About a month ago my friend Zinny mentioned she was going to Hong Kong for Christmas. In an effort to avoid sitting around my apartment on the other side of the world from home come Christmas day, I immediately said I'd be going as well. It was the right call. The trip almost didn't happen, because as of Friday, my passport hadn't been mailed back from the Indian Embassy in Beijing, so I thought that I would be missing the trip. In the end it all worked out. On the 23rd I booked a new flight to Hong Kong that evening, and I was off.
For this post I'm just going to put up pictures and videos from the trip, and intersperse bits of commentary, but to begin with: Hong Kong is wild. It is a full-on, 24-hour city that is absolutely buzzing everywhere you go. Out of the few places I've been in China, Hong Kong gets top billing so far. Must see. It is somewhat like Vegas, only if you made Vegas much denser, larger, and more cosmopolitan. Also, exchange the primary vice from gambling to unchecked consumerism. I've never been a shopper in my life, and within 24-hours here I was overwhelmed with by the compulsion to buy, buy, buy. And like Vegas, one can easily lose their shirt here by over-indulging. Thankfully, you can pick up another shirt on the cheap. "Copy watch, copy handbag, tailored suit, boss?"
First night in Hong Kong. I arrived pretty late, and because it is near non-existent in Chongqing, we went to see some live music. These guys were rockers. ACDC, Zeppelin, and loads of other classic rock. Good way to kick off the trip.
The next day started off with some dim sum in the morning, which was fantastic. Lotus rice, steamed BBQ pork buns, shrimp dumplings, and curry chicken egg rolls may not sound like breakfast food to all, but you have to trust me on this, it is delicious. After that we visited Chungking Mansions. Check out this article (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/21/the_mall_of_the_world?page=full) for a more in-depth look in this place, but it is basically an indoor market with lots of south Asian and African merchants selling pretty much anything you can think of. My guess would be that if you were looking for something that you didn't find in one of the stores, it wouldn't take much asking around to find someone who can track down what you desire. Anything.
My friend Zinny and I standing next to Victoria Harbour. We were staying on Kowloon, but here you see Hong Kong Island in the background. Hong Kong Island was cool, but most of the fun stuff was on Kowloon Peninsula.
That's me and some dizzyingly tall buildings.
The video didn't quite do justice to the view up there. It is pretty amazing to look down on a metropolis like Hong Kong.
On Christmas Eve they close off one of the main drags (Nathan Road) to cars, and apparently half the population of Hong Kong, plus all of the tourists, come down to check it out. Again, the pictures and video can't fully convey what it looks and feels like, but hopefully it gives some idea. Full on people mountain, people sea.
In an effort to be able to say we got some religion on Christmas Eve to our respective mothers, we tried to check out the famous Anglican cathedral. They were busy with midnight mass preparations and wouldn't let us pop our heads in a for a peek. So...
I found a place that I knew wouldn't turn me away on Christmas Eve, somewhat reminiscent of the old manger story, but with fewer sheep and wise men. Though I missed being back in MN for the holidays, leave it to a great pub to reduce the homesickness a bit. Just a killer night...
...of which these fine gents were prominently involved. They played traditional Irish tunes and Christmas songs until the wee hours of the morning. The video of the dance session at the end of the night has mysteriously gone missing, to no small relief of the group of English, Americans, and Irish involved.
Christmas day itself was spent checking out a couple of the markets around town that sell all kinds of stuff of questionable origin and labeling. However, one cannot argue with the prices. I've also figured out an effective bargaining technique: walk away. The precipitous price drop that follows is drastic. And that is how it came to be that I have some nice new scarves for winter in China, and sunglasses for the beach in India. I unfortunately don't have pictures of said markets, the vendors act quickly at the first sign of a camera to let you know exactly how much they appreciate pictures; word to the wise: it is not very much.
I left the next day to return to Chongqing, but Hong Kong is a place that I look forward to returning to in the future, and a place I would surely recommend to anyone who is wandering around on this side of the globe.
Lastly, I will leave you with some food shots:
None-too-traditional...
...Christmas...
...dinner. 'Twas delicious.
Happy New Year to you all. I'll be posting again come 2012.
The first interaction I want to share was with a pair of Chinese teachers from Qingdao. As I was walking towards Tiananmen Square to watch the flag ceremony, I accidentally bumped into one of them as I was walking and doing something on my phone. I apologized, and they were quick to strike up a conversation in pretty decent English. Their names were Cindy and Amy (different from the Aussie mentioned in last week’s post), and they were a lot of fun. Cindy lived in Beijing, and Amy was her friend visiting from Qingdao. We watched the ceremony together, and told me a little about the ritual and the area itself. After the ceremony, they asked if I wanted to go get some tea. It was a frigid day, and I had been outside for hours, so I was happy to join them. We settled on a teahouse in the area, and they ordered us some tea. It was a cool little room, and the tea was fantastic. We had a great chat, shared some experiences of teaching, and they were quite curious about my life back home. After we sat there for about an hour, we decided to go get something to eat. The bill came, and my jaw hit the floor.
