Okay folks. I give you credit if you haven't given up on this blog so far. It's been nuts this past month or two, what with moving, changing jobs, and lack of internet.
The good news is that I really am getting settled into my new job at the Kindergarten and should be back on track with my graduate studies by the end of this weekend. That means I will once again have my evenings and weekends free to have shenanigans and write about them.
For now, please say hello to Mr. Goth-Emo Pear. He has been keeping my company this week, but he doesn't say much for my state of sanity.
Look out, Mr. Goth-Emo Pear! You're going to fall!
I didn't die. I just moved to the other side of Beijing and was deprived of Internet for a week. I suppose that's similar to death.
The new pad, if I do say so myself, is pretty freakin' sweet. It has its own problems, of course, but the new land lord is a great improvement. You should have seen the drama I came up against when I told my old land lady I had to move for my work.
Is it sad that I could move all my earthly possesions in one cab? This is not to metion that the cab ride itself was only about 11 USD
I love the new neighborhood. It's not as rich and high tech, but it's very down to Chinese earth. My old neighborhood had decidedly Chinese flair, but the smells and crowded sidwalks of the new neighborhood just scream out, "This is China," to me. Don't misinterpret; it's still a nice neighborhood. My apartment is actually much newer and nicer.
It's in a convenient location for communiting to my new job.
By the way, I am now teaching 19 3-year olds (not 3 19-year olds...) in Daxing.
When the situation stablizes some more, and when I catch up on the past week of my graduate studies work, I promise, promise, promise, I will pump out the updates. I'm projecting next Thursday.
I could tell from a few different city maps that it was not
all that far from where I live, but I wasn’t sure if there was a bus I could
take. Some Chinese friends assured me that I should just take a cab: it wasn’t
far, and the ride would only cost 10 kuai. There was crazy traffic getting into
the parking area in the morning, however, and I had the cab drop me off at some
distance, so I still ended up having a 5-10 minute walk to the gate. Around the
gate, I had my share of people coming up to me trying to sell me things like
post cards as well as people asking, “You need English guide?” I even had some
other Chinese tourists asking for their picture with me. I really need to start
charging for that.
I was only a little frustrated that I couldn’t truck it
straight to the ticket office. Tickets are 30 kuai, but you can get an
all-access pass for 60 kuai. Yi He Yuan is so big, though, that you only really
need the 30 kuai pass unless you JUST want to see the other attractions which
cost extra. They also had audio guides, but they aren’t cheap by Chinese
standards. I believe they were something like 100 kuai on top of the deposit. I
went ahead and bought a 10 kuai map, even though it was not the most helpful
map. (It was NOT to scale.) I went on in and started looking at the rocks and
buildings. There were a lot of rocks and buildings. I decided to go against the
perceived flow of traffic and headed towards the lake, away from the rocks and
buildings. This was probably a good move. The lake is huge, and the walk around
it took the majority of my day. It was well worth it, though.
Interestingly, it seems like there was a sort of field trip
that a large number of army trainees were on. By midday, I think the entire
Chinese army all had pictures with me. My face hurt from smiling, but I made
out with some of my own pictures, at least. The worst part was it wasn’t just
the army men, but it was also a number of other Chinese tourists. Occasionally,
I received pitying looks from other foreigners.
But the scenery was absolutely
beautiful. I don’t think I would have changed much. After a leisurely but
lengthy walk around the lake all morning and into afternoon, which also
involved crossing steep bridges and romps through a willow and bamboo forest, I
was directly across from where I started. There was a small cluster of Chinese
wooden buildings and more big rocks, and one of them had a small convenience
store inside selling chips, drinks, candy, and cup noodles for lunch. They also
had a photo service where you could dress up in Manchu royal costumes for 20
kuai. The costumes, of course, were a little fake and corny, but with creative
photography, you can get some really nice pictures out of it. There was also
beautiful scenery from that location on the lake for a backdrop. After
polishing off some cup noodles and tea and talking to some of the Chinese
people sitting at the counter next to me, I decided that for 20 kuai (around
$3), I might as well give the Chinese-style glamour shots a try. There were a lot of giggly Chinese people,
young and old, as I traipsed around the building in my traditional polyester Chinese robes, and the shopkeeper followed behind, becoming my
personal photographer. In fact, one of the other customers asked if he could
take pictures with me and for me, but the shopkeeper said his pictures were no
good. I tried really hard not to laugh, but the goofy smile on my face was most likely a tell-all.
After my little costume party, I pushed forward, eager
to see the more major and important buildings and rocks I had avoided in the
morning. I got a little bit lost, but that wasn’t so bad, since the scenery was
nice, and there were plenty of places to pull over, sit down, and take
pictures. As I circled back around, there were also an increasing number of
shops with all of the same merchandise. And none of it I wanted. Even though I
really like Yi He Yuan, I was a little discouraged that most of the buildings
are full of all the same shop, essentially. I did see interesting sights,
though. For example, the famous marble boat and more of the high arched
bridges. In front of one of the buildings, a crew was filming something. A
crowd of Chinese and I were watching the process. When I tried to take a
picture of the cameraman filming, I was scolded. Clearly, I was trying to steal
their film secrets?
It was getting later in the day, and I was slowing down. It
didn’t help that I somehow managed to climb up the mountain and sneak into the
Buddhist temples on the hill. The large, most famous one is called the Tower of
the Fragrance of the Buddha, and is a little more than 40 meters high (totally
stolen from a guide book). The revolving archives were next to it, but looked
like they were closed for renovation. Since I basically went straight up the
small mountain, I spent a good 15 minutes just sitting at the top, looking out
over the lake, and talking to a German tourist with my disgustingly terrible
German. He was headed to Suzhou Street, which seems like it would be a very
cool street to walk down, but I was at a point where I did not feel like seeing
anything new and certainly was not in the mood for shopping. I left it for
another time.
I stumbled around trying to figure out how much longer I
should stay and what things I could see on my way out. I met a few other
foreign tourists on my way out – one from Ireland and one from Amsterdam. I
ended up sharing a taxi with the guy from Amsterdam. We also got Mahua noodles.
He was apparently in town for some conference, and from what I derived, he
interns for a professor who works on the Large Hadron Collider. Since he was
only in China for a short time, I’m glad I could introduce him to Mahua
noodles.
But I should backtrack a little. Getting a taxi from the
Summer Palace around closing time was an ordeal. I knew that there would be
considerable traffic leaving the actual parking lot, so I went to the main
road. However, empty taxis would pass me, probably assuming they could make
more money if they picked someone up from the entrance. Eventually (maybe after
10-15 minutes) we got one. It ended up being worth the wait. The taxi driver
knew exactly where he was going (some taxis have no idea where I live), but he
also knew how to avoid the major intersections and traffic. I was praising his
driving when I realized he understood most of what I said. He was beaming.
My friend from Amsterdam reminded me of how I acted my first
week or so in China. Everything amazed him. He even took pictures of them
making noodles in Mahua. It was weird to feel like a host, though. My Chinese
is so bad.
I was exhausted, but got home around 7pm. Yi He Yuan
ended up being quite a perfect day trip. However, next time, I might go
specifically to see some of the things I missed, like Suzhou Street, some of
the buildings and big rocks near the entrance, and an art gallery that costs a
little extra near the southern Bafang gate. Who knows how long all that will
take…
Remember; all of my photos are available on my Photobucket account, Kamizilla
The train is certainly less expensive than flying, but not by a lot if you
have a soft sleeper. I mean, you might be talking a difference of 50$ in some
cases, but more in others, if the distance is further. But the train takes much
longer, too. If you’re really on a budget, but have time, go with the train. Of
course, the train from Shanghai to Beijing only took 12 hours, but I didn’t
have to go the airport and go through security, I suppose. In fact, the only
security I had to pass through was to show my ticket and passport, then chuck
all my bags on a conveyor belt that went through a massive x-ray machine. I
waited in a large waiting room crammed with people with Cecelia from Scholastic
until the train was ready to board. She was concerned about my heavy bags and
the state of my sometimes failure of a back, so she asked a man near us
politely if he’d help me put all my bags on the train. He was ecstatic. Not
only did he carry my heavy duffle through the teeming masses to the train platform,
but his ticket was for car 2 and mine was for car 13, but he walked down to car
13, found my bunk, and helped me put my bag under the bed. Wow. I talked to
Cecelia, and I think she was going to arrange some way to thank him a little
more formally. I hope so!
Our train was scheduled to leave at 7:40. There were three other beds and
people to fill them in my car. Across from me was a girl a little older than me
working in Beijing. She was thrilled to talk to me, but once the train was in
full throttle, the snack vendors made a few passes, and I almost fell into the
jerky toilet getting ready for the night, I became very tired, and passed out.
The beds were surprisingly comfortable.
