The People's Daily

Reporting LIVE from Beijing Capital Airport

2008-08-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

Was an interesting time getting here. With all of my luggage broken, I have been hauling around 52 kg in my hands and shoulders--mostly hands. I sucked it up and took a cab out of the apartment I borrowed to Dongzhimen Zhan, the most inner-city stop of the new Airport Express subway. I told the taxi driver to go to Dongzhimen, but he said "with all that luggage, youre going to the airport. I'll take you right there! Very convenient."
I said "no, I don't have that much money."
"What? You're a foreigner! Of course you have the money! Only 70, 80 kuai!"
"I'm about to go back to the US! I'm carrying very little RMB!" (This was a lie).
"Alright, how much is in your wallet? Maybe I'll make you a deal."
"No, no, it's fine. Dongzhimen."
"Come on, you want to go to the airport."
"No, I told you where I want to go. Dongzhimen."
"Airport."
"I mean it, Dongzhimen. I'll break (I didn't know the word for "rip") my money before I give it to you if you take me to the airport."
"You're joking!"
"Not at all."
"Alright, fine. You're crazy, foreigner. Now hurry up and get out of my cab."

Luckily, we were laughing the whole time. He was awesome.

Anyway, I then haul all my junk downstairs to the airport line, where I get a ticket for a cool 25 kuai, and get on, already drenched in sweat. Luckily, the airport line is excellently modern, and air-conditioned.

After a short trip underground, it shoots up into the sky, and one gets a sense for just how fast he is going (the answer, or course: pretty fast).

When we arrived, I stepped out onto the terminal, and got to see the twinkly lights of Beijing disappear for the last time in a long time.

I got into the terminal, and they checked my bags for bomb residue looooong before I got to ticketing, which was interesting. They are really worried.

And now, I am sitting here, not yet checked in, waiting for my flight. All ticketing is closed, and was closed at 11, when I arrived, which I found... odd. It doesn't even open 'till 5:30 (a few people have already offered me hotels for the night, but little do they know: I'm not on Communist Time anymore, I'm on Freedom Time, so I will be staying up all night long!).

I thought it was quite odd for an airport as massive as Beijing's to only be ticketing 2/3 of the day, then realised: I'm in Terminal 3, which is new. And if the Beijing Government is smart, they are planning for growth, and Terminal 3 might actually be larger than it needs to be. Which would be brilliant, but it means that no coffee shop is open 'till 6 and I have to sit out in the loser section for the next 5 hours or so.

Lame.

I was hoping to have pictures for you guys, but my pirated bandwidth just can't handle it, so they'll come later.

See you in Shanghai!

--Comrade Erik

Fireworks in Beijing

2008-08-02T08:10:00.000-07:00

No, no pictures.

We heard some impromptu repetitive bangs outside, and figured nobody was getting shot, but we were still curious. What we saw were very low fireworks, of the smaller variety that one might see at a 4th of July festival.

It was pretty awesome, but we wondered two things: 1) Where are the police? There were dozens of apartment blocks within a few hundred feet, and this was actually pretty darn dangerous. 2) Isn't one of those things going to blow up on the ground?

Then it did.

But the impromptu show continued, either because the fuses had already been lit, or because everyone was okay. But it still looked a bit scary.

One Last "Screw You" To My Travels.

2008-08-01T11:14:00.001-07:00

Well, no matter how many things go bad between here and sitting over the Pacific Ocean, my own country is going to be the last place to screw me before I am home. Turns out, they can take my laptop for no reason at all, on a whim! Even if they don't, I will still be irked at the drool on their pants from seeing a pretty Mac Book float by that they know they could just pluck up if they wanted.

Thanks, America, for making travel awesome.

Bomb Scare on Beijing Subway

2008-08-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

No, it didn't happen to me, but it's still interesting.

A fellow traveler in China was on the #1 line today, and at a station, while the doors stood open, everyone started screaming and ran. Nobody knew why, or who started it, but it was panic and mayhem. The police apparently responded moderately well, yelling at people to all get upstairs and out of the station right away. Regardless of what's going on, if there is panic, you want to get people to fresh air and open spaces so they can feel distant from the source of the unknown panic, and so they can have time to relax.

Turns out there was an apparent bomb scare. The police did not explain it, but it might be a Xinjiang separatist, or something. We talked about how often this stuff happens--and it turns out, we have no idea. The Beijing government does _not_ publicize this stuff in the papers, so it could happen every few months, or have been happening daily (though we would likely be hearing more rumors to the effect if the latter were true). We also don't know how serious the threat was--people hung outside for about 20 minutes, but that could have just meant a very thorough check of the trains, which is the right response.

So all in all, I'm pretty glad I'm leaving Beijing soon. Bomb scares are just the last thing I want.

Art Gallery

2008-07-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend included a trip to a modern art gallery, called 798, in Northeast Beijing. The site was an old factory area that got bought/reclaimed/traded with political favors/or some other sort of crazy Chinese economic mumbo-jumbo to a coalition of art dealers that kept part of the factory's name (it was, of course, Factory 798 back in the day). The coolest part was probably actually seeing all of the old factory stuff, including an abandoned train-fueling station with a coal-burning engine sitting idle on the tracks.

I picked a wonderful day to forget my camera, but Zephyr's phone (Zephyr is a coworker of mine) got a few noteworthy shots:

The first is one of a few slogans painted on the factory walls during either the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. Workers actually probably painted them voluntarily, in their fervor of the moment.
"Long live the great Chinese Communist Party!"

A picture of me, about 20 feet up on a tracked crane, looking down. Also, for some reason, black and white. Who knows.

This sculpture is modern, made in 2007 by one of the modern artists, but in the style of a Culutral Revolution poster. The worker (with his eight-inch-thick forearms, a trademark of the time) is holding a brush, showing that anyone can be an artist if endowed with formiddable forearms and Chairman Maozedong thought. The interesting thing bout this sculpture was the quality of the medium--the iron-based metal used to make it was not only rusted, but it was of an inconsistent grade, and cracked in certain parts where the alloy had not settled, bubbled a bit, and generally looked bad. I realised with perfect clarity after a few moments of thinking--this abandoned factory, I am sure, at some point had vast wasteful expanses of pig iron or half-attempts at steel made in the backyard furnaces of peasants during the Great Leap Forward, shipped in on those coal trains, and then rejected in disgust by the marginally-more-qualified engineers of the factory. The artist almost certainly got his sculpting materials from such an industrial graveyard, and not simply because they were free, but because they represented the result of the thought of the time.

Some of the paintings were strange, some were beautiful, but some actually got to make powerful statements about China's past--the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the general behavior of great leaders like Mao Zedong. Some of the political satires were a bit chilling, especially those of the Cultural Revolution. Zephyr and I had a brief discussion on the different realms in which one can discuss Chinese history and policy, and apparently some history is open to China's very small ivory tower. But there was no word of the Tiananmen Square incident.

When I mentioned that, Zephyr said "nobody worries about it anymore, it's history!" I got a bit confused, and said "well, why do you worry about the Japanese so much? That's 65-year-old history." Which got me a jumbled response about Japanese attitudes about it today, but I got a small mark of admission when I asked "if nobody worries about it, why aren't you allowed to talk about it?"

I then told her why China's banned art was so popular in the US. If a single piece of art is so powerful as to threaten the security of the largest authoritarian government in the world, then it must really have something to say.

Time to be Patriotic!

2008-07-25T23:42:00.000-07:00

Friday, exactly 2 weeks before the Olympics begin, Chinese flags went up outside of practically every storefront in China. Very cute.

In addition, "Beijing 2008 Welcomes You" junk went up inside the hotel part of my apartment.

It's not that the government is forcing any of these folks to put these up with physical guns pointed at them. I'm sure nobody will actually be arrested if they refuse. But they sure as heck didn't have any flags up before Friday, anywhere. I'm wondering if the Chinese government had to exercize any levers on its people to make them do it--or whether China has been so twisted by guilt to do what they are told for so long that it's just automatic these days.

Fire Motorcycle

2008-07-24T02:11:00.000-07:00

I wish I had gotten my camera for this. I saw a bright red motorcycle flying by on the street, with flashing lights, and wondered what the heck it was, until I saw the Chinese character for "fire" and realized this was a chief heading to the scene.

I think the Chinese traffic makes something like this absolutely necessary, for two reasons. 1) It's often as crowded as Manhattan. 2) Chinese drivers simply do not respond to emergency lights of any sort. The oddest part about the second part is that so many aspects of Chinese culture require much more subversion to authority than American culture (school drills, random searches [yup, seen them], traffic wardens, security personnel everywhere, and lots of restrictions on personal freedom by the gov't for the olympics), and yet the authority vested in the emergency response teams seems to have no effect.

Anyway, the motorcycle was small enough to weave through traffic to some extent, and take bike roads. I suspect that's exactly what it's designed for.

Chinese Government "Benefits"

2008-07-23T00:02:00.000-07:00

I had dinner last night with a friend, and after the meal, he asked (I couldn't understand) for a pink slip that he filled out, and then got a very fancy receipt.

After asking him what it was, he mentioned that he was giving it to a friend who works in government, just to help her out. She'd receive money from the government, as a "reimbursement" for the meal, but it wasn't bribery, he just wanted to help her.

"Interesting," I said.

He didn't seem terribly ashamed of the process, even as he tried to justify it to me. But we then started talking about government in China, vs. the US. I told him most kids that come from great colleges want to work in US business, and he seemed very surprised. Apparently Chinese kids all want to work in government, because it's the best way to get ahead and make money... still. I'm not sure how right he is, but there's certainly something to it.

Apparently everyone in the government gets their meals paid for on top of their salary--which is already higher than normal. I hear they gets lots more "benefits," as well, and this is all the over-the-table stuff. Corruption and bribery still runs rampant.

Even my friend, who was participating in the system, complained about it, citing the taxpayer burden. But can you blame a struggling middle-class worker for taking free government handouts when offered? Like most disgraces prepetuated by large governments, this one allows the user to hide behind the moral sanction of the government--that if they said it is okay, it must be. Turns out, people like free stuff, and will take most moral sanctions to have it that they can get.

Busy Weekend

2008-07-20T23:30:00.000-07:00

In short: Shopping for tea, the Marco Polo Bridge, the Anti-Japanese War Memorial, Houhai, driving-through-west-Beijing, Xinjiang food. All awesome.