Going to Beijing, I knew that the prices would be higher than in Chongqing, and seeing that I had never been to a teahouse before, I had no idea what to expect. But the price that I saw before me stunned me. Cindy, the more talkative of the two, mentioned something about how men normally pay for the tea, and when I made it clear that wasn’t going to happen; we split the bill three ways. As we left and wandered toward the eating street, I could not stop thinking about how much I just spent on tea. The other two didn’t seem bothered by it, and just kept chatting away as jocularly as before. By the time we reached the eating street I became sufficiently distracted, and chalked up the seemingly outlandish bill to the cost of a cultural experience in a touristy area. My shock subsided and my hunger emerging, we decided to go to a nearby bar for some jiaozi (delicious, delicious dumplings). When we got the bar, we went to a private room. A feeling of unease came over me, and when I told them I didn’t want anything to drink, just a little food, I also had the sense to ask about what it would cost upfront this time (fool me once…). They said there was a room charge, I said goodbye.
I was frustrated that these two were taking advantage of me because I was a foreigner who they assumed had loads of money. Though I do have access to more money than most Chinese, I am currently getting paid by Chinese standards, and therefore am far from flush with cash. After I left them at the bar, I returned to the eating street to kill the remaining hours until my train ride. The longer I walked, the more the feeling that everything I had just experienced was wrong settled in. My mind returned to the money spent at the teahouse, and I knew that what I had paid exceeded ‘the cost of a cultural experience in a touristy area’. I took out my phone and googled something along the lines of, “how much does tea cost in beijing”. One of the first results was about the Beijing teahouse scam. Basically, Chinese befriend a tourist, invite them to tea, don’t show prices, and then hit them with an outrageous bill. As I read this, my blood began to boil.
Perhaps I’m a bit too trusting at times, but I’ve never considered myself a naïve person. I’ve travelled a little bit, and I typically don’t have time for people trying to get over on me. That’s what blew me away about these two. They were so genuine, so seemingly honest (impeccable stories), and they completely blindsided me. In hindsight, there were a few signs that I should have paid closer attention to. However, I had slept four hours the night before, I had just come off a great social experience with the Aussie and was feeling gregarious, and these two seemed to just want to hang out with a foreigner. Every five minutes around Tiananmen Square you are approached by someone trying to sell you something, offer you a service, or asking you to visit their ‘art show’, I did not expect the kind teachers that I ran into to be the biggest hustlers of the day. That being said, there was still the issue of my money.
Even though we had walked some distance away from teahouse, I fortunately have some Hansel and Gretel/bloodhound in me. I put my head down, clenched my jaw, and headed directly back to the offending locale. Though calm may not be the first adjective that people would use to describe me, angry probably isn’t either. I was fucking fuming. On my swift march back to the teahouse, I had visions of me battering whomever they sent at me when I came kicking the door in. Unfortunately (who am I kidding), fortunately, there was only the female staffer who had previously served us, and her female boss whom she called immediately after seeing me come striding in the door. I walked into the room where we had been served, sat down, and started shouting about getting my money back. The next fast and furious few minutes consisted of lots of shouting, pointing of fingers, picture taking (from both sides), and a call to the police (which was unceremoniously ended when it dawned on me that I had no way of describing the situation, location, or anything productive that would reunite me with my lost money). I did, however, know that it was best for them to just give me my money back, so I shouted until it was in my hand. Though a bit amusing in retrospect, the scene at the time was wholly unpleasant for all.
I was lucky to have found the teahouse so easily, and that it was still open. If I had not retrieved that money, I know that it is something that would have eaten away at me for a long time. Though the realization that I am not as impervious to hustlers as I had assumed I was is a big enough blow to my ego, the salt in the wound that could have been the lost money would have stayed with me for even longer. This story is not a blanket indictment of Chinese people, for there are con artists the world over, and plenty of them work on a far grander scale. It is merely a cautionary tale from someone who once thought he was more savvy than he proved to be that day, and is better for the lesson. It is incumbent upon the traveler to recognize and avoid these situations. I failed. Initially, at least. I like to think I somewhat redeemed myself with the charge back to the teahouse, the summoning of the righteous indignation (learned from my brother, thank ye, sir), and the retaking of the fraudulently attained funds.
The second story is briefer, and infinitely more pleasant.
As one could guess, after that debacle, I was left a bit exhausted, and more than a bit jaded. At that point I was quite fed up with the Chinese people for the day, and just wanted to sleep by the time I got on the train. As such, I was perhaps a bit curt with a guy who was seated in the same section of the train and had tried to strike up a conversation with me. However, the next day, after my rage from the previous night’s misadventure had subsided, I had a great chat with him. I’m glad I did. Not only was he very kind, but he was also incredibly interesting. His name is Zhou Shi Ming, and he is a singer from a small town in Chongqing. The vast majority of Chinese that I have met have never left their country. Shi Ming has travelled extensively throughout Asia, and has even been to the States a few times, thanks to his career in music. We chatted on and off throughout the day. He was a treasure-trove of interesting Chinese stories, both historical and mythological, which I found fascinating.
