Photo album of 哈尔滨
http://picasaweb.google.com/101477983832129657605/Harbin?feat=directlink
2010-12-29
A Chinese Christmas
At first it just feels refreshing, even a tad mundanely chilly, but then suddenly there's a thousand tiny teeth gnawing at your face, hands and anywhere that's not 3 layers deep in clothes. You breath in and the air catches in your throat. You sniff and feel the ice crystals forming inside your nose. There's ice from your breath on your hair, your face and on your scarf. Ice is sticking your eyelashes together. You're not just cold-that implies a passivity- ice is actually clawing at your skin, trying to find a way in.
That's what -30C feels like.
This weekend my Bright Idea of spending Christmas in Harbin was realised. Harbin, 哈尔滨, is a city in 黑龙江, Heilongjiang (Black Dragon River) province which is in the far north-east of China, not too far from Vladivostok. And indeed there is a strong Russian influence in the city-after all they pretty much built it when they used it as a base for the construction of the railway. There is also a strong Korean influence, more of which later.
It gets very cold in winter.
On Christmas Eve Becka, Boram, Sara and I got up before dawn to catch our flight. We'd all swathed ourselves in as many layers as possible in preparation for arriving in Harbin so beforehand both in the taxi and in the airport we felt a tad overheated. After a swift two hour flight we began to descend into Harbin. All I could see out of the window was white. White white white. Occasionly there were several neat rows of houses. By this point I was rather excited. In fact, much to Becka's embarrassment, I was actually bouncing around in my seat squeeing at the snow.
Eventually we landed in a rather icy airport. We excitedly exited the airport. I'll admit at first I didn't think it felt all that cold. I even felt a tad disappointed. But then Boram started yelling and told me to scrunch my nose and that's when I realised that it was so cold that ice crystals had actually formed up my nose. It was a rather strange feeling to say the least!
We leapt in a taxi and headed off into town. The highway was three lanes wide but one was not really cleared of snow and another was for overtaking only. The taxi driver spent most of the ride telling us how bad our hotel was and how bad the location was. But I didn't mind as I could understand his lovely pure, clear Harbin accent. In Harbin they naturally speak the dialect closest to 普通话, Standard Mandarin, that I learn. Not like the Qingdao drawl! Eventually we arrived at the hostel, after I had to direct the driver as though I knew where I was going and he, the Harbinger, was the tourist. That was where the map app on my ipod came in handy- love that little pod:)
The hostel was rather characterful. There was mould and damp on the walls, the loos were manky and the internet unusable but it didn't matter as the place was so warm, and the staff so friendly and the beds (well mine anyway) soft with the thickest quilts I've ever seen. It did feel rather like a cocoon, hiding from outside. In our dorm there appeared to be a permenant resident in the shape of a Chinese girl. I don't know what she was doing there. I never saw her out of her pyjamas and she seemed to spend the whole time moaning to her boyfriend on the phone. There was also a Finnish woman in another room. I mention her because she did not speak a word of Chinese so Becka and I translated for her. I felt a warm glow of pride at being so clever as to effortlessly translate although admittedly it was rather easy Chinese. But still, I felt like a proper Chinese speaker! I rather admired the Finn as although she seemed around 60 she was travelling on her own to such far-flung places.
And then we ventured out. We caught a bus into town (our hostel location was not great but I'd rather pay 10p for a bus than an extra 10quid a night to be closer. Plus it was nice to see a non touristy area). It was so cold ice had formed on the bus windows. Inside the bus, on the bus windows. Quite thick ice too!
Eventually we arrived at the centre and proceeded to 中央大街, Main Street. This street was fairly Russian in appearance with European style buildings and cobbled streets. Very nice. The only problem was that we had not yet got used to the cold so we spent most of our time hiding in the countless souvenir shops. It was very cold. We hid in a Japanese restaurant for lunch, I got served the world's smallest bowl of stew, and then we carried on hiding in more shops until we chanced upon a Haagen-Dasz cafe and then we hid in that.
It was cold out there.
Haagen-Dasz cafes, to me, symbolise China. They are hideously expensive, which is why rich kids of the kind only China's unequal society can produce, habituate them. Noone in the UK is rich enough which is why I have never seen one in the West. But they are rather nice places, if you like the finer things in life...
