APS_Project

Part 2: Sichuan Province

2007-05-02T23:51:00.000-04:00

(1/27/07) We had already spent eighty six hours riding trains in less than two weeks. We stopped in Xi’an for a day and then decided to just fly to Chengdu. It took us two hours to fly when it would have taken another twenty to ride the train again. We arrived in Chengdu (Sichuan Province) in the evening and rode a taxi into the city. Ben had arranged for us to meet up with his classmate who is a native to Chengdu, and travel with him during our stay. We met his friend, Yuan Fan, at the Chengdu Petroleum Hotel. Yuan Fan’s father works in the petroleum industry and he let us use his VIP card at the hotel. We got a really nice and comfortable hotel room for a really low price of 120 kuai. We went out that night and had a really good Sichuan style dinner. Sichuan is famous for its food, especially its spicy food.

We spent the first day in Chengdu relaxing. Chengdu is known for its laid-back lifestyle and easy-going activities such as playing mahjong (Chinese chess) and sipping tea at its many teahouses. Yuan Fan showed us around downtown and treated us to some Sichuan food. The rest of the day we sat outside with some tea and discussed our plans for the rest of the week.

The next morning, we got up at 7:00 and took a bus to Emei town, about two hours away. We spent the day visiting Leshan Dafu, the largest carved Buddha statue in the world. It was in a park with other various Buddhist statues tucked among green fauna. We experienced really comfortable weather in Sichuan and enjoyed all the green plants. We ate a big dinner that night and went to bed early. Our main event would start the next day, to climb Emei Shan.

It took us two full days to hike up to the top of Emei Shan (Emei Mountain). Forty kilometers straight up, but it was the most fun experience we had on our trip. We started the first day at Emei town, which lies at the bottom of the mountain, and began our ascent from there. Mount Emei is a very well known and visited cultural site in China, and is a sacred spot for Buddhists. The bottom and the top are full of tourists and day walkers. Most people just take the cable cars to the summit, but we were looking for a challenge and some interesting stories. Along the way, the three of us rotated our two backpacks around every hour. One thing that I found amazing was the stone walkway that was built the entire way up through the mountains. Only in China could there be such a construction. The whole two days we hiked, that path never ended, and we just kept following it up.

We started early in the morning and the sun was bright and shining nicely off the green tree canopy. The bottom had an almost subtropical feeling that felt a bit out of place, but comforting. There was an abundance of bamboo maybe reaching higher than thirty feet tall. Small rest stops, temples, and locals spotted the path, but became fewer and fewer the higher the ascent. We had brought food and water for two days worth, but managed to buy food easily along the way.

There was beautiful scenery along the whole way and we simply passed time by talking. We took a rest the first day on the side of a clear, cool mountain stream surrounded by lush green plants. That was very surreal for us, it being January and us coming from Beijing. The first day of hiking, the weather and climate of the mountain was really great. In the afternoon, we came to a wide river stream that cut through a small canyon. It was such a nice place, the Emei monkeys like to hang out there. Emei Shan is famous for its wild monkeys. Since it was winter, most monkey activity was low, but we got our chance to see here. The monkeys here are notorious for harassing visitors by stealing and attacking them. We were always prepared to encounter the monkeys, but I guess they were too cold to come out. Across the next bridge was a big group of monkeys. Lots of travelers crowded cautiously around taking pictures and giving special monkey snacks to them. The monkeys kept climbing on top of the visitors and annoying them, so that’s why there were local people there to help. Men and mostly women, who apparently lived there, stood guard to help people get up the mountain monkey free. Most of them had bamboo sticks, rocks, and slingshots. We crossed the bridge to the monkeys and got a close look at some of them. They were jumping and climbing all over people though. A big monkey king, about four feet tall, latched onto Ben’s leg, and a little monkey climbed on his back. A monkey jumped on the back of my backpack and then hopped off my head and ran away. An old woman guided us through the rest of the monkey pack, pointing her sling shot at any mischievous monkeys that came our way. When they saw her, they backed away with fear. I could see why those monkeys were afraid. Lots of old women were whacking them with bamboo sticks and throwing stones at them. We got back onto the main path and an old man said he should come with us to keep anymore monkeys from bothering us since we were still in their territory. After a while, he said it was okay and went back down.

The rest of the afternoon, we hiked up and up. It only became steeper and we were climbing on all fours most of the time. We enjoyed it though, and just took in the sights of the mountains. At about 6:30 P.M., we started seeing snow and ice. Luckily, we had arrived at our rest stop for the night. It was a Buddhist monastery that also offered housing for mountain travelers. It was snowy and cold now. When we got to the monastery, the people outside welcomed us and invited us to eat in their little restaurant outside. We had a good dinner and then went to our room. It was a really small room, white walls, two beds, a small table, and a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. We soaked our feet in hot water and warmed our beds. The beds had electric blankets. This wouldn’t be the first time the electric blanket would save us from spending a freezing night, like we did in Tibet.

Around 6:00 A.M. the next morning, we woke up to the sounds of somber bells and chanting from the courtyard outside. We got out of bed to the freezing cold air soon after, put on our warm clothes, and trudged our way outside to the stone cold bathrooms. Our friend, Yuan Fan, didn’t sleep well that night so he slept in while me and Ben went out to explore. We heard about a cave nearby the monastery and went to search for it along a snowy path. The mountain was completely silent and blanketed in a white, cold snow. It was very calm and strange. There were no other people around either. Me and Ben followed a couple of paths to find the cave. We passed a silent shrine on a peak, and then followed the path along the cliff side until we found the cave. Old, colorful sutra flags were fluttering in the wind around the cave entrance. It was deserted at the time, so we just went in. It was completely dark. A stone stairway led us down further into the pitch black cave. We used the light of Ben’s cell phone and my key chain flashlight to guide our way. It was just enough. We got down to the bottom, and found one small light shining. We found a shrine to some Buddhist deity that was nicely arranged and cleaned. Nothing we hadn’t seen before, but it was more fun to find it at the bottom of a cave. We found another path behind the shrine and followed it until it ended with an iron gate and a warning sign. I think they put the dead monks down there behind that gate. We climbed back out of the cave after taking some pictures, and made our way back to the monastery to meet Yuan Fan and continue up the mountain.

There was ice and snow the rest of the way up to the top. We bought iron spikes from the locals and attached them to the bottoms of our shoes. We hiked and hiked like the first day, but had to be careful not to slip on the ice. We didn’t pass very many people the second day since conditions were not very favorable. We stopped to eat our packed lunch outside an abandoned rest stop. Signs kept warning of wild monkeys, but it was too cold for them to come. We kept our sticks at the ready though. We had a lot of fun the second day and enjoyed the great sights and snowy mountain peaks. That afternoon, we started to reach the top. We could see the tourist crowds in the distance. There was a cable car, bus station, restaurants, hotels, and souvenir shops near the peak. It was disappointing to see after so much work to reach the top, but we just kept climbing past it. Most of the other people were surprised when they realized we actually liked to hike the whole mountain. In the evening, we finally reached a little hotel at the peak. It was a normal hotel, but freezing cold. We ate dinner in a freezing cold room, then went back to our room, turned on our electric blankets, and sat in our beds the rest of the evening.

We woke up early the next morning to see the sunrise. We went to the very top, but it was too cloudy that morning. The sunrise at Emei Shan is famous for its beauty. The peak is above the clouds, and sometimes it appears like you are standing in the sky. We got a wonderful view over the mountain range we had just hiked though, and it was still great. We had hiked forty kilometers through the mountains, and had seen sub tropical climate change to snowy evergreens. We took the bus back down the mountain and immediately caught a bus back to Chengdu. We got back to our nice hotel that afternoon and rested up.
We celebrated the end of our climb by eating Sichuan style hot pot. Hot pot is basically a big pot of hot water and oil, and then you stick various pieces of food inside to cook it. Sichuan style hot pot is full of spices though and in my opinion is much better than hot pot from the north.

The next few days we decided to visit various places around Chengdu, but most of our attempts failed due to getting lost or having to use the poor transportation system. The public buses were the most troublesome we had seen before. Twice, we got stuck with taking the inefficient bus. First, you would have to buy your ticket at the bus station and then wait for the bus to completely fill up with people before departing. The drivers usually took bumpy back roads that just slowed things down. The bus workers must have tried to make as much money out of one trip as possible. Whenever somebody got off the bus, they would keep stopping along the road to fill up the bus again. This stopping and going would continue the entire way, and double the time it took to get anywhere. So, if you go to Sichuan, be wary of taking the standard buses.