Tea Shopping: we went to "Tea Street" (called "Lily Street" on the signs, but everyone knows what you mean) and found one of the eight major wholesale markets and picked around. Some of the tea tasted like grass (it was pretty lousy), but we finally found a great place where we stayed for an hour, trying different teas, 'till we got what we wanted, and haggled down. We ended up staying until the last minute of business, and walked out the service exit with the entire team... when we had walked in, there were 2 people manning the counter. When we left, there were 7; we figured they called their buddies from the otherwise-empty retail shops to help the rich white folk spend more money.

The Marco Polo bridge does indeed have 500-some "unique" lions carved at the fencing. Much of it has been restored, of course: Japanese heavy machine guns did a real number to the bridge's aesthetic integrity. Of course, unskilled Communist labor in the 1950's left many of the lions beyond saving, with splotches of concrete smeared on the blown-off lion faces like emergency bandages over a wounded soldier.

One of our favorites was a Chimera-like monstrosity:

I stood at the bridge, briefly, re-enacting the brave Chinese response to the harrowing Japanese onslaught:
"You Shall Not Pass!"

But my favorite part of the bridge was the freight rail nearby, carrying all sorts of yummy raw materials into the city:

From there, it was a short walk through a former fort-village to get to the anti-Japanese War Museum, full of reasons why you, too, should spit every time you hear the word "Ri."

The tank outside, of course, was my favorite part of this exhibit, and I took some time to stand, bewildered at the thing (it was a Soviet T-34, probably gifted to the Chinese right before the Russians invaded Manchuria):

But, staring out into the distance, it became hard to resist the urge to climb. I had to settle for egging it forward:
"Fire at Will!"

The museum itself was not quite as impressive as the Military museum, but did actually include a lot more about the American, British, and Soviet involvement in fighting the Japanese, which was interesting. There was a fair bit of credit given to the US for "helping" the Chinese "defeat" Japan.

And, of course, some cool paintings:
The Chinese had an Air Force?

The Eighth Route Army

Japan Offers Surrender to the Chinese

The fort-village on the way out was pretty cute:

After it all, we drove through a part of Western Beijing we hadn't seen before, and realized that the Enormity Scale of Beijing was greater than we thought. After thinking it was a mere "Gi-normous," we are now under the impression that Beijing might actually be a "Huge-mongous" level city, placing it a mere notch away from "Metro-Juggernaut." A lot of the architecture is lock-stock blocks, so none of it was that thrilling on its own, but together, it just felt big.

In the evening, we ventured to go see Olympic Park. We rode, during its first day of public operation, on the 10 line:
With its fancy new station-tracking technology!

The car actually had a new subway car smell. Now neither you nor I had ever smelled a new subway car before, but man, once you smell it, you _know_. The thing wasn't even that crowded, but that was mostly because it was Saturday night:

The new subway map claimed that the Olympic Spur Line (line 8) was open now:
Full of Lies!

But it lied to us. Line 8 was not open, and we had to hike a good hour-and-a-half to get to the Olympic site. The site was... interesting. It was very hard to walk from the south--the roads seemed design to block you from getting there. But we took a detour and got to the high-security military installation between you and the national treasures that are the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest. There's barbed-wire fencing and guards every 50 linear feet in a grid... it was impossible to get close enough for a good picture. And the water cube wasn't even on. Very disappointing. But they're there, I've seen them with my own eyes. When they get blown up by East Turkestan nationalists, I can refute the moon-landing conspiracy psychos that the whole thing was done in a studio.

I did get a picture of "The Torch," a building that is made to look like the Olympic Torch. I'm sure it's commercial, but not sure what it's there for, otherwise.

The TV's on the side are all advanced LED technology, which was impressive, but they were out of sync--those on the left lagged those on the right. You know what that means, kids? Don't build your massive Olympic TV circuits in series!

A final parting shot from our hike away (which was another 90 minutes, because we were too cheap for 2 cabs in one day):

For dinner (which happened somewhere in there, but it's a blur), I finally made it to a Xinjiang (that's the northwest region, home of the crazy East Turkestan nationalists) restaurant in Beijing. Let me tell you, it was amazing. It rivals the Korean Barbeque in terms of pure quality of food (turns out local food is pretty boring, sorry guys). It had a creative mix of Sichuan style (spicy and hot) and Middle-Eastern (naan, lots of lamb, curry, etc). We had some really impressive, spicy and thick naan-ish thing, potato shreds with cilantro (I will try to reproduce--they were amazing), lamb skewers, very spicy green beans, a lamb-potato-carrot-pepper-onion-etc-curry-stew, and these really amazing apples flash-fried in liquid sugar. The waitress gave them to us burning-hot, and put a bowl of water next to them and made us dip them and eat them quickly, let they turn into one giant inedible crystal sugar blob. It was spectacular. I may try to go back bofore I leave.

Anyway, that was the weekend. Tonight: Red Cliff (a movie about the 3 Kingdoms).

Barged In On

2008-07-18T03:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I was hanging out in my apartment 5 minutes after I got back. It's hot, because the cleaning lady turns the AC off during the day. So of course, I'm in my underwear, waiting for the AC to warm up again, when I hear a "beep" and this guy walks in. Before the door opens, of course, I spring from my chair (placed precariously on my bed, because the window above the bed is where I pirate my internet) saying "Woah, hold on!" (in English), and the poor guy keeps coming in, but is shocked to find a big white guy in his underwear, so he stands and looks at me. I ask him "Ni gan shenme?" ("What are you doing?"), and he answers, in Chinese: "...I'm watering the plant...").

He proceeds to water the plant and leaves quietly. I wish I knew how to say "knock," because I would have either said "knock next time" or "do that again and I'll knock you to next Tuesday."

No More Shopping in China

2008-07-17T19:14:00.000-07:00

That's it. I'm done. The department stores are significantly more expensive than the US, so the only place to go for a cheapskate like me is the market. And I've known that I had to go for a long time, but have been putting it off, terrified. Yesterday, I wondered, "Why so scared? Just do it."

Now I remember why.

I went to Hongqiao, because it's got the most junk for Westerners per square foot that I found in the last 2 months. Last time I went, I went with an expert Beijinger, so we got a little more respect. I did not realize that, alone, I would be screamed at, heckled, and ripped off as much as I was.

As I've said earlier, people yelling at me to buy their stuff is the first thing that will get me to never buy it, even if I like it. But good gravy, I couldn't find anywhere to shop in peace. Each little booth on Hongqiao had like 3 ladies in blue in front of it, all yelling "HELLO. BELTS!" or "YOUBUYAWATCHHELLO!" This, multiplied by a dozen at a time, was a barrage I could barely tolerate. My patience with other people--as you know--is short. I almost turned out, but figured it wasn't going to get any better unless I convinced another workmate to come with me. But somehow, it was important that I do it myself. It would end up costing me a lot of money and aggravation.

To this day, I do not know why the "HI! HELLO! YOU BUY MY THING!" strategy works at all, and I blame white people as a whole for it. But my stoicism left enough of an impression on a few people that they shut up for a few seconds to let me browse their wares without serious interruptions or assaults on my personal bubble. Nonetheless, I made a few haggling mistakes that hurt. The first: I told them how many I wanted, before asking for the price. Always bad. If you ask the price, and then say "well, I'll buy more if you make it cheaper," that will help you get the initial price lower. The second was that I did not walk away enough. Sometimes, to get a deal, one must walk away 2 or 3 times. So from one lady, I got her to 10% of her original asking price on one of her wares and 20% on the other, but still knew I was getting ripped off. I should have walked away near the end.

But it's very frustrating being white in a Chinese market. The squaking of sales-ladies is bad enough, but being offered a price more than 10x what is reasonable is just insulting. Sadly, it's been 2 months, and I needed some of this stuff (including luggage), and wasn't willing to actually walk away without it.

But man, I am done shopping.

More Weekend Pictures

2008-07-15T18:54:00.000-07:00

First picture is me singing with Candy and Michelle, together. The logistics of how that worked after me singing the Sinatra song are a bit complicated--don't ask.

These next two are me and Zoe discussing different positioning strategies in badminton. We went with me in the back-left and Zoe in center-right.

Titans of Architecture: The Central Business District

2008-07-15T04:52:00.000-07:00

Today I left work and ventured down to China's Central Business District--south of me in Chaoyang--for a gander at some of the richest and tallest buildings in Beijing. The CBD is somewhat like a Special Development Zone, but more spontaneous. I got a lot of shots in, some of which were pretty exciting. I don't know the names of any but one of the buildings, and am too lazy right now to look them up. Sorry!

The buildings, in my opinion, are placed in descending order of interest.

I thought this one stuck out for me some, especially the picture with the reflection of all the other buildings. My impression is that this was intentional, and it is well-done indeed.

This building was quite intriguing. As you can see, it angles inward and then straight up; the front side is relatively flat black glass. In the back, the glass is jagged, different panes are placed at random angles to each other. On the west side, a short part extends outward, sloping up and then down and away.

To get some of the better shots of both this and the now-famous CCTV tower, I had to sneak into the construction site. I waited until a guard was distracted, and then walked in like I knew what I was doing. Nobody gave me too hard a time, and I got some good shots in. This was important because both buildings had lots of large panels at the edge of their property, obstructing view (and probably preventing junk from flying out too easily). Either way, I was just lining up to take a picture of a foreman who was adjusting his collar and posing in front of the CCTV tower, very proud of his work (and why shouldn't he be?), when 2 guards showed up and put their hands in front of the camera, and started asking me to produce my CCTV card. I told them I didn't have it (which was technically true), and was very sorry, and could find my way out. I don't know most of what they said after that, but it included being escorted out by 2 guards with a bunch of workers looking on in confusion. Luckily, the No Beating Up Foreigners Rule is in full effect, so I was fine.

The CCTV Tower, of course, is my favorite. The engineering success of its preposterous shape stands in defiance against gravity and those who said it couldn't be done. Its mere existence stands in rebellion against bureaucracy and government offices that tried to withhold the license to build it. The architect of this tower triumphed over nature, chaos, and human inertia to exert his will over matter and space. This building will serve as a reminder of the triumph of the potential of mankind, the greatness of our minds, and the exaltation of the human spirit.

On a final, awesome note, I finally got the opportunity to take a photo of a cool scene I described earlier: cash pickups at banks. These guys are the private security team there to protect the transfer of big bags of cash, and they mean business. But I feel safer in Beijing than I have ever, in any big city, so they may be growing superfluous at this point. At least, having so many of them (there were 2 more on the other side of the van).

Pictures from the Weekend

2008-07-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

Coming late, but coming nonetheless.

Playing badminton with Zoe, of course:

Singing "It Was a Very Good Year," with President Victor's cowboy hat, which he gave me for the performance (I think he confused it with a Sinatra Fedora, but it worked anyway):

Taking a slight bow:

The girls really, really liked the hat:

I'm sure there are more pictures floating out there. I'll try to post them soon.