Near the end of the day (remember, this was a 32 hour train ride), I realized I had poorly prepared for a trip of this length. I had assumed there would be food options on the train (real options, not just a few snacks), and western-centric assumptions often make quick asses of those who carry them to China. I think Shi Ming noticed I had not adequately stocked up, and asked what I had brought to eat. I looked at my meager supplies and took out my PBR, a Snickers, and an orange. There was still about 16 hours on the train ride, and I was quite hungry. He immediately offered the last of his noodles, which I thanked him for, but declined. It became clear very quickly that he would not be accepting ‘no’ for an answer. He insisted that there had been times when he hadn’t brought enough food on the train, and others had helped him. He then asked if we were friends, I said that I felt we were now friends after talking all day, and he asked me to accept the noodles because we were now friends. You can’t argue with an offer like that. I ate the noodles, split the Snickers with him (he wouldn’t take the whole thing), and my previously shaken faith in the Chinese people was once again restored.
So there you have it. I know that experiences like these can be found the world over, but having them in such quick succession and on such extreme poles is something I have only experienced here in China.
I leave you with three pictures, and sometimes pictures really do capture the essence of people. I think they do quite well in these cases.
One of the offending parties. Let her shame be known to the world!
You can almost sense my adoration for this fine fellow in my picture.
And a New Year Happy! The next post will be after Christmas, so I hope you all have an enjoyable time. I gotta say, though I've been surprised by the amount of Christmas decorations and spirit around town (Dare I insert a comment on the secularization and commercialization of Christmas on a global scale? Nope, cynicism takes too much energy, and Christmas is awesome.), it still doesn't feel the same as home. Good luck!
This past weekend I took a last minute trip to Beijing. This is the first of two posts about the trip. I’m writing a general overview of the trip this week, and next week I will write about two interactions that I think hold some insight into China and the expat experience. ‘Tis a big one, so without further ado…
Last week I was in the midst of planning my vacation for the Spring Festival. I’m heading down to India for a few weeks, which means I need a visa. Unlike most visa applications in the US (and contrary to what I was told by the Indian passport office in Shanghai, a new addition to my list of unaware enemies), I found out last Monday that to get my tourist visa I had to physically bring my passport and application to the passport office in Beijing. Cut to me scrambling like a madman figuring out how to make all of this work. I decided that I would fly to Beijing on Friday morning, go to the passport office, take a whirlwind tour of Beijing, and catch the train back to Chongqing that evening. Because I had to leave my passport at the office, I was unable to fly back from Beijing. Because my trip was planned so last minute, the only train ride back that evening left the station at 11:00pm, and was 32 hours long. Let the odyssey begin.
I woke up at 4:30am on Friday and caught a cab to the airport shortly thereafter. The beginning of the trip was fairly uneventful. When we were descending into Beijing, I could not help but notice the distinct layer of brown smog that was hovering between the expansive blue sky and the sprawling city below. Beijing’s pollution problem has resurfaced in the news recently (see: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/a-hiccup-for-a-gauge-of-beijing-pollution/), but I seriously lucked out; it was a beautiful day with a pristine blue sky. That being said, it was also pretty chilly, but I came prepared with hat and gloves; MN taught me well. The first stop was the passport office. In and out, on to sightseeing.
From the passport office I walked to Tiananmen Square. It was a few kilometers away, but I had time to kill. Beijing is a very flat, grid-organized city, so it is easy to navigate; unlike the dizzying zigs and zags of the mountainous Chongqing. Another aspect of Beijing that was quite different to Chongqing is that it seemed very quiet and orderly. This certainly has something to do with the part of Beijing I was in (central, near the heart of government), but it still was surprising to watch people drive relatively calmly and without the constant blaring of horns to which I have become accustomed. The walk down Chang’an Street by itself is pretty impressive. The street is wide and stately, and the architecture is distinctly communist, especially the closer you get to the heart of it all, i.e., Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, People’s Hall. The buildings are broad, low, and massive. Most are not more than about eight stories in this area, which again, is very unlike what I see on a daily basis in Chongqing. And of course, all of them are adorned with a communist star up top like an authoritarian Christmas tree! Side note: I did walk buy a mall not one kilometer from the heart of communist power that was blaring Christmas tunes outside of the Burberry and Rolex boutiques. I wouldn’t begrudge anyone their right to purchase luxury items and jam out to Christian holiday-themed music, I’m just saying the juxtaposition of these two worlds gave me pause. It is a bit odd observing the seemingly contradictive nature of high-end commercialism in close proximity to such fundamental communist iconography.
Before I hit the tourist highlights, I had to stop for some duck, the one dish my students instructed me I had to eat while in Beijing. It was awesome. Fatty, crispy, sweet, and bountiful. Oh, and expensive, but I knew going in that food was more expensive there, especially at a hugely popular place near the heart of the city. This picture doesn’t do it justice, but have a gander (fowl humor!):
After stuffing myself with duck, it was onto get a picture with the Chairman and take a look around. I’ll do the next section through captions under the pictures to shorten things up a bit.