Eventually we plucked up the courage and slipped and slid to 索非亚广场, Suofeiya Square. Throughout this trip we spent many happy hours playing Guess the Transliteration as the Chinese cannot transliterate Western names very accurately. 索非亚 is Sophia and her square is inhabited by a small, yet rather grand, church in the Orthodox style. Nowadays it is a museum rather than a place of worship although when we first got there there were carols playing outside. It felt rather Christmassy standing outside a church in the snow listening to Silent Night. There are a lot of churches in Harbin although I don't think many are still in their original use.
And then I fell over. And landed on my butt. And landed on my phone in my back pocket. My phone survived but I have a rather large bruise...
We scuttled back to the bus stop but the buses were insanely packed full. And by now we are used to sardine tin like buses but we baulked at clinging on to a doorway so retired to a 烧烤, shaokao, restaurant. Shaokao restaurants basically serve stuff on a stick. I adore them. There is nothing tastier than lamb roasted on a stick with rosemary. Except maybe the roasted bread- basically toast but covered with sugar in a Chinese twist. I even love the melt-in-your mouth fat on the lamb sticks.
I forgot to specify not spicy so my lamb arrived covered in annoying red. But I wolfed them down anyway and ignored the FIRE FIRE, FIRE IN THE HOLD signals coming from my mouth. Before coming to China you would never have found me eating spicy lamb fat. How things change.
And then back to Little Fir Youth Hostel. Which is right next to a dog meat resturant but we didn't realise until we left. We also didn't realise that there was a bus stop called 哈理科工大学, Ha Like Gong Daxue, and another, two stops later, called 哈医科大学, Ha Yike Daxue. We wanted the latter one but mistakenly got off at the first and thus had to to walk half a kilometer in -30, mostly on the main road. But it was fine. Allllll fine.
The next day was Christmas day. Although I kept forgetting that. I woke up around 7 and really-not-very-subtlely- clambered and creaked off from my eerie on the top bunk, rustled and crustled presents from my bag and bumped and crashed over to put them by the Koreans' beds. Becka and I had thought it would be rather cute if Santa visited them as he wouldn't have visited them before. We'd bought them some tangerines and some Chinese Opera figurines. Then I racketed back up to my roost and fell back into a slumber, Christmas Spirit done for the day. I think the Chinese randomer thought I was insane, randomly putting presents around the room at the crack of dawn.
A few hours later, as they stirred, I proudly informed them that Santa had been and there were indeed chuckles of delight :) Becka gave me a DVD of the King and I as she knows I have a soft spot for Chow Yun Fat, as well as an adaptor for Chinese plugs so I don't keep stealing hers. I gave her a kaleidoscope as well as money towards her flights to Harbin. Feeling rather Christmassy Becka bounced out of bed and cheerily wished the receptionist Merry Christmas!!!
"Oh." said the receptionist in the kind of tone that implies while she acknowledges you are excited, she really couldn't give a shit. The Chinese don't do Christmas... except for advertising purposes.
And then on into town. The aim had been to make it as far as St Sophia's Church but we were chased into a rather expensive restaurant by the cold. It cost 2kuai for a pancake. Gits.
Then we scuttled to the Church through a shortcut I boldly led us down. It seemed to be the fishmongers' street which probably explained the lack of people. It stank. After a brief, very brief, interlude taking pictures and watching the clouds of pigeons being fed by people stupid enough to pay 10kuai for a bag of peanuts off random women. If you went near the birds these women would rather aggressively hurry over and shout at you until you bought some peanuts or backed off.
Inside the church was a museum dedicated to the pre Civil War era in Harbin, There were hundreds of old photos of the birth of Harbin from a rather Wild West-like, er, mud patch, to a neat little town with Russian women sat by the river. There was also a random choir of women dressed in purple singing Chinese songs. After they had finished they milled about near a section of photos that I happened to be looking at. Thus arose the bizarre situation where the Chinese tourists took photos of themselves with the choir, then with me, the funny Laowai. In fact I got more requests for photos then they did...
The church itself is fading somewhat. The paint is peeling, and you can see the brickwork in places. It seemed rather forlorn without an altar and pews. I'm all for secularism but it was rather sad to see the place without its heart- like a playground without any children.