A Weekend Away

2008-07-13T03:51:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Horizon took off to their annual company retreat, 4 hours away on the beach. It was a highly scheduled event, of course, with lots of competitions and glamour.

When we arrived, I noticed dimly that the place did not smell of ocean. I did not know why. But the trip over was very exciting and interesting--in the 4-hour trip, I looked out into the countryside and saw bridges, derricks, factories, tractors, backhoes--most of it having arrived after 1978. When we got to the shore, we saw dozens of fishing ships before the horizon: the government had not forbid such things so wealthy Senators would not have to look at them from their vacation homes. Our resort was called the "BTV Training Center--" mostly because it was built by the government before 1978, and to build such things, one had to pretend that they served the government in some way, even though the motive was clearly as a resort for those who intended to pay. To this day, that resort (and many) still hide behind a lie that everyone knows is false. As long as it is not uttered, it is fine.

Anyway, we had a sports competition the first early afternoon, in which I played badminton with one of my many bosses, Zoe. We lost 2 games to 1 in the first of three rounds to the team that ended up taking the whole thing--sad. But the second game we won was a hard-fought 26-24 victory that included a few diving swats on my part that gave me scrapes and cuts but gave us crucial points. Zoe came to hug me at that point (which broke her usual tough-boss demeanor), and I carried her one-armed to the other side of the net, where we then were trounced.

The evening was held in a small theatre-room, and included lots of speeches (of which I understood little), photo contests, and singing, the last of which I participated in at the behest of Zoe. I will say that last night revealed more strangeness about Chinese culture--not bad, perse, but strange:

1) Enthusiasm is appreciated greatly, and rewarded with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a great way to cover-up nervousness or fear, where I think in the West, one is more expected to be calm and composed to cover such emotions.

2) Talking during speeches/performances is allowed. I've seen it a lot, even at the movies. I hear it happens a great deal at Peking Opera, from my guidebooks.

3) Western-educated Chinese think and act very different than domestically educated ones. Dr. Feng, another one of my bosses, is a great example of a man with fundamentally different humor capacity (though not unique, just pseudo-Western) and way of speaking, though he is not in love with either Chinese or Western culture/traditions.

Anyway, I sang Sinatra's "It Was a Very Good Year" and then helped Michelle sing "Hey Jude,"--we won second place, and I came home with a portable speaker set that's not even that bad. I think I even sang alright. A mere 20 minutes later, I was a part of a contest that Nicole devised in which I put on headphones and listened to Chinese music (most of which I had never heard before), and then had to reproduce the melody for two groups, which had to jump to try to guess the song. I did not like it much, but their sheer enthusiasm detracted from me enough that I felt like I was alone in the room, and so I survived it.

This morning, I played volleyball and this silly game where we had to run back and forth to the shore and take seawater to fill up a bucket with our hands. My large hands helped us get second in the latter--we were pretty thorougly crushed in the former.

On the busride home, a friendly employee from the Guangzhou office talked to me (in Chinese!) for a few hours, and then fell asleep. We didn't talk about anything gripping, but the practice was good. I am actually getting better at speaking, which I was still pretty lousy at when I arrived.

Three weeks of work left. I am tired--I haven't run around that much in far too long.

Today's Observations

2008-07-10T05:34:00.000-07:00

A few interesting observations today:

1) Chinese post-offices are very confusing. But a nice lady came up to me and said "HelloIspeakEnglishdoyouneedsomehelp?" After a moment blinking, I said (in Chinese) "Oh! I speak some bad Chinese, but I'd still love the help." She helped me find stamps. It was difficult.

2) I went to the food market today, and it had no prices anyhwere, so I was expecting to haggle like crazy. But I walked past the people yelling at me ("Hello! Oranges!"), and got to the people that looked at me with an earnest curiosity as to whether I was going to competently purchase their wares. I approached them, and politely asked them the prices of different meats/vegetables/etc, and they _didn't rip me off_. I thought about it, and said "no, no, this is a fair price." I didn't even have to haggle. It was strange. But I got some good stuff for cheap.

3) I got spit on again, turning a corner. The guy didn't even apologise. I don't know if he noticed.

4) Jamacian people speaking Chinese is _awesome_.

5) Being helpful is also awesome.

6) There's no domestic peanut butter. It's all imported, and really darn expensive. Drat.

The Fall of Research

2008-07-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

Well, until a few days ago, I had 3 research projects at Horizon. One of them fell through because our Indian client ignored us past the deadline. One fell through because of a strict denial. One is not "gone," perse, but is waiting for a conference call that was supposed to be two Mondays go, failed because we were late, was rescheduled for today, and then cancelled at the last moment by our American client for "next week," which will give me approximately two weeks to do anything of use.

Those projects were supposed to take up my time, and now they're half-heartedly filling it with proofreading projects for bad translations. So I am mostly wasting time here. What a drag.

South Sanlitun; My Current Haunts

2008-07-07T00:29:00.000-07:00

It's not home, but it's the closest I'm going to get in Beijing. South Sanlitun now knwos me, from the friendly doorman who waves at me to the convenience store owner that says "Nihao, laowai!" (hey, foreigner!) when I walk in (such friendliness sometimes surprises other customers). I know the area well enough that I have given people directions, and I've led a few of my Chinese friends the right way on the subway when they were confused. I've got the place down.

But I have a few complaints that will make me very happy to get back to the US. Some of the stuff that has really bothered me these last 6 weeks:

1) Cutting in line; Beijingers try it a lot. They are usually unsuccessful, because I will tap them on the shoulder and say "Ni gan shenme?" (What do you think you're doing?), and they'll usually waddle behind me. Sometimes they don't, and I figure it's not worth a fight in a foreign country.

2) Spitting. It's loud (you know that sound when you push up all the junk in your nose and throat right before you spit it out), and then it's all over the sidewalks. People do it all the damn time.

3) Car horns. The Chinese have an adolescent relationship with their horns that is like a Freudian nightmare. Bus drivers are the worst, careening into the wrong side of the road and blaring their horn at anyone that dares oppose them, or honking at cars at intersections that have not yet even begun to think about entering the road. But besides them (I know I have complained about them already), there is incredible honking at all hours of the day. On my way to work, one man leaned into his horn for well over 30 seconds, not letting up, behind a line of cars at a red light. He smiled and let off it as they moved, as if he had had some effect. He's not the only one that holds that delusion.

4) Loud ringtones. My cheap cellphone has vibrate, and I know theirs does, too. They just haven't figured it out, or are so enamored with their ringtone that they want to share it with everybody in the office when someone tries to call them while they're away from their desk. One ringtone is literally a child crying. Literally. Seriously, people, why do you do this to me?

5) Pushing. Chinese folks, you'll have to tell me if this happens to you, too. But when people want to get by me, they don't ask me to move, and they don't even silently tap me on the shoulder to get me to move, they just shove me. Old ladies, big young men, doesn't matter. If there is some sort of language problem, it is that the Chinese have not figured out how to get someone's attention without using words. But I think there is some small pleasure felt in pushing whitey around.

6) Tour groups here suck, too. If you go to a famous college or live in a large city, you've seen them. Chinese tour groups are their own detour sign, and have absolutely no care that they might be in everyone's way at once. It is no different here.

7) People are always in my way, even if they're not tour groups. I have not noticed this in other large cities I've been in (Philadelphia, New York, Boston), but for some reason, Beijingers are just in the way. Maybe they walk a bit slower. Part of the problem might be that there are more people per square kilometer, but part of it is certainly that they don't naturally create "right-side" and "left-side" opposite flows--groups tend to just crash into each other in some terrible disaster.

8) Pushy salesmen. This can get epic, especially in tourist locations. Do most of you white people cave in and buy something when someone shoves it in your face and screams at you? Am I the only one that evades this? If not, it seems like terrible business practice, but it keeps happening. It's the one thing that will get me to ignore anything a vendor has to offer, and the single greatest obstacle to me souvenir-shopping.

9) Pushy flyer-pushers. You know the LaRouche guys that try to give you pamphlets telling you that space-alien clone Cheney is planning to use Halliburton's private nuclear stock to attack Azerbaijan for its vast stocks of toenail clippings? You know nothing! Saturday, after seeing Chairman Mao, Michelle actually got assaulted by three ladies trying to stuff travel agency cards in her purse, and she and I both had to push them off. We considered calling the police. She said "this just happens sometimes."

10) Rude smoking. Now you all should know that I don't complain about smoking. I live all around it, and tolerate it in just about any private establishment--if you want to smoke, I can leave. But in China, people frequently ash on the ground (despite ash trays on their tables...), and cigarette butts litter the bathroom stalls at work, along with ash. The smell, combined with regular bathroom smells, is pretty terrible.

11) Personal space problems. I have found it is harder to get someone to leave you alone or give you physical space using body language. Some of my travelers will note this happens in bars--women have to be pretty obvious for a very long time before men will stop hanging on them. I also don't know how to politely say no in China (traditional Western methods of evasion seem to have no effect here), so I have been roped into some pretty lousy stuff that I thought I had made it clear that I was not thrilled about, especially at work.

12) The subtleties of flirtation are lost upon young Chinese girls. I am told that traditionally, Chinese women silently pine for the men that they like, and also that the new generation of girls has rejected this for more personal initiative. But as I've told before, from the girls stealing my telephone number to the 15-year-old telling me boys her age were too young for love, such forwardness would turn me off even if I were single.

13) American college students are even more obnoxious here than at home. I now know where the "ugly American" comes from, and it's college students. Men and women my age, alike, are entirely clueless about other cultures, and make absolutely zero cultural preparation before their mommies and daddies drop $20k for them to spend an "educational" summer abroad. And they seem to neither notice nor care how their hosts feel about their behavior. I have had a special revulsion that I have reserved for other "laowai" in China, and I yearn for American obnoxiousness in an American context, where it belongs.

I guess this is not "a few" irritations, but many. China can be an irritating place.

Seeing the Chairman

2008-07-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

Got up at 6 this morning (ugh) to go see Chairman Mao Zedong's final resting place, just south of Tiananmen Square.

There was a mandatory bag-check, which de-railed our adventure, but the line moves quickly through the Mao-soleum, urged on by workers whose job it is to stand there all day and tell you to hurry up.

There were two halls: The first had a great statue of the Chairman, and a few people broke from the lines (that went around it) to stand in front of it with flowers and thrice-bow, as if they had incense at a Buddhist temple. I don't know the minute details of Chinese culture well enough to know how both practices are linked, but I thought it strange.