So, the last few days in Sichuan province were uneventful. We basically just tried to enjoy as much good food as possible before we left. We said goodbye to our friend Yuan Fan and continued south on our way to Yunnan province.

请等一下

2007-03-31T07:43:00.000-04:00

I’m currently working on Part 2 of my travelogue. Sorry to make everyone wait.

I recently moved out of my old place living with the Chinese family, and now live by myself in an apartment about five minutes walk from my school. I pay 3000 ($375) kuai a month for a three room apartment. It came furnished, and is very comfortable. I put up some pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsumerall/sets/72157600038174533/

Part One - Tibet

2007-03-09T22:39:00.000-05:00

The sun was coming up over the mountains as we woke up on the rattling train. The night before, we left Beijing and began our trip to Lhasa, Tibet. We had already traveled a long way. We were near Xi’an in Shaanxi province, the old western capital. Our train ride would take approximately forty eight hours from Beijing. Only our excitement kept people sane, I think. Most passengers around us had never been to Tibet before, and you could tell they were excited to see so many new things. It made it easier to get along, and we just shared conversation and food to pass the time. The train was quite new and comfortable. It had English translations, ambient music, clean services, sink and bathroom areas, and some power outlets. It was used for high altitude trips, and each bed is equipped with a little oxygen outlet. We had the hard-sleepers with six beds to a room. I had a bottom bunk and my friend Ben had the one above it. So, we could just sit on the bottom during the day, and didn’t have to fight for a chair in the hallway. We were in good company too. Two Tibetan girls sat across from us and a business woman who liked to give us food. She said she admired me and Ben’s appetites, and wished she could eat as much. We got a lot of information from the Tibetan girls. They taught us some Tibetan words that might be useful, and gave us some tips on travel. At 9:00 A.M. we stopped in Xi’an station, and then shortly continued westward.

The landscape became very arid and cold. That afternoon, we traveled through some mountainous terrain with lots of tunnels. All the mountain sides had been carved up like a flight of stairs for farming reasons. I couldn’t imagine there being any crops on those mountains though. It was very dry and rough. The West of China is truly poor. This was the first time I got to see it for real though. There were some old, communist looking cities along the tracks. Transportation and people for that matter were very sparse. Old cave dwellings covered the mountain sides. People inhabited these caves about fifty years ago. People may not live in these caves anymore, but these people are still very poor. At 4:00 P.M. we stopped in Lanzhou of Gansu province. We got to step outside the train for about ten minutes to stretch and get a breath of fresh air. From where we were, Lanzhou looked run down and poor for a large city. It felt deserted and was eerily quiet.

At about 6:00 P.M. we entered Qinghai province, which is adjacent to Tibet Autonomous Region. We were still only about half way through the trip though. We stopped in Xiding, the capital of Qinghai. Xiding marks the beginning of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, which is the world’s highest altitude railway. As the sun lowered, our train began to enter the hinterlands.

The next morning I woke up at around 7:30 and got cleaned up and ready by 8:00. It was still pitch black outside. The train staff came around and passed out air tubes to passengers in case they were feeling bad. You could stick the little tube into the oxygen vent. We were still in Qinghai province that morning. We were in a very remote area, and not a single light could be found outside the train. We were traveling south as the sun rose to our east over the snowy mountains. The sunlight gave the mountains a blue aura and it was very pristine. By 9:00 A.M. it was light outside. The sun was shining with all its glory. No pollution or clouds to block it here. The sky was a brilliant blue and totally unspoiled. The train passed through flat mountain valleys. We spotted some groups of Tibetan antelope, wild donkeys, and yak that morning. They would become a common sight the closer we got to Lhasa. We spent most of the day just looking out the windows. That afternoon, we passed Co Na Lake, the highest freshwater lake in the world. It was completely frozen though. We could tell we were getting closer to civilization as small settlements and herders showed up outside. Not much further.

We arrived at the Lhasa station around 9:00 P.M. that night. We got a taxi to the city for forty kuai, which took about twenty minutes. Lhasa was all lit up and we could see it from the distance with the Potala Palace hovering above it all. The city lies tucked in between the mountains, and we made a big loop around the mountain side to get into the city. The first thing I noticed was how small and low the buildings were. The roads didn’t have that busy, loud feeling like in the East. There are few visitors to Tibet in the winter, so we got a hotel room for half price (140 kuai). We could feel the difference in the oxygen level. It gave a slight dizzy feeling that night. It usually takes a day or two to adjust and get used to the altitude.

The next day, I got up at 9:00 as the sun rose over the mountains, making the Potala shimmer. We walked to the Potala Palace (Budalagong). It only took about five minutes. Pilgrims were circling the perimeter in a clockwise fashion that morning while spinning their prayer wheels, and murmuring sutras. We took in the sight of the palace before we went inside. We had to climb the hill to the entrance. We had to stop every minute to catch our breath. We bought tickets and went inside. It was dark and smelled old. It’s a really magnificent structure, and is filled with relics and treasures of the Tibetan people. Most of the people inside were pilgrims giving respects and prayers to various deities. Tibetan Buddhism is such a mystery to me, and it was hard to appreciate all the things I was looking at. Everything had some kind of meaning, but I was only seeing the surface.

The weather felt nice so we spent some time walking around and then found some lunch. It was the middle of January but it wasn’t very cold. The mornings and nights were cold, but in the afternoon the sun was so strong we didn’t even need a coat. We just sat and watched the people for a while. Lhasa is maybe 85% Tibetan people and 15% Han Chinese people. The Tibetan people look different. They have darker skin, and straighter noses. They don’t tend to wash their hair, which is usually long. People tend to wear colorfully decorated clothing common to Tibet. Women wear colorful jewelry sometimes, and put beads in their hair. The sun is so strong so many people wear wide brimmed cowboy hats. Some women walk around carrying their babies in a bundle on their backs.

That day, we went to the Jokhang Monastery. It’s another holy place in Lhasa, but it’s also become the heart of the cities commercialism. Outside the monastery gates, pilgrims prostrate themselves on the ground throughout the day, and circle around like at the Potala. The Bharkor Bazaar also encircles the monastery selling just about everything you could imagine being in Tibet. Most of the merchandise is fake and incredibly overpriced for foreigners though. You have to bargain hard to get an honest price. I admit I just got fed up with some salespeople and bought things without trying hard enough for a decent price. We payed a monk at the monastery for tickets and went inside to take a look. It was similar to the Potala Palace. It had interesting architecture, and relics, but we couldn’t really appreciate its meaning. It was just a nice sight. After the Jokhang, we wandered around for about two hours and then had dinner. A bike cart driver first showed us a little teahouse that he said we should try. It was just a crummy little place. It was dark, dirty, and everyone sat around on some filthy sofas. It was only local Tibetan people so we stayed for a drink. The locals inside were so puzzled when two outsiders came to sit. We got a thermos of Tibetan sweet tea for one kuai. So, we enjoyed our short stay there, and then left to find some food. We found a restaurant nearby the monastery. I got a big thermos of Tibetan butter tea. It tastes like a mild butter but is thin like tea. It was very good and is a famous Tibetan drink. Ben doesn’t like milk so I had to drink the whole thing. The food was just alright though. We never found really god food during our stay in Tibet. There are too many foreigners in Lhasa and too many restaurants catering to foreign tourists. It’s hard to find anything authentic. People there were usually surprised when I spoke some Chinese to them. I think they’re used to seeing the newbie tourists who are always catered to. After being in China for a while those people get annoying even though we’ve all been there at some point. Many Tibetan people can speak at least a few English words. People always said “hello” to me as I passed by. Shopkeepers said, “Hello, lookie, lookie!” Other people say, “Hello, how are you doing?” and “I love yoouuuuu!”

