morning, and it's a really fancy place. I've been told that it might be expensive, which means dinner might be 10 bucks instead of 5. And we have to dress up, which means I'm going to be wearing a polo shirt with jeans. I know, you're having trouble picturing it. Anyway, maybe I'll be able to give an update when I get back. Hope all is well back home.
**UPDATE**
--The aforementioned West Lake in the center of Hangzhou has several small islands, the largest of which is connected to the shore by a short bridge, and is covered in restaurants. At the point furthest into the lake, there is a very famous old eatery, and that's where we ate dinner, split up in two private rooms. The food was good, we sampled a lot of different dishes (and drinks) similar to the ones we've been having all throughout the trip, and the menu wasn't as strange as I've been told it might be in this part of the country. Our dinner was huge, magnificent, and 600 Yuan for 9 people. That's 67 Yuan per person, divide by 7, carry the one, jump around in a circle, and it comes out to about $9.50 a meal. I'm not usually one to say 'I told you so', so I'll just say 'look how amazing I am', and assume you're capable of reading between the lines.
--One of my roommates was anticipating his birthday last night. It came at about midnight. Maybe exactly at midnight. But we haven't gotten to that part of the story yet. In any case, when we emerged from the restaurant several days after arriving, we were confronted by the quaintest wooden Chinese gondolas in all the land, brought there by blind monks plank by plank, and operated by University PHD students. 10 of us couldn't resist celebrating early out on the water. It was still very hot, but on the lake there was a bit of a breeze, so we were immediately rewarded for our impulsiveness. We split into two boats, and the two Physics majors deftly sped us out to one of the islands in the middle of the lake with just one fixed oar each (it actually looked impossible to keep these things from simply drifting in large circles, what with the Physics problems of always paddling on one side of the boat, but these guys' advanced degrees had given them tremendous control over our world's natural forces). When we got there, it was clear that this was the Hangzhou equivalent of "Makeout Point". The couples among us melted quietly into the foliage, and the rest of us spent 20 minutes exploring this little place Tom-Sawyer-Island-style. There were all kinds of ancient structures covering the island, so it was a stretch to see everything before we had to leave again. The student drivers had to get back to their labs. It was a beautiful, relaxing, utterly pleasant hour spent out on the water, and would be the last moment of peace for the rest of the night.
--Still hours away from midnight, the next stop, after a hostel shower, was an en masse stampede to a local deserted jazz club. We heard everything from old standards to Dean Martin to Eric Clapton, all crooned out by a 70 year old woman and her two sons on piano and upright bass. There was also sax player and a drummer, but they were small and plastic and covered in multi-colered lights. The saxaphonist was especially accurate and on beat. One of our bunch, during a band break, was coaxed onstage to play piano for us, and we got the whole bar (just the group of us, really. I said it was deserted.) to sing Hey Jude while he accompanied. He'd never been to a bar before, is the youngest of us （at 19）, and after being the center of attention sat down at the table and confidently ordered a Long Island Iced Tea. He took one sip and crumpled to the floor. We had to carry him home. Those who didn't head back went with the rest of us out to the most Dance-iest Asian-ist Asian Dance Club you've ever seen. I felt like Sydney Bristow, or maybe Marshall, as the Michael-Jackson-green laser light show pounded us into the floor one heart-stopping beat at a time. There were no inked-up, besuited mobsters in this club for me to remotely access hard drives from using stylish infrared glasses. Instead there was just the bunch of us jumping and dancing and having a grand old time until midnight rolled around, at which point I had a beer with everyone, said happy birthday to my roommate, showered, danced some more, and finally came home to shower. My clothes still haven't forgiven me. So that was my night. If they're all like that on this trip I'll smell like smoke until my birthday. We'll see.
-c
Saturday, May 24, 2008
ChinaBlog MiniTrip Day 1
What image forms in your brain when you think of Chinese trains? Nope. Wrong. Well, I'm sure some of them are like that, but not this one. This particular train would make Germans sit down in their liederhosen and wonder where it all went so verdammt back home. "Ach, Kleissl, es tut mir lied! Diese bahn ist so gross und schnell und modern. Wir sind dumbkopferin!" Yes, they are female Germans. Now you're guilty of two stereotypes...what's he talking about? Nevermind. The train is very big, fast, and modern. It has all the expected conveniences, like air conditioning, ladders that fold into the wall, a little table with a rose on it, and a dining car that serves fired wife buffer. In fact, there were several dishes with fired wife on the menu. This train must have a high employee turnover rate. In all seriousness, we never figured out what they exactly meant to write instead, and none of us were brave enough to order a fired wife, because we DID figure out that every time they wrote 'fired', they meant 'fried', and, well, to be honest I'm still not sure which is worse. Instead I got the shrivled pork peppers, which was some kind of delicious beef dish with yams. The woman behind the counter spent a good five minutes digging through what can only be described as a trash can to find the hand-written English menu, so I guess we were lucky to have any idea whatsoever what we were asking for. We've all found that simply pointing at random to an all-Chinese menu will invariably get you a dish of steamed sea cucumber entrails. While that may be fun and adventurous once, its not very filling, nor exciting, the tenth or eleventh time. I've heard that Shanghai has the strangest food in China, so I'm looking forward to a change.
I think this is all I can write with my thumbs at this time. I need to go to bed so I can be up in time for our arrival in Hangzhou at 7am. We'll spend two nights there before we move on to Shanghai. More later!
-c
I think this is all I can write with my thumbs at this time. I need to go to bed so I can be up in time for our arrival in Hangzhou at 7am. We'll spend two nights there before we move on to Shanghai. More later!
-c
MiniTrip to Hangzhou & Shanghai
I'm going on a little trip for the next five days. We're taking a sleeper train from Beijing to, supposedly, the most beautiful city in China. It's called Hangzhou, and it's one point of a triangle of cities that includes Shanghai. The third city is called Suzhou, and I know literally nothing about it. They're all an hour away from each other. By train, and we'll be romping around the three of them for the next few days.im not taking my laptop, but if I have Internet access, as I do now, I can write on my phone and still be able to post. So, off we go! More later.
-c
-c
Sunday, May 18, 2008
ChinaBlog Day 17
"This reminds me of President Bush's memorial address after Hurricane Katrina." My professor, Robert, was being facetious. We stood in a small group on the sidewalk when he said it, winding down from an experience so overwhelming that, for once, all of us were rather at a loss for words. His comment was the first to put the sounds into some semblance of perspective for this Westerner. I wanted my head to keep ringing with the power of the noise. I wanted the silent aftermath to stretch on for weeks. But eventually, as it always does, the quietness dissipated, and the everyday sounds of city life wound up once again. But for 15 minutes this afternoon, every single person in China, native and foreign, was united.
--I was thirsty. I wonder if I'd have even noticed all the commotion had a combination of dust in the air and boredom with purified water not sent me out to the courtyard from our sheltered little studio. A man in a parked truck just inside the gate was leaning on his horn. He seemed to be having an argument with another car driving past our complex outside. A small group of local artists huddled in their doorway looking out upon the din. With (really for the first time here) a note of trepidation, I poked my head out the gate. The driver continued on slowly, still blowing his horn. BEE-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. BEE-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. BEE-BEEEEEEEEEEEE. One short, one long. One short, one long. The truck driver responded in kind. And then I began to hear it.
--The car horn is an integral tool to navigating this city. Unlike back home, it is rarely used in anger, but more commonly to warn of coming danger. The beeps of taxis can often be translated into English as "excuse me, coming through, right behind you." Or, perhaps, "you need to stop or we will crash." They are frequent and pervasive.
--So I at first ignored the noisy background to this strange automotive dialogue. But after a moment I began to realize that not only the courtyard truck driver and street-cruising car, but a taxi down the street, some other unseen vehicles in the nearby village, and cars and trucks speeding by on the airport expressway had voices in this extensive nonverbal exchange.
--I felt a wave of pressure on my face as I realized exactly what was going on. Within the full breadth of my hearing, people driving in cars honked their horns, and people on the street stood mourning, sobbing, silent. One hour ago, the entire city; no, it was clear, the entire country of China stood still, listening to the loud, mournful wail of every car, truck, rickshaw, and bicycle in the most populous country on Earth. Waves of compassion and unity were palpable, within the crowded urban streets of Beijing, within the small villages of rural China, and within every person crying quietly on the streetcorner. This was a moment of silence. This was a roar of solidarity. For a full 15 minutes, 1.2 billion people said goodbye together.
-c
--I was thirsty. I wonder if I'd have even noticed all the commotion had a combination of dust in the air and boredom with purified water not sent me out to the courtyard from our sheltered little studio. A man in a parked truck just inside the gate was leaning on his horn. He seemed to be having an argument with another car driving past our complex outside. A small group of local artists huddled in their doorway looking out upon the din. With (really for the first time here) a note of trepidation, I poked my head out the gate. The driver continued on slowly, still blowing his horn. BEE-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. BEE-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. BEE-BEEEEEEEEEEEE. One short, one long. One short, one long. The truck driver responded in kind. And then I began to hear it.