We were told to be very quiet, not to talk. Nobody did, among hundreds of people (including very small children) at 8AM. Apparently almost everyone wants to see this at some point.

The second hall: He lay within a crystal coffin, covered in a red sheet with a yellow hammer and sickle. The crystal coffin sat further within a glass case, and his face was lit. The closer I got, the less sure I was that he was real at all, and not wax--even Michelle commented that he looked like was probably made of wax. Neither of us know the embalming process well enough to know whether he was real or not, but Wikipedia and other internet sources don't mention that there is any question as to whether or not it's his real body, so I'm willing to buy it.

Either way, I was rather in awe. I understand why people were there to push me along--I wanted to stay and stare at the Chairman for a rather long time. But I think I more share the Chinese people's mixed respect for the man than most Americans, who (largely correctly) see him as a madman dictator.

The experience was a bit surreal, especially given that the Chariman may have been the first dead person I have ever seen in-real-life. Certainly as far as I can remember.

June is Vanquished: More Learning for July

2008-07-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

July is next.

I saw a guy with a shirt today, it said: "I can do whatever I want to." Certainly not as true as if he were in other places, but it helps that people are thinking about it.

I went to a lecture last night by David Lampton, who talked about his book, The Three Faces of Chinese Power. Sadly, the books were sold out, so I could not buy one and ask him to sign it. Oh well.

He lectures at Johns Hopkins, and is a heck of a lecturer. Very engaging, like a conversation. I got to sit closest to him, and he had the guts to look everyone in the eyes. Anyway, he started off by talking about a few meetings he's had with the Chinese and American leadership, dinners with Henry Kissinger, and being part of the very first post-Mao diplomatic mission to China. Very cool stuff.

He defines power in three ways: might (using pain to threaten people into doing what you want), money (using economic incentives to pay people to do what you want), and mind (using ideas to inspire people to do what you want). He then talked about how China is hoping to balance all three forms of power in the world--like the US has since the 2nd World War. He also says that this is a China we can live with.

He made some very interesting observations that are of note:
1) The Chinese, of course, sponsor much of our debt, and many Americans worry about this. But they shouldn't. First, the Chinese cannot call back our debt, as many Americans think--the Chinese buy bonds, the US government doesn't go begging for loans. The Chinese can't call in our debt any more than you can demand your CD be paid to you in full three years early. They could sell the bonds off, causing the US dollar to drop even more. But this would hurt the Chinese economically more than the United States; it would completely devalue their own holdings of US currency, it would destabilize their own currency (which is backed by the equity of US greenbacks!), and it would annihilate their particularly precarious export-economy, which depends on a strong dollar and weak Renminbi. So the Chinese could sell these bonds if they were feeling suicidal, but wouldn't get much more than pain out of it. In general, he cites economic interdependence between the US and China, which forces each to listen to the economic and political concerns of the other. He and I agree: this is great.

2) One might think, wait, China's not spreading Communism, what is this mind-power that it's using? Remember that Deng Xiaoping brought a new motto into the Chinese arsenal of slogans, and this one has beat out all the others: "To get rich is glorious." He realized the Chinese were rich everywhere but China, and began urbanizing, globalizing, and marketizing China. And lo! China has started to get rich (so much so that he cites a Feb. 2008 Gallup poll showing more Americans believing that China is the world's leading economic power than the US. A hard claim to back up when the GDP of the US is still more than four times that of China.). Asia is quite excited about jumping on China's "get rich" bandwagon, as is Africa. The European and American notion of paternalistic liberalism just isn't cutting it for countries that aren't already swimming in wealth.

3) The Chinese and American navies should talk more. One of Rumsfeld's key mistakes in an otherwise very good China policy by the Bush Administration has been a refusal to talk to the Chinese military. Gates has changed this policy, and with great effect. The Chinese sphere of influence is growing--we can't stop it, and nor should we. It is expensive to try to patrol the entire world, and why should we do it when China can take care of its region effectively? The Chinese export-led economy depends deeply on a peaceful region full of neighbors that trust it and like it. Their policy of reassurance has gone far to make sure that happens. China wants to secure sea routes (especially the Strait of Malacca, where it gets 90% of its oil) and make sure no force can approach its coast without permission--the large bulk of China's population lives right by the water. It will need aircraft carriers for this, and really, we should take comfort that someone with the means is going to watch over Asia so we don't have to.

I disagree with the Professor that we have to start changing our ways to compete with the Chinese for influence or markets, particularly as a government. We've got a ton of smart kids in business nad international relations, all chomping at the bit to get working with China and the rest of the world. We just need to stop being so terrified and unchain them, let them fly. They'll make the US competitive again.

Anyway, great lecture, lots of fun. I got to have a good conversation with him about Chinese naval expansion, but sadly, the man agrees with just about everything I think. I'm sure there's a lot of data he has that I don't, but I didn't quite feel that my point of view was too challenged. Maybe that means I'm getting it closer to being right.

Weekend Notes

2008-06-30T06:42:00.000-07:00

The subway started checking luggage on Sunday, with metal detectors. They also made me take a swig of my water before letting me walk in with it (apparently to make sure it wasn't toxic).

Dinner Saturday was amazing--it was Korean Barbecue, and the best darn food I've had in Beijing by a longshot (sad, isn't it?). I'll have to go back.

Noticed a small company dancing to really bad techno-pop outside in Wudaokou in the morning, as an early workout. They did not look happy:
"Yeah, yeah, we're dancing."

Cranes remain everywhere:

Sunday night (after museum) included a trip to a Chinese flying acrobatics show, which was certainly interesting, and a lot of fun, save the drunken Western college students around me (way to lack any grace at all, guys). There were some certainly impressive displays of human strength and flexibility, but I liked the action-packed stuff better. Lots of high jumping, leaping, people-stacking, coordinated ring-diving. The beset part were these guys in a large mechanical apparatus that hung by a single axle and spun free. At the end of each of the two arms were a circles where one man stood each. They ran around the small circles and made the entire apparatus spin--an awesome display of how angular momentum works. They did some rather absurd and dangerous things while on it, and managed to get an otherwise quite clueless audience to play along for a bit. All in all, not a bad time. Though dinner that night was some bread.

Line 10 is still not open, as the government promised it would be (by "Late June"), so I have been stymied in my plans to actually get where I want to go in a reasonable amount of time. We'll see.

Military Fanboys of the World, Unite!

2008-06-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

I have found a gem that you have probably never heard of (though I have added a bit to the wikipedia page, if you care); the Chinese Military Museum. Prepare to envy!

Not much to say (besides AWESOME), but each picture will have some commentary. First: Tanks!
T-Series

Planes!
F-Series

Artillery!

Anti-Air!

Machine Guns!

APCs!

Rockets!

Missiles!
DongFeng-2, China's first ballistic nuclear missile.
Cruise Missile

Boats!

Spacecraft!

The Chinse managed to display a great deal of American equipment captured during the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War, probably with some mockery behind it:
American Tanks and SP Artillery from the Korean War
The Sherman
American Ship-Mounted Anti-Air
American Flamethrower from the Korean War

Some cool cutaway RPGs on display:

Some SMGs:

In addition to this osbcene and decadent display of weaponry, there were floors of "historical" exhibits about Chinese wars and other questionably-related stuff. The bias on the whole thing was so gross it was irritating to look at, at times--the Chinese government's official stance on most of this stuff is still rather bizarre. That said, the exhibit on the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea is being remodeled (so we missed it), although the name is staying--maybe they're making it less insulting to Americans as they arrive for the Olympics?

The Hall of Ancient Wars included ludicrous numbers of peasant uprisings. There was a hall that talked about how great socialism was for China as soon as the People's Republic was established--with no sense of failure in the Great Leap Forward. The movie about Western occupation in the 1800's literally described the period as one of "suffering on a scale rarely seen in the history of the world." Seriously, guys? More on this on Foggofwar, I'll be making commentary about government viewpoints. But for you, more pictures: There were lots of impressive paintings about war, especially the Red Army:

Ancient Hand-to-Hand Combat
Marching North to Fight the Japanese
A Very Happy Linkup Between the Three Red Armies
Mao Organizes the Operation
Mao Commanding a Victorious Counter-Assault

And my favorite painting: This painting is Chairman Mao suggesting a change of strategy to full assault--when the Communists have half the numbers and weapons of the KMT. I just imagine Mao happily declaring "We have finally reached half their numbers. It's time to press the attack and wipe them out!" And his commanders laughing, unable to contain themselves, saying "You're a suicidal maniac!" But he did win.
"Hahahahaha... Okay, Okay, Really, What's Our Strategy?"

A few closing shots for you: Commie flags:

More Commie flags:

Almost Forgot: the obligatory "I was here" shot, in front of the entrance to the Civil War exhibit:

There was a lot of other stuff in the historical exhibits which I failed to photograph, or am saving for the Foggofwar propaganda post. I failed to get anything at the souvenir shop, either, mostly because it was all pretty lame. But I spent something like 5 hours here, at a clip the whole time. It was a lot of fun.

China is a Bad Place for Pants

2008-06-30T03:44:00.001-07:00

I have torn through a third pair of pants since I got here. Three! And they're all new tears--nothing along my old patchwork (which I am proud of). Either I am walking in them too much in China, or the mix of smog and my sweat is corroding the fabric.

Bah.

The Great Wall

2008-06-28T01:18:00.001-07:00

Okay, finally made it out to the great wall today. I opted for the hiking option, rather than the cable-car one. I suffered for it.

Turns out I am grossly out of shape, and the altitude is pretty mean, and the day was humid. Many thousands of stairs lay between us and the top, at a pretty steep clip. Based on the signs, I think our vertical ascent was close to half a kilometer. My legs burned, and there were many periods of rest. But we made it to the top!
Drenched in Sweat
Catching My Breath

A few more steps, and we were inside the defensive structure of the wall, ready to fend off Mongolians/Manchus/Japanese.
No Mongols Coming Through on My Watch
"Okay, Still Tired, Take Another Picture"

The rest of the morning-and-early-afternoon consisted of hiking up and down the great wall, checking out some of the defensive architecture, talking about restorations, etc. Very interesting stuff. There is not too much story to tell, so I will explain pictures from here on in. One of my favorite photos (giving me a brief sense of "Good gravy, I'm actually here").
Hand-Made in China

More good views of the great wall:
It Got Brighter

Another one of my favorite shots:
Many Tourists with Many Languages

We noticed the wall really went long distances to assure that it was on local maxima of the mountainrange, maximizing irritation for invading armies without any consideration of cost:
Very Irritating Indeed

The valleys ran deep, covered with foliage even at the time of construction, at least on the "enemy" side--assaulting this thing would have been a challenge.
"Why Don't We Go Around?"

