Ruins, Classes, and Stereotypes

Hi everyone. Sorry this entry is so tardy. Classes started and all that free time went the way of the Dodo. But I'll get to that in a bit. This entry is going to be a bit on the long side, so grab a tasty beverage, kick up your feet, and let me tell you a tale or two. Or three. Or a baker's dozen. We'll see how it goes.

Last Saturday (The 10th) I went to check out the Old Summer Palace. This is different from the Summer Palace that I saw two years ago. The Old Summer Palace is five miles northwest of the Forbidden City and--conveniently--only a few miles from my apartment.

Initial construction started in 1707, but things really took off in the middle of the 18th century. The structures and their vast gardens served as the home for "day to day" imperial business (the Forbidden City was only for ceremonial business). An interesting twist for these gardens and the palace buildings, however, is/was their architecture. The emperor at the time, Qianglong (one of my favorites), had a sweet tooth for exotic things and architecture; as a result, some of the structures followed the Baroque stylings from Europe. These buildings only comprise a small percentage of the total structures within the grounds, but they do demonstrate the increased interaction between the East and West during the 18th century.

Things were going pretty swell for all parties for a century or so until the Second Opium War came along in October 1860. French and British troops had marched inland to Beijing; the respective forces initially looted the grounds despite each one telling the other that they had done nothing. Then two British envoys, plus nearly twenty British, French, and Indian troops were captured, tortured and executed by the Chinese. In retaliation, the Anglo-French troops destroyed the palace. It took 3,500 British troops three full days to torch the palace. Most of the structures were destroyed. Those that survived were later destroyed in 1900 during the Eight-Nation Alliance (Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, and the United States) invasion.

Fast forward 110 years, rewind a few weeks, and you've got what I saw last weekend. The man-made lakes were filled with lilies and were ringed by trees and hills built with the dirt excavated to build the lakes. What remains of most of the structures conjures images of the Parthenon--a few columns columns remained standing, but many ornate carvings laid on their sides or leaned precariously against their neighbors. Today, the destruction of the Old Summer Palace serves as a tangible example of foreign aggression and humiliation in China.

That following Monday (the 13th) was my first real day of classes. They start bright at early at 8:30 each morning (ugh) and consist of four 50 minute blocks. We have reading and writing courses, listening and speaking courses, and once a week I have an elective speaking course. Each section is taught by a different teacher. So far I like the reading and writing teacher the best. She's the only one who never uses English and pushes us through the material. I have her for at least half of every day--twice a week I have her for the full four hours. After four years of college where I had a class here...a class there...where a nine o'clock class was considered inhumane, jumping right into things at 8:30 has taken some getting used to. Especially when you know you're going to spend the next four hours sitting on a small wooden seat that was designed for something considerably smaller than you are. But I digress. Seeing as BLCU is an international student university, my classmates hail from all over the place. So far I've met (in no particular order) Spaniards, Japanese, Russians, Ukrainians, Romanians, French, Brits, Canadians, Swedes, Colombians, Mexicans, Tunisians, Egyptians, South Koreans, and even a few North Koreans. The crazy thing is that with a considerable number of these students, we're best off conversing in Chinese--either because their English isn't very good or because I have no idea how to speak their mother tongue. (I've used my rusty Spanish a few times, but we don't need to dwell on that.)

Last Friday I was in my speaking elective and we were discussing social customs when one goes to a friend's house for dinner. I was grouped with a Japanese girl and a Tunisian girl. The text we had read had the guest referring to his friend's parents as Uncle and Aunt. When it was my turn to describe customs in 'Merica, I explained that we just refer to friend's parents as Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so. Here's where the real kicker comes in: I was telling these two girls that we would customarily bring a bottle of wine, salad, or dessert if we were going to someone's house for dinner and as I was reaching for other possibilities, the Japanese girl asked, "Bi-sa? Pizza?" I said, no. Not pizza. "Mai-dang-lao? McDonald's?" No, not McDonald's. "Han-bao-bao? Hamburger?" No not hambur--do you really think that's what all American's eat? The response: yes. I had to take a detour from the prescribed discussion to set this girl's mind right. The teacher came and sat with us and I told her of this misconception. She didn't seem to think it was all that ridiculous. I explained to her that it was a bit off base; I also told her how Chinese practices such as picking up your plate/bowl and shoveling food into your mouth with chopsticks wouldn't fly at a typical American dinner table. "Really? What do you do?" We keep our plates on the table and use a knife and fork. "So you don't pick up the plate?" No, it's impolite. "Oh!" So what did we learn today class? Americans eat more than just pizza, McDonald's, and hamburgers and we don't pick up the plate to finish off that last tasty little morsel. Cultural exchange at its finest.