The next day, we went back to the Bhaarkor Market, and I bought some souvenirs and a wide brimmed hat to keep off the sun. After shopping, we paid a visit to the Norbulinka horticulture gardens, which was disappointing. The tickets were expensive, upward of one hundred kuai, and there was really nothing unique to see. It was a large, walled in garden complex with some temples. There were no unique plants and nothing of real interest. If you happen to visit Lhasa in the spring or summer time it might be worth a visit, but still probably not. The rest of the day was rather uneventful. We just wandered around the city and relaxed at the hotel.

The next day we decided to take a bus to a different city to the southwest of Lhasa named Rekaze (Shigatse in English). At the bus station, a crowd surrounded us asking to take us on their bus. We agreed to go with one group, and paid one hundred kuai for two tickets. It’s illegal for foreigners to travel outside of Lhasa without a certified guide (which are really expensive), and illegal to travel along with the Tibetan people, but we took the chance. If the police find you, the worst they can do is give a small fine and sent you back to Lhasa. So, the driver quickly ushered me onto the bus, and sat me at the very back. The bus was full of Tibetans and a few Chinese. Definitely, the most uncomfortable bus ride, but it was worth it in the end. We were in the back with our legs crammed up against the seats in front of us. The ride would take about four hours. Once the bus was full of people, we set off. We drove for about thirty minutes when a Tibetan man came and told me to keep low since we were coming to a police checkpoint. I just put my hat low over my face as we approached. We passed through without any problems, and continued on. The landscape was mountainous and arid the whole way. The road followed a sparkling river the whole way through the mountains. The road was new and quite good, but still dangerous. It was narrow, had sharp turns, and avalanches seemed commonplace. Fallen rocks blocked half the road in a few places. The highway was dotted with small villages. It was very different from Lhasa. Most of these people lived in small wood and brick homes with flat roofs. Some are stuccoed or painted white and have very colorful details painted on them. Every hour or so, we would take a break and get off the bus. Everyone would just go across the road and take a piss on the side of someone’s house or restaurant, and then shuffle back onto the bus. We kept going further to what seemed like nowhere. There was very little along the highway now. The landscape became more and more arid with a few sand dunes even. At one point, a group of smiling Tibetans blocked the road and started throwing dirt at the bus. It was a friendly act. A Tibetan guy next to us said it is a custom to throw dirt on your clothes to grant safe travels.

At 3:30 P.M. we arrived in Rekaze and quickly walked to a nearby hotel. The people at the hotel welcomed us warmly. Again, there were no problems with a foreigner being there. We got a hotel room for eighty kuai. It was good, except that it was freezing cold. Apparently, that day was a small festival day in Rekaze. We decided to go out and see some things. We decided to walk to the Jashilunpo monastery. It was actually being rebuilt and closed down. It was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. We walked about thirty minutes. I saw a lot of empty police cars along the way, but no cops. Lucky it was a festival day. Some little children were excited to see me and helped us find the entrance to the monastery. They told us to walk up the hill. A flock of sheep came ambling down as we took in the view of the city. All the buildings were very small and low. It was much more authentic than Lhasa. We walked up a big hill to get to the entrance. A Tibetan dog stood guard there ready to kill, but it was chained down. We found the construction foreman and he let us go inside the monastery to look. There was nothing to see, but again we got a great view. We found a Muslim family restaurant near our hotel and had some dinner and then went back to the hotel. That night, I had to wear three pairs of pants, shirts, socks, and my coat, but it was still freezing.

The next morning, we got up early to catch a bus back to Lhasa. I jumped on the bus and waited for it to fill up with passengers. Lucky we went the day before because, that morning police were swarming all over the place. We eventually filled up and left Rekaze. Its 280 kilometers drive to and from Lhasa. Another four hours, but it wasn’t bad.

We got back to Lhasa uneventfully and immediately went to buy train tickets to our next destination. We couldn’t get tickets straight to Chengdu and would have had to wait a week so we bought tickets to Xi’an instead. We spent another day in Lhasa just relaxing, and then left the next morning.

The Tibetan people are very friendly and down-to-earth. They live very naturally and their culture is very spiritually based. I can hardly begin to understand their complicated culture, but I gained a good impression of the Tibetan people when I was there. Tibet is technically a part of China, which was “liberated” in 1951, but is really nothing like China. Chinese business, government control, and language are the only major signs of Chinese presence in Tibet. Go outside of Lhasa and it’s less and less like China.

I'm back from my travels.

2007-02-24T21:14:00.000-05:00

I returned last week from thirty five days of travelling around China. I visited nine cities including: Lhasa, Rikaze, Xi'an, Chengdu, Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Shangrila, and Shanghai. It's going to take me time to write about it so until then, I've uploaded all my best photos for you to see. You can see them all here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsumerall/sets/72157594551347823/

Concrete Jungle

2006-12-30T03:29:00.000-05:00

Every day I walk about a mile and a half to go to my university campus. It takes me about thirty minutes to go this distance. Most people take some speedy way of transportation to get to school, but I prefer to walk. On this mile and a half stretch of road one can see all of Beijing summed up in a nutshell.

I start off from my place at 7:40 every morning. As soon as I step out the door, the air of the cold, cement stairwell hits me. It’s like breathing in fumes of burning coal. The temperature is usually below freezing in the morning this time of year so I wear a lot of clothing. The cold and the air just bite at you to get walking faster.

I pass out the gate of the apartment complex and turn right onto the sidewalk. I just continue walking straight all the way to my school. The sidewalk is very wide and allows for easy moving. People will mostly walk on it, but lots of bikes, motorcycles, and cars take to the sidewalks for shortcuts around road traffic sometimes. People won’t hesitate to park cars in the middle of the sidewalks either. The first two months I was here in Beijing, a brand new sidewalk was built all the way from my place to the school. There used to be holes and loose bricks everywhere, so it’s much nicer now. The new sidewalk has already been well worn in. I usually walk with my eyes scanning the ground in front of me so I can dodge the freezing spit and mucus and other trash on the ground. My friend told me Beijing is one of the dirtiest cities in the world. I wasn’t too sure, but sometimes it really seems that way. Chinese people have some of the dirtiest habits, especially spitting everywhere.

I usually see some of the same people walking in the mornings, but there really are so many people here. The street vendors are always out carting around roasted chestnuts, which taste like dirt, and other fruits and breakfast snacks. Sometimes I see the horse drawn carts coming in from the countryside carrying various building materials or vegetables. There are usually about six horses, each pulling a cart loaded with supplies and a few farmers. They just go along with the cars and bicycles. I pass by the next apartment complex, where lots of foreigners live. The illegal taxis hang out here to mooch off the foreigners’ money. They stopped asking if I wanted a ride a long time ago though. The drivers just stand out in the cold most of the day smoking and playing Chinese chess under the bridge.

The migrant workers are usually scuffling around in their big, green army coats. Lots of older people wear aged military outfits that aren’t used anymore, which gives a really communist feeling in contrast to the more stylish, young people’s clothing. There are usually about three homeless people that lay on the freezing sidewalk all day begging for money. I don’t know how they can actually survive sometimes. The trash collectors come riding along in the morning too. They usually ride a bicycle with a little motor and a cart on the back and they’ll pack as much stuff onto it as possible. It’s unbelievable how much they can get onto their little carts sometimes. I’ve seen a few piles of bags stacked almost ten feet tall and strapped on with ropes. They just ride along with their big tower of trash swaying back and forth. There are a lot of things going on along the road, and it’s very loud and smoggy sometimes. People honk their horns all the time here and won’t think twice about honking their horn right in your face.

Most of the people are on their way to work of course. Grandmothers are usually taking their grandchildren to school. The grandmothers ride their bikes and the little kids just sit on the back holding on tight as they weave through traffic. The Korean students are usually speeding to school on their mopeds, and the salary workers are either running after a bus or hailing a cab. The elderly people usually walk in the mornings and sometimes bring their dogs for a stroll.

This piece of street gives a good impression of most of Beijing. The whole city is pretty much gray, dirty, and loud, especially in the winter. It’s sometimes named the “concrete jungle” by foreigners because of its wild and dismal atmosphere.