That is, until I woke up around
midnight. There were people in the hallway talking and smoking, and my throat
was sore from all the traveling and the air conditioning. I got up quietly,
pulled on some pants, in the complete darkness, and slowly undid the latch on
my bunk. I walked up and down the train, looking for some hot water to drink,
and found dispensers near most of the rest rooms, but there were no cups. Some
middle-aged men told me in Chinese to go to car 9, since that was the dinning
car. After not stumbling to car 9, I found out it was closed. Some train
attendants were sitting in a small alcove near the front of car 9, and they
were giddy at the chance to use their English. They asked if they cold help,
and I explained that my throat hurt and I was looking for hot water. One of
them promptly unlocked the dinning car and emerged minutes later with a cheap
paper cup, but that was more than good enough. I used the hot water dispenser
liberally and let the girls practice all their best English on me. One of them
explained to me that her boyfriend lived in Beijing, and she would finally get
to see him. She’d been busy working for the past week, and she’d been on the
train for over 24 hours.
Eventually, I felt too exhausted to let a little thing like a sore throat
keep me from sleep, snuck back to my bunk, curled up in the warm covers, and
let the train rock me to sleep.
I woke up scared. I could see light peeking through the drapes over the
window, but I couldn’t feel the train moving at all. When I looked out, I could
see that the train was moving, but only very slowly, and there was thick fog
all around. I could barely see the ground. I lay in bed with my eyes closed,
and the train eventually picked up speed again, and my bunkmates woke up one by
one. We all got dressed and opened the window. We came into recognizable parts
of Beijing as we were getting our entire luggage together, and sooner than I
knew it, everyone was scuffling off the train as quickly as they could. The
girl in my bunk helped me get my bag off the train, where my friend Wei was
waiting. Getting out of the train station was just a matter of letting the
crowds carry you along to the outside. There was a long wait for taxis, but I
had already set my mind to it. None of that lugging a huge bag on the subway at
7 in the morning for me thanks.
The rest of the weekend I ended up having to go to work, but it’s worth
noting that I didn’t feel entirely tired, despite taking the train all night
long.
I may try to take the overnight train to some other
places in the future; I really want to go to Xi’an, for example. But if the
train takes much more than a day (which it can if you’re traveling long
distances), I’m not sure it would be worth the money saved.
Tuesday I went out into the big world of Beijing. I decided to actually put off the predictable Forbidden City, Tian An Men, and Mummy Mao for a later date, and stayed close to home, here in Haidian. The Summer Palace, or Yi He Yuan is only one of a few sight seeing spots out to the North West, and certainly one of the better known ones. Other places out of the central city I'd like to see are the ruins of the Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan), the Ming Dynasty Tombs, and the Fragrant Hills Park, to name a few. I would like to state, for the record, that the Summer Palace is huge, and if you're in no hurry to see all of Beijing, you could probably spend two whole days trying to see everything there is to see on the grounds of the Summer Palace at a leisurely pace. There were quite a few things I didn't get to, and I was there from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M.
I also love that my lunch felt like a picnic in a remote Chinese garden, but I was actually in Beijing eating a cup noodle surrounded by Chinese folks using broken English mixed with Beijing Hua (the local dialect) to ask me where I'm from and if I like China.
I will certainly write about the experience once my messy housing situation is under control.
Okay. My job has moved and changed. I have to move to another part of Beijing that's far south of here. That means I have to find a new apartment and do some more new job training in the next week. I will desperately try to sqeeze in some blogging between that bit of crazy and my graduate course work, but I think it would be safer to say I'll be back in a week.
Why can't my life be normal and easy!?
To make it up, I'll invest a little more time uploading pictures.
I was going to post all at once about my Shanghai experience and the
overnight train, but I've been exhausted by teacher training and other
such fun activities this week. I'm working on a few posts now - my
overnight train experience, going out to Karaoke with the RYB people, a
Chinese banquet, Chinese Wal-Mart (not to be confused with Wu Mart),
and some of the friends I'm making in my neighborhood. Those will
happen as soon as possible. I'm tired.
But Shanghai.
As I explained before, the Scholastic operation in Beijing is in conjunction
with the Chinese company, RYB. The RYB center where I’m supposed to be teaching
is being renovated until the middle of this month. I will be teaching the first
‘C’ level classes in the RYB centers in Beijing. For that reason, along with the
fact that I needed to finish some foreigner registration procedures, I was sent
back to Shanghai on an early Tuesday morning plane. I didn’t get to really see
the airport from when I first arrived in Beijing, but going through the layers
of security and the trek to my gate provided me the chance to really see how
new, large, and expensive the Beijing airport is. Ooh. Aah. It was too clean
and well groomed for my tastes. It was a sterile environment. I was secretly
happy when I saw a broken chair in front of my gate.
On the plane, I was sitting next to an officer in the Chinese Navy.That was really unexpected, and I was
surprised at how good his English was. The conversation was definitely laced
with paranoia. I was wondering if he thought he could milk me for information,
and I think he was thinking the opposite. That uncomfortable plane ride only
lasted an hour or so, and when I was de-boarding, a Russian businessman who had
been sitting in front of me gave me his card. That was sweet.
There was no one to pick me up and coddle me all the way to the hotel this
time. I took the taxi of my own accord to the office and got there around 11:40
am. Christian, Brian, and Bennett from Concordia (my graduate school) were
there, and we all went out to lunch together. Afterwards, Alberto came to the
office, and Cecelia took a small group of the teachers to the foreigner
registration office. We went in and took a number. There were over a hundred
people in front of us, so I took a nap on one of the waiting benches. I think
we may have been there for nearly two hours, but the actual taking our forms
and getting everything signed and stamped when they called us up took only a
minute or two.
After we went back to the office, I went out for dinner on my own, but ran
into one of the other Scholastic teachers – Sam – and we got some Saizeriya
together. Sam was going to split, and I felt the pangs of spending another
night alone in Shanghai. I pouted all the way to a Coldstone down the street
from my hotel when I got a call from Brian, Christian, and Bennett. They were
going to go to a pub. After flirting scandalously with the Coldstone employees
and making them sing for their tip money (they sang “Thank you for the jiao,”
which I found hysterical), I trucked my way to the metro station and gobbled
down my Chinese interpretation of Coldstone’s birthday cake remix. We all
hopped in a cab, and Bennett showed them an advertisement for an English style
pub. Our cab driver, of course, wasn’t actually sure where it was, and a
5-minute drive became 15.
However, once there, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a nice, clean place
with a great atmosphere. Perusing the menu was a bit of a shock, because the
prices were certainly Western. We ended up ordering a pitcher of the cheapest
beer, which I recall being called Tiger Something. It tasted like good, cheap
beer. We relaxed out in the small garden area, sipping our beers and talking
about stuff young graduate students in Shanghai talk about, I suppose. After a
while, Bennett and Brian ordered some shots. I stayed well away. While they
were indulging, I found my way to the upstairs bathroom, and on the down, I
noticed the nice pool table and the relative deserted nature of the second
story of the building. I convinced my liquored-up buddies we should check it
out, and we spent the remainder of the night drinking, throwing darts, trying
to talk to the Chinese bar tender, and playing games of pool over conversations
about China, graduate school, and life in general. At one point in the evening,
a very drunk Chinese lady staggered up to me and gave me a hug. Later in the
evening, after everyone with work the next morning filed out, the owners, Keith
and Paul, two older chaps – one from England and one from Australia – made an
appearance. They were great guys, and while Christian and Verna, The owner’s
South African friend, played pool together, I hung around talking to Keith and
Paul, who told me all about how they met and how the bar came to be. Bennett
was occasionally joining in with the pool and watching people, and Brian was
working hard trying to chat up the Chinese waitress, who said her name was
Swallow. Nearing the end of the night, I think my glass of beer was magically
refilling itself. I wasn’t ridiculously drunk, but I was definitely feeling
quite tired by the end of the night. We all said our goodbyes to Verna, Keith,
Paul, and Swallow and took a taxi to a McDonalds, where after some water, some
salty French fries, and a potty break, we all felt a lot better. I got back to
my hotel and crashed around 3 AM.
Now that I’ve regaled you with all the details of my night of drunken
shenanigans, let me do a quick rundown of some of the cooler points of my
glorious return to Shanghai (otherwise known as a relatively boring few days of
waiting for things to happen and bumming around the Scholastic office).I helped my classmate, Bennett, find a
self-proclaimed “American-style Laundromat.” The guy is kind of large
(muscularly large) and while I can live with the small washing machines here,
he can’t. But Laundromats apparently do exist in Shanghai. I have yet to see
any in Beijing. We also checked out a foreign foods market that had pizza
rolls, Lysol wipes, and my favorite candy bar (NutRageous). I also found a few
different arcades, which all had House of the Dead 4 (I guess it’s popular),
but none of the guns worked all that well, and I wasted a good 10$ on that
throughout the week. I also won a totally unnecessary plushie in the UFO
catcher machines. I got a haircut at a schnazzy salon, and subsequently made
buddies of all 6 guys who worked there. One of them apparently said that he
wanted to be my boyfriend in Chinese, and the other hair stylists cajoled him
to tell me directly. He gave me a Doraemon doll to profess his attraction. In
all actuality though, they were really nice guys, and they’ve asked me to stop
by if I’m ever in Shanghai again. I also met some white businessmen – one from
France and one from the States. The one from France works for a real estate
company, and we shared some conversation about Chinese real estate agents over
a hot pot dinner in Metro City, and we had so much left over food that I ended
up sharing it with some guys on the wait staff as they were closing. They loved
that. The American one apparently works for Electronic Arts. These were all
things that make me think living in Shanghai wouldn’t be so bad. However, there
were a few other things I didn’t like. The metro was more expensive, and I had
issues with it. I was on one of the more crowded trains when this Chinese guy
in my… proximity… tried to check out that proximity. At first I shifted as much
as possible, trying to turn my body, and said “Dui Bu Qi” (I’m sorry) softly,
and tried to move my bag over that area, but it didn’t quite reach. I was
trying to give him the benefit of the doubt; I mean, we were all scrunched in
there pretty good. However, not even thirty seconds later, he was trying again.