--The car horn is an integral tool to navigating this city. Unlike back home, it is rarely used in anger, but more commonly to warn of coming danger. The beeps of taxis can often be translated into English as "excuse me, coming through, right behind you." Or, perhaps, "you need to stop or we will crash." They are frequent and pervasive.
--So I at first ignored the noisy background to this strange automotive dialogue. But after a moment I began to realize that not only the courtyard truck driver and street-cruising car, but a taxi down the street, some other unseen vehicles in the nearby village, and cars and trucks speeding by on the airport expressway had voices in this extensive nonverbal exchange.
--I felt a wave of pressure on my face as I realized exactly what was going on. Within the full breadth of my hearing, people driving in cars honked their horns, and people on the street stood mourning, sobbing, silent. One hour ago, the entire city; no, it was clear, the entire country of China stood still, listening to the loud, mournful wail of every car, truck, rickshaw, and bicycle in the most populous country on Earth. Waves of compassion and unity were palpable, within the crowded urban streets of Beijing, within the small villages of rural China, and within every person crying quietly on the streetcorner. This was a moment of silence. This was a roar of solidarity. For a full 15 minutes, 1.2 billion people said goodbye together.
-c
ChinaBlog Day 16
Ugh. Sick. That’s what I’ve been doing since Friday. I’m allergic to my down bedding, so I wake up every morning with about an hour of sneezing. I’ve gotten used to that. This is different. On Friday I arose with the kind of sore throat that portends an uncomfortable immediate future. Sure enough, by Friday afternoon I was surrounded by a snowy-white meadow of used Kleenex. In two days I went through three boxes of tissue. And that’s not including the half roll of toilet paper I resorted to, MacGyver-style, when the first box ran out. I have sneezed and wiped my nose so many times that you can see the cartilage. When I get back home, everyone is going to call me Michael. Jackson. Sorry, I’m really out of it.
--Because of this issue, I’ve been holed up in my room for almost three days now. It’s been ok, what with the internets and the Googles and the Skypes. I’ve felt very in touch with the world I’m unable to visit. I just longingly stare at it out my 12th floor window from bed. Then I sneeze, cough, have a seizure, and blow my nose. One more to the pile. It was really the smell that made me open the window, and imagine my surprise when a big clod of dirt flew into the room and landed on my computer. Did I mention I’m on the 12th floor? Wait, let me check. Hmm…sick, tissue, internets, longing stare, oh yes. There it is. 12th floor. 12TH FLOOR. The wind is so strong that it picked up a clod of dirt from the tree farm next door, lifted it 120 feet into the air, through my open window, and deposited it square on the keyboard of my laptop. I think the odds of that happening are, like, 100:1. Maybe even 200:1. I don’t think it’s done anything bad to anything sensitive. Time will tell.
--Now I’m going to go to sleep again. I’m almost the last person in our group, and certainly in this apartment, to get sick like this, so not only was it bound to happen, but I kind of know what's in store. Everyone keeps telling me to just sleep it off. 24 solid hours of rest has been the cure for many people so far. If you insist.
-c
--Because of this issue, I’ve been holed up in my room for almost three days now. It’s been ok, what with the internets and the Googles and the Skypes. I’ve felt very in touch with the world I’m unable to visit. I just longingly stare at it out my 12th floor window from bed. Then I sneeze, cough, have a seizure, and blow my nose. One more to the pile. It was really the smell that made me open the window, and imagine my surprise when a big clod of dirt flew into the room and landed on my computer. Did I mention I’m on the 12th floor? Wait, let me check. Hmm…sick, tissue, internets, longing stare, oh yes. There it is. 12th floor. 12TH FLOOR. The wind is so strong that it picked up a clod of dirt from the tree farm next door, lifted it 120 feet into the air, through my open window, and deposited it square on the keyboard of my laptop. I think the odds of that happening are, like, 100:1. Maybe even 200:1. I don’t think it’s done anything bad to anything sensitive. Time will tell.
--Now I’m going to go to sleep again. I’m almost the last person in our group, and certainly in this apartment, to get sick like this, so not only was it bound to happen, but I kind of know what's in store. Everyone keeps telling me to just sleep it off. 24 solid hours of rest has been the cure for many people so far. If you insist.
-c
Thursday, May 15, 2008
ChinaBlog Day 13
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m walking around in the birthplace of modern China. Or maybe the birthday of modern China. In about a year and a half, modern China will be wrapped up in a blue or pink blanket, snuggled in a diminutive rolling crib, it’s exhausted mother reaching out in vain for one tiny hug as this critical newborn is wheeled out of the delivery room to the intensive care unit. Modern China is a preemie. And right now it is in hour 40 of a very long and tumultuous delivery process. It began with the 1979 water breaking, followed by an early 1980s 80 mph rush to the hospital in a middle-of-the-night taxi. After a 1990s Emergency Room arrival and check-in process, the year 2000 brought modern China into the delivery room, and it is still on its way out. If you’re wondering, modern China’s mother is Communist China, who was left with this child after a recent on-again, off-again, love/hate relationship with the United States. The father’s not around much, but he sends money every month in the form of business and trade. It’s still unclear how much he’s going to be involved in raising the newborn. I think mom is going to have quite a bit of say in that.
--What brings this up is looking at my Beijing apartment complex on Google Earth. It’s the only finished project in a sea of muddy construction sites. As you walk the streets in my neighborhood you feel as if you’ve stepped into Chicago circa 1895, just as the greatest and most influential high-rises in the world were taking shape. They’re still around today, defining the Windy City’s culture and presence. Beijing will be similarly affected by the development we’re watching right now. As more and more rural families, or, more often, family members immigrate to the cities (I use this word carefully, because it is just as difficult culturally, economically, and especially legally, to move from the countryside to the city in China as it is to move from one country to another), the hope is that this explosion in building will match the explosion in urban population. But adolescence is a universal concept, and most likely young modern China will follow the well-beaten path made by every other volatile urban environment as it goes through development and understanding of its place in the world. If it doesn’t end up squatting in an abandoned warehouse with a $20-a-day drug habit it will be better off than most. After years of Failed Urban Nations doing stint after stint in rehab, promising they want to get better, giving hope for a new future only to relapse and end up back on the street, expectations for newborn modern China are preemptively low.
--But here’s the punchline: preemie newborn modern China is not a child, but a baby Elephant in a person-sized world. It is going through all of these developments on a scale unheard of in history. Modern China is bigger than any civilization ever to walk the earth. When modern China wants it’s bottle, where will we get enough milk to feed it? It’s not its fault that it will be hungry after such an ordeal. How will we find a bed for it? What room will it sleep in? It’s a staggering problem for one set of staying-together-for-the-kid parents to deal with. They’re just not that into each other, and having a baby the size of a small car in the house with them isn’t going to settle things down. The one hurt most by this situation is the calf, destined to live in a household where neither parent truly accepts it. Somehow, it will have to find a way to fend for itself, and maybe grow up to be a contributing member of society. The odds are not in its favor.
-c
--What brings this up is looking at my Beijing apartment complex on Google Earth. It’s the only finished project in a sea of muddy construction sites. As you walk the streets in my neighborhood you feel as if you’ve stepped into Chicago circa 1895, just as the greatest and most influential high-rises in the world were taking shape. They’re still around today, defining the Windy City’s culture and presence. Beijing will be similarly affected by the development we’re watching right now. As more and more rural families, or, more often, family members immigrate to the cities (I use this word carefully, because it is just as difficult culturally, economically, and especially legally, to move from the countryside to the city in China as it is to move from one country to another), the hope is that this explosion in building will match the explosion in urban population. But adolescence is a universal concept, and most likely young modern China will follow the well-beaten path made by every other volatile urban environment as it goes through development and understanding of its place in the world. If it doesn’t end up squatting in an abandoned warehouse with a $20-a-day drug habit it will be better off than most. After years of Failed Urban Nations doing stint after stint in rehab, promising they want to get better, giving hope for a new future only to relapse and end up back on the street, expectations for newborn modern China are preemptively low.
--But here’s the punchline: preemie newborn modern China is not a child, but a baby Elephant in a person-sized world. It is going through all of these developments on a scale unheard of in history. Modern China is bigger than any civilization ever to walk the earth. When modern China wants it’s bottle, where will we get enough milk to feed it? It’s not its fault that it will be hungry after such an ordeal. How will we find a bed for it? What room will it sleep in? It’s a staggering problem for one set of staying-together-for-the-kid parents to deal with. They’re just not that into each other, and having a baby the size of a small car in the house with them isn’t going to settle things down. The one hurt most by this situation is the calf, destined to live in a household where neither parent truly accepts it. Somehow, it will have to find a way to fend for itself, and maybe grow up to be a contributing member of society. The odds are not in its favor.
-c
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
ChinaBlog Day 11
Sorry if the previous post seemed crass and insensitive. I am only just now learning the extent of the damage. At the time I was just writing what I experienced. Now I read it knowing the magnitude of devastation and feel guilty. But this is the story of what happened to me, and all I can write is what I felt at the time given the information I had available, which was pretty much none. I certainly don't want to be making jokes about this disaster. I hope you all understand my intention with yesterday's post. Thanks.