We have the rest of this week off for the Mid-Autumn Festival, which marks autumnal equinox and the end of the summer harvesting season. For some reason, however, after having no class Wednesday through Friday, we'll have class Saturday and Sunday. After next week we'll have a full week off to celebrate the inception of the PRC on October 1st.

No plans yet for the break, but I'll keep you posted.

Getting further acquainted

This Monday I had to go get a physical as part of my registration with the university in order to ensure that I wasn't bringing anything like bad breath or AIDS to China. (They actually test for the latter, though I don't believe they expel anyone anymore if they are, in fact, HIV positive or have the AIDS virus.) The clinic was a considerable hike northwest from my apartment, which is surprising since I'm already rather far from the center of the city. But with a population of 22 million I suppose it needs to be somewhat sprawling (the entire municipality is nearly 6,500 square miles). By the time I reached the clinic, the mountains were much closer and, despite the smog, quite visible. You could pick out old temples and shrines sitting atop the foothills of the ranges that provided a natural barrier to the city for so many centuries.

After being processed and tested with all of the other foreigners, I hailed a cab to head back to wudaokou. This cabbie was friendlier than most and was more than willing to speak with a foreign devil such as myself . Conversation was started when we were sitting at an intersection and a car came screaming to a halt two lanes over from us--having not noticed that the light was red. This sparked a discussion about different driving habits in our respective countries. This somehow transitioned into a political discussion. This particular cabbie thought that President Obama was "not bad/good," but admitted that he didn't know all that much about him. But he put him on the same level of endearingly "not bad/good" as current Chinese President Hu Jintao. I asked him if he was more fond of the PRC's founder, Mao Zedong, or his successor, Deng Xiaoping. He leaned more towards the latter. I told him that it seemed as though people of his generation or younger thought more highly of Deng Xiaoping, whereas the older generation that might have been alive during and immediately following the revolution still revere Mao. He agreed and said that under Deng people had more food and money than under Mao, referring to the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward that left anywhere from 500,000 to three million dead. (The body count wasn't part of the discussion.) In comparison, Deng opened up the economy, which allowed people to make more money and put more food on the table. The one Chinese president that he was actually disenchanted with was Jiang Zemin--Hu Jintao's predecessor. He got the thumbs down. The central thesis of his feelings: he just didn't do all that much. I asked about how Jiang encouraged more international trade and opened markets to foreign business, but he made the valid point that he's a cab driver--what difference does that make to him? Score card: Mao, not bad. Deng, good. Jiang, thumbs down. Hu: good. (Zhou Enlai--the one with the awesome coke bottle glasses--only got lip service, but wasn't bad either.)

I asked if the economic crisis had had any noticeable impact on things in Beijing--from his perspective. He laughed and said that he had not felt any impact because he was laobaixing--Old Hundred [Sur]names. Laobaixing is the working class, the commoners--the "ordinary folks" who have the the hundred most common surnames (not actually the top 100, but you get the idea). These people are cab drivers, street food vendors, street sweepers--in short, they hold jobs that would not see and dramatic effects of the global economic downturn. So from this laobaixing cabbie's point of view, the economic crisis wasn't anything worth losing sleep over.

Before I knew it we had arrived at my apartment. I thanked him and said goodbye. Most cabbies in Beijing aren't as eager to talk to the foreign devils, but the ones who are can supply some of the most interesting conversations in town.

Weeks Two and Three: The search continues...and ends

Hello! Well, it's been a long, crazy last two weeks and classes are just about to start. Here's a recap of what's happened over the last fortnight...