This time, I said a little louder “Bu Yao” (don’t want). It was still a little
too difficult to turn my body away. He backed off. For about ten seconds. This
time, I was more forceful and loud with my Bu-Yao-ing. He backed off, and
before he could try again, a kind old man who had observed the situation and
knew what was going on motioned to switch places with me, putting himself
between me and the letch. I thanked him profusely. I also encountered a few
more Chinese people who, when I asked for directions or something similar in my
best Chinese, blew me off. I mean, it was not the majority, but I’m used to
Beijing, where 99% of the people are thrilled to talk to me. I also decided
that the food didn’t really agree with me.I like the food in Beijing.
I made sure to make a stop at Happy Lemon. I’ve found
I have to power to make all the Chinese people laugh at Happy Lemon by simply
taking the little plastic lemons with order numbers on them and sticking them
on my forehead. Making Chinese people laugh is, indeed, a great hobby.
I had a few things I wanted to talk about shortly, but I promise a bigger, shinier post tomorrow.
Bendy straws in China.
I
hate bendy straws in China. In short, they suck. Whenever I get one in
my soda, there's over a 50% chance there's a hole in it. It's usually
in the bendy part. The straws are also thin and narrow, lacking proper
suction and turning my delicious liquid drink into a series of gassy
bubbles providing no real refreshment. It's like I'm foiled at every
bendy turn.
Forget an extra $1.19 for Super-Sizing. I'll have a China-Size.
So
tonight, I had dinner at the usual time, which is an hour later than
most Chinese and dangerously close to closing time. I really do like
noodles here in Beijing. You can get them spicy or salty, with
vegetables, with meat, in soup or not. Most noodle dishes I have are
anywhere from 10-20 Yuan, and usually closer to 10. For instance,
tonight, I had a bowl of noodles with some tender beef chunks, potato,
and some green leafy vegetable in a salty beef broth for 12 Yuan.
Here's the deal: noddles are incredibly cheap and delicious, but they
usually come out of the kitchen in a plasma state of hotness and bowl
looks like it was meant to serve out of rather than eat out of. By the
time I was finished eating, I had burned my tongue and hands (from
splash-backs) a few times despite sincere efforts, and the bowl was
still half full of noodles and meat. Mind you, this dish was one of the
cheapest, most basic on the menu, and, theoretically, the least amount
of food I could have ordered. Yet I could barely finish half.
How
do Chinese people stay so thin? Why aren't they giants? These are the
questions I ponder everyday as I choke down as much food as physically
possible attempting to not offend anyone.
Even more on how much Chinese people love white girls.
In
the past week, I've had several men ask me if I wanted to be their
girlfriend. "I already have a boyfriend. Here's his picture," I say as
I whip out a small print-out. "I don't care." They scoff. They are very
persistent and very straightforward. It's very flattering and slightly
disturbing at the same time. It's not hurting my self esteem, I'll tell
you that. Just on the way back from dinner, a boy sitting in front of a
barber shop called out to me "Hello! You are very beautiful!" I tell
you, friends, in this respect, China is the biggest ego trip ever. Then
I remember that I don't understand most everything and I'm not that
rich and I have all these Chinese guys impersonated Pepe LePui hot on
my tail. I also realize, sadly, that they probably see me as they see
foreign women in the media: over-sexualized and easy. Of course, it's
difficult to know what they're really thinking. I just speculate. Even
Chinese girls seem fascinated by me. It's hard to tell if they really
want to be my friend, if they just want English help, or if they
secretly think I'm a mystical creature. I think I'm too used to Japan,
particularly Tokyo, where foreigners were still rare, but not to the
same extent. The strange thing is, I'm in Beijing. They just hosted the
Olympics. I suppose I thought more Chinese people here would be used to
foreigners, or at least less surprised. I still, frequently, walk into
a store or restaurant for the first time and get the vibe that I might
be one of only a few, if not the first ever, foreigner they've had in.
And, in general, most foreigners I see are male. I see other foreign
women occasionally, but less frequently. Therefore, I think there are a
few combined factors that make me a real freak show when I'm walking
down the street: I'm a foreinger: I'm a girl: I'm not blonde giant with
big boobs, rather short, with dark hair and a failrly slender frame.
It's like, I'm obviously foreign, but not like the white models in
Chinese ads. People stare and squint at me. A lot. I would not suggest
China for people who cannot handle staring.
But most people here
are just people. They have their moment of gawking, then they treat you
like a normal human being, with sincere kindness.
Okay, tomorrow, I will post about my week in Shanghai and the overnight train.
It’s been a week (and a half) since I came to Beijing, and a lot has
happened. I’ll give you the highlights
Getting lost
My first day in Beijing, I was supposed to go to the Scholastic office
(which is actually the Red, Yellow, Blue office, more on that later) in
Pufangyu. It was basically straight down the road from my hotel, and the night
before, I had a good laugh with Christine that if I got lost, that would be
pretty sad.
So there was this roundabout, and I didn’t take the narrow sidewalk path
straight through the roundabout, but rather took the walking path which went
under it, and ended up not going straight somehow. But I didn’t realize that
for a good hour.I kept walking and
smiling like the stupid foreigner I was down the road until I realized I was in
a very residential ‘China’ area, and the road was becoming less paved. It was
like, the further I went, the more everyone else who saw me realized I was
lost, but it only hit me when I literally started running out of road. Luckily,
there was a passing taxi.I got in, and
showed him the address Christine wrote down for me.It couldn’t have been more than a mile away. He didn’t know where
it was.We drove around for maybe 10
minutes, and finally, I recognized a Pizza Hut, which Christine had mentioned
in her directions.I told him to let me
out, and he apologized. (It didn’t matter too much – my fare was still less
than 3 dollars). Okay, so what did Christine say about the Pizza Hut? I would pass
it.Okay. I passed it.Oh!I came across a Wu Mart? What did Christine say about the Wu Mart?I’m not all that sure. I passed the Wu Mart
just a little, and decided to ask someone, just to make sure.I pulled out that address again and asked a
passing family, zai nar, and pointed to the address. The pointed back in
the direction of the Wu Mart, and said something else, but of course I didn’t
know what.Okay, that direction. I
crossed the street and asked someone else.They pointed around the side of the Wu Mart.I went that way. I asked another person there, they point back in
front of the Wu Mart, and drew me a small map, indicated to go back near the
Pizza Hut. Okay.To make sure, one last
time, I decided to ask one of the Olympics volunteers at the tent outside the
Wu Mart. (there are small information tents with volunteers all over Beijing
right now.) The middle-aged man took it upon himself to find this place for
me.I followed him, and he asked security
guards along the way. We passed the Pizza Hut again, and headed around the side
of that building.This was the location
of the Red Yellow Blue (RYB) School. Before we went in, though, another
security guard said no one was there, and that we were probably looking for the
office, which was in the same building, but through the front, back past the
Pizza Hut on the 4th floor. I finally found it. I thanked the
volunteer, pushed the elevator button, for the 4th floor, and looked
at my watch.The ordeal had taken two
and a half hours and the office was only a 20-minute walk from my hotel. Good
job, Laowai.
Getting a phone
Getting a phone was not nearly as hard as I thought. Admittedly, this is in
part due to going with May, Christine’s pregnant Chinese office assistant, and
in part due to Wu Mart. My original plan was to go for the cheapest phone that
also had all the basic functions I wanted.And those included calling and texting capabilities.Nothing fancy. I didn’t even have to buy the
cheapest model, because a slightly nice new one was on sale for less than the
cheapest one. Go me. I think it cost something like 230 Yuan (around $35) and
came with two free plastic glitter beer mugs. That’s definitely a winning
situation. I actually owned my phone for a day before I bought a SIM card.When I did buy a SIM card, it was also from
Wu Mart. I couldn’t tell you much about the kind it is, except I got it at the
suggestion of May and Christine and it has the M-Zone people on it. I think I
only put 50 Yuan (the minimum) on it, and I haven’t run out of minutes yet.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Chinese cellular service, you have
to buy not only a phone, but also a SIM card, which will give you a phone
number. You can buy a cheap SIM card if you don’t care what number you get, or
you can pay extra if you want a number like 888 888 8888. (8’s are lucky, so
they cost more, apparently) You also buy credit for the phone, which is
activated by calling a number on the phone card. It’s a lot more complicated
than all of that, I’m sure, but this is my rudimentary understanding.