-c
ChinaBlog Day 10
*POST FROM YESTERDAY. EVERYTHING IS OK HERE*
I’ve lived in LA my whole life, and have experienced all kinds of earthquakes, rumbly to destructive. The worst I’ve ever seen hit our city at a teeth-jarring 6.5, and it tore the place apart. Today, however, I sat through 2 and a half minutes of a 7.5 Richter Scale tremor with an epicenter more than 700 miles away. I can’t believe after living for 28 years within throwing distance of the San Andreas Fault the 7.0 found me in China. It was a surreal experience. I was helping one of the other BASE students connect her computer to the servers at studio (That’s my job here. We all have a job, and I got ‘Computer Nerd’. Sorry Sylvie.). Suddenly, I began to feel completely overwhelmed. It was as if there was someone behind me with their hand on my shoulder, gently rocking me back and forth ever so slightly. I thought I was about to pass out right in my seat. I just couldn’t make the feeling that I was sitting on a boat on a breezy day subside. I closed my eyes, crossed them, uncrossed them, tried to focus on the computer screen, but the swaying just wouldn’t stop. Finally I put my hands on my head and my head on the table and moaned, and the girl I was talking to immediately pushed her chair back under the not-so-erroneous assumption that I was about to spew all over the floor. She couldn’t tell what was wrong with me, but her perplexion turned to surprise when, just as suddenly as I had, she gasped. She felt it too. Then we were both moaning and holding our heads like we knew we had cutoff jeans in our future (that was an Incredible Hulk reference. Probably too subtle). I looked up from between my fingers and saw a room full of students moaning and grasping their heads. A group of people standing up nearby took no notice of these events. I immediately arose from my chair, and the feeling of queasiness passed, but the floor still moved underfoot. I walked to my professors to ask them what this was, but since they hadn’t felt the queasiness they couldn’t really understand what I was talking about, and blamed it on a nearby train. I told them that a train goes by every half hour, and I’ve never felt this. I stumbled over to my fellow students, who were madly clawing at their faces in desperate attempts to reach into their eye sockets and steady their sloshing brains with their hands. I got them up and helped them outside. I said ‘this is an-n earthq-quake, Michig-gan people, and this is a-a HUGE one. I’d bet it’s an 8.0.’
‘What?’ they exclaimed. ‘8.0 e-earthquakes lev-vel everything-g under-rfoot. There’s no way it’s that-t massive.’
‘Ah-ha,’ I retorted. ‘The Rich-cht-ter Scale is based p-partly on the amoun-nt of time an earthquake las-sts. O-one of the lar-rgest earthquak-kes ever re-ecorded was in Alas-ska and it w-went on for more th-than five min-nutes. This has been s-shaking now for at least-t half that-t. It’ll be a h-huge o-one. 8.0 a-at least. You’ll see-ee. Does anyon-ne have a sto-opwatch-ch? Let’s get-t it out and time the l-last of the earthq-quake. It might b-be interes-sting to see j-just how long it will-l keep going, and then w-we can-n extrapolat-te to figure o-out approx-ximately the duration of the sh-shaking.’ You get the idea. It was a long time.
We went outside and talked about the rumbling for a while before the earth finally stopped hammocking lazily. When we returned to our computers, CNN put up a headline about the 7.5ness of the shaking. I still have no idea about the aftermath of the quake, because where I live has no internet (due to logistical ineptitude, not natural disaster). I hope I don’t find out tomorrow that a lot of people were hurt.
--Speaking of earthquakily-dangerous living spaces, we finally moved into our new place today. It’s on the twelfth floor of a building in a medium-sized (and by medium-sized, I mean like a medium-sized blue whale) apartment complex in the Beijing equivalent of Beverly Hills. There are sixteen 25-story towers situated around a large green space with tennis courts, a park, a gym, convenience stores, gardens, play areas, and an underground parking garage. It takes approximately 5 minutes to walk from one end of the central park to the other, which we have to do whenever we exit the complex. And this is only one of endless coordinated mass living spaces in just this district alone. They stretch as far as the eye can see, which can be either a long way or a few feet, depending on how high up your apartment is, and are of varying quality, depending on what part of the city you can afford to live in. The further out from the center you go, the fancier and more ridiculous the living situations. All of the buildings I can see out my window (let’s count, one, two, three, forty billion, a trillion bajillion, etc) were built no more than 7 years ago. Many are still under construction. The city is blanketed by an unfinished sea of crane-topped monuments to the unwavering power of the global capitalist economy. It’s quite beautiful.
--Tonight, to celebrate our newfound digs, we decided to go out to dinner in our new neighborhood. The first place we stumbled upon was a Starbucks. Since none of us had been in one yet on this trip, we stopped for some $5 Frappuccinos. We won’t be returning for a while. When we continued down the street we also found a KFC, a Pizza Hut, a McDonald’s, a Papa John’s, and a KFC. If you are thinking I accidentally typed that twice, let me assure you, there is, in fact, a KFC, and then half a block down and across the street, a KFC. Again. If you stand in the right place, you can see both of them simultaneously. Just like that girl’s feet and head. It’s as if America tripped on a Chinese curb and faceplanted violently into our neighborhood. We had dinner at HoSun’s Honey BBQ, which was really just a Korean BBQ place similar to the one we visited two nights ago. Low budget, but good pork.
--Speaking of capitalist pigs, we found Americatown yesterday. It’s exactly like Chinatown or Little Tokyo in LA, but with strange foreigners all over the place. We had real live authentic American breakfasts of pancakes, waffles, omelets, sausage, bacon, hashed browns, oj, and sea cucumber. The place where we ate was called ‘American Steak and Eggs’, and next door was a small cottage-house-turned-restaurant called ‘Grandma’s Pantry’, and next door to that was a small hole-in-the-wall called ‘McDonald’s’. When we walked in the front door of AS&E we were greeted with a round of ‘Hellosirandyouarewelcomeinthisrestaurant’ by a nice Chinese lady standing behind the typical diner podium with a sign on it saying ‘please to be seated wait sir’. We walked past a few dozen or so nonchalant glances from the largest collection of white people this side of the Forbidden City, and were treated to a wonderfully wholehearted attempt at breakfast diner food. I ordered a pecan waffle, which was the same as the regular waffle, which was the same as the pancakes, but with a grid pattern and some nut shavings on the top. My roommate was so excited about ‘real food’ that he powered through a large shrimp and cheese omelet (with extra cheese) and a stack of strawberry pancakes sprinkled with granulated sugar. I ordered oj with my meal, and they went in back, mixed up some Tang, threw some pulp in, and contentedly charged me 20 Yuan for their effort. The oj was almost as much as my waffle. I guess that’s appropriate, given that the ‘juice’ was the best thing on the table. Actually, my breakfast included scrambled eggs, and they only put a tiny bit of garlic and soy sauce in them, so they were pretty good. I just kept thinking about how Chinese people must feel going into a ‘Chinese Food’ place in the States, looking at the crap we proudly serve them, eating it with a fake smile and a sigh. I now know precisely what they are thinking. It’s a little bit disappointment, but it’s also a little bit happiness that at least someone’s trying. It’s the thought that counts.
-c
I’ve lived in LA my whole life, and have experienced all kinds of earthquakes, rumbly to destructive. The worst I’ve ever seen hit our city at a teeth-jarring 6.5, and it tore the place apart. Today, however, I sat through 2 and a half minutes of a 7.5 Richter Scale tremor with an epicenter more than 700 miles away. I can’t believe after living for 28 years within throwing distance of the San Andreas Fault the 7.0 found me in China. It was a surreal experience. I was helping one of the other BASE students connect her computer to the servers at studio (That’s my job here. We all have a job, and I got ‘Computer Nerd’. Sorry Sylvie.). Suddenly, I began to feel completely overwhelmed. It was as if there was someone behind me with their hand on my shoulder, gently rocking me back and forth ever so slightly. I thought I was about to pass out right in my seat. I just couldn’t make the feeling that I was sitting on a boat on a breezy day subside. I closed my eyes, crossed them, uncrossed them, tried to focus on the computer screen, but the swaying just wouldn’t stop. Finally I put my hands on my head and my head on the table and moaned, and the girl I was talking to immediately pushed her chair back under the not-so-erroneous assumption that I was about to spew all over the floor. She couldn’t tell what was wrong with me, but her perplexion turned to surprise when, just as suddenly as I had, she gasped. She felt it too. Then we were both moaning and holding our heads like we knew we had cutoff jeans in our future (that was an Incredible Hulk reference. Probably too subtle). I looked up from between my fingers and saw a room full of students moaning and grasping their heads. A group of people standing up nearby took no notice of these events. I immediately arose from my chair, and the feeling of queasiness passed, but the floor still moved underfoot. I walked to my professors to ask them what this was, but since they hadn’t felt the queasiness they couldn’t really understand what I was talking about, and blamed it on a nearby train. I told them that a train goes by every half hour, and I’ve never felt this. I stumbled over to my fellow students, who were madly clawing at their faces in desperate attempts to reach into their eye sockets and steady their sloshing brains with their hands. I got them up and helped them outside. I said ‘this is an-n earthq-quake, Michig-gan people, and this is a-a HUGE one. I’d bet it’s an 8.0.’