First and foremost was the house hunt. In my last entry I mentioned this great place that I was seriously considering. On that rainy Saturday I told the agent that I was seriously considering it and that I'd let him know soon. On Monday I called him to say that I wanted to rent the place and we agreed to meet with the landlord the following evening to start signing papers. Here's where the plot thickens: Tuesday afternoon, hours before I was to head north to meet with the agent and the landlord, I received a call from the agent saying that the landlord had rented the apartment to someone else because they paid more. Needless to say, I was far from happy about this landlord's poor integrity. Lesson learned: verbal agreements mean nothing. Now back at square one, I returned to wudaokou Wednesday morning to resume my search. I saw a few more places with the same agent. One was a two bedroom place that was reasonable, but I didn't want a second bedroom. The landlady was there and didn't seem to understand my lack of a need for a second bedroom. Her suggestion: a reading room. Yes, because I'll need a library this year. No thank you. The next place was essentially a studio, was smaller than the place we'd just left, but was priced just the same. At first the landlord seemed agreeable enough, but wouldn't budge on the price. His reasoning: Americans have lots of money. I asked him if he'd heard about the economic crisis, but he just waved his hand dismissively. I continued to ask why I'd pay more for a smaller apartment where the arm of the couch was touching the pillow on the bed; his explanation was that the apartment faced south. While "fengshui" is an important element of Chinese culture, I didn't need it dictating the price of my apartment. I continued to bargain, until he remarked that Americans don't have an understanding of reality. I'm not quite sure exactly what that meant, but we parted ways soon thereafter. On Thursday I decided to cast my net a bit farther by employing several agencies. Long story short, it yielded nothing. As I was walking towards the subway, Brian texted me the number of an ad that he saw on the Beijinger that seemed reasonable. The man on the other end of the line agreed to meet me the next morning.

The next morning, after seeing one more wholly underwhelming prospect with another agent, I rendezvoused with this mystery man. He was definitely a character, but at this point I was wary of just about everyone in the real estate business. We saw a couple places that were alright, and then made our way to a high rise not too far north of campus. It was a beautiful place, very clean, but most importantly, this guy wasn't charging a finder's fee like the agencies do. (The typical finder's fee is the equivalent of one month's rent). We saw one more place that wasn't bad, then I told him that I wanted the previous apartment. We agreed to meet that night with the landlady to make a deposit and get the ball rolling. I wasn't about to lose another place. Brian came with me that evening to meet with the landlady. She was very nice, spoke a considerable amount of English. We met Emily for dinner at a great local Japanese place, and we all went home, where I spent one more night at their place. The next morning we went to Ikea. Yes, you read that correctly. There's an Ikea in Beijing. As luck would have it, the former tenant, a nice German guy who I met when I saw the place, was a fan of Ikea. A big fan.
Now that a place has finally been found--and secured, I've just been exploring the neighborhood and studying in preparation for the placement test that is part of this weekend's registration process. Classes start on Monday, so I'll be sure to keep you all posted on how that goes.

More soon.

Oh, and I've got a great view of the sun setting behind the mountains to the west...smog permitting.

Week One: House Hunting

Hi y'all,

Sorry it's taken so long to write. At first there wasn't a whole lot to report and now...well, there's a little bit more. My first morning here began the hunt for an apartment in the BLCU neighborhood: WuDaoKou (五道口). The first few mornings were spent poring through a website called The Beijinger, a site similar to Craigslist. I arranged to meet a few of the people who had posted ads and see the apartments that were advertised. Lesson learned: posted ads and reality don't quite overlap. I'm not sure if I ever saw the actual apartments that were listed, but what I know for certain is that these individuals don't heed your expressed price range. I agreed on a price with each one of these individuals over the phone, but once we were standing in some apartment, the monthly rate was several hundred more than what we'd agreed to. It was as though they figured that when presented with a high rent I would simply say, "Yes, of course I want to pay more than I originally agreed to!"

After two days of frustrating dead ends, I decided to bail on the individual searches and employ a real estate agency. I went to one that Brian had used and recommended. After telling an agent what I wanted, my price range, etc., we were ready to go check out a few places. He then asked me, "do you know how to ride a motorcycle?" I paused, confused and wondering why this was remotely pertinent to looking at apartments. I replied that I had ridden on one once or twice, but had no experience operating one. Why? We walk outside and he starts showing me how to get his scooter going and I just look at him and ask, really? As cool as it seemed to ride a scooter, I knew that 1) I don't have a license to do that sort of thing here, and more importantly 2) with Beijing's crazy traffic, I'd probably end up pancaked on the side of a bus. (I know a few of you back home would be less than thrilled if I had gone through with it). Needless to say, I ended up riding on the scooter but not operating it. Now back to the story. We checked out a number of places in one high rise building with one of them being rather promising...just a bit more than I wanted to spend. (Side note: I have discovered that my original price range won't get me very much at all in this neighborhood, so I've had to adjust my expectations accordingly.) This agent was very friendly, spoke a small bit of English, and wasn't a total sleezeball. After seeing a few more places, I told him I'd be back the following day. In the name of diligence, I decided to stop at another agency just down the street to see what they had in their bag of tricks. Silly me. Where agency #1 had been quite professional and polite, I got stuck with a used car salesman at agency #2. We looked at some real dumps and other places that were just not at all what I was looking for. He had a very thick Beijing accent and yammered on about this and that. After a few bleak prospects I told him that I had to meet a friend and that I'd call him the following day. He asked for my number, but I merely repeated that I'd call him. Don't call me, I'll call you.