A Chinese Christmas

Along with capitalism and commercialism comes Santa Claus to the cities of China. Some Chinese people like to try and celebrate for Christmas. They just don’t really know how. I think most people believe Christmas to be on the 24th of December. One of my American friends had an argument with a Chinese person that thought Christmas Eve was actually Christmas day. I was out on Christmas Eve and the streets and restaurants were busy through the night with revelry. Some people had a little too much excitement I think. On Christmas morning the streets were marked with a rare silence and frozen barf. I get the feeling most Chinese people can’t hold their alcohol very well. Lots of shops and restaurants had some basic Christmas decorations and carols to welcome customers too. All the workers wore Santa hats for the time before Christmas. The image of Christmas in Beijing that stuck most is the random old guy on his moped smoking his cigarette with a big frown on his face and wearing a big, red Santa hat.

Spit On What?

Chinese people really like to spit. It’s so bad, the Chinese government has to put up signs and remind people not to spit on the ground. Most young generations don’t have such a habit though. Except for the nicer places in downtown Beijing, you will always see people spit on the ground. They always first clear their throats really loudly and sometimes obnoxiously before they stain the ground with their mucus bombs. I don’t really know why people always spit. Lots of old, senile people just like to spit whenever foreigners walk by to express their feelings.

I always eat lunch with one of my Chinese friends at my school’s dining hall. One day we were eating lunch, and I had to spit out some meat that had a piece of cartilage in it. I put it back on my plate and he said that was really disgusting to put it back on my plate. I asked him what I should do if I need to spit out some bad food. He said to me that it would be much more sanitary to spit out food onto the table or on the floor. He said it was more sanitary because nobody eats food off the table or the floor, but the plate should not be touched by any germs from somebody’s mouth. I thought that was really weird, but an interesting cultural difference.

Things have been really slow here lately. The recent earthquake knocked out my internet, but it speeds up a little bit everyday. I had some photos to show with this post, but my connection is still too slow to upload them. I have two weeks of school left now. I plan to leave for vacation on January 16th. I'll start by going to Tibet for about a week, then to Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guangxi Provinces for the next three or four weeks. Look forward to a lot of stories from my travels.

China: Transformation Or Mutation?

2006-12-09T07:18:00.000-05:00

China is truly going through a major transformation and I am starting to believe most Chinese people are having a hard time keeping up with the quick change. Beijing is full of contrasts: new, decrepit; rich, poor; knowledge, ignorance; traditional, and modern. Most people here over the age of forty are still scarred by the hard times of the Cultural Revolution and seem to still carry a heavy burden from those times. Half of Beijing seems to be filled with people still living in the past and not accepting the future. The younger generations are now adapting to the modern China though, but most young Chinese still grew up in a very different time and place. Through my friends and host family I’ve been able to see part of this transformation from old to new Chinese lifestyle.

The father of the household, where I live, is a thirty year old, college educated IT specialist, who grew up in Hebei province near Beijing. I think he’s a good example of how Chinese people are adapting to the new China. When he returns from his work, he can often be seen coming in the door with his laptop and hanging up his coat and pants before setting down for dinner. My friend says I live with a “real” Chinese family because the father will just take off his pants in the living room because he says it’s a bit warm in the house. His apartment has a personal computer in one corner, a nice, large flat screen TV in the center, and a little statue of Mao Zedong to top it all off. It seems like the flat screen TV is becoming an important asset to the modern Chinese family. I don’t think they’ve given much thought to their interior design either, and things are usually left messy for the maid to clean up later. Sometimes it’s like they’re still living on the farm. To some foreigners here they just can’t quite understand why Chinese people still act this way and it maybe doesn’t fit their definition of “civilized.” Chinese people use the things they have in a different way from most Western people. They usually just don’t know how to take advantage of the “modern” lifestyle the way most foreigners do, and just live the same way they have always known.

Most of my Chinese friends have had college education yet they still know very little about the rest of the world. I was having dinner with the family this week and the grandmother asked if all foreigners ate with chopsticks. The father didn’t really know either and we started naming every country we knew where people used chopsticks. He seemed surprised when I told him Europeans did not use them, and Japanese people did. If you ask most Chinese people about a foreign country you’ll probably just get a very textbook answer. If somebody talks about Americans, they will almost certainly mention Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, and Bill Gates. This week, my Chinese friend said he really admired Clinton because he thought he was really tall like Yao Ming. He said he really liked Nixon too because he met with Mao Zedong to mend relations between the US and China. He said he really didn’t like Bush because he attacked Iraq. He said he admired Mao the most of all, and admired Chou Enlei the second most even though he probably didn’t know Chou Enlei was marked as a traitor to Mao and killed by Mao’s Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. Fabricated history is just annoying because it makes everyone sound like a hypocrite or just dumb.

Lotus Charity Excursion

2006-11-21T07:20:00.000-05:00

Not much interesting happening these days, but I'm keeping very busy. I've been spending a lot of time at the gym, and planning for my winter vacation starting in January. Nothing is final yet, but I'm hoping to travel to Tibet and down through southern China for about five weeks during the holiday.

A few weeks ago, I joined the Lotus Educational Foundation to travel to a senior center in Hebei province, outside Beijing, to do charity work. Some fellow students, the Lotus staff, and many Chinese volunteers took a coach bus to the small village. It took about two hours to travel to the location. The senior center was for poor, senior Chinese men with no families to live. It was actually an old school and was in bad condition. The living standards were very poor. We visited inside the men’s living quarters to chat with them and help them clean things up. The floors were cold cement, there was no heating, usually one light bulb hanging from the ceiling, no running water, flies everywhere, and not even a real door to keep out the hard winds. They each had a small bed frame and a thin mattress to sleep on. Most of the men were in their seventies or eighties and could barely get around, let alone fix up their places. One old man, who seemed quite healthy, had managed to cover up his whole window with a tarp to keep out the winds. There were lots of volunteers who came to perform different tasks. Some doctors came and used Chinese medicine to help the men. They performed examinations, and they put little pins in their ears because I think the ear has many important points in acupuncture. Most of the volunteers were Buddhists from various places or groups who do this type of work on a normal basis. The people were all given vegetarian steamed buns for lunch. It’s like a soft roll filled with veggies. It’s a popular staple food in China though usually they are filled with meat. After the supplies were handed out, we said goodbye and got back on the bus, which was now full of flies buzzing around. It was an interesting trip. A good experience for the Thanksgiving and holiday season too. After we returned to Beijing, we were served a feast of vegetarian food by the Lotus Foundation in a fancy restaurant. It’s just amazing to see how easy things can go from dirt poor to being extravagant in China these days. It’s like this almost everywhere I’ve been so far.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsumerall/sets/72157594385655072/

Beijing is getting cold...

2006-10-31T08:32:00.000-05:00

It’s the end of October now and it’s quite cold here. I don’t have a thermometer so I don’t really know the temperature though. People say it’s going to get very cold here too. My home is always freezing cold in the mornings and nights since the heat isn’t turned on until November 15th. I don’t know how it works, but everyone in this district will get their heating beginning on that day. Along with the cold weather come new inconveniences too. Our shower does not have hot water. Maybe one out of every ten times it has some warm water. So that just adds to the cold feeling.

I joined the gym at my school. It’s a decent gym with everything a normal gym in the United States would have, but it’s smaller and compacted into two narrow rooms. I think working out at the gym or just working out at all is a new concept in China. It’s like playing golf is in America. It seems to mostly be the well off Chinese people with spare time and extra money that join the gym. The gym I joined is a bit different though since it’s located on my school’s campus. It’s mostly foreigners who go there.

I’m beginning to lose taste for most of the food the family cooks. We usually eat the same few dishes every week and they aren’t very good. Every once in a while they make something nice, but then it might be something not so nice in my opinion. The family served pig feet and pig tail this week, which wasn’t appetizing to me at all. The father of the family said he loved to eat it. I couldn’t tell if it even had any meat on it or if it was just fat. It was kind of like gelatin. Most of the meat they serve is just a bone with a small bit of meat and fat on it. There’s so little of anything on the bone it looks like it’s already been eaten by somebody. We did have chicken and chicken broth soup this week though, which I thought tasted good.