Each one of the these light posts had about a dozen security cameras on them, and there were soldiers and plain clothes officers (not the most discrete individuals ever), all over the place. As you may recall, they don’t take kindly to people messing about in this part of town.
Me, Myself, and Mao. If Mao doesn’t smile for his picture, neither do I.
Time to come clean: all my life I took the notion of the Forbidden City in a literal sense. As in, you can’t go in there, it is forbidden. Turns out for the low, low price of 40 yuan you can go where you please, forbidden or not. Seeing as I pride myself on knowing things like this, I debated on whether to share that tidbit or not; forthrightness carried the day.
Just one of several massive courtyards surrounded by 15th century buildings. It is one of the more impressive places I’ve visited in my life.
My smiling, windswept face. Picture courtesy of another solo tourist named Amy. Very friendly Australian with whom I arranged a picture exchange. Win-win.
On and on.
Intricate detail. I’m lucky that it was such a gorgeous day, it really brought out the colors and details.
It was time to head back out to Tiananmen Square to wander around and catch the flag lowering ceremony. Here is where I bumped into two other people visiting Tiananmen; a story into which I will delve next week.
The flag lowering ceremony. Please excuse the quality of the cinematography and lack of editing; Kubrick, I am not. It gets a little long towards the end, but the first half is interesting enough.
After the ceremony and some tea, I still had several hours to kill. I wandered around the shopping and eating district near Tiananmen and saw some fun stuff.
The shopping street where I had earlier eaten the duck looked a bit different by night.
Eating street. Here’s a quick video, and then a few pics.
Dare I? Ya, right.
What do Hamid Karzai, Muammar Gaddafi, Jackie Chan, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have in common? Well, you can buy their bobble-head dolls on the cheap from this street vendor in Beijing. That’s all I can think of right now.
Time to head towards the train station. I could not believe how busy the train station was on a random Friday night at 11:00pm. It was full on ‘ren shan, ren hai’ (people mountain, people sea; one of my favorite Chinese expressions, and quite useful given the frequency of being amongst innumerable people). I dare not think of what the train station must be like during the Spring Festival, which annually sets records for human migration statistics. After queuing (lol, queuing, ya right) to board the train in this massive waiting hall, when the time came to move the scene quickly devolved into a nuts to butts surge towards the two turnstiles. For some, I could see this being an unbearably claustrophobic scene. I, however, have accepted things like this as a challenge. I have become relentless, and when I find myself in these situations, all remnants of Minnesota politeness and common courtesy slough away, and I push.
Once on board, I found my bunk, which was comfortable enough, built a little fort, and nestled in for the night. The next morning I woke up surprisingly well rested. We were in the middle of Henan province, and I sat for some time looking out the window at the hazy, frosted landscape. Occasionally, we rode by small villages that looked so much the same across the distance that we travelled, that it would be impossible for an untrained eye to differentiate between them. One of the ubiquitous aspects of these villages (and something they share with the major cities), is so often things look half finished. Shells of houses that have no inhabitants save for the piles of bricks in the yard. One gets so used to clean, organized spaces in the west, and that picture is simply not what the developing world looks like. Even in upscale neighborhoods and commercial districts in China, disorder and construction are the norm. Though it may have the second largest economy in the world, China is still (undeniably) a developing country.
Sleeping quarters.
A non-descript train stop in the middle of China.
The boss of our train car. She apparently got a huge kick out of me, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from this photo.
I felt an obligation to the US and the tall boy specials back home to crack this one.
The train ride itself was pretty uneventful. I read, ate, slept, and chatted with a couple of people. I walked up and down the train at one point, and I was the only foreigner amongst the 1,000+ travelers on the train. It made for some great interactions, one of which will be discussed in next week’s post. As I wrote to myself on the train, it smelled of “feet, soup, and cigarettes.” This may sound unacceptable to most, but I’ve survived worse; it actually enhanced the whole experience in an odd way. Maybe I’ve been away from home for too long.
I’m going to stop there. As I said earlier, next week I’ll be elaborating upon two interactions I had with people on this trip. One was a display of the hospitality and kinship rarely found amongst strangers the world over, the other brought out a side of me side of me that I rarely see. That’s called a cliffhanger, chumps!
Last week I ate my second western meal since I’ve been in China. There is an American guy here who owns a Mexican restaurant, which right next to his “Irish” pub. I’d try to refrain from being a dick, but the quotation marks have already exposed my snobbishness on that topic. I went with my new Russian friend because I was in the full on throes of chips and salsa withdrawal, and I needed a fix. It turned out to be decent enough, but an odd thing revealed itself to me when I was eating.
As my family, and a few others of you whom have eaten enough meals with me, can attest to, I have some odd eating habits. I have some compulsion that leads me to separate most of my foods on my plate and then proceed to eat everything at an equal pace so that I always have enough of each thing on my plate to match the others. If you think this sounds weird, you have no idea how weird it really is.