‘What?’ they exclaimed. ‘8.0 e-earthquakes lev-vel everything-g under-rfoot. There’s no way it’s that-t massive.’
‘Ah-ha,’ I retorted. ‘The Rich-cht-ter Scale is based p-partly on the amoun-nt of time an earthquake las-sts. O-one of the lar-rgest earthquak-kes ever re-ecorded was in Alas-ska and it w-went on for more th-than five min-nutes. This has been s-shaking now for at least-t half that-t. It’ll be a h-huge o-one. 8.0 a-at least. You’ll see-ee. Does anyon-ne have a sto-opwatch-ch? Let’s get-t it out and time the l-last of the earthq-quake. It might b-be interes-sting to see j-just how long it will-l keep going, and then w-we can-n extrapolat-te to figure o-out approx-ximately the duration of the sh-shaking.’ You get the idea. It was a long time.
We went outside and talked about the rumbling for a while before the earth finally stopped hammocking lazily. When we returned to our computers, CNN put up a headline about the 7.5ness of the shaking. I still have no idea about the aftermath of the quake, because where I live has no internet (due to logistical ineptitude, not natural disaster). I hope I don’t find out tomorrow that a lot of people were hurt.
--Speaking of earthquakily-dangerous living spaces, we finally moved into our new place today. It’s on the twelfth floor of a building in a medium-sized (and by medium-sized, I mean like a medium-sized blue whale) apartment complex in the Beijing equivalent of Beverly Hills. There are sixteen 25-story towers situated around a large green space with tennis courts, a park, a gym, convenience stores, gardens, play areas, and an underground parking garage. It takes approximately 5 minutes to walk from one end of the central park to the other, which we have to do whenever we exit the complex. And this is only one of endless coordinated mass living spaces in just this district alone. They stretch as far as the eye can see, which can be either a long way or a few feet, depending on how high up your apartment is, and are of varying quality, depending on what part of the city you can afford to live in. The further out from the center you go, the fancier and more ridiculous the living situations. All of the buildings I can see out my window (let’s count, one, two, three, forty billion, a trillion bajillion, etc) were built no more than 7 years ago. Many are still under construction. The city is blanketed by an unfinished sea of crane-topped monuments to the unwavering power of the global capitalist economy. It’s quite beautiful.
--Tonight, to celebrate our newfound digs, we decided to go out to dinner in our new neighborhood. The first place we stumbled upon was a Starbucks. Since none of us had been in one yet on this trip, we stopped for some $5 Frappuccinos. We won’t be returning for a while. When we continued down the street we also found a KFC, a Pizza Hut, a McDonald’s, a Papa John’s, and a KFC. If you are thinking I accidentally typed that twice, let me assure you, there is, in fact, a KFC, and then half a block down and across the street, a KFC. Again. If you stand in the right place, you can see both of them simultaneously. Just like that girl’s feet and head. It’s as if America tripped on a Chinese curb and faceplanted violently into our neighborhood. We had dinner at HoSun’s Honey BBQ, which was really just a Korean BBQ place similar to the one we visited two nights ago. Low budget, but good pork.
--Speaking of capitalist pigs, we found Americatown yesterday. It’s exactly like Chinatown or Little Tokyo in LA, but with strange foreigners all over the place. We had real live authentic American breakfasts of pancakes, waffles, omelets, sausage, bacon, hashed browns, oj, and sea cucumber. The place where we ate was called ‘American Steak and Eggs’, and next door was a small cottage-house-turned-restaurant called ‘Grandma’s Pantry’, and next door to that was a small hole-in-the-wall called ‘McDonald’s’. When we walked in the front door of AS&E we were greeted with a round of ‘Hellosirandyouarewelcomeinthisrestaurant’ by a nice Chinese lady standing behind the typical diner podium with a sign on it saying ‘please to be seated wait sir’. We walked past a few dozen or so nonchalant glances from the largest collection of white people this side of the Forbidden City, and were treated to a wonderfully wholehearted attempt at breakfast diner food. I ordered a pecan waffle, which was the same as the regular waffle, which was the same as the pancakes, but with a grid pattern and some nut shavings on the top. My roommate was so excited about ‘real food’ that he powered through a large shrimp and cheese omelet (with extra cheese) and a stack of strawberry pancakes sprinkled with granulated sugar. I ordered oj with my meal, and they went in back, mixed up some Tang, threw some pulp in, and contentedly charged me 20 Yuan for their effort. The oj was almost as much as my waffle. I guess that’s appropriate, given that the ‘juice’ was the best thing on the table. Actually, my breakfast included scrambled eggs, and they only put a tiny bit of garlic and soy sauce in them, so they were pretty good. I just kept thinking about how Chinese people must feel going into a ‘Chinese Food’ place in the States, looking at the crap we proudly serve them, eating it with a fake smile and a sigh. I now know precisely what they are thinking. It’s a little bit disappointment, but it’s also a little bit happiness that at least someone’s trying. It’s the thought that counts.
-c
Sunday, May 11, 2008
ChinaBlog Day 09
I think I just broke someone. I’ve gotten used to the double takes when people see me on the street, but, obviously, they haven’t gotten used to me. What I still can’t believe is that the sight of a white person is so rare here that it warrants extra attention, and even wonder. ‘What is that thing?’ they seem to be astonishing aloud in Chinese to my face. ‘Look at the way it moves! It’s like a circus animal! Sung, come here and see this! Maybe if we poke it we can make it do tricks.’ And so they do. Usually, the scenario goes like this: I’m walking with my groceries or laptop or whatever. I happen to look up from my feet at the same moment someone coming the other direction does too, and we make eye contact. Out of politeness, we both then look away, as if it had never happened. I continue to look away, and out of the periphery of my vision, I see their head snap back toward mine like I was covered in bees. There is usually a mixture of shock, amusement, and horror etched on their mug. If you can’t picture their face, just imagine that you have walked out your front door and found, instead of me, 10 clowns stuffed into a tiny car, having just run head-on into another small car filled with another 10 clowns, and they are all strewn across the street in various states of carnage, with googly eyeglasses springing around on dazed faces, size 56 shoes run through windshields, and red squeaky noses bleeping timidly under scurrying paramedics’ footfalls. Shock, horror, amusement.
--So, back to the lecture at hand, I think I just broke someone. I was returning from, where else, the grocery store, and was near my building. I had already encountered immeasurable disbelief by this point, having lumbered my way to the store, and, more implausibly, through the tiny aisles of tiny overly-packaged tiny foodstuffs (almost like a normal person, but much much bigger and freakishly pale), and I was pretty much over the double-takes. So, once again, I happened to look up (to see how close I was to the entrance of my place) and caught eyes with a girl of perhaps 14 arriving home from school. We both promptly looked away, as you do, and I was expecting the requisite ‘HOLYCRAPAMONSTERRUN!’ head snap. Sure enough, it came right on cue, but exactly at that moment there just happened to be, and I couldn’t make this up, a transparent-green plastic disposable correction-tape (white out) dispenser laying on the ground just under her foot. Out of the corner of my ear I heard a loud cracking crunch, and out of the corner of my eye I saw this tiny little being hit the pavement eyebrow first like a 50 lb. slab of meat. Her bags went everywhere. Her glasses skittered across the damp asphalt. I briefly saw the soles of her shoes and the top of her head simultaneously. It was one of the most hysterically horrendous faceplants I’ve ever seen. Even worse than the time Alex Ou made one turn on his first ever black diamond run and fell 150 feet down the slope, losing every article of clothing on his person not considered to be some type of underwear. It was that bad. I instantly flew to the rescue, helped her up, gathered her things, asked her if she was ok, all that. If I had disappeared at that moment, she would have burst into tears. Instead, she just turned the most impossible shade of red and stared resolutely at her feet as she took her things from me, and then ran off without a word. Imagine the mortification of a monster seeing you fall down in public. And then to have the horrible thing help you with your stuff, it’s almost too much to bear. She’s probably never going to leave her room again. I felt so tremendously awful for her that I had to come straight home and post the entire story on the internet for everyone to read about. Poor thing.