Wu Mart
What can I say? I love Wu Mart. They have anything an American girl in
Beijing could ever want (except real deodorant and tampons) for the right
price. The only thing I can’t stand about Wu Mart? The lines.They are ridiculous.Carrefor (think French WalMart) is just
about as bad with the line situation, but prices are ever so slightly more
expensive, and the atmosphere is not as Chinese. Besides, I almost die a
horrible, horrible death every time I step into Carrefor because their shopping
carts lack adequate steering mechanisms. It’s more difficult to maneuver in a
Carrefor than it is to cross the road in central Beijing. Still, I am not a fan
of the lines in Wu Mart. It’s like a game, and I always lose. I always seem to
get in the ONE line where the middle aged Chinese house wife is going to have a
conniption fit over something she thought was on sale, or the cashier’s snail
pace seems to reflect the lack of meaning their lives have to them (you see it
in the eyes). Okay, you may think “Surely she’s exaggerating for dramatic
effect.” No.I love Wu Mart, but I
don’t think I’ve ever been able to get through any of the lines in less than 5
minutes. Ever. Even when I was in the speed lanes with one item. I think the
one that really killed me was the time I was, indeed, buying only one or two
things, was next in line, and the woman in front of me and the cashier were
having it out. Then, when the lady finally left, he decided to just close his
register. There were 4 people in line behind me. I honestly almost cried, but I
was laughing too hard.
A Chinese “Party”
I work for Scholastic. In Beijing, they are partnered with a Chinese group,
RYB (Red, Yellow Blue, or Hong, Huang, Lan).RYB has centers dotted all over Beijing, and Scholastic has English
classrooms within those centers. I am not considered an employee of RYB in any
way, but at the same time, I am expected to go to RYB functions. Christine said
that eventually the foreign English teachers (like me) should even attend the
RYB teacher training sessions (even though we will only use Scholastic
curriculum and teaching methods in the classroom).It’s all about the relations and proving to RYB that we are
serious and professional about this partnership, and want to be a part of
them/work with them.You get it. So
last Thursday there was an RYB teacher party. Imagine my surprise when by
‘party,’ they meant upwards of 15 RYB employees making lengthy speeches in
front of all the other teachers, crammed in a hot gymnasium-type room in one of
the centers. It was an experience, for sure.I couldn’t understand anything. May and I were filling the roles of the
bad kids sitting in the back of the room. She was playing games on her phone, we
were giggling at the speakers, she was imitating some of them; it was like
middle school. There was also some group singing (which I sucked at for obvious
reasons), a power point presentation of some sort, and some of the teachers
performed a somewhat (provocative) dance routine (part of it to a remix of
Zelda’s Lullaby from the Nintendo 64 video game.) When we first entered the
room, everyone was handed mini Chinese flags to wave around during the meeting
as well. It was a very strange experience. To the credit of whoever organized
the party, there were awards, a group picture, and cake at the very end, which
I suppose constitutes party activity. Otherwise, I would characterize the whole
experience as bizarre.
May, Lily, and Cincy, my three Chinese girlfriends
At the ‘party’ (I’m using the term lightly), I met Lily, who will be my
partner teacher when my center is open and I start teaching classes. She’s a
sweetheart, but I suspect she also knows 50 ways to kill a man with
chopsticks.She’s generally quiet, but
funny, and likes to laugh at/with me.She makes some hilarious unexpected comments. She’s also been an immense
help to me. Lily’s gone shopping with me, helped me move in to my apartment,
dealt with my landlady and some maintenance scheduling issues over the phone
for me – she’s invaluable. It hasn’t been all work between us, though.We’ve gone out to eat a few times, took a
walk in the park, played with some local children, talked with some elderly
folk, gone for ice-cream, and totally conned a free dinner from an unsuspecting
university boy. (She only looks innocent on the surface.)
May is the aforementioned office assistant to Christine, who is very cute
and very pregnant. She cracks me up. She did some pretty outrageous things at
the party, but she knew she could get away with it all, because she’s pregnant.
She’s always so nice to me, too. I wish I could see her more often, but as soon
as I get started working in my own center, I’ll actually see her less and less.
She was a great help to me my first few days in Beijing, though, and I won’t
forget.
Cincy I don’t know very much about yet, except that I had to work with her
for one day, and she and her boyfriend love Japan and anime. I find it really
refreshing and surprising, because usually, even if a Chinese person likes
Japan, they aren’t so assertive about it. Cincy also has all the good gossip,
and she gave me a little bit of the low-down on RYB and Scholastic relations in
Beijing. I hope I get to spend more time with her - it seems like that feeling
is mutual.
Finding an apartment
When is searching for residence ever really fun? Well, I’ll tell you how fun
it was for me! It was beyond aggravating, and there were times I thought’s I
would break down into tears. Before I start, I have to explain something about
real estate agents in China, from my understanding -correct me if I’m wrong-
they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know how to ‘sell’ a property,
and they certainly don’t know how to help the negotiation process to actually
seal the deal. They think their job is to show up, take you to properties, go
“Here it is.” And hope you go for it. It may not be what you were looking for
or even specifically asked for. It may be way out of your price range. They
seem not to understand or care. They just want you to magically fall in love
with the property that will bring them the most commission and sign the
contract hastily, so that they can collect their fee and move on. I heard
somewhere that this is due to the fact that real estate agent work, as we know
it in the modern West, is a very new concept in China. When I said they don’t
know what they’re doing, it wasn’t so much an insult as saying they literally
have know idea what is expected of them. This can cause a lot of tension
between agents and paying clients. Additionally, they made significant
presumptions about me, because I’m American. They assumed I was wealthy beyond
imagination and that I would never want to live in an older building. Monica,
another Chinese teacher, Christine, and I spent hours with agents from 2 different
companies last Wednesday. At first, we were shown three apartments in the same
building which were identical except for a few differences in décor and
furnishings. It was technically affordable, but not in the price range we
wanted. Yes, it was a very new building (a high rise near a metro station),
with the amenities I wanted, but it was, frankly, a little too snazzy for my
own wants and needs.I do not need to
live the high life in Beijing. This is where some of the agents assumptions
caused confusion and friction. They didn’t understand – could I not afford
these apartments? Wasn’t I a foreigner? Didn’t foreign standards demand
apartments of this caliber? For the asking prices, these apartments were a
deal!Why wasn’t I jumping all over
this (relatively) cheap piece of luxury real estate? Why would I even want to
see any other apartments? (I think they honestly thought they were only going
to have to show me three identical apartments, and then I’d be able to make a
decision.) We waited to meet with a different agent who said he had different
apartments for around 1000 Yuan less a month.We followed him a ways and realized he was leading us back to the same
building. We protested, and then he said “Well, what about this apartment
building?” and motioned to one across the street. We asked how much, and he
quoted the same rent as the others. As Christine said when we were walking away
from that big disappointment, who didn’t seem to understand why we didn’t want
to see the apartment, “What a waste of time.”
Finally, we met up with the first real estate agent again, and he seemed to
begin to get it. He showed me a large apartment in an older building.
Unfortunately, it was a little too ‘China’ for me.The fixtures were old, the apartment and amenities themselves
were old and dirty. It seemed like other rooms in the same building would have
been acceptable, but the particular one he showed us was just not taken care
of, and I certainly didn’t want to invest a lot making it nicer. It had a nice
view.
After a long walk (because the real estate agent didn’t know how to get to
the next place), I saw another apartment in an older building.It was a little dirty, but nothing
insurmountable. It had a new TV, two beds with newer mattresses, a newer water
heater, a western toilet in good condition, a microwave, a small fridge that
smelled quite ripe, but was in working order, a small washing machine, and A/C.
An older woman who didn’t speak a lick of English owned it. We had Monica
interpret. I explained I absolutely needed Internet, and she agreed to arrange
the installation. She also agreed to have someone put a new toilet seat on the
toilet, come out and make sure the fridge, water heater, and washing machine
were all in working order. The location was good – within walking distance to
some shopping centers and the metro – and it was not just a high rise where I’d
probably never even meet my neighbors. It’s in a real neighborhood with old
people doing community watch and playing mahjong at card tables all day, watching
their grand children and walking their dogs. I was sold.