You'll notice two holes here: one for arrows, one for oil/refuse/rubble, whatever you're dropping on scaling enemy soldiers. Very European-style defense. I don't have much in the way of arch pictures, but the defense tower interior very closely resembles Roman Empire architecture:
"We're Out of Oil, Sir!"
"Then Throw Down the Souveniers!"

Here's one of the best examples of a defense tower. They were very 150 meters or so.
Leaning a Bit to Get This Shot

We ran into a single canon--very small, and not terribly well-constructed. No good way to know just how long before the advent artillery this was put in place, but it doesn't seem as impressive as many European designs, particularly given that it's stationary... But the whole construct is a bit confusing; there is clearly concrete renovation for this, but it looks like the concrete is holding the canon in place--what held it in place before that?
This is Not an Excuse to Photograph Rear Ends

On our way back down, a deslightful sight: Beasts of Burden!
Donkey!

And with that, we trotted out--going down seemed so much easier than going up, except that I almost slipped to my death. After sweating, drinking, and then sweating all of the water in my body and my backpack, everything felt a fair bit lighter, too. Left with a bit of a headache from the strain, but got back, got some grapefruit juice in me, and was ready to go.

Tomorrow: Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War Museum (as my mother said: "No political correctness necessary"), which is the name of the war the stuck during the propaganda campaigns of the 1930's, and maybe even some Chinese Acrobatics (I have seen enough Peking Opera on TV that Acrobatics is currently more exciting to dish out the big money for).

Cross-Cultural Geography Experiment

2008-06-24T22:58:00.000-07:00

So I ran "English Corner" today, and go to play a little experiment.

I (and some of my friends) wanted to know relative tests of education between the US and China--history, geography, etc. My sample is a bunch of 20-somethings with Master's degrees and years of English class... a sample far more learned and intelligent than the averge Chinese and average American.

I have been talking to many of them about Western history, and for some of them, their Western history is at least as good as my Far Eastern history, which is pretty darn impressive. For some of them, they are... not quite as good (the Chinese words for "parliament," "constitution," "Napoleon," "medeival," etc, mean almost nothing to them). My good buddy Chris is probably the most knowledgable--we had a debate as to whether Rommel or Patton was the superior tank commander (he was shocked that Americans might not know someone as titanically awesome as Patton. "I thought he was a national hero."), and talked about the relative value of the T-34 to the Panzer IV to the Sherman. Anyway, my case studies have shown a great range of historical understanding of the West (though most have a pretty good idea of US presidents--probably about as good an idea as the average American).

We also wondered what they expected of US people with respect to Chinese history. Interestingly, most of them ignored ancient Chinese history, often saying "not much happened." My general impression of expectations, by what people have mentioned:

Kong Zi (Confucius), Lao Zi (Lao Tzu), Sun Zi (Sun Tzu), Emporer Qin (who united the 7 Chinese states-- watch "Hero" for this), Emperor Qianlong (famous Qing emperor), Cixi (the "Empress Dowager"), Lu Xun ("father of modern Chinese literature," and May 4th revolutionary), Sun Zhongsan (Sun Yat-Sen, "father of modern China"), Jiang Jieshi (Generallisimo Chiang Kai-Shek), Mao Zedong, Lin Biao (maybe), Zhu De (maybe), Deng Xiaoping (definitely), Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao (maybe). They also expect us to know about the Qin unification of China, the fact that the last 2 dynasties were Ming and Qing, the poly-colonization of China, the Opium wars, the Boxer rebellion, some internal rebellions (like Taiping), the May 4th revolution (which called for modern government, self-strengthening, some democracy stuff), the fall of the Qing in 1919, the establishment of Republican China, the end of the Warlords (team Communists + Nationalists took them down), the first Sino-Japanese war (Japan takes Manchuria and Taiwan), the first civil war (Communists vs. Nationalists), the full-scale Japanese invasion (WWII), 2nd civil war (Communists win), establishment of PRC, Great Leap Forward, alliance with Russia, Cultural Revolution, rapproachment with US, opening and reform.

ANYWAY: That experiment. I was looking for something a bit more concrete, though halfway through realised I was sortof failing.

I took a blank map of Asia, and an alphebatized word bank of English country names, broke them into seven teams of two, and said "Go!" and awarded Oreos to the winner (competitions with sweets as prizes are popular at Horizon). Remember these guys have had years of English, so I expected their English to not be so great--but they certainly knew the English names of many countries, and still managed to get a fair number of these wrong. Of note (for interest's sake only, there is not much value to be assigned to these):

One group put Russia in Kazakhstan's place.
They all got the Koreas, China, Japan, and Mongolia perfect.
Half the groups got Vietnam wrong (I did tell them beforehand that Vietnam was "Yuenan" in Chinese), and Laos/Cambodia/Thailand/Burma were a struggle.
One group nailed 20 out of 37, which is probably better than most Americans would do on the same English test, but the group included the manager, whose English was excellent (and this is her home continent).
No group knew the proper locations of Iraq or Iran, though many put them somewhere nearby (the names were very familiar from news, and sound a lot like the Chinese "Yilake" [that's "yeelahkuh" for those that don't know pinyin] and "Yilang" [that's "yeelahng"]).
One group got Afghanistan right, and one Pakistan.
All but one got India right.
In general, the groups knew China's Northeast perfectly, it's Southeast moderately well, it's direct south okay, and its western areas relatively poorly.

It was all very interseting to see what they knew. One really can't scientifically compare this to Americans at all--the test was 10 minutes, with a sample size of 12 Masters' students with varying levels of English (from bout my level of Chinese to near-fluent). I am thinking about giving them a map of Europe and no word bank, and saying "fill it in with whatever language you want," see how they do, and then get a few of you to do the same thing to get a better idea.

But my general impression is that while Americans may be pretty lousy at geography, even well-educated Chinese aren't perfect, either.

Apologies of this pseudo-science post offends anyone.

Temple of Heaven and Some Architecture

2008-06-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a trip to the Temple of Heaven with Candy, a coworker from Horizon. I got a bit lost and arrived late, but found her, and we went in. Like other parks on weekends, especially in the mornings, lots of folks were out in the park, practicing what outdoor activities they liked. Lots of singing, dancing, etc:
Some Dancing...
Singing...
Some Strange and Elegant Sport

We went by all the major sites, though with a strange sense of blazing speed:
The Temple of Heaven
Proving to Myself I Was There
The Temple's Plaque

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is an ancient part of the Temple in which the Emporer had the obligation of performing a wacky and complicated ritual, full of animal sacrifice and fire:
The Temple's Most Popular Part

Heading south, we got some good views of some excellent gates:
Gates to What? I don't Know.

This altar-looking platform, with 9 steps, is apparently quite significant. I didn't remember why:
A Very Expensive Plaza

We then went and got lunch at one of Beijing's xiaochidian, or snack shops. She decided to order some famous Beijing dishes for me to try, despite the fact that outsiders almost never like them. Why are they famous?

This terrifying mess was literally a soup of many pig organs, including stomach, heart, tongue, liver, intestine. The liver was by far the worst part. Tasted like toxic chalk. Behind it, sweets that seemed to be more Candy's realm than mine (she did not want to try the soup, she'd already tried):
Delicacy, baby.

These next two dishes were not quite as offensive, but were offensive nonetheless. The bowl of white stuff is some sort of soy concoction (it's not like soy milk, it's more like rancid tofu) that is supposed to be healthy for you. The further bowl was either some terrible seafood or some more intestine. One dipped it in sesame sauce, almost as an apology to its own taste.

These two dishes were decent; the rings (which I hoped would be a bit like onion rings) had no taste and the chicken had this strange sourness that gold old pretty quickly. But it was at least edible.

so that was an adventure. Here is my torturer, my lunchtime inquisitor:
"You Like It?"

The walk home was a victory in architechture. Some good stuff:
Beijing Normal University
An Apartment Complex
Something Under Construction

The Curious Night Market

2008-06-19T01:32:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to make a quick post about an interesting phenomenon I observed.

Apparently, unregistered street vendors are against ordinance in Beijing--locals tell me this is new, and probably has a lot to do with the volume of Westerners running around this summer. But that won't stop the most determined nightmarkets, that spring up on busy corners at a moment's notice, but when they see flashing lights (the Police have a curious habit of making their presence very easily known when they "crack down" on such events), most nightmarket salesmen have some clever way of wrapping their goods up in a few second and hiding them as if they were simply heavy loads on a bicycle (for example, drawstrings around a mat that can be tugged to turn the mat into a bag). It frustrated our shopping attempts a few times, but was otherwise quite interesting.

Most of the goods being sold were cheap knockoffs, and the only cheap knockoffs I decided to buy were replica Cultural Revolution posters. I did some haggling with the man to bring it down to $5 for 3 of them--at that price, I should have gotten more. But perhaps another opportunity will crop up. The posters looked old and were printed on cheap brown paper, but this maybe made them look more authentic. The three I got included Mao/Zhu/Deng looking upon "progress" during the Great Leap Forward. The second was a portrait of a red/black/white Mao in front of very happy Communists. The third was a bunch of angry Communists aggressively uniting for something on the order of spreading Chairman Mao Zedong thought to the world. Pretty cool stuff. Let me know if you want one, I can look for more.

Strangely, though, it seems more complicated in this country to find what I'm looking for.

The Summer Palace

2008-06-17T17:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, as you all know, Sunday was Summer Palace. Let me first say: "not so great, actually." I am starting to get bored of seeing the same Chinese imperial architecture, the same lions, the same facades, the same roofs, the same pagodas. It's like somene 2000 years ago decided that the greatest artistic achievements possible had happened, and anyone that tried to deviate would have his hands chopped off or eyes poked out, etc. When you look at these buildings, the meticulousness and effort are blindingly obvious, and bound--creativity is locked in the black stone hearts of those lions, each the same, never to see the light of day. I wanted to smash them to see if it might emerge.

All of these palaces and temples are truly epic tales of the slow and methodical crushing of the human spirit in China.

So it was among lush and carefully-tended tress (our tourguide was quite the botanist, and told us quite a bit about each plant) that we looked forth onto the thatched roofs of the Summer Palace:
Curiously Modest

The primary lounding areas of the Supper Palace looked out onto a great lake, sculpted and excavated, in such a way that the Emperor could sit within a small pagoda with a beautiful lady and say "See that? It's mine," in an attempt to make their inevitable evening together seem a bit more like it came through persuasion rather than force:
"That? Also mine."