-c
--So, back to the lecture at hand, I think I just broke someone. I was returning from, where else, the grocery store, and was near my building. I had already encountered immeasurable disbelief by this point, having lumbered my way to the store, and, more implausibly, through the tiny aisles of tiny overly-packaged tiny foodstuffs (almost like a normal person, but much much bigger and freakishly pale), and I was pretty much over the double-takes. So, once again, I happened to look up (to see how close I was to the entrance of my place) and caught eyes with a girl of perhaps 14 arriving home from school. We both promptly looked away, as you do, and I was expecting the requisite ‘HOLYCRAPAMONSTERRUN!’ head snap. Sure enough, it came right on cue, but exactly at that moment there just happened to be, and I couldn’t make this up, a transparent-green plastic disposable correction-tape (white out) dispenser laying on the ground just under her foot. Out of the corner of my ear I heard a loud cracking crunch, and out of the corner of my eye I saw this tiny little being hit the pavement eyebrow first like a 50 lb. slab of meat. Her bags went everywhere. Her glasses skittered across the damp asphalt. I briefly saw the soles of her shoes and the top of her head simultaneously. It was one of the most hysterically horrendous faceplants I’ve ever seen. Even worse than the time Alex Ou made one turn on his first ever black diamond run and fell 150 feet down the slope, losing every article of clothing on his person not considered to be some type of underwear. It was that bad. I instantly flew to the rescue, helped her up, gathered her things, asked her if she was ok, all that. If I had disappeared at that moment, she would have burst into tears. Instead, she just turned the most impossible shade of red and stared resolutely at her feet as she took her things from me, and then ran off without a word. Imagine the mortification of a monster seeing you fall down in public. And then to have the horrible thing help you with your stuff, it’s almost too much to bear. She’s probably never going to leave her room again. I felt so tremendously awful for her that I had to come straight home and post the entire story on the internet for everyone to read about. Poor thing.
-c
Thursday, May 8, 2008
ChinaBlog Day 06
I’ve been in China for 6 days now, and I haven’t really hit that point where I’m struck by just how different this place is, or been enamored specifically by the idea of being on another side of the world. It’s so comfortable here, so giving and safe, inexpensive, frenetic, and alive, that no matter how many people pull me aside on the street to take a picture with me I just can’t feel like a fish out of water. That happens, by the way. Sometimes they giggle over and ask politely for a picture with the giant albino monster from the West, or sometimes I turn around and find a foot long lens in my face. I just continue what I’m doing and let them get their candid shots. Let’s be honest, I do the same thing to them a dozen times a day, when I pass an old woman cooking dumplings on her front doorstep, or find a man sitting in an alley sharpening an ancient butcher knife on a 200 year old whetstone. We’re all learning from each other here. I get to see the way we’re really supposed to interact with this planet, making your own things, never throwing anything away (they don’t sell disposable cups here. You just can’t find them), and tremendous respect for craft and efficiency, not salary and accumulation of useless things. And they get to see what it looks like when the gene pool ambles drunkenly through the forest for a few hundred generations. There’s a reason people from the west keep coming back from here changed. It’s a totally refreshing and natural way of thinking about the purpose of life. Families live in the same house for centuries, and children playing in a narrow, lively alley can know that not just their grandparents, but their ancestors played the same games as children in the same streets. There is such a connection with the past that they literally worship it. Back in the somethingorothers, Jesuit priests came over here to China and were accepted with open arms. The Chinese knew there was a lot to learn from each other. But eventually, the priests were here to convert the Chinese, and insisted that their spiritual focus on ancestors should be pushed aside in favor of the one god system, and the Chinese kept asking if they could just keep the one god to the side as a sort of lightning-throwing, bearded, toga-wearing Fonzie, cool and well respected, but always secondary to family and history. This sticking point got worse, and eventually the Jesuits left disappointed. But imagine if you took the notion that everyone from your family kept on watching and guiding you as you lived your life. These are real, tangible people who you may have known for a time. It just feels so much more powerful than some impossibly large figure twisted and manipulated by millennia of Western men and their selfish power struggles. It’s easy to see why I can leave my computer unattended in an unlocked studio space here and feel completely comfortable going away for hours.
I feel like the main Chinese version of petty theft is trying to get ignorant foreigners to buy cheap knock-offs thinking they’re the real deal. “Zhen de jia de?” is a phrase we were taught on the first day. It means “Real, or fake?” You ask it to the market seller. If they answer, “zhen de,” real, then you know it’s fake. If they answer with a string of swear words, then you know it’s real, and you’ve just insulted them, but you can’t afford it anyway, so just say “dui bu qi,” sorry, and walk away sheepishly. The black market for ‘fakes’ is so pervasive here that the bed sheets in my apartment are covered in the Louis Vuitton logo. And they were probably bought at the corner supermarket. Whatever the back alley copy machines do to leather-stamped wallets of major fashion houses, it doesn’t rip your credit cards from your pocket at gunpoint, and it doesn’t lend itself to a society of fear.
Unless you count the cabbies. The traffic here is completely different from home, no matter what city you live in. There is a strict set of rules on the road, but they have not a lot to do with the laws set forth by the government. Instead, the system is based on efficiency and getting where you need to go as quickly as possible. And it works surprisingly well. There is often not more than three inches between the cars/bikes/people/buses/ovens, but if you really pay attention to what’s not there, you’ll see a city free of dents, accidents, and abnormal levels of turmoil.
Lastly, speaking of abdominal turmoil, we ate from a Pizza Hut last night. It is a little kiosk-sized opening in the surrounding din that, were it not for a gaudy red Formica countertop, might be mistaken for any combination of Kinko’s, Boxes and More, and The UPS Store. We ordered a ‘large’ pizza, which clearly stated on the menu that it was 12’ across. I was impressed. At that size, it would not only break the door frame even if it were removed from the place vertically, it would require a remodel of the entire shop and the ones to either side, which, oddly enough, are a Boxes and More and a UPS Store. We were a little worried that we would not be able to finish the thing off in one night, even with our insistence to the confused man behind the copy machines that we were desperately uninterested in having sea cucumber slivered liberally across our massive pie. But for 72 Yuan, or just over $10, it seemed like the leftovers might be necessary to make this meal worthwhile. Ten minutes later the man emerged triumphantly from the back oven/plotter room and handed us a bag with a tiny, flat box in it. We checked to see that we were still not next door (this looking like the ‘Boxes’ offering, naturally). 72 Yuan later, we had our ‘large’ 12” pizza, which actually measured 12” only if you include the box it came in and the surrounding air rights acquired by the pizza in a string of shady 1980s land deals. We turned the tiny thing on edge and the three of us carefully passed it through the door, more out of a confused sense of dashed expectation than true necessity, and each took a side as we crab-walked our little sauced-up coaster back to the apartment and the sad eyes of all five who live here. We each tweezed ourselves a slice and sucked on it until the nutrients were gone, then stood in the living room staring at each other in silence. Did we just eat something? And so, with an inexplicable craving for sea cucumber, I went to bed.
-c
I feel like the main Chinese version of petty theft is trying to get ignorant foreigners to buy cheap knock-offs thinking they’re the real deal. “Zhen de jia de?” is a phrase we were taught on the first day. It means “Real, or fake?” You ask it to the market seller. If they answer, “zhen de,” real, then you know it’s fake. If they answer with a string of swear words, then you know it’s real, and you’ve just insulted them, but you can’t afford it anyway, so just say “dui bu qi,” sorry, and walk away sheepishly. The black market for ‘fakes’ is so pervasive here that the bed sheets in my apartment are covered in the Louis Vuitton logo. And they were probably bought at the corner supermarket. Whatever the back alley copy machines do to leather-stamped wallets of major fashion houses, it doesn’t rip your credit cards from your pocket at gunpoint, and it doesn’t lend itself to a society of fear.
Unless you count the cabbies. The traffic here is completely different from home, no matter what city you live in. There is a strict set of rules on the road, but they have not a lot to do with the laws set forth by the government. Instead, the system is based on efficiency and getting where you need to go as quickly as possible. And it works surprisingly well. There is often not more than three inches between the cars/bikes/people/buses/ovens, but if you really pay attention to what’s not there, you’ll see a city free of dents, accidents, and abnormal levels of turmoil.
Lastly, speaking of abdominal turmoil, we ate from a Pizza Hut last night. It is a little kiosk-sized opening in the surrounding din that, were it not for a gaudy red Formica countertop, might be mistaken for any combination of Kinko’s, Boxes and More, and The UPS Store. We ordered a ‘large’ pizza, which clearly stated on the menu that it was 12’ across. I was impressed. At that size, it would not only break the door frame even if it were removed from the place vertically, it would require a remodel of the entire shop and the ones to either side, which, oddly enough, are a Boxes and More and a UPS Store. We were a little worried that we would not be able to finish the thing off in one night, even with our insistence to the confused man behind the copy machines that we were desperately uninterested in having sea cucumber slivered liberally across our massive pie. But for 72 Yuan, or just over $10, it seemed like the leftovers might be necessary to make this meal worthwhile. Ten minutes later the man emerged triumphantly from the back oven/plotter room and handed us a bag with a tiny, flat box in it. We checked to see that we were still not next door (this looking like the ‘Boxes’ offering, naturally). 72 Yuan later, we had our ‘large’ 12” pizza, which actually measured 12” only if you include the box it came in and the surrounding air rights acquired by the pizza in a string of shady 1980s land deals. We turned the tiny thing on edge and the three of us carefully passed it through the door, more out of a confused sense of dashed expectation than true necessity, and each took a side as we crab-walked our little sauced-up coaster back to the apartment and the sad eyes of all five who live here. We each tweezed ourselves a slice and sucked on it until the nutrients were gone, then stood in the living room staring at each other in silence. Did we just eat something? And so, with an inexplicable craving for sea cucumber, I went to bed.