This is where I really grew to detest my real estate agent. Instead of going
over the contract and hammering out terms, once I showed the slightest
inclination of renting, he sat down, started filling out the paperwork with an
attitude, brushing off questions moodily, saying that such and such was not an
issue and not important and we didn’t have to talk about it, and pressing the
old woman and I to sign without going over all the clauses and discussing
important issues such as payment schedule and method. This caused a lot of
friction and almost came to a head when Christine finally asked the impatient
agent quite directly when he expected us to pay the deposit and his fee, and
how much that total was.We tried not
to laugh when he said ‘now.’ In other words, he wanted us to pay 3 months rent,
one-month rent of deposit, and one-month rent for his fee, which came to nearly
12000 Yuan, or approximately $1,700, right there, in cash, and he wasn’t going
to say anything. He never asked us at any point if we even had that kind of
money, and assumed we were walking around with that amount of cash. (because
we’re white)
I really did almost cry.I almost
wanted to say “Screw you, I’m taking my business elsewhere.” I didn’t.I’m actually quite glad I just swallowed
down the frustration and went through with it. I ended up renting the place for
2300 Yuan a month, which is probably a little more than the place is worth, but
still dirt cheap for the size of the apartment by Western standards, and has
all the amenities I want, and they work (or do since people came to fix them
all this past week). It’s within my budget, I love the location, and when the
ill-tempered real estate agent is not present, the old woman is actually a very
pleasant lady.
Moving in
Some of this will be re-stating what I’ve already described about the place,
but bear with me.
I really like the place I ended up with for a number of reasons, such as a
great location in regards to where I’ll be working, nice neighborhood and
convenient distance from several shopping areas, the metro, and some community
parks. Additionally, I’m not in a foreigner-heavy area, so I’m kind of like the
neighborhood white chick. (But I still occasionally see other foreigners,
especially closer to the metro in the big shopping areas, but that makes sense.
It’s not cheap by Chinese standards (when you consider it’s for one person) but
it’s well within my budget and not too big, but a very comfortable size for one
person. (Technically, two or more people could live there, but there would be
some space issues if those people weren’t related or very good friends)
It has all the amenities that make it not too China for me – a Western style
toilet, locks on the doors, internet, a water heater, A/C, microwave, two beds,
a refrigerator (even though it’s smelly), a tiny, but functional washing
machine, a new TV, and a good mattress – along with furnishings that, while
older, are solid wood, and things I don’t have to invest in. There are two
tables in the kitchen, a stove (though I honestly don’t know that I’ll use it
all that much), a sink, a wardrobe in the front room (which I like to call the
foyer, even though it’s no such thing), a slightly nasty coffee table in the
bed room, along with the main bed and a fold-out, both king-size, and a big
wooden desk and chair.
There were also a number of things, though fixable, that I really didn’t
care for. Along with all the fixtures in the apartment I can count as pluses,
there are also minuses. It was really dirty. It looked like no one had cleaned
it in ages, or only had made some half-assed attempts over a long period of
time that left years of built up dirt in some spaces. To support my theory,
there were a lot of things left in the apartment that I didn’t particularly
want. Old boxes, shopping bags in the drawers, an old can of toothpicks in the
desk, some crap under the bed I have yet to look at because I don’t know if I
want to, a disgusting dustpan, an old, soggy, cloth mop I’m pretty sure isn’t
going to clean anything anymore so much as just spread the dirt evenly, some
dusty, disgusting hooks in the kitchen and bedroom, a nasty wooden stool in the
bathroom that smells like it has rotted, another disgusting, warped wooden stool
propping the kitchen door open, (of course, because it’s in the shower and it’s
wood), old, ratty curtains that I think are actually sheets, and a dusty bottle
of bleach. The list goes on. The stove was also incredibly dirty and rusty, and
the walls surrounding it are caked with years of cooking grease. (I guess it’s
actually more like frosting.)
I moved all my things in on Friday, August 22. I didn’t bother cleaning much
that day, because I was exhausted, but Lily was there, and she helped me get my
bed set, and the sink clean, at least. We went out, and I bought a pillow and
sheets, so that I could sleep. (The landlady left some sheets for me, but like
hell I was going to use her smelly old sheets. Thanks for the thought.) I also
bought a cup and a hot water pot, so I could at least make myself tea in the
mornings. I didn’t have a lot of cash, because I had to pay the landlady the
rest of the deposit money by the 30th, and my financial aid check
wasn’t in yet. We actually met a boy in the Carrefore who was a little younger
than us – a university student – eager to practice his English. He bought us
all dinner that night, so that was a plus. (Lily, I think, is convinced that if
she sticks with me, she’ll never have to pay for dinner again) On Saturday I
bought a few basic cleaning items, but was too tired after work to do much
cleaning. On Sunday, one of my new Chinese buddies, Wei, came over to watch the
Olympics on my TV. I persuaded him that he wanted to help me clean. At first, I
set to the stove with some soap and steel wool and let Wei start on the
bathroom with a wok brush, a sponge, and tile cleaner.I think we cleaned for three hours or more.
It was fairly disgusting work, and we didn’t have any hot water at the time.
(The water heater was fixed on Monday) Somehow, we powered through years of
grime, though there are still quite a few areas in the apartment that need some
special attention. However, the kitchen and bathroom are now at acceptable
levels of dirty. We did, indeed, stop cleaning eventually and got something to
eat and watched the Olympics closing ceremonies on TV. Lily helped me do some
more cleaning of the refrigerator and stove that Tuesday, but I still couldn’t
do much with my work starting that week.I was going to observe lessons at all four corners of Beijing in places
I had no clue of the actual physical location, so I used trains, buses, taxis,
sketchy rented cars with no markings, and hired motorcyclists to get to them
all. Thankfully, at the end of the week I got my financial aid money in, I made
my rent payment, and I finally had money to start getting the things I really
needed for the pad. On Monday I spent the better part of the day shopping. Door
mats, a new mop to replace the filthy ragged thing left in the bathroom, an
assortment of noxious cleaners, hand soap, trash cans, sponges, a broom – you
name it – anything to make my apartment proper and clean and homey for me. I
still want to find curtains, though.
Chinese people love white girls
Okay, there are a number of stories I could tell you about this one. I don’t
exactly blend in to my neighborhood. In fact, I said this before, but I’m kind
of the token foreigner in my complex, and the people who live and work around
me love it. It’s like I’m their American. I hear them sort of bragging
sometimes- I can tell even though my Chinese is poor. They like to tell other
people “Yes, she’s an American.She
lives right over there.I’ve met
her before. I see her all the time.” The old women in the parks around
my house love it.They’re usually
playing MahJong or playing with their grandchildren, and they’ll often pause
what they’re doing to smile and say hi.They point at me to their tiny grandchildren and tell them “There’s a
foreigner,” or they wave me over to watch their game of MahJong and ask me
questions I don’t entirely understand or use their five words of English.
But things like this aren’t limited to my neighborhood. I’ve been stopped a
few times just so some Chinese man can tell me I’m piaoliang or to be
offered a teaching job. Often at restaurants I get a little bit closer
attention by the curious wait staff, especially girls who look to be about my
age.They also like to tell me I’m piaoliang
and try to ask me all sorts of different questions in Chinese. In general, everyone
is almost sickeningly obliging to me. That doesn’t mean I never get alienating
stares or people frowning or scoffing at my presence, but that’s actually rare.
Most people smile. Sometimes, from out of nowhere, someone will call out
“hello” to me, and in stores, other customers will try to help me with their
best English, even if I don’t need help. My apartment blew a fuse one day, and
all I did was go outside, and within five minutes, one of my neighbors came up
to me and tried to help me in his very best English.I had my power back on within twenty minutes. He also bought took
it upon himself to show me some local shopping areas, a super market, and
treated me to dinner one evening this past week. (I know what you’re thinking,
but no, he’s not hitting on me. He’s really excited about having an American
friend with whom he can practice and perfect his English living right next to
him, however.)
Basically, I’m discovering what it’s like to get special treatment
everywhere I go. It’s a little bit like being a celebrity, I suppose. A lot of
people wanting to meet a white girl or practice their English have treated me
to quite a few dinners already (and actually, I can recall only one unfortunate
incident where someone was hoping for something more, but it ended up with me
basically saying no, bu yao (don’t want), and leaving.) Yes, it is, at
times, tiresome, because I’m conscious that someone somewhere is probably
viewing anything and everything I do in public. I’m a little bit more worried
about leaving the house if I don’t smell like I just came out of the shower or
my hair isn’t perfectly groomed or I have a big zit on the end of my nose.
People will notice those things. I also have to be careful of what I say. A lot
of people ask me if I like China, or if I like China more than America, or if I
like China more than Japan. I always have to be very cautious, and make it a
point to tell them that I like China, but not the way I like America or Japan.
I emphasize, or at least try to, that it’s different, so I don’t really ever
say that one is better than the other, but try to pick out the things about
China that I like. I like the people; I like the food; it has a lot of history.
People are satisfied by these answers, but I think they also realize that it’s sort
of my B.S. feel-good answer. However, there is truth in what I tell them, so I
say it sincerely and try to avoid seeming flaky.