So what I noticed as I was eating my tacos, beans, and rice, is that I had subconsciously fallen back into this behavior when presented with a food that I must associate with the west. And you must believe me, this isn’t me just making some odd story up about how I eat and then, “Oops! Look what I did!”, I really did it without thinking.
Anyways, what this means is that I had not been practicing my eating ritual with all the Chinese food I eat here. This is for two reasons. First, when eating with others (a common occurrence), the food comes out in separate dishes, and you just get stuck in. No time for organizing and allocating food resources. If someone else is getting aggressive on the fried eggplant or twice cooked pork (two of my favorites), you sure as hell better be aggressive too, rationing be damned. Second, when eating alone, most dishes are served all mixed up to begin with and then served with rice. This means there are no meat, veg, chips, salad, etc. to match up: it’s all together.
So that happened. What I can relate to this incident is how easy it is to change habits when in a totally new environment. I’ve made some conscious, and obviously some subconscious, changes that I never would have been able to make back home. Perhaps not never, but certainly not without Herculean effort, which can be hard to drum up.
Quick video from this week that I shot for no other reason than it struck me to do so at the time.
One of my favorite neighborhood spots to eat is often a source of entertainment whilst eating. It is the place where I met my German friends, and this week there were two entertaining encounters. The first happened upon returning to my table (replete with little plastic stools for chairs that don’t quite reach up to my knees, needless to say, I look pretty cool while eating there) from getting a beer at the shop. I returned to find a little kid of about 3 or 4 holding my copy of The History of Western Philosophy in his hands. Considering that I have no shortage of difficulties grasping most of the ideas there-within, I can’t imagine that he was faring much better. I don’t think it helped that he was holding it up-side-down either. After sitting with him for a minute and reading a few words to him, his grandma came over with a good smile and a small cup. She pointed to bottle of beer and indicated that she wanted a bit of it. Not being one to deny a kindly, old granny a drink, I obliged. I was a bit surprised when she handed it to the little guy who promptly knocked it back. It wasn’t much beer, but I still got a good kick out of the whole scene. I try not to contribute too much to the delinquency of Chinese youth, but as far as I’m concerned, granny can do what she pleases with her progeny.
The lad himself:
The second story also involved youngins, but this time there was no underage drinking. You can imagine that a lao wai (do you remember your Chinese lesson from the earlier post?) sitting in an small alleyway restaurant tucked far away from the international hotel chains of downtown would be quite a novelty for young kids. They typically will come up, shout ‘nice to meet you!’ a few times, and then I’ll break out Angry Birds on the phone to entertain them. Last week there was quite a raucous bunch that perhaps got a little too fired up. After showing off and one-upping each other’s antics, the scene devolved into name calling. Two of my favorites were simply, “pig”, and the best, “dog farmer”. They were brusquely asked to remove themselves from the premises by a local shopkeeper. Though I couldn’t understand exactly what she said, she certainly seemed like a woman best obeyed.
The last event came on Friday night. I don’t go out as often as I do back home, but a man needs to blow off some steam every once and a while. Last Friday was one of those nights. There was a British DJ in town who was playing a dubstep set at a local club (kind of a Triple Rock or 7th St. Entry type place). I’ve never been into the dubstep scene, but it turned out to be a pretty entertaining night. Here is a video clip from early in the night, before things jumped up a notch or twelve:
After the set the shenanigans carried on until the wee hours with all sorts of European miscreants in tow. I think a video my buddy Mark posted of Conan pretty well sums up what people dancing to dubstep resemble:
That’s all for now. Hope everyone ate plenty of turkey in my stead.
There is a lot of construction, or perhaps demolition is a more apt description, on the old campus of my university. This is where I live. The university sold the old campus property because it is more centrally located, got a fist full of yuan, and moved the new campus further away from central Chongqing. Apparently, this is a pretty common occurence with universities these days, but I digress. What this means is that most of our surroundings look like Dresden, Germany circa February, 1945; i.e. totally shagged. It also means that the campus is constantly filthy from all the dust that is kicked around; whatever.
The reason that I bring this up, is that it affords one a glimpse into the working conditions of the innumerable migrant workers that come to Chongqing city. OSHA would not approve. Take for example the guy I watched standing on the ledge of a 10 story building sans any kind of safety gear. That in itself isn't shocking, but the fact that he was wailing away with a sledge hammer upon the bricks he was STANDING ON made the whole scene an odd mix of one man's willingness to do whatever it takes to better his lot in life and the very real possibility of seeing natural selection in action. In a country of over 1,000,000,000 people, that has a very old social construction that determines who people care for based upon whether they are in or out of one's circle (guanxi, I'll certainly touch more on this at a later date), it is not surprising that people don't have great regard for the safety of others. However, it is surprising when you see what most of us would look at as utter disregard for one's own safety. Not just the example your man on the ledge, but I see this quite often. Getting distracted, back on topic.