-c
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
ChinaBlog Day 03
We spent today setting up our studio spaces and buying cell phones. I have 50 Yuan on my new phone. How many minutes is that? No idea. Absolutely none. Nobody else knows either. So we're just waiting until we run out to see approximately how long 50 Yuan gives us. But I am now the proud new owner of a Motorola C118. It cost 90 Yuan, which is a bit over $10. Then another 50 Yuan for a sim card (with the minutes on it), and I was good to go. This is apparently how Chinese people get their phones. No contracts, no credit cards, just good old fashioned cash for goods. Here's how it works: You walk into the first room of the electronics store where they sell sim cards. They flip open a binder with pages and pages of phone numbers written on it with prices next to them. The prices are all different, not for how many minutes are associated with the card, but for how lucky the digits in the number are. So, and I'm completely serious here, I saw a number on one page that ended in 8808, and it was 1300 Yuan. That's almost $200. I took one that ended in 1536 (it was the cheapest one not taken on the first page, and it's similar to my grandparents’ address), and it cost $50 Yuan. It had $50 Yuan worth of minutes on it. The 8808 number also had $50 Yuan on it. No difference but whether or not you get hit by a bus in the near future. Actually, it’s not a bad deal. But I’m just going to take my chances.
--Getting hit by a bus is not all that farfetched. I can’t believe what I’m seeing when I’m in a cab or walking on the street. There is an obvious pecking order strictly related to size on Chinese streets. Buses rule like iron-fisted lions. If a bus is coming your way, I don’t care if you are rolling around in a Sherman tank, you get your butt up on the sidewalk. Cabs occupy the next rung down, and will literally push people on scooters and bicycles out from in front of them with their bumpers. Next come all kinds of the teensiest little ‘cars’ that ever did putt. They are shaped exactly like cars back home, but at two-thirds scale. My favorite automobile on the road is a minivan (and I mean that so very literally) that looks like those 80s Mitsubishi box-vans with the little wheels, but they are so small that only two people can fit side to side in the seats. Just a driver and passenger shoulder to shoulder up front, and two similar seats in back. The wheels look like they came from a 1960s Mini Cooper. I can’t tell you how hilarious it is to find one of these things rolling up on you at 50km/hr, horn blaring like a stuck pig, 4 feet wide, 5 feet tall, weaving between the bicycles with a bus complex, expecting the cab you’re in to just hop out of the way. Sorry, little dude, we eat you for breakfast. Go find a sidewalk to play on. Before I came here I thought it might be a good idea to pick up a cheap bicycle just to get around town. Now I’m not so sure. Even though there are tons of bikes on the streets at all times, I think the idea of being ended by one of these ovens on wheels would just be too embarrassing to handle. I heard that if you are run over by a car that you could otherwise pat on the head and read a bedtime story to, you are forever relegated to a special in-between place.
--So I hope everyone is doing well. I’m managing to survive. Tomorrow we look for apartments.
*UPDATE*
--Oh man. Dinner was crazy. Think of any vertebrate animal on land or in the ocean, and it probably met its demise for our dinner, whole and smoking. Turtle, crab, duck, fish, pig, rabbit, chicken, tofu. Whole. Smoking. They clearly just grabbed whatever they could find out back, threw it in the fryer, and slapped it down on a plate. I was out to dinner with 6 other people at our professors' favorite restaurant. It came highly recommended. I think they were messing with us. We spent so much time working the tiny bit of meat out from between the myriad bones, shells, and exoskeletons, that by the time it got to our mouths, we'd forgotten why we came to China in the first place. By the way, I'm not quite sure how they did it, but the tofu was the worst dish of the night. It smelled. Exactly. Like dirty pig butt. And I know it smelled. Exactly. Like dirty pig butt, because one of the guys at the table, when attempting to discern what this awful stench emanating from the tofu bowl was, exclaimed, "Oh, I know! I used to own a pig. And that's. EXACTLY. What his butt used to smell like! I knew I recognized that stench!" To the point where we had to continually shift the tofu on the lazy suzan to the one empty spot at our 8 person table, because otherwise the stench would waft past the other non-food on your plate and make the whole thing rear-endy. We tried to wash it down with liquid, but the water we asked for came steaming hot. So we ordered wine, which came even hotter and in a special double-decanter full of boiling water that the hot wine container sat in to keep it nice and hot. The hot fumes from the hot water and the hot wine mixed with the gag-inducing butt-soy stench and the interminable cracking and spitting out of bones, shells, and exoskeletons. I can still smell it, and now I'm both incredibly hungry and incredibly not. 300 Yuan ($40) total for all seven people. What a bargain.
-c
--Getting hit by a bus is not all that farfetched. I can’t believe what I’m seeing when I’m in a cab or walking on the street. There is an obvious pecking order strictly related to size on Chinese streets. Buses rule like iron-fisted lions. If a bus is coming your way, I don’t care if you are rolling around in a Sherman tank, you get your butt up on the sidewalk. Cabs occupy the next rung down, and will literally push people on scooters and bicycles out from in front of them with their bumpers. Next come all kinds of the teensiest little ‘cars’ that ever did putt. They are shaped exactly like cars back home, but at two-thirds scale. My favorite automobile on the road is a minivan (and I mean that so very literally) that looks like those 80s Mitsubishi box-vans with the little wheels, but they are so small that only two people can fit side to side in the seats. Just a driver and passenger shoulder to shoulder up front, and two similar seats in back. The wheels look like they came from a 1960s Mini Cooper. I can’t tell you how hilarious it is to find one of these things rolling up on you at 50km/hr, horn blaring like a stuck pig, 4 feet wide, 5 feet tall, weaving between the bicycles with a bus complex, expecting the cab you’re in to just hop out of the way. Sorry, little dude, we eat you for breakfast. Go find a sidewalk to play on. Before I came here I thought it might be a good idea to pick up a cheap bicycle just to get around town. Now I’m not so sure. Even though there are tons of bikes on the streets at all times, I think the idea of being ended by one of these ovens on wheels would just be too embarrassing to handle. I heard that if you are run over by a car that you could otherwise pat on the head and read a bedtime story to, you are forever relegated to a special in-between place.
--So I hope everyone is doing well. I’m managing to survive. Tomorrow we look for apartments.
*UPDATE*
--Oh man. Dinner was crazy. Think of any vertebrate animal on land or in the ocean, and it probably met its demise for our dinner, whole and smoking. Turtle, crab, duck, fish, pig, rabbit, chicken, tofu. Whole. Smoking. They clearly just grabbed whatever they could find out back, threw it in the fryer, and slapped it down on a plate. I was out to dinner with 6 other people at our professors' favorite restaurant. It came highly recommended. I think they were messing with us. We spent so much time working the tiny bit of meat out from between the myriad bones, shells, and exoskeletons, that by the time it got to our mouths, we'd forgotten why we came to China in the first place. By the way, I'm not quite sure how they did it, but the tofu was the worst dish of the night. It smelled. Exactly. Like dirty pig butt. And I know it smelled. Exactly. Like dirty pig butt, because one of the guys at the table, when attempting to discern what this awful stench emanating from the tofu bowl was, exclaimed, "Oh, I know! I used to own a pig. And that's. EXACTLY. What his butt used to smell like! I knew I recognized that stench!" To the point where we had to continually shift the tofu on the lazy suzan to the one empty spot at our 8 person table, because otherwise the stench would waft past the other non-food on your plate and make the whole thing rear-endy. We tried to wash it down with liquid, but the water we asked for came steaming hot. So we ordered wine, which came even hotter and in a special double-decanter full of boiling water that the hot wine container sat in to keep it nice and hot. The hot fumes from the hot water and the hot wine mixed with the gag-inducing butt-soy stench and the interminable cracking and spitting out of bones, shells, and exoskeletons. I can still smell it, and now I'm both incredibly hungry and incredibly not. 300 Yuan ($40) total for all seven people. What a bargain.
-c
ChinaBlog Day 02
First, a word about this blog. I will not be posting these every day, as I may have implied by my posting these every day so far. Tomorrow we start working, and I just don’t think a) I’ll have the time, and b) you’ll be even slightly interested in most of it. Ok, that’s settled.
--My first full day in Beijing was eventful. I awoke bolt upright at 6 in the morning. 6. In the morning. That’s about 6 hours earlier than a usual Sunday. I guess I’m still lagged with jet. I knew that some of the people in my program had spoken about visiting the Forbidden city today, but I also knew that most of them had gone out after midnight to hit the bars. Thus my reluctance to really put an emphasis on going through my morning routine. I ate a bit of in-room breakfast and wrote a little bit until 10:05, when an ominous knock tore me from my zen-like state. It was Linda. They were all gathered in the lobby ready to go. Crap. I took an impressively short shower and dressed (remembering to grab my camera at the last second) to meet them just as they were walking out the door. I looked around for a cab, but was informed that we were, in point of fact, walking to the Forbidden City. But, um, guys, that’s like, um, 40 km away. Nonsense, Chris, it’s just an hour or so walk from here. Sigh. I guess they can walk at 40 km/hr. Actually, it was a nice stroll, the weather having dumped its rain in the past few days, leaving behind a beautiful clear-brown day. It felt so much like May-ish Los Angeles that I instinctively began looking for a Starbucks. There’s one in the Forbidden City. I kid you not.