Then we scuttled off to see 兆林公园, Zhaolin Park. Harbin's main attraction in the winter is its ice and snow sculptures and Zhaolin Park is one of the main centres. There are random castles, statues and animals dotted around the city but the main events are in certain, fee paying, areas. The Ice Festival does not really start until January 5th but most of it had already been completed when we were there and it was fascinating to see the sculptors at work in such freezing conditions. One I talked to said he wasn't cold at all and I suppose if you are working and have proper clothing you won't be cold.
We liked Zhaolin but didn't want to go in as we were saving the money to go to the biggest park on 太阳岛, Sun Island, in the middle of the 松花江, Pineblossom River, so we headed off to a Russian style cafe to while away the time until dinner. The cafe was rather nice and the waiters were adorable. Becka and I wanted to take them home. There was one whom we kept picking on to ask questions such as "what temperature is it today" and "do you know where a spot important in Korean history is" (more of that later). The poor lad never had any idea and had to go and ask.
Why, wherever I am, I can always hear the American? And why do they only talk about how easy Chinese girls are to pull?
We walked to the end of 中央大街. There is a monument as well as some more ice castles. At this point disaster struck as Sara suddenly realised she was camera-less... Sara and Boram headed back to see if they could find it (fat chance) and Becka and I went for a stroll on the frozen river instead. People were dragging themselves around on sledges while others, bizarrely, were throwing fireworks around. Becka and I were fairly far from the bank. We could hear lots of cracking sounds. We were sure it was just the crackles from the fireworks. So sure in fact, that we headed straight for the bank and stayed there. Just in case the river melts at -30C I suppose... We really needn't have worried though as the next day when we drove over the bridge we saw that they were cutting ice blocks from the river to make all the sculptures and the ice was metres thick.
Boram and Sara returned empty handed. Flipping nimble Chinese hands!
And then off to a hotel that had promised us it specialised in Western food. We eagerly rushed in, nattering to the Koreans about how much they were in for a treat with a turkey dinner. It all started off well. There was a singer and a piano. Greek statues here and there. Becka and Sara had Borsch, a Russian soup, for starters while Boram and I had chicken salad. All rather nice. The only wine available was Great Wall, a fairly upmarket Chinese brand. It tasted absolutely foul. But still, it was wine. And the spoons were dessert ones, not soup ones. But still, soup.
But then, half way through our starter, a waitress appeared wanting us to pay there and then. Becka was in the process of informing her that we weren't paying before we'd finished when the main course of turkey arrived. Becka and I spluttered a bit as the plates were plonked down amongst our half empty starter plates. The waitress sensed trouble and vanished.
The menu had stated turkey and cranberry sauce. And there was indeed turkey and cranberry sauce. All nice and tasty. But I swear that normally the turkey is accompanied by vegetables and potatoes and all manner of fodder... But no we had some slices of bird and two slices of some vegetable that was more a garnish than a serving.
We ordered a plate of vegetables and another of fries. The vegetables were not abundant and the fries, as Sara pointed out, were not as good as McDonald's...
We paid up. I stole the toilet's loo roll. (Loo roll is as rare as hen's teeth in public toilets in China and I had stupidly forgotten to bring any. I hate Chinese toilets.) We left for Haagen Dasz and arrived seconds before they shut. We were all still rather hungry so we ordered scarily expensive ice cream. It was Christmas after all. The ice cream in Haagen Dasz is a work of art-although mine did look as though a chef had slapped it together 2 seconds before he finished for the day... which was fair enough I suppose. It was delicious- even the Green Tea flavour.
Another feature of the restaurant was that it had posters for placemats that explained how you dealt with Western food. It had a handy diagram explaining what course was eaten when. But it said that fish was eaten after the main meal and I always thought it came before... Although when I see Chinese people eating Western food they seem to stick to the Chinese way of sharing everything. There was a pair of Chinese women with a plate of steak between them that one had cut up. Although to be fair when we eat Chinese food we do so in a Western way, with our own meal. I very rarely see the sauce served on top of the rice too, like it is in the West. Here, you get a bowl of rice and the rest goes in the middle to be shared.
We had rather a nightmare trying to get back to the hostel as the buses had stopped running. Taxis in Harbin work by picking up one person here and then another here that wants to go in roughly the same direction. However we were four people so we needed a completely free taxi and there just weren't any. So, in the end we split up and Becka and I shared a taxi with Chinese couple who whispered about Russians. In Harbin they all think we are Russians and in Qingdao they all think we are American. Or French. A couple have not understood our English accents and thought we were speaking French...
