Wow That Went Fast….Or Did It?

Hope everyone had a fun Turkey-Day. I had a blast myself. New favorite tradition: after you gorge yourself on a million different types of food til you can’t stand up, go get a Chinese foot massage! On Thanksgiving seven of us did that and it was marvelous. I basked in the hospitality of friends of friends, and ate more food than I have in months. It was loads of fun. The next day I headed off to Shanghai bright and early. Had a lovely time chilling and sleeping and eating. Went to the plant and animal market and took this picture of crickets and locusts…apparently people use them as pets…


Oh, and then I saw this and couldn’t resist posting – have you ever seen so many ducks lined up at one time?


When you’ve been doing something for a limited period of time that is very challenging, it is inevitable that at some point you begin the countdown to the last time you do X, or the last time you do Y. Guess by going to Shanghai I inadvertently set off my own personal countdown clock. Not til I leave China, but until I move out of someone else’s house and go out on my own again…oh, and did I mention my husband’s coming? J Hopefully the time will go fast…just 9 days until I leave the program and head out on my own, and Doug shows up in 11 days.

Tomorrow I go talk to the people at Lotus to give them feedback on my experience and let them know what I think they could do better. So I decided yesterday that I should look back on my time here and figure out what I accomplished, what I could have done better, and whether I met my goals or at least did what I could given the existing circumstances. All in all I think I did well. However, I think the more I’ve learned the more I realize how far I truly have to go to be at a level that I would like to be. I really need a year here to get my language up to par. We’ll see how things play out in the next couple of months as to whether I come back or not in the Spring and set myself to learn more and make more progress.

Well tomorrow I play badminton with my tutor. I expect she'll wipe the floor with me.

Thanksgiving Cometh

I thought it was my duty as a good American to comment on the fact that Thanksgiving is coming. I’m finding it very interesting that no one here seems to have ever heard of the holiday. They’ve all heard of Christmas (the commercialism and consumerism of that holiday seems to have found its way into the hearts of Chinese merchants everywhere), but no one has the foggiest idea what Thanksgiving is. For some reason I find that intriguing. In the end, it’s probably the most celebrated holiday in the U.S., and yet a huge portion of the world’s population doesn’t even know about it. What does that say about our new “world is flat” idea? What holidays do we know nothing about in other countries? How can we ever truly understand another culture if we don’t understand what they celebrate and why?

Ok, I’m not saying most Americans even know what Thanksgiving really signifies other than a big feast with family and friends, not even sure I really do, but at least I know in theory. And I think it is a big part of our culture that we choose to go to crazy lengths through hellish airports and roads to find our families and friends to celebrate by eating a big tasteless bird, gorging ourselves on countless delicious side-dishes, and napping it all off afterwards while staring mindlessly at parades and football. It’s a way to bond with our families that we don’t see very much due to our hectic lives, and a way to force ourselves to stop and give thanks for all that we have amongst the craziness of our lives. The question then becomes, what defines other country’s holidays that we don’t know about?

In true American fashion, I will be taking to the roads/skies this weekend to find some form of comfort and familiarity that is associated with Thanksgiving. Tonight I blow this joint after tutoring and head over to a friend’s house to sleep. Sleep – what a wonderful thing. Then tomorrow I will be gorging myself on good ol’American food thanks to the hospitality of friends of friends, and hanging out doing good ol’American things for the first time in a couple of months. Then Friday morning I head out to Shanghai, again thanks to the hospitality of some lovely people. I’m going to spend a luxurious weekend in Shanghai getting clean, eating excellent food, shopping (only window shopping Doug, don’t worry!), and relaxing. Hopefully I’ll come back recharged and ready for my lasts two weeks!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Blog Spamming

So I have just had to remove a spammer’s comment from my prior post. Someone plugging his/her Chinese wine business. So not cool.