I’ve tried to eat out in restaurants more these days since I need more to eat now that I’m exercising again. We have quite a few restaurants around here. Most restaurants serve the same foods, but some might cook one thing better than another. The standard restaurant around here is just an open room with tables and chairs. No crazy decorations like T.G.I. Fridays or Chili’s restaurants. Most of the time the restaurant walls are just bare. They seem very practical. Service is usually much better than American restaurants. The restaurant workers always seem to take their jobs seriously and are always polite. There’s no such thing as tipping in China either. I’ve recently come to realize that Chinese food isn’t really that healthy. There are a lot more vegetables, but they are always cooked or fried in grease. I think almost every dish I’ve had is greasy and oily. It’s surprising that people don’t get fat though. I’ve definitely not gained any weight since I’ve been here. The restaurants are always very fast in serving your food. It usually never takes more than ten minutes to have all your food. Usually, most restaurants will give you a pot of tea free of charge to go with your meal too.

This Friday, I decided to check out the Halloween party put on by BLCU’s English Association. The party wasn’t fun though. Maybe three people dressed up in costumes. It’s understandable though. Chinese people just don’t understand the concept of Halloween. They did have a jack-o-lantern and some pizza though. Most forms of Chinese entertainment are just something I don’t understand yet. It usually just involves a host talking a lot. I mean a lot. It seems like Chinese people can just keep talking forever if they want to. Eventually they put on music and nobody even danced to it, except the foreign guy who dressed up as a vampire. He won the costume contest too since he was the only one that really dressed up.

That night, I was walking down the street to a restaurant on campus and I noticed a person singing in front of me. He bumped shoulders with some guy that walked past him like it was nothing. I wasn’t sure what was up with this guy. We both ended up walking onto the campus and he said in perfect English “Hey man. Where are you from?” I told him I was from the United States. He said he was a nomad from Tibet. That explained why he looked so different from normal Beijingers. He was shorter, had darker skin, long hair, and wore a bandana around his head. He was a real Tibetan who lived a nomadic life before coming to Beijing to study English. I haven’t met anyone in China who spoke English as well as he did. I told him I really wanted to see Tibet sometime. He told me to skip the main city of Lhasa since it’s turned into more of a tourist destination these days. He said to travel outside to find the authentic culture. We talked for about ten minutes before he had to go. It was the most interesting conversation I’ve had with anyone in China so far, but I won’t write about it here. It was mostly about how Tibetan culture is being ruined by the influx of people to the region, how it’s becoming a money making thing now, and so on. Hopefully I’ll run into him again sometime because I have a lot of questions to ask him. After speaking with him, I want to go to Tibet even more now. It’s a three day train ride though, and most people don’t speak Chinese there.

Saturday, Ben and I went to a big electronics store so he could buy a palm pilot. We walked for about an hour before we got there. It was a new multiple story building filled with electronics of every kind. I decided to take a look around the store as Ben talked with the salespeople. I didn’t step more than five meters before salespeople accosted me with words I didn’t understand. Me and Ben were the only foreigners in the store, and I couldn’t escape people trying to show me things and sell something to me. One saleslady, who spoke English, kept asking me if I wanted to buy a computer. I kept saying I didn’t need a computer. Then she asked if I had any friends who needed a computer. I told her my friends didn’t need a computer either. Then she kept asking if I was positive they didn’t need a computer. I kept telling her I was positive they didn’t need one. Then she got the idea I wasn’t interested in buying a computer and walked away. I couldn’t take a close look at anything because of all the distracting people. I did notice that some good up-to-date electronics could be bought for a cheaper price here than the United States though. I couldn’t stand all the haggling so I just left the store and waited outside for Ben. He ended up getting a nice palm pilot for about $150.

After the electronics store, we went to an Indian food restaurant. It was a very nice, little restaurant. It was authentic Indian food, and the head cook even took our order. We started speaking in Chinese to him but he spoke English. It was pricey compared to a normal meal but it was worth it. I think I spent six dollars for my meal. The food was better than most Indian food I’ve had in the United States.

After lunch, we went to play pool at a pool hall near the train station. This area is called Wudaokou and is like a Korean town. I’ve been to Wudaokou lots of times, but I never really realized how many Koreans are here until now. We took an elevator to the fourth floor of a new building overlooking the subway station. I think the pool hall was Korean run, and the signs were even in Korean. We paid a lot of money for one hour of pool. Maybe we each paid five dollars. It was a nice room though, with flat screen TV’s, couches, internet connection, and soft drink machines.

The pool hall is next to the school Ben attends in the evenings. Ben saw his usual cab driver outside, so we got a ride in his illegal taxi. I don’t know what the deal is with illegal taxis here. They’re illegal, but they like to attract more attention that normal cabs. Outside my apartment complex, about ten of them sit there all day long, and the drivers just play board games. Anyway, we started off driving back home on the wrong side of the road against the traffic. I guess it was easier than making a U-turn at the next intersection twenty meters in front of us. Nobody cared at all though. I guess I’ve never seen it done but its normal. I wasn’t surprised at all when we started driving off the road along the side of a construction site. The driver just chuckled and said “No cars here” as we weaved around open manholes in the road. It was kind of fun, except when you remember that nobody in China wears a seatbelt. If you get in a cab and put on your seatbelt, you might just insult the driver or get a weird look. Nobody drives any faster than twenty miles an hour in Beijing though.

Trip to Dalian

2006-10-14T05:01:00.000-04:00

Here’s my story from my trip to Dalian. It took me a lot longer to get this written and posted than I thought it would. It was another six day school week, and I was sick for one day. I actually spent a lot of free time watching “Prison Break” on my computer, which I finally finished today. After reading, you can see some of my photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsumerall/sets/72157594317651634/

This week for the National Day holiday, my Chinese friend named Ben and I traveled to Dalian. We took a twelve hour train ride to get there. I could describe the train ride in about a sentence, but I think the experience is worth saying something more about. We bought tickets late that week before we left, so the tickets we had were only valid for about a fifth of the distance to Dalian. We planned to pay the rest of the fare when we were on the train. This is a common thing to do in China. The train was a two story carrier with comfortable seats and air conditioning. In most cases, four to six people sit facing each other with a small table in between and about two feet of leg room to share. Its sounds like a cramped situation, but that’s only the beginning of it. The train quickly filled up and we started off. For the first two hours, we played cards with some other Chinese students who sat across from us. After that, it was about 8:30 PM and we were just getting started. Our tickets ran out at this time, and we paid the rest of the ticket fare. There were no empty seats left on the train though. So we stood in the aisle with the other stragglers. The aisles were about two feet wide so we were constantly moving back and forth letting people walk through. We stood for about one hour until we came to the next train stop. Some people got off the train and we grabbed their seats. We had a snack and a little rest for about an hour. The next stop, we had to get up and give the seats to the new passengers who bought those seats. By now, the train was packed with people and there was hardly anything to even lean against. We stood for about four hours in the aisle. People kept walking back and forth through the train so we never got more than two minutes of rest. It was the middle of the night, and people were sleeping all over the stairs and on the floors and aisles. You couldn’t really move around. We just sat on the floor when we got a chance. We got lucky though. At about 2:30 AM, Ben talked to a conductor and there were some beds available at the front of the train. We paid some extra money, and then made our way to the bed car. We lugged our bags over our heads through the people scattered all through the train cars. We finally made it to the bed cars and got a seat outside a room. In the bed cars, it was quiet and the lights were turned off. One of the train staff said we could wait about thirty minutes to get a bed. So we waited and got beds at about 3:30 AM. We slept until about 6:00 AM and arrived in Dalian shortly after.

Dalian is quite different from Beijing. Most of the buildings are lower and places aren’t so cramped. Some of the architecture has a Russian influence to it also. There are far fewer people and nobody in Dalian rides a bike for some reason. Unlike Beijing, there are very few foreigners so sometimes I got a lot of attention.

We found a hotel off the main road with a good rate. It was right on the seaside and our room had a great view over the water. The hotel was located in a rather poor area of town but it felt very safe, and it was really peaceful at night. The hotel we were staying in was one special for Chinese military personnel who are in the area. Anybody could stay there though. I found it really odd when the hotel staff never asked to see my passport too. Anyway, it was a good deal. We got a decent room and it had a bathroom and a shower. The shower was good the first day, but continued to act up after that. One day, there would be no cold water, the next day no hot water, or just freezing water and blazing hot water. We got three nights for about one hundred American dollars. A high price for my budget, but it was the best we could find. I think the only other option would have been to live in a hole in the ground for about twenty kuai a night. Ben encouraged me to spend as little as possible, but I refused this time.