On Boxing day we headed off to visit the 文庙, the Confucian Temple. Unlike most cultural sites in China it managed to escape the mass trashing during the Cultural Revolution and is in fact still in use as a temple. Also unusually for tourist sites in China it was deserted. Even more unusually it was free to enter. It was rather serene, this temple sleeping under a blanket of snow hidden down a snowy, tree lined avenue. Disturbed only by Becka jumping in snow drifts. We had a great time wandering around the beautiful, ancient, complex, the largest in northern China, with only ourselves and one other tourist. It was like some giant playground in the snow. There was a large statue of Confucius in the middle. Near the back was where the monks must live as I could hear music from one building. Sounded a bit like they were having a party but I'm sure it was a very solemn monky one.
It was so beautiful.
Eventually we were chased away by the cold to go and find lunch. Although we noticed we were indeed slowly getting used to the temperature. The key is to completely cover your face. I found that if you walked fairly quickly, even your toes would warm up. In fact there were times when my toes glowed quite warm.
We found a shaokao place for lunch and I happily slobbered my way through some lamb and sugared toast. Becka ordered aubergine but it came as some mutation of a banana split, except it was filled with garlic and not jam.
I knew there was a buddhist temple not too far away but as I had not been able to find a map for love nor money and it was actually no longer a real temple, we headed off to find the Korean Museum. The Koreans had spent the past few days saying they wanted to visit a "site important in Korean history" but hadn't been able to give me any more details which annoyed me slightly and I was rather sceptical about faffing there on a hint. (I had basically been the tour leader on this trip lol- I really can't help Taking Charge and the others were content to follow me around on random buses, trusting that I knew where I was going). Eventually they gave me a street name, 安升路, Ansheng Road, which didn't actually exist but I plumped for 安升街， Ansheng Street and by some miracle we did indeed find a building scribbled over in the Korean script. And I'm rather glad we did. It turns out that at the beginning of last century, when Korea was occupied by the Japanese, the Japanese general, Prince Ito, came to Harbin to meet some Russian ambassador. Seconds after disembarking he was shot by one 安重根. I write his name here in Chinese characters as Koreans still use characters for formal occasions. And I can't write the Korean alphabet. The Chinese pronunciation would be An Zhonggen. Now this An is revered both in the North and South of Korea as a freedom fighter. He cut off two of his fingers so he could sign an oath in his own blood vowing to achieve Korean independence. Indeed his handprint, with two stubby fingers, is very famous in Korea now. An was caught soon after the assassination, tried and hung. The museum was all in Korean or Chinese but there was one English language article from the time. The tone was that of a civilised Westerner who about tolerates the Japanese (it made fun of them wearing French court dress for the trial but still removing their shoes when inside). It was a very biased piece of reporting. It implied that when An was stoppped from defending himself, it was to show respect to the murdered general and in fact the judge should be commended on his impartiality. It also said one sentence that the public were asked to leave so as not to be upset by the details but in the next sentence said that it was a completely open trial...
I was glad the Sara and Boram could not read it.
It was fascinating to learn about Korean histoy. Not a subject I knew much about.
Then we walked to the russian restaurant we had visited earlier. I, of course, lead the way as I was the only one who had any idea where we were or what was going on. It was fairly straightforward to walk to 中央大街 but Boram now thinks that I am part homing pigeon because I could find my way through the little streets. Everywhere was full of stalls selling clothes, fruit and even hunks of meat. I suppose it was probably colder than a freezer in the street so a good place to keep it!
Dinner was a warming Russian stew followed by banana splits and fruit sundaes. We ordered those as Sara and Boram had been intrigued by our talk of banana split when we had been confronted by Becka's aubergine split earlier in the day. We also got a fruit sundae as that was British too. Predictably the Chinese chef had nearly.but.not.quite.got. the banana split right as it was slices of banana and not a whole one split... Plus there was a little Communist flag stuck in the middle next to the paper umbrella. Which I don't remember there being in school. Still it tasted very nice.
We attempted to visit a bar. We walked in and sat down. Mostly empty bar. Waiter came in and said it was 400元 to be in the bar because there was an "event on". We left.
We went back to the hostel and drank Hapi instead. Hapi is short for 哈尔滨啤酒, Haerbin Pijiu, Harbin beer. I like calling it Hapi. I prefer it to Qingdao beer but shush, don't tell anyone I said that.