As a result I’ve had to initiate a comment moderation protocol. So your comments may not appear quickly on my blog, as I’m 11hours ahead of most of you. However, I’m hoping this will enable me to actually SEE your comments, since they’ll be emailed to me before they go up on the blog. You see, I can’t actually get to my own blog from China as it has been blocked by the sensors, so Doug’s been sending me your comments as they appear. Fortunately (so far) posting has not been blocked.

Be warned spammers: you will not survive! I will conquer!

Chinese Wine…He Bu He? (To Drink or Not To Drink?)

So I thought I’d do a little cultural experiment today. I do like wine very much, especially good wine. Good wine is particularly difficult to come by in my little corner of Beijing. However, today I was at the ChaoShiFa (a supermarket chain here) buying Gatorade for the little girl in the house who’s had the stomach flu for 3 days now (family didn’t seem to know about Gatorade and they couldn’t get the kid to drink anything – poor thing’s screaming was breaking my heart). I stumbled upon a huge display of “Great Wall Wines.” Firstly I thought it was amusing that all the labels were in English, and secondly I thought it was hilarious that they were proudly labeling themselves as the official wine of the 2008 Olympic Games. So of course…I had to buy a bottle right?

I know what a lot of you are thinking…this can’t turn out well…especially with that lead-in.

Ok, so while on Skype with Doug, I mentioned that I bought it, and of course then we both start doing searches for anything about the 2003 Great Wall Cabernet Sauvignon. The only thing I could find was this article from Vancouver Magazine about obscure wines: http://www.vanmag.com/foodanddrink/07oct/Drink.shtml. Before I tell you about the review, and before you go and read the review, let me tell you what my tastebuds said.

The nose is definitely unique, I’d say heavy plum with an underpinning of coal (or maybe my nostrils are just coated with coal dust from living in Beijing). There’s also a very strong tannin component that comes through as it opens up. For the taste, I’m not sure I can describe it….a very off Merlot? Or maybe a corked Cab? Heavy tannin with a subtle shag-carpet finish. I know…I know…I’m being pretty harsh. But really, not sure what they were trying to accomplish with this wine. It doesn’t taste like any Cab I’ve ever had, but then again, it’s not as bad as that RMB 20 bottle I bought in some town somewhere at my old job. I think they were going for a moderate fruit with some oak or pine finish, but didn’t really accomplish it. The balance is off…way off. So apparently I agree with the reviewer at the Vancouver Magazine – a Tsing Tao is better with food!

Et voila! My experiment with Chinese wine is accomplished…though I do think that to give it a fair shake I should probably sample a few more, but next time I might just try a glass instead of being stuck with a bottle…

Answer to initial question: 2003 Great Wall Cab: Bu He! (don't drink!)

Because that Last Post Was Depressing…

Ok…so I read back over the last post and other than the whole travel discussion I realized it sounded pretty darn depressing. Guess I was in a weird mood due to the fact that last week was a pretty odd week, what with switching tutors, not having any set schedule, kid in the house is sick (i.e., not sleeping so well), and it was hump-week for the trip. As a result I thought I’d post something a little more normal and less dull.

The Learning:

Today begins my new tutoring schedule. I have two tutors that are friends from college and both are teachers at reputable colleges in Beijing. In fact, the newer tutor, Zhang Laoshi (laoshi = teacher in Chinese), is a teacher at UIBE, where Doug and I studied 10 years ago…when we both realized that it was pretty funny.

From now on, my weekends will be Friday-Saturday, and the rest of the days I’ll have tutoring from 1-7pm, one chapter a day. I started adding it up recently when I saw the huge pile of flashcards on my window-sill, and realized I’ve probably learned 700+ words in the last month (or had the opportunity to learn…not saying I know all of them yet), not the characters, but the words. I’ve started trying to learn the characters, or at least learn to recognize them if not write them. It’s pretty daunting. I also realized that I’ve gone through the equivalent of a year and a half of Chinese in the last month, and by the end I will have studied the equivalent of two years (if you measure these things by the number of books you finish). Pretty crazy when you add it all up.