The whole thing sits on a hill, as you can see below. Yeah, more golden terraced roofs--I suppose the emperors wanted it to remind them of home in at least a few ways. I never figured out what the wire, along the outside of the building, was for:
His Majesty's Eighteenth Royal Lounge

Back on the top of the hill, we saw what appeared to be a guard or sentry tower of some sort--the pathway to the tower itself certainly seemed to be made for bowmen to fire, but upon getting to the tower we were just not sure (it was locked):
Not Very Defensible

Back at the bottom, the elaborate East Gate, covered in large bronze pots (we are still not sure of the mettalurgy behind them), crane statues, and large limestone deposit rocks hauled out of the river by slave labor, designed to immediately dispel any thoughts about just how heavenly-rich the emperor was:
Imperial Chinese Bling

But the single greatest testament to civic waste in this decadent symbol of tyrrany was the Emperess Dowager's 60th birthday present to herself: A giant marble (yes, all marble) barge, one which barely floated. To build it, she redirected all the funds raised by the state for a blue-water navy:
The Qing Chinese Naval Fleet

The Chinese were subsequently routed, only once (that's all it took), by the Japanese navy as it cleared a path for itself to resupply troops invading Manchuria:
Wait, We Can't Defend Manchuria With This?

When I look at this, I can think only of lives wasted in two ways: the lives of those men wasted futilely trying to resist the Japanese without a navy, but worse, the lives of those wasted in slave labor building such a terrible icon.

Anyway: with that, we were out of there, and off to a nearby park that also had to be seen. We were quite interested in the maze, but found it to be solvable in about five minutes, particularly given that we were significantly taller than the walls...:
Solved Faster Than a Kid's Placemat at Wendy's

This park contained vast ruins--clearly Western, which was curious. Our guide taught us that these ruins were originally built by skilled French architects and construction laborers on the Emperor's commission, only to be destroyed by incompetent French soldiers during the Opium Wars and Boxer Rebellion:
"Monsuier Le General, This Looks Like it Came from Paris!"
"They Must Have Stolen it! Smash it to Bits!"

Though large enough chunks remain. The French were not as efficient as the Chinese in the 50's and 60's--using point-blank artillery, they made sure that there was nothing but dust and pebbles left of the Buddhist monasteries that they demolished. But much of this destruction looks collateral, rather than purposeful. You'll notice people can touch about 85% of China's history--unlike the West, of course, where it is kept in a glass box:
People Are Probably Pocketing Some of This Stuff

The rest of the park was somewhat pretty, though there was something "off" about the whole thing. It felt so artificial it was uncomfortable. The Chinese had stuck hideous statues (that people really wanted pictures of themselves alongside...) in a few clearly incorrect places--enough so that I could not bring myself to take pictures of them. One of the statues was a Chinese kite, but it was two-dimensional... upon closer inspection, one saw that it was a rather poor computer print-out of a kite, glued to a board. Not impressive. But the temple on the island was nice:
Probably Not a Computer Print-Out

Finally, I leave you with a bit of well-sculpted landscape, because really, that is hard to come by around Beijing. Landscaping really is not China's specialty. But all in all, a strangely oppressive day of broken and bad art that is coming--for me--to symbolize that scares me most about Chinese culture.

A Day at Wangfujing

2008-06-14T07:27:00.001-07:00

Wangfujing is "the place to go" for shopping, so said my workmates. Sadly, I did not realize how big a wallet they thought I had (I may be a rich American, but I am still a college student). We didn't end up buying any non-consumables, but that's okay. We had a good time, saw some very impressive ivory and jade jewelry and sculptures for sale, some of it getting over RMB3.5 Million (that's half a million greenbacks, baby). Needless to say, some of it was pretty darn impressive.

I had my first American food of any sort (save some coffee and diet coke, I suppose) today: A Big Mac. I forgot lunch before I went out, and couldn't help myself. It was neither more or less delicious than I remember, which was somehow disappointing.

We then went for tea, which was the highlight of the evening. We went to a sortof modernised teahouse--one where the tea was not poured for us, but simply given to us. It was still both good to look at and drink:
Perhaps Even Better to Look at than to Drink

The teahouse experience was accompanied by some very darn talented artists on traditional Chinese instruments, starting with one man:
Playing a Traditional Chinese Song

The one man turned into a duet, who actually started off by playing an American-sounding folk song:
This is Not a Banjo

And then, finally, the group became five. Together, they were just spectacular. The otherwise quiet crowd broke out into applause for them:
These Guys Are Probably Not Paid Enough

The most interesting of instruments was on the far left--this sort of mini-organ from Tibet (as we learned from Callie) that one played a bit like a saxophone:
Looks a Bit Like a Rich Hobbit's Pipe

Anyway, the tea was quite nice, and was served with dried plums (but not prunes, somehow) and pan-blackened watermelon seeds. Yummy.

We walked around more, and, of course, didn't buy much, but observed some of the Russian-influenced architecture, saw the oldest (and possibly most expensive!) department store in Beijing, made the mistake of wandering into a souvenir shop. I am not buying anyone souvenir-style gifts except upon specific request, I promise.

Anyway, we then got dinner at my first Hot Pot in China. The place was like a sauna and actually smelled kindof funny, but the Hot Pot wasn't bad (not my favorite meal ever). Callie did the ordering for us, and seemed to have gotten us pretty good stuff:
Though She Looks Concerned

After Hot Pot, we realized it was getting a bit late, and decided to head out.
I got my second American food today afterwards--an Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen. Not bad. I have certainly noticed that places that are supposed to be pretty darn cheap in the US (Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, KFC anything Budweiser, etc) often end up being proportionally quite expensive in China... even if not actually more in converted US Dollars. That said, I'm cheap, and rarely am willing to pay $8 for a pizza when I could get a Chinese meal for $5.

Anyway, that's that. Tomorrow: Summer Palace, hopefully with a big crew.

Weekly Wrapup

2008-06-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

Week three is ending on a pleasant note. I may finally be getting used to this place. Much of it was rather uneventful, but it has been fun, save the rough week at work.

Monday was Beihai Park with Callie--a great way to relax. It's a pretty park, too:
The Island of Beihai
We had lunch, a rather expensive one, at a restaurant on the island, famous for looking and tasting like the Emperor's personal cafeteria. So I got to eat like an Emperor. It was pretty good.

The park's prettiest feature was probably the Nine-Dragon Screen. It was just a buncha dragons, but they had a lot of dignity:
One-Third of the Dragon Screen
I, of course, was inclined to join them.
One More Dragon In the Fold

The last very cool sight to see was old ladies using long sticks with brush-shaped sponges doing water-calligraphy on the sidewalks, explaining to us what they were writing. The one phrase I bothered to try to read said "A harmonious family leads to a joyous life:"Probably Been Doing This For a Long Time

We then managed to get ourselves lost in some Hutongs (literally, "alleys;" areas preserved by the gov't to be quaint and old, selling cheap wares), and I missed the opportunity to buy a bunch of Cultural Revolution posters--I will go back, but this time, Callie protested because she didn't want me giving everyone at home the wrong impression of China. I sighed. The deeper we went into the Houhai Hutongs, the more old people stared at me with slight hostility. When I spoke Chinese at them, they got a bit scared.

Tuesday and Wednesday were work, and then dinner. Work sucked because I spent the whole darn week transcribing an English lecture by a man that hadn't had too much practice speaking English, recorded on a terrible tape-recorder, too far away from the speaker (the sound quality was poor), in a noisy office, with poor headphones. It was a two-hour talk. Along with all the breaks I took out of fist-shaking frustration, the project took me until this morning to finish. Bummer.

But walking home from dinners, I got some pretty cool pictures. The first is some dudes welding 8 stories up. I missed the initial shower of sparks, which was sad:
This Guy Probably Makes $2000/year

The second is outdoor pool:
Doesn't Look Like Too Much Fun to Me, Either

The third is sunset behind the Poly Art Museum (not a museum of polygamy or polytheism or polypeptides, so I'm not sure where the name comes from):
Some Well-Placed Modern Architecture

More Of the Same

Anyway, then Thursday rolls around, and man, that was the worst of it, at least at work. But, it was the birthday of my good good buddy Chris, and so he, I, his girlfriend, his xiongdi (literally "brother," but good friend), and a pretty girl I had not yet met all made our way out to Karaoke--my second time ever (they were shocked when they heard this. Asked me what the hell was wrong with Americans that we don't love Karaoke). Anyway, I say "thank god, we're going to have fun, I had a terrible day, blarg," and then as we are getting into the cab, i hear a terrifying rip, and yup, I just went through another pair of pants, my third since getting to China. Later tonight, I'll be stitching them, but, really, good gravy. So we move on with our lives. It's not like I can really go home and change them, right?

So we get there, and I am just trying to avoid letting the girls know that the pants are ripped--I don't think they'd deal as well as the guys. But just keep in mind that there's a huge hole right where my butt meets my leg this whole night. Anyway, we sit (thank god) and start singing. This is the birthday boy:
Look at That Face

He starts singing. So do others, but I felt more comfortable photographing him:
Remember to Let Her Into Your Heart, Then You Can Start to Make it Better

I am having a good time, too, despite my regrettable singing talents:
That's the "I'm Sorry I Can't Sing" Smile

After we got bored of all that, we moved on to a club. This club, truly, was a place of conspicuous consumption. Knowing I'm not getting paid for the internship, Chris has summarily refused to let me pay for anything. But since it was his birthday, we were a bit confused as to what might happen--until xiongdi saved the day and busted out his credit card. I am not complaining. Anyway, we get a personal waitress and a platter with scotch, cold sweet tea, and beer. She starts pouring the sweet tea and scotch together to serve to us, and I jump up, join her, and pour myself a glass of the scotch straight. It was the smoothest stuff I've ever had, but apparently liquors are very rarely drank straight in China, so Chris and xiongdi were unwilling to even try the stuff without drenching it first in sweet tea. But that is okay, I usually cannot handle much of the stuff myself.

(Note, they stored my camera, so there are no shots of this) I made the mistake of playing a dice game with everyone, and kept losing because my grasp of the rules, explained in Chinese, was very limited. Every time I lost, more scotch.