In the taxi back we had to drive up a small hill. It had snowed a lot during the day and it soon became evident that this hill was going to prove tricky. Several cars had failed already and just sat there spinning their wheels pathetically. People were pushing others. Our taxi's momentum did not fill us with confidence. We spun inch by inch forwards. I began to worry we were going to have to get out and push but after a few nailbiting slidy moments we made it. Phew! Driving here is interesting as the roads, whilst regularly cleared, are still nonetheless covered in a thin layer of snow. And yet they still all drive as though it was dry tarmac, pulling out here and there and swerving around each other.
Monday was our last day in Harbin and we caught a bus to try to ge to the Siberian Tiger reserve. But we had to change buses and although we got off at the right stop (actually I lie but the important thing is we walked *back* to the right stop) we could not find hide nor hair of the next one so we gave in and got a taxi instead. The taxi went down a wrong road after seeing a sign for the tiger park but after remerging from Narnia we all noticed the huge letters saying to drive 700m further on. Which none of the five of us had noticed on the way in...
The Tiger park. Hmm. How to describe... It was odd. Just odd. We sat in a minibus and drove through various enclosures filled to the brim with tigers. Just tiger after tiger after tiger. And apparently a liger but it looked like a lion to me. You could buy a live chicken for 40元 to feed to the tigers or splash out a bit to work your way up the livestock chain for 2000元 to feed them a live cow. After the minibus ride we walked past some cages where the novelty cats, such as a white tiger, three panthers and a honey coloured tiger paced dementedly. The three panthers were all in one cage. Each panther had its own wall to pace. They would walk three paces that way, then three the other, and then three back again and then three...
There were also two cheetahs. I would have thought Harbin way too cold for cheetahs. Obviously not.
The Tiger place depressed me. I just kept repeating the words "at least the species is being preserved" but golly it was rather tragic...
Then off to Sun Island to finally see some of the famous sculptures. It was half price to get in as it technically wasn't finished yet. I bought some toffee haws on a stick. I asked the seller how much they were and he said 20元. This is the equivalent of charging a fiver for a chocolate bar. I laughed and after a bit of arguing I gave up and paid 10. It was still a massive rip off as they should be around 3-5 but I felt sorry for him as he can't get many customers in that spot. And they were delicious. I love toffee haws. Very Chinese of me.
The snow sculptures were fantastic. So detailed. They must be very skilled to be able to produce a fish swimming through reeds from snow. One sculpture was huge and featured a woman with a huge mane of hair that I have no idea how they managed to carve. There was some swans with spread wings. There was also a large replica of the wolf feeding Romulus and Remus. Why? I hear you ask. Who knows, China, who knows.
The park is a normal park most of the time so there was plenty of space for us to mess about in the snow. I made a snow angel. Boram and Sara had a snow war. By now we didn't really notice the cold-although I'd couldn't really feel my toes.
It was so special, wandering through the snow, amongst the beautiful art under the soft winter sun munching on my toffee haws. We walked by the river for a while. I was loving it. Becka was not. In the end I gave in to her plea of hypothermia and we headed back for dinner.
Previously at some of the big sculptures there had been the inevitable tug on my elbow and cry of "美女!!" (meinu, beautiful girl, it's what you call someone like me when you are being polite) and I was once again the star of several souvenir snaps. It always amuses my how shy some of them are to pose with me when they're the ones that asked in the first place... When we were leaving and I dashed to the side of the bridge for one more shot of the frozen river I went past a tour group from 湖北, Hubei province (near Beijing). I know this because they all got very excited and mobbed me for a photo. I ended up posing with about 15 different men in quick succession. Most just put their arms around me but one shook my hand for the photo. In the background I could see Becka, Boram and Sara wetting themselves with laughter. Eventually I managed to escape and Boram hurried over to shake my hand and pretended to want a photo...
Over dinner we compared our different experiences of being a laowai in China. Normally the Chinese think Boram and Sara are Chinese too and chatter at them to be rewarded with a blank stare. Apparently they get asked if they can speak 普通话, which is the standard Mandarin, as the asker assumes they can only speak one of the Chinese dialects. That amuses me as educated people can all speak passable 普通话 and Boram and Sara certainly do not look as though they are fresh from the countryside! They find it hilarious that Becka and I get stared at and photographed.