The Seeing Things:

Yesterday the Lotus program invited all of its current students to visit Yonghegong, the largest Lama Temple outside Tibet. About six students showed up. A few of the other students couldn’t make it due to being sick…it’s that time of year you know. We spent a few hours there with the folks from Lotus teaching us about Buddhism and how it fits into Chinese culture and history. It was pretty fun. I don’t have any pictures right now because I took my good 35mm camera instead of my digital. I may post some pictures later if Lotus sends them. It was great to be there early morning before the boatloads of tourists showed up. Still relatively touristy, and I would definitely rather go to a quieter temple, but it is definitely beautiful nevertheless.

After the temple they took us to the most famous vegetarian restaurant in Beijing, Yu Xiang Zhai, which is around the corner from Yonghegong and across the street from the Confucian Temple. I guess they specialize in making vegetarian food that looks and tastes like the meat equivalent. I had Lazi Ji (a chicken dish) and pepper steak, that looked and tasted remarkably like the real thing. Oh, and it was a buffet so we all gorged ourselves – it’s probably the most food I’ve eaten since I came here.

In short, it was nice to get out and see something fun and socialize with people I can communicate with, and hopefully my tutoring will continue to get better. I’ve learned quite a bit, and since folks keep telling me to remember that when I got here I spoke very little and look how much progress I have made, I spent some time reflecting on that this morning. I guess if I make the same relative progress over the next month I will have accomplished something pretty cool. Unfortunately, when you start counting down (as I kind of am at this point…really looking forward to the travel and seeing Doug after all), I think you lose some of the drive. But I’m going to try and stay focused and learn as much as possible in the time allotted and see where it takes me.

See! I can have a positive post once in a while! :-)

11/12: Update: Here are some pictures that lotus sent me...I can't believe how ridiculous I look!

A Post Just Cause I Thought I Should Post

Ok, so I haven’t been all that good at this blog thing. Guess I’ve been spending a lot of time studying and haven’t really DONE much.

I’ve had my weird tutor issues (I now have 2 tutors, neither of which is the tutor I began with), and the aforementioned house issues. But in the end I haven’t had much chance to experience Beijing, really. I live pretty far out in the ‘burbs, so it really feels like an epic journey to get into town. With Beijing traffic, a cab ride into interesting places will often take an hour, and the bus ride to the nearest subway station is 40 minutes.

A lot of people have been telling me to just get out of the house every day, but sometimes it just feels like such an effort, since a large part of the day I need to be studying. At least at the house I know what I’m in for, and in the end China is just so darn loud (ok…my home here isn’t exactly quiet with the baby either, but there’s always headphones!)…I never thought of myself as someone who really wanted a lot of quiet, but there it is. Must be the lack of sleep or structure or activity getting to me. For those of you who know me well, you know I very much like to DO things. With notable exceptions, I tend to gravitate towards activity and progress towards something. Whereas here, I know in theory I have a goal (i.e., learn as much Chinese as possible, which is, I hope, going decently well despite the turnover in tutors), but that is a bit nebulous in the end.

Oh, and for those of you who were curious about my travel plans after the tutoring/homestay program is over, Doug and I have made our decisions. Yes, Doug is coming out on December 9^th (YAY!), for his first trip back to China in 10 years and staying until December 23^rd, at which point we’ll both head back to Washington, DC. I’m looking forward to showing him how it’s changed. But I digress…we’ve decided to forego Xixuangbanna, a location I mentioned to many of you before I left (after about 1 week of going back and forth repeatedly on the idea). We realized that if we wanted to do it right, we would need to spend both of our two weeks there to do it right, and both of us agreed that Dali and Lijiang were must-sees, if for no other reason than we always wanted to go to Dali 10 years ago and didn’t have the time. So as a result we’re going to visit Guilin, Yangshuo, Dali, and Lijiang. We bought our plane tickets today, so it’s all set and we can’t change our minds again! J

Oh, and just cause I thought I should prove I’m actually in Beijing, here’s a picture taken by Erin today at Tiantan (The Temple of Heaven)…and my hair is standing up because of the wind…not some new-fangled hairstyle!