We arrived in Dalian at about six in the morning so we had that whole day to spend. After we got the hotel room and took a rest, we went to a university to meet one of Ben’s friends from his old high school. We had some lunch and then spent the day at the aquarium. I was surprised how nice the aquarium was. I would rank it up with many large aquariums in America. We got to see some dolphin and seal shows as well, which were really good. One thing I know, is that you can find really good performances in China for almost nothing compared to the price you’d pay in the U.S. for the same thing, and usually the performances here are much better. After the aquarium we got some dinner and went downtown to the square. There’s a huge square, larger than Tiananmen Square, and it’s really nice. The weather was nice and cool that night too. We walked around and looked at the convention center, and fancy apartment buildings. Then we walked up to the top of the castle to get a view over the square. I don’t know why they built a castle there, but it looked good, I thought. Since it was the holiday, lots of people were celebrating in the square and it was a fun atmosphere. Beside the square, there’s a giant bowl shaped thing made of cement, almost like a giant skateboard half pipe. It was kind of fun because the surfaces were smooth enough to slide all the way down on your bottom.

The second day turned out to be rather boring. We went to a place called Ocean World, which was a big attraction in Dalian. I didn’t find it to be entertaining, but the people there sure must have. I couldn’t understand how people were entertained at all at some of the attractions there, but this is China. There’s nothing comparative to Six Flags here. To an American like me, it seems like Chinese people are very easily entertained, but theme parks are a new concept in China. There was one roller coaster, which we decided was more trouble to get on than it was worth. It was one of those coasters that splashes into the water at the end, and they made everyone wear ponchos and plastic pants so they wouldn’t get wet. Kind of ironic considering the fun is getting wet, and it was hot that day. There were lots of games you might find at a fair. Like shoot the balloons five feet in front of you and win a prize. They had bumper cars too, and a crappy old destroyer warship, which they made into a hotel. The park was clean though, but I won’t even begin to describe the restrooms. We decided to take the cable car across the bay to the other side of the park. There was a very thick fog that day though so we couldn’t see anything from the cable car. On the other side, there wasn’t anything else worth doing. We took the cable car back to the other side again. No views again, but we got a racist joke instead. A man with his family joined us in the cable car and talked with us a little. At first, they thought Ben was a tour guide with me. The man asked where I was from and we told him I was American. He said, “Good. Because if he was Japanese we’d have to throw him out.” I thought it was a very random thing to say, especially in front of his family. He meant it as a joke because I obviously wasn’t Japanese. Apparently in China, Japanese people are the equivalent of the Boogey Man. At least, they are in some places still. Even in children’s cartoons, the villains are always some Japanese soldiers from World War Two. After the park, we went to a restaurant to get some seafood. We picked out a good looking fish, which the butcher recommended, and they cooked it for us. It was one of the best fish I’ve tasted. After lunch, we took a bus to the Russian street. It was a street with some old Russian architecture, and it was jammed full of sales people trying to sell a bunch of fake stuff. Every shop was full of the same things: cheap gloves, furry hats, electric razors, pocket knives, fake silver crafts, leather crafts, binoculars, Russian dolls, and nothing worth buying. At this point in the evening, we were really tired, so we went back to the hotel. I then watched Chinese television for the first time since I’ve been here. It’s worse than I remembered it being from my first trip. Commercials can last to almost ten minutes, sometimes with some repeating three times in a row. Almost every commercial is for shampoo, soap, or some kind of medicine. The programs are usually just really poor too. We ended up watching an old show called “Journey to The West”, which was just funny because it was so bad. The special effects were just horrendous, and I don’t know how to describe them. It was like a ten year old did it for his school project. Nonetheless, that made it more entertaining to watch.

On the third day, which was our final day, we went to the Dalian Zoo. It was a very well laid out park, clean, lots of interesting animals, nice scenery, and more shows to see. It was about ten times better than the Beijing Zoo in all aspects. I saw another panda too, but it was sleeping. They always sleep when I see them so I never get very good photos. Something that caught my attention at the zoo was actually on the kid’s playground. There was this big cliff wall with some dangling ropes for kids to climb up to the top. It wasn’t quite vertical and looked pretty easy to climb, but it was just an accident waiting to happen. I would have loved a thing like that when I was younger though. Among other dangers at the zoo were things like tigers chained up to a bench or a tree along the sidewalk. They seemed tame enough though. You could get your pictures taken with them. In China, people don’t sue like Americans so people take these risks. In America, such things would just bring you at least a couple of lawsuits. We spent the whole afternoon at the zoo and then went back into the city. We met Ben’s friend again for dinner. Then we bought three big bags of corn chips from a farmer for three kuai, and we went to the seaside. We climbed up on a big rock on the shore and ate our chips there for about three hours. It was cool weather and the sky was clear that night too. It was nice in Dalian because you could find really peaceful places like this.

The next morning we went to the train station to head back to Beijing. We had tickets for the “hard seat” all the way back. We had an older, slower train this time and the trip was fourteen hours long. The train was full again, but at least we had a seat. I just listened to my MP3 player until it ran out of energy and then tried to sit patiently or sleep. Again, it was really uncomfortable but the time kept passing by. There wasn’t much to see out the windows either. I think it’s like this in most rural areas of China, but all you really see is old, poverty stricken farms and factories. Like remnants from the Cultural Revolution or something. I think I’ve never sat in one place for so long in my life. The flight from Chicago to Beijing wasn’t even this long. We finally arrived back in Beijing at about 11:30 PM. This night was the Moon Festival night, so most of the taxi drivers had gone home early. We finally got a taxi though and got back to our homes around 1:00 AM.

Overall, the trip was a really good experience. It had as many fun times as it had bad times though, but I learned a lot from it all. I also learned that travel is not easy if you can’t speak a lot of Chinese, and it can be expensive to travel even if lunch only costs you a dollar or two at a nice restaurant in China. For the whole trip, we spent about $250, which isn’t bad at all considering what we got. For two college students without jobs, it took a good chunk out of our accounts though. Dalian was a nice city worth taking another trip to somewhere down the line. I’d recommend it to someone wanting to travel in that region of China, but its not so tourist friendly as more major cities. If you want to see the sights in Dalian, it probably wouldn’t take any more than a week to do so. I think the city lacks historical tourism, but it has a lot of nice and fun places to visit.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsumerall/sets/72157594317651634/

Week Four

2006-09-30T22:58:00.000-04:00

I’ve been in China for one month now. It feels more like two though. We had six days of school this week, but we get a week of vacation now. This is for the National Day holiday, to remember the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 by the Communist party. Normally, this holiday is only for three days. Now it is extended to seven days to let people travel and visit family, but the work weeks are lengthened one day the week before and after the vacation. So next Sunday I go back to school. For the vacation, I’ll travel outside Beijing with one of my Chinese friends to a city called Dalian. It’s about twelve hours northeast by train. It’s very close to North Korea, and is on the coast. When I return I’ll put up a map and write about that experience.

There weren’t a lot of interesting things happening this past week. I was mostly just busy with school and watching more bootleg movies. I tried some of the more infamous Chinese delicacies with the family this week too; hotpot and chicken feet. Hotpot was a big bowl of boiling water and oil, and you cook pieces of lamb and vegetables in it and then dip it in a nasty peanut-like sauce. Chicken feet were just bad. They didn’t have anything on them worth eating, and just looked unappetizing. The next morning, there they were all dried up on the kitchen table ready for breakfast. I’ve just stopped eating the breakfast that the family has. I don’t want anymore leftovers or muffins, so I just go to the grocery store and buy some peanut butter and bread. I think, most Chinese people don’t eat breakfast.

Wednesday morning, I was walking out of my apartment complex toward the gate, and I noticed a lot more guards there than usual. I knew they would probably say something to me as I walked up, and they did. They asked to see my passport and residence permit. Ok, no big deal. I just went to my room and got it and came back and showed it to them, and I was on my merry way. They were actually very nice too. The thing was that this wasn’t a random check. They were all waiting there for me at gate number one at 7:40 AM because that’s when I always leave the complex to go to school. That was also about the day my visa would expire and I would need a residence permit. They even had their English speaking guard because they knew an American person would be coming. So, he starts asking to see my passport and residence permit. I tell him I need to go back to my room and get it, and he keeps repeating everything over like a broken record. I don’t know if he knew English or just memorized a recording of what to say. He asks what building and room number I live in before I retrieve my documents. I come back with my passport in about five minutes. I knew one guard was watching me from a distance when I went to my room to make sure I wasn’t lying to them about where I lived. Again, there were no problems or anything. Just a lot of paranoia and guards with nothing better to do. That’s how Beijing is though. Everyone’s got their own squad of rent-a-cops to keep the order and peace in Beijing, by telling cars where to park and intimidating bike thieves.