Saturday: Rain, Chicken, and Apartments

So much for Beijing's dry climate. It poured just about all day. Today I was fortunate to have Emily for company/help as I continued my search for an apartment. We donned rain coats and quite literally did laps around one part of WuDaoKou as we saw place after place. After parting ways from one particularly slimy agent, we went into a mall/indoor market which houses some of the tastiest chicken known to man. For $1.47 you get a whole mess of rice, some veggies, and a huge piece of amazing boneless chicken. Oddly, it doesn't really taste Chinese at all...the closest thing I could compare it to was roadhouse barbeque. It seems out of place in Beijing, but it was delicious. And it gave us a break from the rain. After that we returned to the first agency from the previous day and resumed our search with the same jovial agent. At one place the owner asked us to put on plastic booties on our shoes since it was wet and messy out. Me being a big foreign devil, my shoes didn't really fit in the booties and they were stretched and torn by the time I got them around my shoes. Apparently she didn't want to rent to foreigners because as a race (since all foreigners are the same) we're noisy and inconsiderate. I didn't want to rent from her anyways. We trudged to a few more places, including the high rise places that I'd seen the day before. Rather than making a decision right then and there, I decided to return and check out a few more places. If none of them spoke to me, I'd go with the high rise apartment that spoke to me. No need to be hasty.

So that's where we are at the moment. Keeping my eye on one place, but remaining open to other options.

The hunt continues. I'll keep you posted.

Greetings from China!

I'll be here for the 2010-2011 academic year studying at Beijing Language and Culture University on a scholarship from the Chinese Embassy. Classes don't start for another couple of weeks, so in the mean time I will find an apartment, get settled, register with the university, and most importantly try to get my Chinese back up to speed.

The flight from Newark yesterday was pretty uneventful. I had an exit row seat, which meant more legroom than I could ever need, which was great. The only bummer was that the sound on my TV (that offered over 150 movies) didn't work. I somehow passed the 13 hours of flight time, made it through customs, got my bags, and got on the subway towards Beijing. A friend of mine, Brian, from when I was in Xi'an two years ago lives here now and I am staying at his place until I get settled in.

After finally getting some real sleep last night I woke up a little after six o'clock local time. Today is going to be all about getting a working cell phone and getting the ball rolling on finding an apartment. I'll write again soon with an update.