I wonder if my neighborhood would head-up a Kami-fan-club…
A few assorted neat thing
I love the parks near my apartment.At night, people gather there, dance, play sports, sing traditional
Chinese song or play traditional Chinese instruments, practice tai chi,
exercise, and even make-out in the darker areas. During the day people
accumulate there to play MahJong, walk and play with their children and
grandchildren, talk, play cards, exercise, and sell food or small goods. Once,
there was even a man who came to sell crickets in small bamboo cages strung
together and slung over his shoulder. Stray cats also frequent the parks, and
are very friendly. They will come up to you with the hope you have food, stay
long enough so you can give them a good scratch, and then waltz away through
the bushes as if they never saw you in the first place. There are also many pet
dogs in Beijing, perhaps especially in my area. I don’t think there are any
leash laws, because you rarely see anybody using one. Sometimes, I even see
this one produce farmer who comes along my street often with his horse. It’s so
weird to see a horse and cart surrounded by taxis, bikes, and trucks.I feel a little sorry for the horse when he
has to cross traffic, but the horse is probably used to it and not very scared.
He’s probably thinking “I’ll show you how it’s done, little white girl.”
I think I like this “Few Assorted Neat Things” section
of my entry, and might add it to any following entries, so I can just have a
space to talk about some of the neat things I observe. There are so many- I
wish I had the time to write about it all! This concludes, however, the severely
abridged version of my first week and a half in Beijing.
Normal0So Tuesday morning started with my health check, which I needed to get a
residence permit (which I actually have yet to get). I took a taxi to an
address Cecelia gave me, hanged them bunches of documents, filled out the
standard forms (personal information and health history), and waited to be
called.The clinic worked very
efficiently.I suppose in the mornings,
all they did were these health checks for foreigners. All the rooms on the
first floor were for one or two of the items on our health check list. I went
to one room to have my information put in, another to change into a gown, yet
another to get an x-ray, another for having blood drawn (aya), another to get
an ultra sound, another to check my nose, ears, and eyesight, another for an
EKG, another to check my medical history and surgical sites, and one more where
I had to pay for it all. My appointment was at 8am, and I was out by 9. I
wasn’t supposed to eat before the appointment, so I was starving, but there
were no convenience store or much of anything near the hospital.I took a taxi back to metro city, where I
picked up my pictures from the day before, then went to my hotel to pack and
check out. The plan was to move my luggage across the street to the Scholastic
office until I had to go to the airport around 2:40. I got the first, huge,
heavy suitcase across the crazy, busy street by myself.Somehow, magically. Cecelia came back to the
office just as I was heading back for my next bag, and she came to help.We got all the rest, and checked out just
before 11:30. That’s when I realized I had a domestic flight and would only be
allowed a certain number of bags and weight, which I would be way over. Cecelia
called East China Airlines for me, and sure enough – I would only be allowed
20kg total. I have, like, twice that. Since I have to return to Shanghai to
register with the government there, I spent a good 20 minutes in the Scholastic
office, my belonging splayed all over the break room, repacking everything I
absolutely needed into one bag, and tucking everything else away into the
other. I pushed the second bag into an inconspicuous corner of the storage
closet, and voila. Cecelia bought me some lunch of some yummy meat dumplings of
which I can’t remember the name. But even after lunch, I had some time to kill,
so I decided to run out and get some Happy Lemon to make my day a little
better.While it did make me feel
better, I was acquiring a headache from all of the running about, the heat, and
all that thinking. I was probably just a little dehydrated and weak from the
blood test, but even a small cup of Happy Lemon couldn’t fix this headache.
Cecelia (I love her, btw), helped me get a cab, and I went off to the airport.
I still don’t remember the name of the airport. That’s how bad of a headache I
had!
I had to lug my bags about, and that was even less fun than usual with the
headache. I also had to wait nearly 2 hours for my flight, even after I got
through security, which seemed not to take any time at all. I wrote a little
bit of my journal and did some reading.The plane trip itself was uneventful, but I was sitting next to a really
loud Chinese man who I swear, was talking on his cell phone right up to the
minute he absolutely had to turn it off (and a little over that, actually), and
was on it again the very second we landed. That totally helped the head
situation.
It took a hot second to get through baggage claim, and when I came out at
the arrivals area, I couldn’t see anyone waiting for me. Oh great.I pushed my little luggage trolley up and
down looking to see if there was anyone I recognized, though I’m not sure how I
would. I tried using a pay phone to call the Shanghai office, since I had that
number, but apparently, all the pay phones in China don’t take change. They
take a special kind of credit card, which I don’t have. Awesome.
Luckily, after 20 minutes or so, Christine from Scholastic and I spied each
other.Our gazes locked, and it was
love at first sight, because it meant we could leave the airport and get food
and sleep. During the cab ride, Christine pointed out all sorts of places
around Beijing, but I honestly noticed very few. I had a headache, I felt weak,
I needed food, I needed a shower, and I needed sleep. The one site I do recall
was the smokestack. I don’t know very much about this, and how this came to
pass, but there is a smokestack in the middle of Beijing that is all decorated
up with pretty colored lights.I
decided to call it the drag queen stack. It does quite resemble a fairy wand.
I was to stay at a Super 8 hotel not too far from the
Puhangyu Red Yellow Blue/ Scholastic office. Christine and I both saw the sign,
so we had the cabbie pull off. However, the hotel was, in actuality, a block
down. It was like a not-so-funny joke we pulled on ourselves. We walked down
the road, which was, at that time, maybe the most ‘China’ road I had been
down.It was lined with people sitting
at card tables, eating or playing Mahjong, talking, watching their dogs, and
pant less or slit-pants wearing children were running about. Additionally,
where one white girl walking down the road is quite a sight, two is like, whoa.
We drew a lot of attention. Awesome.The hotel was set back from the road though, and very clean. We had a
sweet little security guard from the hotel help us with the bags. Christine
pointed out the room prices, and said that they put a one in front of all of
them for the Olympics.We got a much
better rate, because Christine has connections. We got my things in my room
with the aide of the cute short security guard, and then we hurried to the
nearest Chinese restaurant, because I was pretty hungry. We ordered way too
much food, but Christine decided that my first dinner in Beijing was a business
expense. Afterwards, we went to a tiny house near the hotel where a man was
selling bottled drinks. I wanted a few bottles of water for my room, and as I
was buying them, an old woman sleeping on a board above the shop area gave me
quite a scare when she shifted, and her foot came swinging down a foot or two
from my head. Christine and I were trying hard not to judge or laugh. With
that, Christine told me how to get to the office for the next day, and when to
come, and then she left me for the night.The short security guard smiled at me as I was crawling back to my room.
I had one more surprise that night before I could crash, though.When I was taking a shower, I noticed, for
the first time, that there were condoms for sale in my bathroom.One of them had a vibrating device on it.
Honestly, all I could think to mumble to myself was, “Way to go, China. Jiao
You.”
On Monday, I had the whole day free again, except that I planned on going to
the women's soccer semi-final between Brazil and Germany in the evening. I
slept in, for the first time since I arrived, then stumbled out of the hotel, hungry,
as all I had for breakfast was some left over convenience store bread that I
didn't particularly care for. I made my way back up the road to the metro city
shopping area (the place that looks like the epcot ball, for those of you who
have seen my pictures on Facebook) where I found, of all things, a Coco Ichiban
curry restaurant. It was really crowded, too. The girl sitting at
the counter next to me gave me a glare. That might have been the first
time I was like, 'geez, get over it. I’m just a foreigner eating alone. What of
it?" I wandered up and down the levels, walking around stores and getting
the usual hasseling to buy something. How could a white person not be
unimaginably wealthy? This Chinese girl and I took turns trying to play
Resident Evil (at least, I think that's what it was) on a display model Wii.
That was a big failure. It was still fun. I also walked around some high-end
shopping areas outside of Metro city and treated myself to Happy Lemon, my new
favorite drink place in Shanghai. Around 2pm, I went back towards my hotel and
the Scholastic office, where I stopped to ask about my health exam on Tuesday
and some details about my flight to Beijing. Cecelia, the Chinese woman
who was helping me with all these things, was out. Oh boy.
Hilariously, I ran into her in the lobby of my hotel. She was looking
for me, too. We worked out some details of my Tuesday (which trust me,
you'll get to hear all about.) She also informed me I needed more passport
photos, and while I was cutting it short, I ran back to metro city, where
Cecelia said the closest passport photo place was. I think a lot of the
employees there were weirded out by my persistent presence there that day.
"Wait, I've seen that white person, like, 4 times today."
There was so much walking involved!
And when I got my pictures taken, I had to sprint back to the soccer stadium
to meet the older woman and her niece and her niece’s friend. She was waiting
patiently, but her niece and friend weren’t there.We both ended up waiting 30 minutes until right before the game,
and they came.We scurried as quickly
as possible through security and were pretty much running to our seats. While
we were waiting, though, I was people watching.Some people were coming into the game, some were trying to scalp
tickets, there were a number of police officers and security guards all around,
an old woman collecting empty bottles, and a skittish cat that would peek out
of some bushes, and at one point was lying contented in front of a statue in
the middle of the walkway, but was scared off when someone settled themselves
too close. One deliveryman had a huge load of boxes stacked on a small load bed attached to his bike, but because of the positioning of the police and security
guards, ever numerous and watchful, he had to move his load a few boxes at a
time down a set of stairs to go around them.It was interesting to watch for all of 5 minutes. Everything is new to
me, so the smallest things catch my attention.