Sanlitar

2006-09-18T03:44:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, Ben and I decided to take the subway to downtown Beijing. We met at 5:30 PM on the street corner in Haidian District, where we usually split ways when coming back from the restaurants. We walked about thirty minutes to the Wudaokou subway station, which is near our school. This was my first time at the subway in Beijing so it was a little confusing. We got two one way tickets for six kuai (75 cents) and headed upstairs to the train. The first train we got on was packed full of people like everything in Beijing. The first thing I noticed was how bad the B.O. smell was. It wasn’t like the busses where they have windows to keep air flowing. After about five minutes, we realized we were on the train going the opposite direction we intended to go. So, we got off at the next stop and changed trains. We took this train towards Xizhimen, where the line ends, and hopped on the next subway line towards Jishutan. After about four stops, we got off at Dongsishitiao. It was already dark now, and the downtown was all lit up for the night. We started walking down the road for about twenty minutes. I then realized that this was the really nice part of Beijing. When you hear things about Beijing being really great, they’re probably talking about this area. I was really surprised and a little disappointed because it takes about an hour and a half to get here from my place. We were in the heart of Beijing and it made Haidian District look like the ghetto.

Ben was sort of familiar with this area and showed me some interesting places. We were both starving. I had only eaten a muffin and a pear the whole day, and skipped dinner with the family to come downtown. This area is very close to all the embassies and a lot of foreigners. So we decided to get something different for dinner. We went down the road a little more and turned down a dark alleyway to find the restaurant, which is called “Fish and Chips”. The alleyways reminded me of the old Hutongs that used to fill Beijing, until they were all torn down for new, modern developments. The alley we walked down was actually a very popular place, filled with bars, clubs, and restaurants for the high class. It was certainly different. We told the Chinese man at the “Fish and Chips” that we wanted two plates of fish and chips. It was one hundred kuai all together ($12.50). That’s a steep price to pay in China for a meal that’s not even very big. But that’s how you get the western delicacies here. Not like it’s a lot of money for foreigners. For me it just means I have to go to the ATM machine again to refill my wallet. Anyway, the food tasted really good. The restaurant played two songs the whole time we sat there, and the cook kept singing along saying “We will, we will rock you!” while inserting random English swear words.

Foreigners don’t get any weird looks in this place either. When we sat outside the “Fish and Chips”, I saw as many foreigners as I saw Chinese people. There aren’t any beggars around here either. Instead you get salespeople asking you in English to buy their things. We must have had at least five people ask if we wanted to buy the same pair of gloves from them. It’s not even cold here yet. Then there’re the Nigerian drug dealers. Apparently, they do a lot of business around here. As you walk past them, they appear interested in conversing with you in English. Last year Ben talked with one of the guys, but the dealer lost interest in the conversation and got straight to the point. It’s great. All kinds of shady characters.

Speaking of shady things, which I’m learning is never far away in China, is the pirated media business. This was a really interesting experience, it being my first and definitely not last. We walked into a music store filled with all kinds of CDs. The only one I recognized was a Yanni CD though. We walked up to one of the workers. Ben had been here before. She saw him and asked if we wanted a DVD. That’s what we were here for. She happily led us out the back door, through the emergency exit of the shopping mall, through the stairwell, down a corridor, and took a right turn. It looked like there was a storage closet here. She opened the door to a room about the size of a walk-in-closet filled wall to wall with Chinese pirated DVDs. They had a great selection. I bought the 9 DVD box set, season one, of “Lost” for 72 kuai. That’s nine dollars. Best deal I made in my life. The quality is perfect too. I’ve been watching them for the past few days, and I have to say “Lost” is really, really good. When I finish the first season, Ben already has the second one lined up.

Our last stop was a library. It was a library full of English books, rich foreigners sipping coffee, and a café and restaurant. It was a really nice place. I was just wearing a sweaty t-shirt and jeans, and felt a little out of place among the high rollers, but it was okay just because I was American. It’s weird and sometimes uncomfortable being privileged because of where you come from. This is the type of place in China, where people can come and live like kings even if they aren’t rich in their home country. I don’t know how bad it is, but I could really see this going to some people’s heads thinking too highly of themselves. I bet some people just become very spoiled and egocentric here.

We took a taxi back to the train station and waited for the next train. We were tired and wanted to sit down. Getting a seat on a Chinese subway is like a game of musical chairs though. So when the train arrived, we stood in front of the door on our toes, before it opened up. It opened and we dashed inside and got seats. The train got completely full about a minute later. Instead of walking with the queue at the next station, we jumped the fence and ran up the stairs past the packed escalators. I get the feeling most Chinese folks don’t like to do things physical unless they have to. Nobody else wanted to walk up. So we got on the next train early and got back to Wudaokou station. We got a cab back to the street corner and arrived at about 10:00 PM.

This is what my homework looks like everyday. Mostly just writing Chinese characters (Hanzi) for three hours or more each day. The picture above it is one I took at the Lhama Temple this weekend.

2006-09-11T02:37:00.000-04:00

I started this week by going to the Beijing Quarantine Bureau to get my health documents, which are needed to attain a residence permit in

China

. I decided to go with my American friend, Benjamin, who has already spent a year in China. He taught English at a school in Inner Mongolia last year, and is now in Beijing to improve his Chinese language ability, and he also attends Beijing Language and Culture University. We decided to wake up early and go to the hospital before it became too crowded. So we found a cab and went on our way. Benjamin did all the talking with the cab driver since he knows how to speak Chinese pretty well. The drive took about an hour, due to the chronic traffic, and because the driver took the long way to get more of our money. That happens a lot here, especially with foreigners. In the cab, I remembered all the stories I’ve heard of the nightmare, which is a Chinese hospital. Eventually, the cab comes to a stop on the side of the road. At this point I’m wondering where the hospital is. Then I look past the road construction and down a little alleyway, and there it is. It couldn’t have been much more inconspicuous. I’m getting used to things like this now though. None of the urban layout makes sense to me, and the architecture is just dismal most of the time. From the outside, everything around here from restaurants, to grocery stores, to hotels, and some homes just look like old auto repair shops. You would never know what it is until you step inside, unless you can read Chinese characters you might have some clue by the sign outside.

It turns out this hospital is not so bad. I was even a bit impressed by how organized they were when dealing with us. We joined the small throng of foreigners awaiting their check ups. We had to get a physical check up, a blood sample, an ECG, and an X-ray. There were stations set up so we just got in line and went from one to the next. The doctors were actually quite nice and patient and spoke a little English, and it went uneventful, except maybe for the X-ray. They just had us stand there in front of the X-ray machine and slung a small cover over our lower abdomen for protection. So, in the end, we all probably got some radiation or something from the X-ray, but that’s just part of living in China, I guess. At least there wasn’t a dirt floor and nurses throwing needles across the rooms at this hospital. We finished and paid our four hundred kuai to get our document, and they told us to come back in three days to pick it up. So we paid for another round of taxi trips on Wednesday, got our piece of paper, and that was the end of that.

We began classes this Wednesday. I have four classes, and I really can’t differentiate one from the other so far. They are called Chinese compulsory, listening, writing, and speaking. Actually, we just sit in the same room for four hours doing these things at random. I’m actually really liking school though. I feel like I’m back in elementary school because we have one class of students and we stay together for the whole year. I’m the only American in my class. There aren’t many Americans here, and my teacher seems glad to have an American student. It’s kind of weird. My school reminds me a lot of when I went to international school in Frankfurt, Germany. As far as I know so far, my class has people from Kazakhstan, Mexico, France, Israel, Japan, Indonesia, Uruguay, and Thailand. Our class is only about fifteen students. I like my teacher and I like the way we are being taught so I think classes will go well.