At a trip to the bathroom (luckily, on the way out), I got stolen away by a bunch of kids, ages ranging 15-25, who all wanted to talk to me in English and figure out what the hell I was doing there (I was definitely the only white guy there, and certainly bigger than all their security guards). Well, I was drunk, and not so good at getting out of their clutches. I had my guard up--I didn't want to get scammed in any way. But it turns out the guys of the group were asked by the girls to come get me (they drunkenly admitted) so the girls could hang out with me. Go figure. So I lost track of time, and found it was 2AM by the time I realized I really needed to get the heck out of there (I should have realized it was time to go when I found out one of the girls trying to get my number was 15 years old and kept talking about how guys her age weren't mature enough or ready for love...). I run back to our table, and of course, my friends are gone, after having spent 30 minutes looking around the club for me. Chris happily assumed the girls had taken me back to their place--he got my backpack and camera, and took them to work the next morning.

I got a cab home, and woke up at 9AM...which was when I was supposed to get to work. I jumped out of bed and almost ran to work, arriving at 10. I explained to my bosses what had happened, and luckily they just thought it was all pretty funny, and that I shouldn't worry so much. Well, that's a relief. I spent the day with a nasty headache, and am going to relax in a very alcohol-free way this weekend, I think (though the occasional Qingdao may slip its way into my tummy).

So I finally finish the damn transcription, and start working on fixing the deplorable English on the Horizon website (if you go now, you can try to guess which pages I've already fixed!). But right before it was time to go home, everything got real dark, real fast:
Beijing, 5:30 PM

And when I got outside, there was rain. It started as a frustrating rain, creating that weight in your chest that you feel when a car has almost-but-not-quite stopped at a red light, waiting to bounce back. While waiting for the skies to open, I got this shot:
Sinister!

But then the rain came. And I loved it. I got soaked right through, but the night was warm, the water was cool, and I felt like I had been cleansed. The Embassies looked more epic than normal in the torrents:
Espana

My walk home looked more epic, too--this picture is really just a nice row of trees along the sidewalk:
My Stalker Waits Just Behind One of These Trees

Finally, I made it home, and went to the gym after changing. It was a challenge--the fifth floor (with the alleged "gym") is a quiet and flowery-smelling spa, with pictures of the Buddha everywhere. I grew skeptical and almost left, but then just sucked it up and asked. I was shown to a room, literally the same size and form as mine (with a sink and stove and everything), with 2 treadmills, 2 bikes, one bench, and a dumbbell set. Despite the woeful inadequacy of this place, I threw on my headphones and went to work, and managed to make myself rather sore all over. I am tired, and clearly out of shape, but at least I can get there easily and get some sort of workout in. I came back, having lifted for the first time in 3 weeks, feeling great:
My "People's Republik" Shirt is Excellent for Lifting, I've Found

Now I'm cooking dinner--tomorrow, off to shopping with Callie, and then Summer Palace with MIT kids Sunday. Should be a good time.

Rough Rural Sunday

2008-06-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

Sunday began at 4AM, rising to the soft ringing of my computer. It was then a flurry out the door to find a rather incompetent cab driver and a sleepy Sarah, and we were off to the bus stop. There, we picked up some pork buns and sesame-red-bean buns. Those would come back to haunt us later.

We shuffled onto the bus. The seats were too small for our wider American rear ends, particularly mine. On the outside seat of the three of us, I took constant elbows to the face, bloated bellies pressing up against me. The bus driver was an anger-bent maniac who drove on the wrong side of the road and honked at cars, on their side of the road, for daring be in his way. He honked at cars thinking about considering looking both ways at an intersection such that they might then ponder whether or not they might decide that they would soon decide whether or not they were going to try to enter the road. He honked long. And we were near the front, sitting on top of the damn wheel, which made our legs scrunch up into ourselves. Every time we considered sleep, the honk of the driver jolted us back into consciousness. For three hours. Luckily, I had reading material.

When we arrived in Zhang Fang, the town nearest to our lonely mountain village, we jumped out and stretched our legs. We were the first white people in that town since Marco Polo. People stared at us. Not only that, but they all started accosting us for rides--in Chinese, of course, nobody presumed we would venture that far out and not know it. Of all these old men trying to drive us in their sketchy cars, I believe their frustration with our inability to understand them, along with the "do not make a mistake around me" frightened them off. But our poor planning meant we had little idea of how to get to our village.

We found a very nice lady with yellow, broken teeth and an accent heavy enough to crush a mule, who sprang to life when we mentioned the name of the village. She talked slowly enough for us, which was nice, and flashed brochures in our face to give her credibility--she claimed she worked at the very village we wanted to go to. ("Brochures?" I thought)

She led us to an old, broken, smelly van, stuffed with people, teeming to split. We hesitated, and entered under the notion that it was full of women with their children, and therefore was unlikely to be driving us to a parking lot full of muggers. I gave our odds at 80/20.

So the van careened through the valley of ever-rising mountains, for about an hour. Standing was not so bad. Peopls just looked at me, and the nice lady talked to Kim about the village. The following two photos were taken from the van:

Despite my worries, we arrived, no worse for the wear. We hopped out and looked at the alleged village... on our side of a river, there were horses, four-wheeling off-roaders, speedboats. Terrible multi-colored triangle flags, like those hung at used car lots, adorned the entrance. It seems we were far from the first to discover the village. It was packed with tourists, all of them Chinese city-slickers.

The nice lady helped us buy tickets (at an outrageous Y60, but we knew this beforehand), and we went along our way. We had to cross a 200-foot suspension bridge to get to the other side, and kids about or age kept rocking the damn thing. Luckily, I had my sea legs. On the other side was a pagoda with a man-made waterfall. But it looked nice:

We then started off towards the deeper reaches of the (as we learned) national park. Tourists crowded the way, but the further we went, the fewer there were. Horses and mules carried people up or down, for extra money. We refrained. The view was pretty great:

We saw a staircase emerge from our path, leading to the "Crack in the Sky." We took it. The staircase stretched up like a fissure itself, wavering, uneven:

But we conquered it, panting at the most exercise we had had in many weeks. We met a bunch of kids with our age and much more than our energy peering into the great crack:

Here we are inside it. The rock was split as if by a thin wedge. I could not do much with my camera to look up, but a tiny sliver of light poured in from the opening at the top. The walls were slick with their own cold sweat:

We got through, looked about more mountains (there were many), and walked back down, whence Sarah grew quite sick, and I queasy, probably at the terrible terrible, greasy, dirty sesame-red-bean-buns we had eaten at a quick picnic. Sarah napped off the sickness, but awoke with a headache. I read. Kim drew. We all roasted quite a bit in the sun, but got to relax. We decided, when Sarah was back on her two feet, to take off home. We're lucky we left as early as we did.

Exiting was difficult. We went back to the "bus" stop, to get another one of those rickety vans. But every time they came, they were too full of people to even open the door. We realized we needed another way to get to Zhang Fang.

Despite my aversions, Kim led the charge in looking for someone to give us a ride. Another man-with-a-van was picking up some other kids to take them to ShiDu, a nearby town, and we haggled his more outrageous prices down to Y20 for the group. He was sure ShiDu had a 917 bus able to take us back.

We arrived at ShiDu's bus station, said thanks, and met a nice middle-aged man that chatted with us, including telling us that the 917 did indeed come to ShiDu, just very rarely. A very large group was waiting to return to Beijing. We waited for an hour, and nothing came. We grew worried at the time... we were too far from Beijing to mess around.

So we determined to get back to Zhang Fang, and stop playing games with fate. But Kim found us one more game to play: the fates brought us a small blue tractor, and a friendly driver willing to take us to Zhang Fang (the opposite direction from the park/village as ShiDu, of course) for Y24. I eagerly tossed him the money and leapt into the back compartment of the tractor. We had benches, nothing more. When he started the darn thing up, he jumped out and cranked it until it started up, belched a soup of black smoke, and shook violently. My very bones started to soften. Kim loved it:

I had the pleasure of looking at my black-and-yellow death every time I turned around:

But looking forward was just as interesting:

We went past the park, picked up a few more kids that I had the pleasure of helping into the back compartment, and got stuck in a traffic jam. We arrived in Zhang Fang four hours after we left the park. We found a 917, and went home, under conditions similar to our journey outward. We were dropped off in a station farther out from city center than when we had started--apparently the bus just did not go to the last few stations at that hour of night. How frustrating. Sarah sucked up the cost of a cab, feeling so sick, and Kim and I ran around looking for the subway. Turns out, Beijing keeps being much bigger than we keep thinking, and the "few major roads" between us and the subway stop spanned a space as big as many Massachusetts counties. We asked directions, and people told us jibberish and pointed in directions that were just incorrect. In my utter contempt for wasting time, I grew frustrated, visibly so. Kim kept me calm. I thank her.

We found a bus, and took it to the station, where we transferred, and I rode to the closest subway stop (a 20-minute walk from the apartment until Line 10 opens later this month), and walked home. It had been a long day, and I went to bed.

A Busy Day in City Center

2008-06-07T06:11:00.001-07:00

To Sum Up:

11:00: Qinghai Park, waiting for other MIT kids.
12:00: Forbidden City
15:00: Tiananmen Square
17:00: Bell Tower, shopping
18:00: Dinner
19:00: Great Tea Shop
20:30: Arrive home

Allow me to tell a story in pictures... all but the end.

Got to the Forbidden City (north), and my MIT friends were late. So I went into the park to the north--it was only 2yuan, what could go wrong?

It was great. Since it's Dragon Boat festival, lots of people were out, singing:

And dancing:

I climbed my way up the hill in the center of the park:

And arrived at the top to find a mini-temple (with the Buddha inside, but it is not polite to photograph), and a Gazebo:

But the real treat was the view:

Especially the north:

But my friends arrived, and we were off to the Forbidden city. I must admit, though, the park was probably my favorite part. The Forbidden City was, well... big. We entered from the north:

We entered to find some gardens:

And then it was huge-building-with-golden-roof after huge-building-with-golden-roof. Again. Big. Bigger than you can think:

There were cool sights. Lions:

A huge plaza where the Emperor's court would show up and bicker:

As well as the Emperor's Throne:

After 3 hours in the behemoth of a palace, we got a bit tired of it, and set out south, to Tiananmen square--in daytime, this time:

A better shot of the Chairman:

The Square was rather busy with Chinese tourists:

Somehow, I didn't get any photos of this, but lots and lots of folks kept asking to take pictures with us. For a few of them, they gave me a Chinese flag, which I, of course, hoisted heroically into the air. Long Live the People's Republic of China! My impression is that the Chinese psyche largely reflects the government: they want the West to approve, and to get along, and to share. We were happy to.