--Upon our arrival at the City of Doom I was completely knocked over by the sight of the impressive 40-foot high red wall that surrounds the place. I scrambled through my pockets for the little camera, pulled it out of the case, and turned it on. Turned it on. Turned. It. On. What. Is. This. Nonsense. Apparently, after I charged the battery the night before, I somehow accidentally activated it as I was putting it into my bag before I went to bed. The whole battery drained overnight. Sigh. So I had to use my iPhone for a camera. In the Forbidden City. 2 Megapixels is not quite enough to capture this place, to say the least. You really need, like, 2000 Ultrapixels, or something. And I don’t even think they make that yet. But anyway, we got through the palace, then scaled the mountain ‘o pagodas, which was a good place to look out over the city, forbidden and otherwise.
--Also, I think I ate my first dog today. It came in sausage form, and was planted squarely on a bamboo stick, looking enticingly like a nondescript hot dog. It most certainly was not. Several of us got them at the same time, and a few yards down from the vendor, you found several of us gagging and coughing and pointing at once-bitten hot dogs with horrified looks on our faces, and then a few yards down from that you found several once-bitten dog dogs on sticks shoved unceremoniously in the trash can. Word of note: do not buy hot dogs on sticks in China.
--Finally, something weird is happening to my blog. I can post, so far, but I cannot visit it once it’s posted. I’m fairly certain the Chinese government has blocked my blog. Like, for real. Hmmm… Hope you all can read it back home. Oh well. I am no longer responsible for any typos or grammatical hooha.
-c
--My first full day in Beijing was eventful. I awoke bolt upright at 6 in the morning. 6. In the morning. That’s about 6 hours earlier than a usual Sunday. I guess I’m still lagged with jet. I knew that some of the people in my program had spoken about visiting the Forbidden city today, but I also knew that most of them had gone out after midnight to hit the bars. Thus my reluctance to really put an emphasis on going through my morning routine. I ate a bit of in-room breakfast and wrote a little bit until 10:05, when an ominous knock tore me from my zen-like state. It was Linda. They were all gathered in the lobby ready to go. Crap. I took an impressively short shower and dressed (remembering to grab my camera at the last second) to meet them just as they were walking out the door. I looked around for a cab, but was informed that we were, in point of fact, walking to the Forbidden City. But, um, guys, that’s like, um, 40 km away. Nonsense, Chris, it’s just an hour or so walk from here. Sigh. I guess they can walk at 40 km/hr. Actually, it was a nice stroll, the weather having dumped its rain in the past few days, leaving behind a beautiful clear-brown day. It felt so much like May-ish Los Angeles that I instinctively began looking for a Starbucks. There’s one in the Forbidden City. I kid you not.
--Upon our arrival at the City of Doom I was completely knocked over by the sight of the impressive 40-foot high red wall that surrounds the place. I scrambled through my pockets for the little camera, pulled it out of the case, and turned it on. Turned it on. Turned. It. On. What. Is. This. Nonsense. Apparently, after I charged the battery the night before, I somehow accidentally activated it as I was putting it into my bag before I went to bed. The whole battery drained overnight. Sigh. So I had to use my iPhone for a camera. In the Forbidden City. 2 Megapixels is not quite enough to capture this place, to say the least. You really need, like, 2000 Ultrapixels, or something. And I don’t even think they make that yet. But anyway, we got through the palace, then scaled the mountain ‘o pagodas, which was a good place to look out over the city, forbidden and otherwise.
--Also, I think I ate my first dog today. It came in sausage form, and was planted squarely on a bamboo stick, looking enticingly like a nondescript hot dog. It most certainly was not. Several of us got them at the same time, and a few yards down from the vendor, you found several of us gagging and coughing and pointing at once-bitten hot dogs with horrified looks on our faces, and then a few yards down from that you found several once-bitten dog dogs on sticks shoved unceremoniously in the trash can. Word of note: do not buy hot dogs on sticks in China.
--Finally, something weird is happening to my blog. I can post, so far, but I cannot visit it once it’s posted. I’m fairly certain the Chinese government has blocked my blog. Like, for real. Hmmm… Hope you all can read it back home. Oh well. I am no longer responsible for any typos or grammatical hooha.
-c
Saturday, May 3, 2008
ChinaBlog Day 01
China. Wow. It’s an actual place. Really! Despite its almost mythical stature in Western culture (look down at your feet…if you had a shovel and an undauntable will, you could dig into my hotel room), I find this place to be utterly real, perhaps more so than my own Los Angeles. Ok, that’s not a fair comparison. But what the Western media has taught me to expect here – povertous people enslaved by their human-rights-abusing masters, oppressive watchtowers and camera banks, extreme government oversight, pollutive, unstoppable masses – have so far been less than pervasive. What I found when I stepped off the plane in Beijing was a gigantic (and I cannot use this word strongly enough), almost completely deserted (and I cannot use these words strongly enough), brand new (again) airport that was as modern, easy to navigate, and efficient as any in the world. But I feel like I’m getting ahead of myself.
--I am in Beijing. It’s located in the armpit of China, if you think of China’s arm as having been stumped by Russia during some previous offensive. Or maybe it is in the neck of China, if you think of China as a pregnant woman with morning sickness and a large backpack, vomiting out Korea. In any case it’s a northern city, about 100 km from the Yellow sea, at about the same latitude as Seoul and Portland. It is cooler and less humid than other parts of China, and when I landed, it was 59 degrees and raining. There. Now you know exactly where I am.
--My trip here actually began the moment I turned in my Thesis Prep book on Friday, April 25th at 4 pm. I then had exactly 6 days and 20 hours to prepare for my flight on Friday, May 2nd at 12 noon. It was not enough time. I had almost completely ignored the fact that I was on a path to the other side of the world until some guy in administration tried to pull the 40-page Thesis manuscript from my sweaty, trembling fingers. Holy crap. I’m going to China. My first step was to go home and stare blankly at an empty suitcase. I knew that in a week’s time, it and another would be filled with everything I needed for two months, perfectly organized, labeled, and folded. I pictured it in my mind, ‘full suitcase, full suitcase, full suitcase’. I went to bed. When I awoke, it was still there in the corner, gaping its massive hole at me like a hungry grouper. Five days later, I owned a couple new pairs of pants, a new shirt, new shoes, a haircut, some travel books, a box of power bars, a cavernous, empty, useless, stupid suitcase, and an incurable sense of foreboding. I went to bed.
--I spent the last day in a kind of utter denial that cannot be deterred, beaten down, redirected, permeated, circumvented, or explained. I tried everything I could to make headway. I called all my credit card companies to tell them I was leaving the country. I went to the AT&T store to make sure I could use my phone on another planet. I washed every article of clothing I own. I went out to lunch with my friend. I stared at my big fish in the corner thinking ‘full suitcase, full suitcase, full suitcase’. Nothing worked. At 11 pm, I finally decided that perhaps the best option was to physically start feeding the monster. By hand.
--All night I worked, folding, packing, folding, and packing. I made a list. I checked things off from it. I was like a Gap employee who moonlights as an elf for Santa. Fold, pack, fold, pack. It was glorious. When the sun finally kissed the nestled dew betwixt the bloomed leaves, I was half done and frantic. But somehow, after a full week of procrastination and a full night of stuffing fish, I had a full suitcase just in time to throw everything into the car and head to the airport.
--The flights (I had a quick first leg to SFO) were uneventful. To a fault. When I boarded the Air China 747 to Beijing, I sat down in my window seat next to a nice couple from Livermore, and fell asleep. 5 hours later, I woke up with a start to find I had missed dinner. The nice couple from Livermore thought I looked so peaceful all snoring and drooly, so they decided not to wake me for the meal. What a nice couple from Livermore. I pulled out my book and began to read, but the story didn’t make any sense after a while, because soon I was the protagonist, and I had to run away from somebody, but my feet wouldn’t move. I awoke with a start, having missed, um, what can only be called dinner. Again. They served dinner at about 5 pm Pacific time. Then served almost the exact same thing at about 10 pm Pacific time. I slept again, but managed to awake with a start as they were serving, you guessed it, dinner. At about 3 am Pacific time. By this point I was so utterly confused that I had to keep opening the window shade to see if it was daylight. It was. ALWAYS. By the time we landed, I had to ask the nice couple from Livermore what day it was, and whether it was morning or evening. They patted me kindly on my greasy, tousled hair and stole my dinner.