So far, my normal day has started by waking up at six in the morning with the sun greeting me through my window, which looks to the east. I try to get cleaned up relatively well before the family wakes up to go to work. I eat something lying around for breakfast. Usually a bag of milk (yes, a bag) and some stale muffins, which taste like vanilla wafer cookies. They actually taste pretty good if you soak them in the milk first. I leave at 7:40 a.m. and walk thirty minutes to school. I just like walking, but I think the family just thinks I’m a little crazy. I begin classes at 8:30 a.m. and finish at about 12:30 p.m. At this point, the rest of the day is mine to just do whatever. So usually, I just hang around looking for something other than studying to do. At 7:30 p.m., the family and I have dinner. This is always a rather interesting experience. Over the slurping, burping, and sometimes farting of the father, we manage to communicate in broken English and Chinese. I think I’m already losing weight too. Usually, there’s a dish of some meat, a few vegetable dishes, and some rice or bread. Usually, the meat just consists of fat so I just eat vegetables most of the time. Until I met the father here, I had never seen somebody get so much to eat off one little bone. I tried to get what little bit of meat looked good, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. You won’t find a pure piece of meat in most places here, unless you go to a restaurant. Restaurants are a whole other story though. After dinner, I usually do some more studying until about 10:00 p.m. At this point I’m usually just exhausted and sleep very well. I have a nice hard bed and a blanket so far. I’ll have to find a quilt for when it gets cold.

After school, Benjamin and I sometimes go to get lunch at a restaurant. The first restaurant we discovered actually happened to be right across the street from my apartment complex. It’s a little restaurant, probably family run, which only serves dumplings. So, we usually order about forty dumplings between us and some drinks for about a bit less than three dollars. The other restaurant we found was a bit classier, but again you wouldn’t know it until you get right up to it. So we decided to take a dusty side road with fewer people, and saw a place that looked like it might be a restaurant. So as we get up to it, we’re greeted by a guard who warmly shows us to the door, and then we’re greeted by the girl that holds the door for you and welcomes customers. As soon as we get in, we are shown to our seats and a waitress comes to take our order. There’s a saying in China, which goes something like “customer is God”, which seemed to apply to this restaurant. We got an order of gong bao ji ding (Kung pao chicken, in the U.S., I think), some kind of fried eggplant (really delicious actually), and some type of noodles, which were in a tomato flavored soup. The service was really great. They even served us the noodles out of the dish when our bowls were empty. That was the best food I’ve had in China so far. For everything, we paid about thirty five kuai, which is about four or five dollars.

When I arrived in Beijing last week, it was really hot and sticky all day long. We’ve had a sudden drop in temperatures here since then. This morning I woke up and looked out my window, and everyone I saw was wearing a coat. It was probably about fifty five degrees Fahrenheit. We’ve even had clear skies, which is rare in Beijing, due to the pollution.

Since the weather has been nice, sometimes I spend time sitting in the parks on my school’s campus. Many times, people will just come up to me and start talking. It’s weird sometimes, because it’s hard to tell if the people want something from you or just sincerely want to talk. Even in the first week, I’ve even had two people come to me asking if I wanted a job teaching English since I’m an American. I thought that was kind of funny. Another day, a guy came up and asked if he could sit on the same bench. I told him sure, and then he took out his lighter and offered me a cigarette out of courtesy. Lots of people in China smoke, especially in the countryside. I told him I didn’t smoke. Then he said that he had come to my school for a business meeting and had just finished. He began telling me how everything I owned was probably made in China. About how lots of it was made in his home city of Hanghzhou, which is in southern China. I told him I was studying business and economics in the United States, so he told me enthusiastically how his business works. His company is hired out by foreign companies to find things in China for the lowest price. Then they buy the product as cheap as they can and sell it to the foreign companies for just a fraction more than what they paid for it. He said they will find you anything, but I think they work with bulk items. For example, his lighter could be made in Hanghzhou for a penny and then sold for maybe 1.01 pennies. In bulk, they could make good profit. It was actually really interesting, but just kind of weird. He was a professional but thought it worth his time speaking to me since I’m American, even though I’m just a student. He gave me his cell phone number so I gave him mine. He said the next time he’s in Beijing he would buy me some lunch and continue the conversation.

I found out this week that the family I live with only gets forty hours worth of internet connection per month. This makes things very difficult for me, apart from the fact that I have to pull a wire across the apartment to my computer to use the internet. I don’t really have a desk or a chair, so I just sit on the end of my bed and set my laptop on the drawer. Things aren’t really that bad. It just sounds bad when you have all the comforts and that’s what you’re used to. Now, I’m used to the little inconveniences, and it makes things interesting sometimes. I think people here aren’t wasteful with their resources. So, I don’t take more than one shower every day or two, don’t use the air conditioning unless it’s really needed, and try not to leave things plugged in or turned on unless I’m using it then. The only inconveniencing thing that really bothers me is that I am cut off from my normal dose of information from the internet. I hardly know what’s happening in the world and hardly ever get to communicate with people back home. I didn’t hear that the Crocodile Man was killed until about three days later. That kind of stuff annoys me. I use my cell phone a lot more here than I ever did in the United States. So, anyway, my channels of communication are really bad right now.

9/8/06

Now writing from Beijing.

2006-09-03T08:43:00.000-04:00

I arrived in Beijing Wednesday afternoon. I’m staying with a thirty year old couple and their four year old daughter. I’ll spend the year living at their apartment, which is about fifteen minutes by bike to Beijing Language and Culture University.

The campus of BLCU is really nice, I think. I’ve heard this part of the city is a pretty fun place to live too. Right now, I’m working through the school registration process, which is really tedious. I will hopefully finish with registration this Monday, and begin school sometime this next week.

When you hear stories about life in China being difficult for foreigners, its definitely true. The first thing that happened when I got off the plane was get to baggage claim and find one of my bags missing. I used what little Chinese I knew to get some help. I agreed to pay a luggage carrier five dollars if he found my bag then he started running around baggage claim looking for it. After a few minutes, he came running back with my bag. I was probably paying him a lot, but I didn’t care. It was worth it. So without letting all the taxi drivers see, I handed him a five dollar bill and that was that.

Among other things difficult, it’s just really hot here and the air conditioning is weak. So, it’s always sticky. I can’t wait until winter comes. If I want to shower, the water just goes on the floor or whatever the shower head is pointing at, so it takes a little more focus, without getting the whole room wet. Then, you have to squeegee all the remaining water down the drain when you’re done.

The people seem very friendly around here too. Of course though, some people try to exploit the foreigners since we tend to be unfamiliar with everything. Some guy came up and asked me to buy his big grocery bag full of tea. He said he didn't want to carry it home. It was kind of funny. I didn't want to carry it home either. I don't really get stares from people since there are a lot of foreigners around here. Only the little kids look at me funny sometimes. I went to the Beijing zoo today. Even in the monkey section, I felt like an exhibit since some children looked at me with more curiosity than the monkeys.

On Friday, I met some Chinese students who wanted to practice their English, and they helped me buy a cell phone and a bike. Traffic laws are practically non-existent here though, so the roads are just a big free-for-all. I'll have to practice with the bike. Everything is definitely very different here. For example, the shopping malls are just a pain. They have such tight security to prevent theft. We had to have the guards check or stamp our receipts about four times before we could get out the door. Then, as soon as we got out, we realized the bike chain was broken. My friends took me to a bike repair shop down in some little alley to get it fixed up. Imagine, buying a brand new bike, which requires repairs before you can use it. An old man fixed the chain, and installed two good bike locks and a carrying basket for about $6. Great deal, I’d say. I think I should have plenty of money. Altogether, I bought a good cell phone, a bike, bike repairs, and lunch for three people for $120. I can buy a really good lunch for about a dollar.

The family I'm with gives me breakfast and dinner. They seem to be pretty good at cooking. For breakfast so far, I've mostly been served milk, porridge (rice and beans in water, or something), sweet muffins, and some hard boiled eggs. The dinner is also good. All the food is very healthy. We usually have a main course of some meat, and then maybe various vegetables, nuts, fruits, bread, and rice.

It’ll probably take another week or so before I’m really settled in here. Right now, I’m just kind of hanging out with nothing to do until Monday. Right now, I don’t have a stable internet connection either so I the things I post might be a little old. And feel free to send me emails or comment on this site.