We then moved on to the Monument to the People's Heroes, and I stood, proud, a hero of the People myself:

We then moved all the way south to two rather impressive Collectivist statues:

And I got to pose with them, championing the human spirit, or something:

On our way out, we almost got walked on by the PLA, which was marching through the square, Changing the Guard:

So we took a cab over to Drum Tower, which was closed, and not terribly exciting:

But then went on to dinner, and tried (somewhat futilely) to tough it out through hot/sour soup, hot/spicy chicken, and (somehow!) hot fried rice. I had a bottle of Yanjing to help, but the girls just had tea. Silly girls:

The girls wanted to shop for clothes, and I tagged along, telling them everything was too expensive, and telling them we should leave and look somewhere else. The tactic worked--along with Sarah (our toughest and most frank customer), we managed to knock 33-50% off all our purchases... we still got ripped off, but less than most Westerners were!

Finally, we went to this place where one of the girls (I think) ended up buying a dress, but this really friendly dude also had a tea shop, and kept serving us the best tea I had ever drank, by far. The girls can back me up on this. He also kept pouring some of the pot out on a turtle, over his wooden table (which just sopped up the tea) when he made new pots. It was, I think, ceremonial in some way... possibly the kind of thing one would get in a professional teahouse. But we will go back for some of that tea, and take it home before we go... even if it was $170/kilogram. We won't get much, we promise.

So, some bargaining, some sightseeing, and all we have to show for it are some burned tongues. But tomorrow, we get up at 4AM to go to a local village, so it's bedtime.

What Do You Want from China?

2008-06-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

It's time to tell me. What do you want? Do you want exotic Chinese cigarettes? The most expensive packs I can find are $5/pack (which is 10x as expensive as the cheapest packs I can find at 50c/pack). Do you want art? Clothing? Memorabilia (Chairman Mao stuff)? Time to tell me. I want to shop for you guys, but you're making it hard by being so quiet.

So leave some comments.

Chinese Private Security

2008-06-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

I saw a big armored van unloading boxes of cash (I'm calling the Chinese Renminbi "Maos" to my MIT friends--the Chairman's face is on practically everything) into a China Bank of Communications. They were all in blue-tinted urban camo, big black boots, thick helmets. And on either side of the van, near the rear (towards the street), a security guard stood with an obnoxiously-sized shotgun, looking at everyone that passed by with eyes saying "no."

I was thinking briefly about taking a picture... but then thought better of it. One of my goals this trip is to piss off as few heavily-armed Chinese men as possible.

Rules for Me

2008-06-03T19:46:00.000-07:00

Well, the Chinese government is making the code of conduct for us foreigners this summer clear, in its own, special, very unclear way:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/03/oly.foreigners.ap/index.html

Big plans coming up this weekend, probably including: Forbidden City, a "lonely mountain village," Karaoke (called KTV around here). Also thinking about doing some more local-city travel in July, after I've exhausted sites in Beijing.

Day Seven-and-a-half: Observations

2008-06-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

This one will be quick. Not too much happened yesterday, I decided to relax, read, etc. But you will find the following interesting, I'm sure.

1) Peking Duck is wonderful. Went out with the roommate and got some, and it's totally all it's cracked up to be. One problem, though--they cut it for you and give you the head, which was scary enough, except as I was chowing down, I did not realize the brain had escaped (they cut the head in half), and I stared it down for a while before munching on it. I'm sure the Chinese think it's good for some obscure bodily function, but it was pretty disgusting. Never again.

2) PLA really means People's Liberation Awesome. These guys have a tight precision and respectful manner that top armies could take a lesson from. I got to shadow a whole squad of Embassy Security that were marching out of the Moroccan Embassy to somewhere (they turned off). Their marching was slick, and at traffic lights, the rear two soldiers jumped to the front with red signs (that say "stop" in Chinese) and stood in front of cars trying to turn right (the PLA had the green light, of course, but as you've already read, crossing the street is a constant negotiation with cars and bikes). After their unit passed, the soldiers with the stop-signs saluted the cars, turned on their heels, and resumed marching at the back of the line. Killer: Wish I had had the nerve to pull out my camera, but I was trying to stay respectable.

3) Eating is about the food, not the manners. In the little places I go to, there are some manners for eating, but I've certainly seen even Chinese manners go out the window for the sake of the food (for example: one is not technically supposed to eat right out of a communal bowl, but people do it anyway, when tasting something). Elbows are on tables, noodles are slurped with gusto, lips and bowls connect, and fingers get very busy when necessary, burping is considered complimentary, and bones/organs/whatever the Chinese think tastes good are left in the food--food is often not packaged neatly or easily; sometimes it takes effort to eat. It takes some getting used to. Like with the duck head (that will continue to haunt me). But for the most part, my taste buds appreciate it.

Day Six: Tiananmen and An Unlikely Visitor

2008-06-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Today, I was tired. Woke up, was planning to go to the Forbidden City, but never got around to it. This is in part because I was feeling lazy, but in part because an unlikely visitor appeared.

A stranded MIT student, without luggage (that the airline lost), and waiting for transport to Shandong, needed a place to crash, so I made sure the student could stay at my place (I've got an extra bed, of course). Comfortably resting now, the student will depart on Tuesday, but is my roommate for now. I'm quite fond of the idea. It's lonely around here.

We hung out and talked for quite a while, I helped in trying to find the luggage. It's a bit of a mess. Nonetheless, we had a good time, and I got to get off my feet for a day. I ended up cooking--it wasn't bad, but I tried to stir-fry and I ended up braising. Hotter and shorter next time. Nonetheless, it felt pretty good, being able to finally cook.

When we did go out, we scuttled to a part of west Beijing with lots of high-priced shopping. Damn that I couldn't get a picture inside, but the malls were bizarre. They were short and cramped, and I felt very claustrophobic (and almost hit my head on a bunch of stuff). They were mostly dominated by rows with tiny tiny outlets each selling some individual thing. I got some pictures of the outside (see foggofwar), but nothing much interesting happened (we got there too late to do much shopping), and I had my first Chinese fast food. Not too bad.

From there, the interesting stuff happened. We walked towards Tiananmen, passing by the Forbidden Palace (which I plan to visit later). The walk was rather pretty:

Trees and Lamps Outside of the Forbidden Palace

We also got to see the Great Hall of the People, where the Politburo and National People's Congress meet (to rubber stamp the Politburo's decisions)--but really, this is where it all happens:

The Great Hall of the People

From the Other Side, With the Seal of China

When we got to Tiananmen, I rejoiced at actually being able to read the Communist slogans:

"Long Live the People's Republic of China!"

"Long Live the Great Solidarity of the People of the World!"

And then we got to the big gate, with the giant picture of the Great Helmsman:

Long Live the Poorly-Lit Portrait of the Great Helmsman!

I decided to give him a worthy tribute:

Long Live Comrade-Chairman Mao Zedong!

So that was pretty cool. Also great was my first opportunity to bargain--this very lively old man came up to me and said "Ah, you like the Chairman! You need this!" and flashed a copy of the Little Red Book. He was right--he knew I wanted it. I said "How much?" His reply: "How much are you willing to pay?" I started absurdly low... which almost killed the deal: "5 kuai." He laughed and walked away. I shrugged, but as we were leaving, he knew I wasn't going to go beg for it, so he came back: "Thirty kuai!" "No, twenty." "How about I throw in these?" And he brandished a nice package of Tiananmen postcards. This was enough for me... I knew I hadn't won much, but I'd won something, and that was worth it. I took the deal (though he tried to throw in a Great Wall and Forbidden City set and make it 50 kuai, and I had to call him on it). We had a great chat afterwards, he told me: "Put that under your pillow, you'll have good luck." I said "I plan to read it." "Ah, study your Chinese?" "And study Chairman Maozedong Thought!" He laughed again, and produced a Chairman Mao watch, which I was less excited about. I said "No, thanks," but he kept pushing it on me. "Really, I don't want it!" "Ah, I think you do! Look at it! Try it on!" I finally convinced him I wasn't buying, we had a laugh, and went along our way. But I think I'll always remember him whenever I see my Little Red Book.

After acquiring my Little Red Book, I proceeded to the obvious next step:

A Revolution is Not A Dinner Party!

And then I joined my fellow travelers:

Vigorously Develop People's Socialist Tourism with Chinese Characteristics!

On our way out, we saw some PLA guards touring around--they're actually everywhere; the PLA plays a very big role in Public Security, especially near government buildings. But seeing them marching around in uniform is not strange. They have a division called the People's Armed Police (PAP), which is their between-soldier-and-police officer unit; more heavily armed than regular police, and much more militarized, they handle the streetside security that regular soldiers avoid:

May the People's Liberation Army March Quickly Enough to Blur the People's Sidewalks!

We got a glimpse at the Monument to the People's Heroes, but since we couldn't walk into the square at that hour of night, I couldn't get a great shot. I intend to get a better one:

Long Live the Incandescent Bulbs Lighting the Monument to the People's Heroes!

Then we crawled home, and it's far, far too late, so I should go to bed.

Day Five: Exotic in Beijing

2008-05-30T19:19:00.000-07:00

Today was my first weekend day in Beijing, and I realized Beijing girls have a thing for American guys. One of my coworkers graciously took me out to dinner tonight, and then to a bar--I got rather heavily hit on.

But first, I went out with my MIT friends to some "hutongs," the traditional alleyways. We tried our bargaining skills, but it was pretty awkward, and pretty unsuccessful. We're not great bargainers, yet. But we had a pretty good, pretty spicy lunch.

After awkwardly stumbling through the Hutongs, we went through a Tibetan Temple today, my first major tourist site. I forgot a camera, though my friends have promised to send me pictures. Here's to hoping. It was rather peaceful, though it became apparent that the Chinese gov't was using the temple to solidify its claims to Tibet, which was unsurprising, but a bit dirty.

Anyway, I then walked to work, where I met a few coworkers, and the girlfriend of one. We went back to the hutongs and actually found a great place to eat (again, rather spicy). There, I talked about what I thought was the American perspective on China/Taiwan/Tibet/Human Rights, etc. In Chinese. It was awesome. Not only were they interested, but they actually understood my (mostly Chinese) Chinglish.

From dinner, they took me out to a bar that got pretty lively pretty quickly. Lots of pretty girls were dancing on the tables of the bar (I swear it was not a dance club--it advertised itself as a bar), hip hop was playing, and a few girls flirted with me and asked for my number. It was a bit strange, but the whole evening was very good practice for my Chinese. My listening skills are even getting better.

I recently got a text message from the girls ("hope to see you again,") but I'm now thinking more about writing about Chinese perspectives on international politics, as well as a summary of Chinese youth behavior. Tomorrow, I think. Tonight, I am drunk, and tired. It was a good day; real good day.