We had dinner in another shaokao restaurant. I *need* to find one of those in Qingdao. The owner loved having foreigners in. She gave us some very salty peanuts and loved that I said it was too salty for me. They like it when we can't handle their food. Intriguingly it was only 8角 for a lamb kebab when normally they are a full 元. 角, technically called jiao but called mao in spoken Chinese, like kuai for the yuan, is a tenth of a yuan. 10分 make a jiao. Nothing has a price that is counted in 分fen. I have only ever seen one fen note and that was one Daisy's student had found down the back of a sofa. I covet it but Daisy won't sell it, even for 1000 times its worth lol. It's in very good condition considering it's around 20 years old. Back when a bowl of rice would have cost only a few fen. Nowadays mao are only really used when buying fruit on the street. Mao notes annoy me intensely as they are effectively worthless and I keep acquiring them. My life is spent trying to foist them on others.
Anyway I digress. We wandered around a bit and I got a pineapple pie from McDonald's. I am starting to like them. Who needs apple pie??? We went into the underground market below the main street and I bought some lacquer swan earrings because Mum wasn't there to stop me. The seller wouldn't let me haggle which was odd because places like that normally do. She wrote the price on a calculator which is also normally a sign of a haggling place. *Is suspicious*
Then we had some tea in a rather twee Russian restaurant that ressembled a Victorian tea shop. Apart from the picture that at first glance looked like rocky seashore but on closer inspection was a naked woman. For the first time in four months, I was in a room where Caucasians outnumbered Asians. Wiiiieerrddd. SO much colourrrrrr. Becka and I spent a while eavesdropping to work out where everyone was from. The family behind us sounded English and we talked about them in Chinese but abruptly stopped when the mother spoke Chinese to the waitress. Then we talked in Chinese about the Russian couple behind Sara and Boram. I mentioned that the boy was not good looking enough for the rather stunning Russian blonde. Then we stopped that when they spoke Chinese to the waiter. Then we tried to work out who the family were to the left of Boram but we just couldn't quite make out what language it was. At times it seemed English but at others not. As we couldn't hear we knew they weren't American! The girl had plaits in so I was going with German/Scandinavian. Becka went and pretended to read the menu over Boram's shoulder but still couldn't hear. I tried but also couldn't quite. We were attracting funny looks so in the end we bribed Boram to go and ask in her best English.
They were from New Zealand.
Still we'd taught Boram and Sara the meaning of "eavesdrop" and found out the Chinese equivalent (偷听, literally "steal listen" I like that translation!)
We left to catch our plane, but not without me pinching the cafe's loo roll. It's gold, that stuff.
We leisurely strolled back to the bus stop and arrived at 8:35pm. The last bus was 8:30. We all went "noooo" then 2 seconds later the bus we wanted arrived and our "noooo" turned smoothly to "yeeaaahhhh".
Our plane was leaving at 12am so no rush.
We leisurely collected our bags from the hostel, leisurely bought some beer from a chaoshi and then caught a taxi. We drove leisurely to the airport as it had snowed all day so there was a 60km speed limit. No rush. Plane doesn't leave until 12.
We pootled into the airport at 22:15. I noticed that the sign said check-in stopped at 22:30. This was odd, I thought. To stop check-in an hour and a half before departure. Oh well. We checked in and wandered through security to arrive at our gate. Everyone was queuing to get on the plane. Odd. I quietly checked my phone and noted with interest that our flight actually was scheduled to leave at 11pm not 12am...
"Lol," I said to Becka, "lolz this plane is actually leaving at 11. I thought it was 12 haha. Imagine if we hadn't decided to get to the airport so early. Haha."
Becka then spent the next 5 minutes detailing what she would have done to me if we had planned to arrive just in time for a 12am flight and had missed the plane.
I explained the concept of "all's well that end's well" to Boram and Sara.
Although to be honest, the other three probably should have made sure they'd known the flight details too... I know I'd Taken Charge but I'm not the tour guide...
When we took off I noticed that the runway was still largely covered in snow. Oh well, obviously not a problem!
Aaaaaand back to Ol Qingers. We got back around 2am. I was so tired I slept through my alarm which is rather unusual for me. Today, at -2c, felt very pleasant and warm. Very warm.
I really liked Harbin. It was very...alive. Most of Qingdao's life is stuck up in tall towers but in Harbin it's very in your face. It might be freezing, but that just makes life burn all the more brilliantly. I suppose that living somewhere as hard as that, you must be determined to enjoy it. Hence the ice sculptures. I am going to try to tempt Mum to come back with me in the summer when she visits.