--The new airport in Beijing is gigantic (ok, we won’t do this again). But seriously, it’s really huge and empty and easy to get around in. Every sign is in English. No problems whatsoever. I went through customs, easy, found my bags, easy, got in the 3 person line for a taxi, easy, and told the driver where I was going. Hard. I finally had to just give him the map and directions and pray. The hotel I’m staying in is just outside of the 2nd ring road (there being a concentric set of 6 ring roads radiating out from the center of the city, which is where the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square sit peacefully). The driver of the cab finally seemed like he knew where he was going. Eventually he turned off the highway for the clearly-marked exits to the 3th and 2th ring roads, which was close enough for me. After a 100km/h shot across the thirth ring road, and a bone-jarringly sharp right onto the secoth ring road, we were there, in front of the hotel. Win! Like a zombie I checked in and turned toward the elevator, shower, and bed. So badly!
--“Chris! Hey! I’m heading next door to the bar to meet up with the people from Michigan! Come on!” Sigh. That was my friend Linda who found me in the lobby. I was able to convince her that putting my full fishes in my room would be a good first move for me, but was not able to convince her that I needed to sleep. After all, it was only 8 pm. What? I don’t know. I’m still having trouble figuring out what time it is here. At that time, my cell phone said it was 4 am, my watch said it was 11 pm, and my computer said it was Friday. This morning I actually had to go online to find out exactly what time it was in Beijing and LA. It’s not just the time change, it’s also the fact that China does not observe Daylight Savings time. Confusing. I finally realized that if I just change the current Beijing time from am to pm, take three hours off, and make it yesterday, its EASY to figure out what time it is in LA (which is where my body still thinks it is). So even though it’s 9:16 am Sunday here, my fingernails think it’s 6:16 pm Saturday. Nevermind. I went to the bar.
--The Michigan people seem nice. After shooting the breeze in The Christmas Bar, decorated with horribly gaudy amounts of tinsel, lights, and fake palm trees (?), we walked and walked and walked to find a fantastic Shabu-Shabu-ish place where we 13 people absolutely stuffed ourselves for 250 Yuan. That translates to approximately $40. Total. With drinks and everything. And I think it was a kind-of-expensive place. Wow. The walk back from the restaurant was fun. We decided to cut through some very authentic local ‘streets’ that were more like ‘sidewalks’ with ‘cars driving on them’ and ‘people thronging’ in the night. It was a perfect introduction to this place. When we finally returned to the hotel, it was past midnight, and they were all going to go upstairs and get dressed to hit the local bars. I went to bed.
--It’s now 9:30 in the morning and I’ve been awake since 6 am. I think people are going to visit the Forbidden City today, so I’ll tag along. I don’t assume they’ll be up for a few more hours, however. Since I landed yesterday, I’ve just been trying to keep up. I don’t know anything about this place yet, but I already enjoy the pace with which Beijing operates. It is simultaneously bustling and calm, modern and ancient. I can’t wait to really sink my fingernails into China.
-c
--I am in Beijing. It’s located in the armpit of China, if you think of China’s arm as having been stumped by Russia during some previous offensive. Or maybe it is in the neck of China, if you think of China as a pregnant woman with morning sickness and a large backpack, vomiting out Korea. In any case it’s a northern city, about 100 km from the Yellow sea, at about the same latitude as Seoul and Portland. It is cooler and less humid than other parts of China, and when I landed, it was 59 degrees and raining. There. Now you know exactly where I am.
--My trip here actually began the moment I turned in my Thesis Prep book on Friday, April 25th at 4 pm. I then had exactly 6 days and 20 hours to prepare for my flight on Friday, May 2nd at 12 noon. It was not enough time. I had almost completely ignored the fact that I was on a path to the other side of the world until some guy in administration tried to pull the 40-page Thesis manuscript from my sweaty, trembling fingers. Holy crap. I’m going to China. My first step was to go home and stare blankly at an empty suitcase. I knew that in a week’s time, it and another would be filled with everything I needed for two months, perfectly organized, labeled, and folded. I pictured it in my mind, ‘full suitcase, full suitcase, full suitcase’. I went to bed. When I awoke, it was still there in the corner, gaping its massive hole at me like a hungry grouper. Five days later, I owned a couple new pairs of pants, a new shirt, new shoes, a haircut, some travel books, a box of power bars, a cavernous, empty, useless, stupid suitcase, and an incurable sense of foreboding. I went to bed.
--I spent the last day in a kind of utter denial that cannot be deterred, beaten down, redirected, permeated, circumvented, or explained. I tried everything I could to make headway. I called all my credit card companies to tell them I was leaving the country. I went to the AT&T store to make sure I could use my phone on another planet. I washed every article of clothing I own. I went out to lunch with my friend. I stared at my big fish in the corner thinking ‘full suitcase, full suitcase, full suitcase’. Nothing worked. At 11 pm, I finally decided that perhaps the best option was to physically start feeding the monster. By hand.
--All night I worked, folding, packing, folding, and packing. I made a list. I checked things off from it. I was like a Gap employee who moonlights as an elf for Santa. Fold, pack, fold, pack. It was glorious. When the sun finally kissed the nestled dew betwixt the bloomed leaves, I was half done and frantic. But somehow, after a full week of procrastination and a full night of stuffing fish, I had a full suitcase just in time to throw everything into the car and head to the airport.
--The flights (I had a quick first leg to SFO) were uneventful. To a fault. When I boarded the Air China 747 to Beijing, I sat down in my window seat next to a nice couple from Livermore, and fell asleep. 5 hours later, I woke up with a start to find I had missed dinner. The nice couple from Livermore thought I looked so peaceful all snoring and drooly, so they decided not to wake me for the meal. What a nice couple from Livermore. I pulled out my book and began to read, but the story didn’t make any sense after a while, because soon I was the protagonist, and I had to run away from somebody, but my feet wouldn’t move. I awoke with a start, having missed, um, what can only be called dinner. Again. They served dinner at about 5 pm Pacific time. Then served almost the exact same thing at about 10 pm Pacific time. I slept again, but managed to awake with a start as they were serving, you guessed it, dinner. At about 3 am Pacific time. By this point I was so utterly confused that I had to keep opening the window shade to see if it was daylight. It was. ALWAYS. By the time we landed, I had to ask the nice couple from Livermore what day it was, and whether it was morning or evening. They patted me kindly on my greasy, tousled hair and stole my dinner.
--The new airport in Beijing is gigantic (ok, we won’t do this again). But seriously, it’s really huge and empty and easy to get around in. Every sign is in English. No problems whatsoever. I went through customs, easy, found my bags, easy, got in the 3 person line for a taxi, easy, and told the driver where I was going. Hard. I finally had to just give him the map and directions and pray. The hotel I’m staying in is just outside of the 2nd ring road (there being a concentric set of 6 ring roads radiating out from the center of the city, which is where the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square sit peacefully). The driver of the cab finally seemed like he knew where he was going. Eventually he turned off the highway for the clearly-marked exits to the 3th and 2th ring roads, which was close enough for me. After a 100km/h shot across the thirth ring road, and a bone-jarringly sharp right onto the secoth ring road, we were there, in front of the hotel. Win! Like a zombie I checked in and turned toward the elevator, shower, and bed. So badly!
--“Chris! Hey! I’m heading next door to the bar to meet up with the people from Michigan! Come on!” Sigh. That was my friend Linda who found me in the lobby. I was able to convince her that putting my full fishes in my room would be a good first move for me, but was not able to convince her that I needed to sleep. After all, it was only 8 pm. What? I don’t know. I’m still having trouble figuring out what time it is here. At that time, my cell phone said it was 4 am, my watch said it was 11 pm, and my computer said it was Friday. This morning I actually had to go online to find out exactly what time it was in Beijing and LA. It’s not just the time change, it’s also the fact that China does not observe Daylight Savings time. Confusing. I finally realized that if I just change the current Beijing time from am to pm, take three hours off, and make it yesterday, its EASY to figure out what time it is in LA (which is where my body still thinks it is). So even though it’s 9:16 am Sunday here, my fingernails think it’s 6:16 pm Saturday. Nevermind. I went to the bar.
--The Michigan people seem nice. After shooting the breeze in The Christmas Bar, decorated with horribly gaudy amounts of tinsel, lights, and fake palm trees (?), we walked and walked and walked to find a fantastic Shabu-Shabu-ish place where we 13 people absolutely stuffed ourselves for 250 Yuan. That translates to approximately $40. Total. With drinks and everything. And I think it was a kind-of-expensive place. Wow. The walk back from the restaurant was fun. We decided to cut through some very authentic local ‘streets’ that were more like ‘sidewalks’ with ‘cars driving on them’ and ‘people thronging’ in the night. It was a perfect introduction to this place. When we finally returned to the hotel, it was past midnight, and they were all going to go upstairs and get dressed to hit the local bars. I went to bed.
--It’s now 9:30 in the morning and I’ve been awake since 6 am. I think people are going to visit the Forbidden City today, so I’ll tag along. I don’t assume they’ll be up for a few more hours, however. Since I landed yesterday, I’ve just been trying to keep up. I don’t know anything about this place yet, but I already enjoy the pace with which Beijing operates. It is simultaneously bustling and calm, modern and ancient. I can’t wait to really sink my fingernails into China.
-c
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