Then, a couple of days ago I was coming home from a run with my bowl of fried rice in tow. I was walking up the street to the apartment, when I saw it was cordoned off for about 10 yards. They were about to bring down another on of the old apartment builings. Here again, the difference between safety standards between the US and here is really night and day. You can make a strong argument that all the regulations in place in the US deter economic growth and companies' ability to operate a business efficiently and without interference, but I'm better understanding why we have OSHA, the Department of Health and Human Services, etc., after seeing some of the stunts they pull here, where there is no one to protect the worker. Though they certainly could be streamlined and made less intrusive, those entities are there for a good reason. I digress!
The way they demolish these apartments is thus: they have the lads with the hammers knock out some support within the building, then they get a Caterpillar type machine (Chinese brand mind you, but you'd never know!) with a big old jackhammer on the end of it, and send the unlucky bastard who drew the short straw (I assume that's how it's decided) to drive the machine down and hammer away on the last support pillar until it comes down; a risky endeavor, to be sure. I got lucky with my timing the other day. I joined the crowd of people gathered not 100 yards from where this building was coming down, ate my dinner, snapped a few pics, and got to see it come down. Quite a dinner show.
So, that happened. A good time. Here are a couple of pictures and a short video. They are all on my phone, so not the best quality, but you'll get the picture (get it?).
Before the fall:
Dinner:
After the fall:
Two other things:
1. Thanks a ton to anyone who went out to pick up a bottle of 2Gingers and say hello to my dad. He mentioned he saw several of you, and was glad for it.
Just got word from my old man that 2Gingers is hitting liquor stores.
I haven't had a drop of whiskey in over two months. This saddens me. If you have any love for your old friend Seamus, head down to your nearest store, pick up a bottle of 2Gingers, and have a drink for me.
Added bonus: whiskey makes you strong, handsome, and eloquent. Trust me, I've put in years of research into this phenomenon, and I can unequivocally state that this is a fact.
-The whole experience of my first haircut is a decent story unto itself, but I’ll just stick to the results here. It reminded me very much of my previous international haircut this year while in Belize for Micah and Nicole’s wedding. The (totally understandable) method employed by the barber is the same one he would use to cut and style the hair of his local customers. However, my hair is a bit different than the average Chongqinger’s. I wish I had snapped a picture of it, because similar to my experience in Belize, I walked out of the barber’s shop rocking a hairdo that would have allowed me to pass as a local; if one ignores the white skin, blue eyes, and lack of prerequisite local linguistic faculties necessary to speak to most people here. Regardless, after some serious work with a blow dryer and hairbrush, the barber tamed my curly hair into the ubiquitous ‘do seen here. I was impressed. -As part of the local governments efforts to promote their city, there are signs espousing different benefits of living in Chongqing all over town. The signs (which are in both English and Chinese) say thing like “Healthy Chongqing”, “Safe Chongqing”, etc. But my favorite of the signs is the “Unimped Chongqing”. The sign has a picture of an open highway (clearly photoshopped, as I have yet to see one of those), so I think they meant to say unimpeded, but this is merely guesswork. Regardless, it is my favorite sign because every time I see one of them I imagine how far the city has come since resolving their pesky imp problem. Now if only they would lift the stoching ban... -I’m going to be a bit of a downer here for a minute, but stick with me. The lack of sunshine here is something I hadn’t thought would be a issue. Turns out not seeing the sun is a bit of a bummer. Even during my year living back in Ireland a few years back I saw more sun. It turns out that one of Chongqing’s many nicknames is “Fog City”. It make sense, considering that it is a mountain city centered around the confluence of two major rivers. This, coupled with the air pollution that is unlike anything I’ve ever lived around, makes for a perpetually gray sky. I had not thought much about it until last week when we had two days of sunshine. It was glorious. The city looked totally different, you could see mountains and other parts of the city that most days are fully obscured by fog and smog, and it made for a fun couple of days. Which bring me to my next point. -Anything that I do in class that is out of the ordinary elicits a shocked and elated buzz from the students. On Thursday and Friday last week (the two days of sunshine) I took two of my classes outside. When I told them what the plan was for the day, the first reaction was confusion. Then I tell them to get their stuff together, stand up, and follow me, and the “Waaaaaaa!!!” (see previous post) chorus begins. Fortunately two of my five classes those days were easy enough to conduct outside, and though the students were slightly distracted, I still feel that it was to every one's benefit to go outside those days. I know I enjoyed it.
My regard for the copyright and intellectual properties laws of the States fought a losing battle the other day against my penchant for the political intrigue in Westeros. That is, I bought a bootleg DVD of the Game of Thrones first season for less than $5. Any misgivings or guilt I had for the fact that my money did not go into the pockets of the right people was quickly washed away when I popped in the first episode. Sword play and political intrigue are apparently my Xanax.