So that was my Christmas. It might not have been spent with my loved ones, but it's certainly one I'll never forget! Pictures to follow.
That's what -30C feels like.
This weekend my Bright Idea of spending Christmas in Harbin was realised. Harbin, 哈尔滨, is a city in 黑龙江, Heilongjiang (Black Dragon River) province which is in the far north-east of China, not too far from Vladivostok. And indeed there is a strong Russian influence in the city-after all they pretty much built it when they used it as a base for the construction of the railway. There is also a strong Korean influence, more of which later.
It gets very cold in winter.
On Christmas Eve Becka, Boram, Sara and I got up before dawn to catch our flight. We'd all swathed ourselves in as many layers as possible in preparation for arriving in Harbin so beforehand both in the taxi and in the airport we felt a tad overheated. After a swift two hour flight we began to descend into Harbin. All I could see out of the window was white. White white white. Occasionly there were several neat rows of houses. By this point I was rather excited. In fact, much to Becka's embarrassment, I was actually bouncing around in my seat squeeing at the snow.
Eventually we landed in a rather icy airport. We excitedly exited the airport. I'll admit at first I didn't think it felt all that cold. I even felt a tad disappointed. But then Boram started yelling and told me to scrunch my nose and that's when I realised that it was so cold that ice crystals had actually formed up my nose. It was a rather strange feeling to say the least!
We leapt in a taxi and headed off into town. The highway was three lanes wide but one was not really cleared of snow and another was for overtaking only. The taxi driver spent most of the ride telling us how bad our hotel was and how bad the location was. But I didn't mind as I could understand his lovely pure, clear Harbin accent. In Harbin they naturally speak the dialect closest to 普通话, Standard Mandarin, that I learn. Not like the Qingdao drawl! Eventually we arrived at the hostel, after I had to direct the driver as though I knew where I was going and he, the Harbinger, was the tourist. That was where the map app on my ipod came in handy- love that little pod:)
The hostel was rather characterful. There was mould and damp on the walls, the loos were manky and the internet unusable but it didn't matter as the place was so warm, and the staff so friendly and the beds (well mine anyway) soft with the thickest quilts I've ever seen. It did feel rather like a cocoon, hiding from outside. In our dorm there appeared to be a permenant resident in the shape of a Chinese girl. I don't know what she was doing there. I never saw her out of her pyjamas and she seemed to spend the whole time moaning to her boyfriend on the phone. There was also a Finnish woman in another room. I mention her because she did not speak a word of Chinese so Becka and I translated for her. I felt a warm glow of pride at being so clever as to effortlessly translate although admittedly it was rather easy Chinese. But still, I felt like a proper Chinese speaker! I rather admired the Finn as although she seemed around 60 she was travelling on her own to such far-flung places.
And then we ventured out. We caught a bus into town (our hostel location was not great but I'd rather pay 10p for a bus than an extra 10quid a night to be closer. Plus it was nice to see a non touristy area). It was so cold ice had formed on the bus windows. Inside the bus, on the bus windows. Quite thick ice too!
Eventually we arrived at the centre and proceeded to 中央大街, Main Street. This street was fairly Russian in appearance with European style buildings and cobbled streets. Very nice. The only problem was that we had not yet got used to the cold so we spent most of our time hiding in the countless souvenir shops. It was very cold. We hid in a Japanese restaurant for lunch, I got served the world's smallest bowl of stew, and then we carried on hiding in more shops until we chanced upon a Haagen-Dasz cafe and then we hid in that.
It was cold out there.
Haagen-Dasz cafes, to me, symbolise China. They are hideously expensive, which is why rich kids of the kind only China's unequal society can produce, habituate them. Noone in the UK is rich enough which is why I have never seen one in the West. But they are rather nice places, if you like the finer things in life...
Eventually we plucked up the courage and slipped and slid to 索非亚广场, Suofeiya Square. Throughout this trip we spent many happy hours playing Guess the Transliteration as the Chinese cannot transliterate Western names very accurately. 索非亚 is Sophia and her square is inhabited by a small, yet rather grand, church in the Orthodox style. Nowadays it is a museum rather than a place of worship although when we first got there there were carols playing outside. It felt rather Christmassy standing outside a church in the snow listening to Silent Night. There are a lot of churches in Harbin although I don't think many are still in their original use.