The game itself was awesome, I can’t recall play-by-plays, but I will say
that the German women’s soccer team started really strong and in great form,
while the Brazilians seemed to be lagging. In the second half, the two seemed
to reverse these roles.The Brazilians
were really on-point and in control of the ball almost the whole second half.
The Germans became really slow and careless, and control over the ball was
lacking. This I will say: I think that, regardless, Brazil would have won, but
that the Germans could have done much better, save the fact that it was
oppressively humid, even after the sun went down. I felt a little faint
just sitting in the audience! They just weren't running as fast, weren't getting to the ball, and weren't putting the power into their kicks the way they needed.
The best part of the game, perhaps, wasn’t the game, but the fact that my
seat was only a few over from the unofficial Brazilian cheer squad in the
stands. Green and yellow painted faces, jerseys, wigs, hats, banners, Brazilian
flags, and, of course, the cheering and chanting. The Chinese crowds were also
highly amused.The Brazilians even got
the Chinese to do a wave at one point. I was impressed, too, that the
Brazilians made the effort to cheer for their team IN Chinese.So most to the entire game I could hear
“Ba-Shi! Jiao You!” (Brazil!Add Oil!)
One of the Brazilians even had a panda mask that he would put on occasionally
and dance about in the front of the stands.Oh, the Chinese LOVED that.He may have been the most photographed
person at that game! At half time, I also had my picture taken with him. At the
end of the game, the Brazilian girls (who won 4-1), came over to blow kisses
and to wave at the little cheering section. I parted with my three friends soon
after we got out of the stadium, and I meandered back on home, catching dinner alone on the way. The restaurant had the Olympics playing on the radio, and occasionally, all the wait staff would call out "Zhongguo, Jiao You!" Once back in my hotel room, I took a much needed third shower of the day.
So yesterday was, again, Kami's adventures alone in Shanghai. I don't
have a cellphone, since I was advised it would be better to wait until I'm in
Beijing to do that, and even though I know all of... one person (Alberto) who
is supposed to live within walking distance, I don't know where.
Don't let the details stop you.
I did the covenience store breakfast again, mainly for the convenience. Now
that I'm getting a better sense of the worth of the yuan, I realized that I
could probably afford more than a conveninece store breakfast easily, but I was
more focused on exploration. I went down my street (Tian Yao Qiao Rd) until I
came to an elevated walkway. I stood on top, ate my breakfast, and
watched people. From there, you could see the crowds of people on the sidewalks
below, and the crazy traffic patterns. People and bikes would dart across
the street right in front of cars that weren't slowing down, but there were no
accidents. It's always interesting to watch people on bikes. Sometimes you'll
see a whole family - father, mother, and child - squished onto one bike.
You also see people with hilariously large loads of goods, materials, and
trash. When I say bike, I also mean every kind of bike - motorized,
pedal, ones with load beds attached, and motorcycles (not to be confused with
motorized bikes). Aside from the bikes, there are people all around town
dressed in blue garments that hang loose and limp whose job it is to pick up
trat or sweep. The sweepers have these huge brooms made of twigs and leaves,
and even though they try to stay out of the way, they almost always get in
someone's way, and you don't really see them sweeping any area for any
consecutive length of time. Some of the sweepers, admittedly, have the small
Western style brooms accustommed in the West. The ones that go around picking
up trash are downright crazy. I watched one dodge four or five lanes of
heavy traffic just to pick up a bottle, which she took her precious time
stooping down to pick up in the middle of the street. Well, it's their
job, and they know how to do it better than me!
Eventually, I followed the walkway into Huijin department store, where I
spent most of the morning in delicious air conditioning. I basically just
walked at a liesurely pace around a floor, then went the to next. The
first few floors had some of the most gorgeous women's clothes I've ever seen.
What's more is that, while they weren't necessarily in my teacher's
income/student spending bracket, I could easily see them costing 10x more in
the States. Besides, while I'm not huge (by American standards), I feel like I
might still have trouble fitting comfortably in some Chinese clothes. I think
my rib cage might be too wide and my hips are too big for a lot of the clothes
I saw. I'll live. Men’s followed the women’s clothes, which were followed
by children's. The children's clothes were also so very adorable. Most people,
I recall, were shopping on the children's floors. I think that people
everywhere love to spend money on their kids, but that this is especially true
in China because of their family planning policy. There are fewer children to
focus growing wealth on. Fun times to be a Chinese kid, except for the grueling
expectations of one day making enough to provide for parents, grandparents, and
possibly their own family.
Anyways, the top floor had various house wares, like bedding, kitchen
utensils, appliances, and sporting goods. One of the women working for a
gourmet German kitchen utensil line was demonstrating her wares on a little
stovetop.As I walked by, she waved me
over and motioned for me to sit.She
was making some sort of omelet looking food in a skillet.When it was done, she cut it up with a
spatula and stuffed a paper cup full and told me to eat it in Chinese.She also poured me a cup of hot water (which
is apparently normal in China – drinking hot water with nothing in it).The omelet looking thing was actually more
like a pancake, but the taste was akin to sweetened white bread, if you can
imagine that.The woman, clearly trying
to escape actual work, sat down with me for an hour or so, and we communicated
in broken Chinese, mostly, if you can imagine that.When she found out I recognized some Chinese characters, she
wrote little messages to me on brochures with information about the gourmet
line.From what I understood, she was
trying to warn me about Chinese people trying to cheat me or sell me things
dishonestly. I don’t think I’m all that gullible, but it was sweet.
I left for lunch, but ended up stopping in the Best Buy. It was pretty much
like the American Best Buy (including prices), except I noticed prominently
displayed signs stating that none of the staff were commissioned and therefore
would give unbiased advice.Interesting. Does anybody know if they have these signs in the
States?I might just have never noticed
them.
When I finally had lunch it was in, of all places, a Saizeriya. It was very
nostalgic, throwing me back to those days long, long ago when I went to
Saizeriya for lunch everyday in Tokyo. However, the similarities ended at the
food and the renaissance artwork on the walls. (Oh, and the cheesy ‘Italian’
music.)The restaurant itself, from the
inside, was clean by Chinese standards. However, it was on the second floor of
a building that, frankly, looked like it had been bombed out. If any of you
have ever played a video game like Call of Duty or any other various war
simulations, it basically looked like all the buildings in those games. It was
dusty and gray and there was debris and broken glass (not where I was walking,
but in sectioned off areas) It was strange. But this is pretty common in
Shanghai – I’m constantly walking by buildings that are being gutted. In fact,
when I was finished with lunch and went back to my hotel, the 1st
floor was being gutted. Literally.The
ceiling was all pulled down in the hallway, and there were various power tool
sounds emerging from the depths of the chaos. I usually take the stairs,
because I’m on the third floor, but I couldn’t take the stairs that time,
because sparks were flying everywhere in front of the entrance. I was told, at
some point, that this is typical in modern China.Construction is a daily thing, and the look of buildings,
streets, and skylines are frequently changing.
Once I cooled down and rested from the morning excursion, I decided to go
explore the road in the opposite direction, which leads to the Shanghai Olympic
Stadium – it’s only about two or three blocks away. I walked around all four
sides of the stadium, and was sweating buckets by the time I made it all the
way around. When I was back on the side closest to my hotel, I checked the
ticket office to see what tickets were still available. Intriguingly, there
were still ‘A’ tickets available for Monday’s women’s football semi-final
between Germany and Brazil for only 400 Yuan (a little less than $60)! I really
wanted to get one, but I was really hesitant at the same time.Did I really want to go all by myself?It would be like dining alone, but in a
restaurant with thousands of Chinese all in groups and pitying me with their
eyes. Well, there was a fortuitous turn of events. The act of even looking at
the ticket office prompted a number of Chinese ticket scalpers to surround me.
I told them I was just looking, but of course, they had to ask 3 or 4 times
each, just to make sure I didn’t want a ticket from them, and some of them were
even more persistent. Apparently, this led to me looking like I was in
distress. A well dressed, middle-aged women came up to me and asked in fairly
good English where I was from and if I had come for the Olympics.She literally chased away the scalpers, too.
I don’t know what she said exactly, but I could tell she gave them quite a
scolding.Something about trying to
take advantage of a poor innocent laowai girl, I’m sure. (FYI, laowai = gaijin
= foreigner.) She asked if I was going to the match, and I explained that I
wanted to, but not alone.Without a
moment’s hesitation, she invited me to go with her, her niece around my age,
and her niece’s friend. Why not! We arranged to meet in front of gate 2 30
minutes before the match the following day, and that was that! (It also helped
that she had already bought tickets, and they were also in the A section.)
We parted, and I went back to the hotel to cool off and shower yet
again.My shirt was actually dripping
with sweat when I took it off.