There was an interesting in class experience in two of my freshmen courses this week. I broke the students up into groups of four, within each group there were two pairs. The groups of four would choose a topic that the two pairs would debate, than the pairs would separately write their arguments. That was the idea. In practice what happened, with every single group in both classes mind you, is that the group of four would create the two sides of the debate together. When they got up in front of the class to present their arguments, their debates were no less spirited than if they had written the arguments separately. I recommended to both classes that they write their debates separately (which would have been the automatic assumption of most US university students), but I did not prevent them from working in the groups of four as it didn’t ultimately negatively impact the goal of the lesson: get them speaking in front of class. This experience reminded me of a quote in an article I read earlier in the week stating that amongst Chinese students, “ individualism is anathema”. I’m not meaning to denigrate the students’ methods, only comment on the distinct classroom behavior between what I am used to, and what I see before me every day as a teacher here.
In my American Culture classes with third year students we had great discussions on the American family. We covered a range of topics, including: the nuclear family, divorce, single parenting, same sex marriage, interracial marriage, etc. The students handle the topics maturely (sometimes a challenge for students here, especially the lads), and we had some great conversation. When told them how most of the topics we were discussing in class were present in my family (don’t worry fam, most of the skeletons are still in the closet), they all did their “waaaaa!!!!!” (translation: “Wooooowwwwww!!!”) sound. An interjection I hear quite often when I say, what to myself and most of the people I know, are seemingly mundane things. Always fun to have glimpses into what is unusual or amazing to someone with a vastly different set of life experiences.
Was my first burger in two months as good as a juicy lucy? Hardly. To me, was it still a welcome experience, akin to putting on one’s favorite sweater in the fall after its summer in the closet or seeing an old friend after a few years apart? Yes. But one must understand, I love cheeseburgers more than the average man. Pictured below: fleeting bliss.
As a first rate consumer of news on China and a current resident of this great nation (throwing the censors a bone there, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/world/asia/china-imposes-new-limits-on-entertainment-and-bloggers.html?emc=eta1 ) I thought I’d talk about how the media coverage of China can make one’s head spin. I do not claim that this coverage is somehow false or misguided (though it certainly can be), merely that the bipolarity of the coverage paints a confusing portrait. Fair enough; it’s a confusing country.
One minute China is our soon-to-be overlord, the next they are a nation bereft of prerequisite [fill-in-the-blank] to become a modern superpower (http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/10/chinas-communist-party). One minute they are the world’s banker, owning X% of US currency and recently throwing a life preserver to Europe, the next they are an amoral bunch of knockoff artists and simple machine operators, lacking the ingenuity to foster a sustainable free market economy (http://www.economist.com/node/21534812). One minute they are exacerbating the rifts in US/Pakistani relations or poking at Taiwan, the next they are the indispensible partner in handling North Korea’s rogue state (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/03/the_top_ten_unicorns_of_china_policy).
The truth is all of these things are realities in modern China. It is a massive nation whose traits, peoples, and behaviors cannot, and should not, be summed up so readily. Writing articles that cast bold predictions on the inevitable supremacy or collapse (depending on the latest news story) of China seems like a practice in modern day prophecy, and perhaps it is. I read these articles because ultimately, China matters more than it ever has and with ~1/5th of the world’s population, it receives plenty of coverage. And maybe hoping for a more intelligible story on this country is asking for too much on my part. However, I would prefer if such certitude wasn’t so prevalent in much of the writing (the chosen articles don't necessarily embody this certitude, but they do hold true to some of the aforementioned qualities of journalism on China; good reads nonetheless).
I know I’m way out of my league by opining on this topic, but considering that I cannot help but consume these articles (The Economist knows me too well, put a picture of a panda, dragon, or big red flag next to the article, and I will click it; some Pavlovian response I’ve developed) and I have a little (I strongly want to acknowledge and emphasize the little here) experience with my feet on the ground here in China, I thought I would give my two cents. What?!?! The impending trade war with China has raised the price of opinions to 3.5 cents? God damnit.
I was hanging out with a bunch of German artists last night (a story for another time, ja), and I snapped a picture of Alexej (Russian transplant to Berlin) who made a mask. I call this piece "Jack-o-lantern in Russian, One". What serendipitous timing. Happy Halloween!
So I told myself that I would post once a week, no matter what. Therefore there will be some posts that are not quite as entertaining as others, but it keeps me on task, so here we go.
This past Saturday, my friend Patrick invited me to come watch his football club play a match in the nearby city of Fuling. I’m not sure who I shared the book River Town by Peter Hessler with, but this is the city he did his teaching and writing in. For any of you looking for an enjoyable read, River Town or his book Oracle Bones have excellent insights into China. Great books.
Back to the lecture at hand. Fuling is about a two hour bus ride from Chongqing, and we set off first thing in the morning. The trip was a lot of fun. The team is comprised of expats from all over: Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, Mauritius, Croatia, England, and the States (possibly a few others). I had previously told Patrick I may be interested in joining, and I was fully sold on the idea when I was standing on the sidelines of that match.
The match itself was a bit of a trouncing; they beat a local ‘municipal’ team (there is a theory that it was the police force team) 9-1. After the match we all went to a big buffet, ate loads of food, sucked down a few beers and headed back to the stadium (they played in the local ‘Olympic’ stadium, 22,000 seater, not at capacity for their match, ~30 people) to watch the Chongqing Lifan team. I won’t bad mouth the squad too much, but Chinese second-division football leaves a bit to be desired.