Sorry about the somewhat boring and disjointed post, but guess I’m just in a funk today. Maybe hitting the half-way mark has thrown my mental state for a loop…more fun next time I promise!

Modern Beijing

Despite all the talk in the West about how much China has changed in the last 10-15 years, it’s difficult to truly fathom how much change has truly occurred. The pace of change is truly remarkable, and I guess you could say I have seen it first-hand, which sometimes I find hard to believe. I never guessed that I would watch a country change so much in such a short time.

I first came to Beijing China in 1997, as part of the Carleton Beijing Program. At the time, there were still more bicycles than cars, you regularly saw mule/horse-drawn carts on major streets, and the fourth-ring road (Si Huan Lu) was not built yet. The colors I remember from that time are mostly grey and brown, broken only on rainy days when all of the bicyclists in Beijing would magically break out these neon-colored rain tarps to ride down the street. We lived on the outskirts of Beijing, north of the third-ring road (San Huan Lu) and could see farmland from our windows at the University of International Business and Economics. There was a large dirt track north of us that we heard might become a new ring road. We ate at mom and pop places in holes-in-the-wall locations, and when we heard that the first Dunkin’ Doughnuts was opening in Beijing probably ten of our group went on an epic bus and walking trek downtown to taste the first coffee we had had in 2 months.

Now things have changed. I came back to Beijing about six years later, in August 2003, right after SARS shut the whole country down for several months. I was here for two weeks, and must have visited every park within walking distance of the St. Regis hotel on Jianguomen Dajie. And I walked it all, seeing the differences everywhere and becoming astonished at what change had wrought in six years.

I have been coming back 2-3 times a year ever since. I have seen streets that existed disappear, buildings spring up into huge towers, and whole neighborhoods leveled for shopping malls and apartment towers. Huge hutong neighborhoods (one story courtyard house groups built in the Chinese imperial era) have either been leveled or “restored” to two-story lavish homes or boutique hotels north of the Forbidden City. There’s now a Starbucks pretty much everywhere. The fourth and fifth ring roads have been built, and I’m currently living in a 20-story apartment building surrounded by other such buildings and hotels between the third and fourth ring roads close to the Summer Palace. As I recall, 10 years ago the Summer Palace was basically in the countryside.

I wish I had electronic copies of the pictures I took 10 years ago for a true comparison, somehow I think even I would be astonished to compare them to what I see every day here. The contrast truly hit me this evening when I went out to have Indian food with some friends at a place that they jokingly called the Arlington Commons of Beijing. There was a Zara, a Starbucks, a Guess store, an international food court…and oh yes, the biggest darn TV screen I’ve ever seen:

Oh, and 10 years ago some of us went to a nightclub called the “PLA Club,” which yes, did stand for the People’s Liberation Army. Western women got in free, and there were cage dancers. This is what the location looks like now:

In the end I don’t know what all of this means. I think I just needed to get it all down on paper (or the internet I guess) how remarkable the changes I’ve seen really are. In the end I feel privileged to have seen such rapid change in a city that I truly find fascinating in all its aspects, and am impressed at how quickly the standard of living has rocketed skyward here. However, there is a sort of sadness for the type of life that has been lost: the slow methodical pace of riding a bike down the large, crowded, bike lanes of Beijing (no one ever went faster than anyone else you see…), has been replaced by millions of cars, taxis, and tour buses. But in the end, who can ever truly say whether such massive changes are ultimately good or bad…only history can tell, and 30 years from now when I read that history book, I can say I was here to see it happen, which is astounding and humbling all at the same time.