I had another quiet dinner alone in a restaurant which said it offered
“Chinese food by Chinese people” (great slogan), and was nice and cheap. I went
by a drug store and picked up another bottle of travel-sizedconditioner, because I was running out with
all the frequent showering.I confused
the crap out of the store girl, because I was asking her weird questions like
“What are the Chinese characters for conditioner?” my reasoning being, of
course, that if I knew, I would never need to ask for help with that again. She
just kept picking up bottles and saying in Chinglish, “dees ees cone
deeshowner.” Finally, we figured it out together, and I was exhausted.
I went to sleep very early by my standards, but woke up in the middle of the
night with a tummy ache.Nothing major,
and I got back to sleep after an hour or two.
So I'm going on my 3rd day in China and I don't have diarrhea. Yet. on
Friday, I went to the Scholastic office, which is across the street
from my hotel. I did a little paper work, and they didn't have much
else for me that day. They said there was a teacher meeting at 1pm for
their teachers there, and I could come, but didn't have to. Being on
my own, and not really having much else to do, I planned to go. For
breakfast, I just scurried to the nearby main street and found a
Japanese-franchise convenience store, where I bought some sort of sweet
bread and a small container of milk for 7 yuan. Everyone along the way
- hotel workers, people collecting recyclables on the street, people in
the convenience store, either smiled or did not hesitate to address me
with a ni hao.
After I was done with the paperwork, relatively still early in the day,
I went back to the hotel for a bit, finally ventured out for lunch on
my own. I was looking for something cheap, but also something that
looked trustworthy. I probably wandered a good hour around the blocks
here and there before I found a place that had dishes for under 20
yuan. The restaurant I chose was Chinese food only, and the menus were
also in Chinese only. I ordered something that I could tell from my
limited knowledge of characters had 'beef' in it. Boy was I surprised.
It had beef, all right, but it was mostly some sort of runny, gooey,
egg sauce on top of rice with a few bite sized pieces of meat. I was a
little grossed out, but I ate it all, and the flavor was pretty good,
and nothing was under cooked or raw. Afterwards I went to the teacher
meeting at 1pm. Afterwards we all went back up to the office, and one
of the Chinese women took some documents to be copied for me and said
she'd be in the office at 4pm. However, I was exhausted, and went back
to the hotel around 3 and crashed until 8 or 9 pm, when I realized I'd
better eat before things were closed.
I wandered sleepily back to the shopping center where I had eaten lunch
and found another restaurant where I got something good to eat for only
21 yuan. It was near closing, so I was one of the last few tables, and
the waiters and waitresses were very fussy over me and would try to
tell me things in Chinese of which I maybe understood only one or two
words. But they were very nice, and I kept smiling so that they didn't
feel like they had failed me or something.
I would have stayed out a little bit, but it was drizzling and humid, so I just went back to the hotel for more sleep. Yesterday,
I woke up early again, got some breakfast at both the convenience store
and a little bakery around the corner from my hotel. - all less than 10
yuan. After I ate, I took a walk around the area of town, just taking
in the atmosphere (probably quite literally) and taking pictures and
smiling at the people. A lot smiled back, some crinkled their noses,
as if to say they weren't sure what kind of person I was, and some went
as far as to say ni hao or hi. I was getting pretty sweaty, so I
headed back towards the Scholastic office. Once there, I picked up the
documents from the previous day and talked to Cheyenne a little, then
found I needed a copy of something else, so ran back to the hotel for
that and got it copied. I also found a Chinese Construction Bank,
which has a partnership with Bank of America, so I could get some money
without getting hit by any fees.
I would like to say something, briefly, about eating in China. I kind
of knew this before I came here, but it's still strange to experience.
Very rarely do you see people eating alone. People eat together. I
haven't been. If not only because I'm foreign, I also stick out a lot
in restaurants because I'm eating quietly and alone. Hell, I would eat
with other people, but I don't really have any friends to eat with yet.
That said, I went for a lunch, alone, at a Papa Johns. Everyone was
with someone except me, and the waiters and waitresses, aside from
fussing over me and trying to figure out my order, would look over at
me frequently, maybe in a bit of wonderment but also because I think
they couldn't help but notice that I was alone, and I think that
weirded them out. After lunch I made a stop in my room, and while
there, the maid came into my room and turned on my TV, and pointed to
it. It was a tennis match in the Olympics between China and some other
country, and I guess she just wanted to show me.
I then ran over to the Scholastic center to observe a class, which was
fun. The kids were sooooo cute, and they knew more English than I think
they realized. The teacher, Brandon, was really good with them. It
was his last day teaching, so he had planned a few non-curriculum
activities that I think were pretty worthwhile- like teaching the kids
how to play duck-duck-goose (which you KNOW I participated in) We also
made some hats, and mine was voted the best by the kids. One of the
kids was super moody (I don't know what was wrong with him exactly) and
acted out a lot, but I think the teachers handled it really well, and I
hope I can handle my classes as well. I think I'll be alright in the
same situation, but it did surprise me a little. After the lesson,
Alberto, one of the other MAIS kids, and I went out. We were on our way
to People's Square, and we walked by the Olympic Stadium, which was
quite impressive and crowded, on the way to the metro. I was just
following Al, which was a mistake, because he put us on the train in
the wrong direction. We ended up just riding till the end of the line
and waited a few minutes until it went in the opposite direction. It
probably took an extra 40 minutes that way. Once off the station in
People's Square, there were just tons and tons of people, and it was
very very hot and humid. I remember one of the first things I saw was a
small child peeing on the side of the street in the open, then trying
to pull up her pants above her little tush as her parents dragged her
along. It was the first time, but I have since seen more such things.
It was just one big plaza, which led up to a wide street where vehicles
were prohibited, and thus teeming with people. All up and down there
were colorful restaurants and stores, and little dark side streets with
cooking steam and interesting smells coming from them. We stopped in
one to get something to drink. The alley was maybe only the width of a
car or van, but it was packed with people and food stalls. We continued
walking up the main street, and young people would come up to us
constantly trying to sell us something or other, which we refused by
saying "mei you mei you" as many times as necessary.
Now, Alberto had warned me about this one scam where students our age
come up and tell you in quite good English that they are art students
and that they want to show you their gallery. Now, knowing that, we ran
into two. I was just as soon about to walk away, but Alberto said
something like, "No, they're cool," and we started chatting with them.
We smartly avoided talking about their art work and gallery and kept
them talking about other things. I could kind of feel the impatience of
the two - a girl and a boy - but they eventually broke down and just
kept talking with us. They were nice kids. We ended up walking
together to the river at the end of the road, where there would have
been a beautiful view of the city if it weren't so foggy. But there
were a few boats in the river with huge screens broadcasting the
Olympics live, and Chinese people lined the wall over the river,
watching. We talked endlessly with our new friends, and then an old
woman walked by and asked for my bottle from the drink I bought
earlier. There are a lot of people who simply go around collecting
trash or recyclables as a means income. I gladly gave it to her,
because it saved me the trouble of holding it until I found a proper
receptacle. She gave me one of the best toothless grins I've had yet in
these past few days. Then the hunger pains hit hard. The four of us
headed to a place that the Chinese students said was 'cheap and good',
and at this point, there was no more fear left that they were trying to
pull anything fishy on us. (Earlier, on the way to the river, we were
worried that by walking with us, they were trying to get us separated.
It was crowded, and could have happened very easily.)
We went to a hotpot restaurant like the ones I used to go to in Japan,
except they were... more Chinese. The restaurant was on an upper floor
of a building on the main road, and it was PACKED. The restaurant
itself cracked me up, though, because there were these big plaster
mushrooms and bamboo stalks all around, I suppose to make the
restaurant appear like a giant forest. The wait was ridiculous, but
Alberto and I used our super foreigner powers of looking not Chinese,
and we got a table quite quickly. It was actually a little
embarrassing, but our two Chinese friends didn't seem to mind. (By the
way their 'names' were Nancy and Ivan, but they had a hard time
pronouncing them right.) It was, indeed, really good food and all
really cheap. As I suspected, Nancy and Ivan were hoping we would
treat. Alberto and I decided it was okay. After all, we had loads of
food - several vegetables, lamb dumplings, sliced beef, tofu, noodles,
moon cakes, and some I can't even recall, but most of it spicy from the
fragrant hotpot broth or the potent dipping sauce - for four people,
and I think in all, it only came to 50 yuan, which is only about seven
dollars. We could barely even finish everything we ordered, and
digressed into testing each other's chopstick skills. After dinner, we
walked back towards the metro with them, then parted ways. Exhausted
and sweaty (you would not believe how drenched my clothes get here) Al
and I returned to our station, and we passed the stadium again. There
were police lining the street in front of it for blocks and blocks as far as i could see. It
was one of those reminders that there are ALWAYS more Chinese. There
were also TV screens at various increments along the street, and
Chinese were packed around them watching the games. I couldn't even see
what event it was, but I think it was basketball. The sound effects
were great. You could tell something was going on, because all around -
from the stadium and from the groups around the screens, you would hear
uproars of excitement or grief - like huge waves arising all over the
city. Alberto was telling me that the games has been the first time
the Chinese have experienced 'the wave' and that they LOVE it. Al and I
parted ways, and I walked back to my hotel, where I showered and crashed