Last Day in Beijing

Monday, February 2

Our last day in Beijing/China. To start, there are still fireworks being set off. The Spring Festival celebrations last 15 days and everyone has taken advantage of every opportunity to blow stuff up to ring in the Year of the Ox.
This morning I got up at six with a friend of mine to go to the Temple of Heaven. There were two main reasons to get up so incredibly early on our last (free) day: 1) beat the tourist groups and 2) see all the old people doing tai chi. Seniors (the over 60 crowd) get into parks and temples for free in China and they take full advantage of it. The Temple grounds cover 273 hectares—rather enormous—and there are scores of areas where the seniors do tai chi, dance, exercise, walk around, or meditate.
We arrived at the Temple around seven, but the gates to the main courtyard did not open until eight. There is a Chinese toy somewhat similar to a hackysack that we have seen on several occasions throughout the trip. It has a flat base with weighted metal rings and four brightly colored feathers coming out of the top. It is significantly more difficult than the Chinese would lead you to believe. The way that they juggled it back and forth with their feet seems more like the Brazilian soccer team than senior citizens. One salesman (yes, of course they are for sale) tossed one to me and the next 15 minutes were spent by the two Americans making fools of ourselves. It had gotten colder since we arrived in the morning, so thankfully it helped us warm up. By that time the gates were opened and we could go in.
The courtyard houses the Taoist temple. Traditionally, temples and shrines are square or rectangular in shape—representing the four seasons and the earth. The Temple of Heaven, however, representing the Heavens (creative name, no?) is circular. The tiers of the temple had dragons (representing the emperors) and phoenixes (representing the empresses, of which there were few) painted in gold. The main staircases that the emperor’s sedan would have been carried up had similar carvings in white marble. The sun was coming through the haze at this point and it was really gorgeous. We wandered through some of the gardens and paths and found more tai chi groups. One particular old man who had walked past us earlier had apparently waited for us and began talking to us. He had a rather thick accent, so the conversation was short-lived. We managed to find our way back to the gate that we originally entered through (the next closest one was a kilometer away) and went back to campus. As we approached the gate we could smell something delicious. The street food stand that makes the most delicious egg-pancake-things had reopened! It was a delicious way to end a great morning.
In the afternoon another friend joined us and we went out to the northern edge of the city to an art district. Apparently, the area was once a factory of some sort but then the government said, “We need culture!” so the grounds were converted into galleries. There were sculptures, photography, and paintings, many of which were interesting takes on Communist China. After walking around for a while we decided that it was time for eats. We ended up at a nearby Japanese restaurant, where we had an incredibly delicious all you can eat and drink meal. From dinner we went back to the nearby bar where we spent New Year’s Eve. We hung out and played pool with the local crowd for a few hours before heading back to campus.
It is hard to believe that a month has already gone by and that I, once again, have to say goodbye to China. Having now experienced Beijing’s summers and winters, I’m looking forward to seeing what spring and autumn are like in the city and in the rest of the country. We have been on the plane for 12 hours at this point…only about 90 minutes left until we land at JFK. I really enjoyed studying in Beijing and hope that I will have the opportunity to do it again in the future.

Pingguoyuan（苹果园）

Saturday, January 28

This afternoon two classmates and I rode the oldest subway line all the to its western terminus at Pingguoyuan (literally “Apple Park”), which is at the very edge of the city of Beijing. It was remarkable what a difference a 20-minute ride made; there was no longer any evidence of the ultra-modern city of Beijing—in its place was an enormous coal-fueled power plant with twin cooling towers. Such a short train ride took us from a metropolitan city to the 2nd world. We received even more stares and odd looks out on the periphery of Beijing than we did in the heart of the city. A friend of ours had told us about how it hiked up a small mountain not far from the subway station, so we began to walk westward. After walking for about 30 minutes, which included passing the power plant, we started to head north towards what we thought was the mountain. We arrived at a gate to some sort of military installation. After wishing the guard a happy new year and talking to him for a minute, we were directed towards a path that would take us up the mountain.

Stairs faded to a rock-littered dirt path only 18 inches or so wide that led up the hills. We reached a clearing and had a rather commanding view of the city, power plant, and surrounding area. After climbing a little bit higher, and curious as to whether there was a return path on the other side, we soldiered on. We discovered a dirt road and began wandering down it. After walking for only a few minutes we met a woman walking several large, friendly chowchows. Only a few meters behind her were two older men standing and talking. We began to talk with them and soon discovered that the older of the two was 82 years old. One of the friends that I was has been studying in Beijing for over a year now, so he was able to converse quite well with them. They were fascinated and entertained by our cameras. They asked where we were headed and we explained that we were just going in “that” direction, pointing up towards another trail. For some reason, the elder of the two decided that he’d walk with us. For the next half hour or so (a few solid kilometers) he led us down a different trail towards the bottom of the mountain. He used a branch as a walking stick, but for a man of his age he was ridiculously spry. On one or two occasions when he knew he would need assistance stopping himself after hopping down off of a rock, he simply pointed himself towards a tree and used the trunk to catch himself. This would prompt us to encourage him (in Chinese) to take it easy. He would merely wave his hand dismissively and continue down the path. He spoke to my friend most of the way down, talking about how China and the US should be friends because they are both powerful countries and economies with similar interests. Once we had reached the road he continued to lead us through a hole in a fence, down another flight of stairs to the main road and got us on a bus back towards the subway. He was incredibly friendly and helpful—had it not been for him we would’ve taken a much longer time to find out way down the mountain. The bus deposited us at the subway station and we made our way back towards the modern Beijing.