Highlights of the day:
Hanging with lads from all over the world
Watching the formality and rigmarole when the Chinese host an event like this with foreigners
The fact that there was an at least 1:1 ratio of uniformed security to fans during the Lifan match, probably ~1,000 people. Dead serious
The rekindling of my desire to run around on a pitch and play soccer
After we returned to Chongqing we went over to Patrick’s friend’s place. It was the closest experience I’ve had to being back home since I’ve been here. There were four of us at his friend’s (guy from Tennessee). Nice couches, fridge full of beer, watching the Premiership matches on the flat screen, and we even ordered pizza. Davanni’s it was not, but after two months sans pizza, that shit hit several spots.
So I had started running before I watched the match, but the training has intensified. Going really well so far; it feels great. I’m getting contacts later this week because I haven’t seen any Rec-Specs in the stores, so I should be able to see the ball, which is nice.
I think that’s it for now. Study some Chinese, read, eat my daily ration of chocolate from home (thank you, Mother) and then off to bed.
Few pics from the day:
Team relations were much stronger before the 9-1 drubbing.
Last week I had my first brush with a spell of homesickness. It came after a long day at school when the students hadn’t been very responsive in class. Most of the time they are a bit reticent to speak, but once you get a few of them involved, it snowballs pretty quickly. Not that day. This of course also had to do with my own behavior and feelings in class, but I chalked it up to an off-day. So: long day, coupled with some of the social differences between Chinese and American behavior that can be challenging at times, and also the ups and downs of starting new friendships led to a rough day.
I was back in my apartment watching the newest episode of South Park on my laptop (I’m doing my best to immerse myself in the culture here, but that does not mean I will deprive myself of some of the finest social commentary/poop jokes of our time) and an advertisement for Wendy’s, or some fast food chain, came on. As always, the cheeseburger was a symmetrical, glistening stack of deliciousness. I would not be making an over statement by calling myself a big fan of cheeseburgers, and that advertisement gave me an immediate and intense physical reaction. It was simply the bitter cherry on top of my shit sundae. Things sound pretty bleak, so I will turn it around.
The next morning I woke up to what was easily the most gorgeous day I’ve seen in Chongqing. The ever-present smog had lifted, the sky was blue, and it was Friday morning. Classes went swimmingly that day. Had a few beers and a few laughs over the weekend. Crisis averted.
I realize that there will be challenges ahead, but I’m doing my best to focus on the positives here. It would be quite easy to adopt a pessimistic attitude towards being an expat here, but that is a lazy way out. I’ve instead come up with my own Theory of Relativity. Though perhaps not as intricate or game-changing as Albert’s, it is working well for my needs. It is about looking at things in a relative manner. If I get annoyed that the gas is out and I have to take a cold shower, I could have no shower. If I’m missing family and friends, it could be even 10 years ago when I couldn’t have easily emailed, Skyped, or chatted with them like I can now. The challenges that I face and sometimes find frustrating are hardly real problems in the grander scheme, so I try and react accordingly.
That being said, I may flip out if I don’t find a decent cheeseburger soon. A man must draw the line somewhere.
You often get a glimpse of old Chongqing when walking around the city. This wall featured several layers from throughout the city's history.
I would have gotten a laugh out of crushing a few PBRs in China, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. The umbrella was simply a mirage, there was no oasis here.
The opera house, none-too-affectionately nicknamed 'the tank'. Still, I think it's pretty cool.
No weapons, explosives, fireworks, acid, toxic barrels, flammables nor poison, magnets nor radioactive materials, and certainly no goddamn balloons. Yes.
I understand the desire of the CPC to spread their message of 'do not playing', but the recent crackdown on 'stoching' seems a bit heavy handed to me. Therefore, I stoch, but only in select company and never in public.
Big Buddha and a pagoda here in the city.
Lost in translation? No wonder there is still some apprehensiveness around Americans here. Actually, this is just an advertisement for a local art school. Slightly less insidious than it appears.
The next several pictures are from the Huang Jue Ping neighborhood. Really cool area. It is the art district of Chongqing, and also houses a few art schools and universities. A few years back, the government let some artist and students paint and graffiti the neighborhood. The results were very cool and quite unexpected. Fun place to walk around and snap pictures.
I ride by these stacks everyday on the way to school. I've never lived in a city with heavy air pollution before; quite unpleasant. The good news is I haven't had a cigarette since I left the States. That was me congratulating myself. Thank you.
Roof tiles. But you already knew that.
After getting off the cable car ride across the Yangtze. Sunset, mom and daughters, city, river, some flags. Seemed like a good photo op.
Looking back across the river for the night view. Unfortunately the city wasn't fully lit up. Hopefully later in the year I can get a shot when all the buildings have the lights on.
And some more.
Green lasers and some traffic. Why not?
A few videos, then I'm done. I haven't edited these at all, there is some repetition, and they're not great quality. However, I took them, so may as well throw them on here and hopefully they are somewhat interesting.