And then I fell over. And landed on my butt. And landed on my phone in my back pocket. My phone survived but I have a rather large bruise...
We scuttled back to the bus stop but the buses were insanely packed full. And by now we are used to sardine tin like buses but we baulked at clinging on to a doorway so retired to a 烧烤, shaokao, restaurant. Shaokao restaurants basically serve stuff on a stick. I adore them. There is nothing tastier than lamb roasted on a stick with rosemary. Except maybe the roasted bread- basically toast but covered with sugar in a Chinese twist. I even love the melt-in-your mouth fat on the lamb sticks.
I forgot to specify not spicy so my lamb arrived covered in annoying red. But I wolfed them down anyway and ignored the FIRE FIRE, FIRE IN THE HOLD signals coming from my mouth. Before coming to China you would never have found me eating spicy lamb fat. How things change.
And then back to Little Fir Youth Hostel. Which is right next to a dog meat resturant but we didn't realise until we left. We also didn't realise that there was a bus stop called 哈理科工大学, Ha Like Gong Daxue, and another, two stops later, called 哈医科大学, Ha Yike Daxue. We wanted the latter one but mistakenly got off at the first and thus had to to walk half a kilometer in -30, mostly on the main road. But it was fine. Allllll fine.
The next day was Christmas day. Although I kept forgetting that. I woke up around 7 and really-not-very-subtlely- clambered and creaked off from my eerie on the top bunk, rustled and crustled presents from my bag and bumped and crashed over to put them by the Koreans' beds. Becka and I had thought it would be rather cute if Santa visited them as he wouldn't have visited them before. We'd bought them some tangerines and some Chinese Opera figurines. Then I racketed back up to my roost and fell back into a slumber, Christmas Spirit done for the day. I think the Chinese randomer thought I was insane, randomly putting presents around the room at the crack of dawn.
A few hours later, as they stirred, I proudly informed them that Santa had been and there were indeed chuckles of delight :) Becka gave me a DVD of the King and I as she knows I have a soft spot for Chow Yun Fat, as well as an adaptor for Chinese plugs so I don't keep stealing hers. I gave her a kaleidoscope as well as money towards her flights to Harbin. Feeling rather Christmassy Becka bounced out of bed and cheerily wished the receptionist Merry Christmas!!!
"Oh." said the receptionist in the kind of tone that implies while she acknowledges you are excited, she really couldn't give a shit. The Chinese don't do Christmas... except for advertising purposes.
And then on into town. The aim had been to make it as far as St Sophia's Church but we were chased into a rather expensive restaurant by the cold. It cost 2kuai for a pancake. Gits.
Then we scuttled to the Church through a shortcut I boldly led us down. It seemed to be the fishmongers' street which probably explained the lack of people. It stank. After a brief, very brief, interlude taking pictures and watching the clouds of pigeons being fed by people stupid enough to pay 10kuai for a bag of peanuts off random women. If you went near the birds these women would rather aggressively hurry over and shout at you until you bought some peanuts or backed off.
Inside the church was a museum dedicated to the pre Civil War era in Harbin, There were hundreds of old photos of the birth of Harbin from a rather Wild West-like, er, mud patch, to a neat little town with Russian women sat by the river. There was also a random choir of women dressed in purple singing Chinese songs. After they had finished they milled about near a section of photos that I happened to be looking at. Thus arose the bizarre situation where the Chinese tourists took photos of themselves with the choir, then with me, the funny Laowai. In fact I got more requests for photos then they did...
The church itself is fading somewhat. The paint is peeling, and you can see the brickwork in places. It seemed rather forlorn without an altar and pews. I'm all for secularism but it was rather sad to see the place without its heart- like a playground without any children.
Then we scuttled off to see 兆林公园, Zhaolin Park. Harbin's main attraction in the winter is its ice and snow sculptures and Zhaolin Park is one of the main centres. There are random castles, statues and animals dotted around the city but the main events are in certain, fee paying, areas. The Ice Festival does not really start until January 5th but most of it had already been completed when we were there and it was fascinating to see the sculptors at work in such freezing conditions. One I talked to said he wasn't cold at all and I suppose if you are working and have proper clothing you won't be cold.
We liked Zhaolin but didn't want to go in as we were saving the money to go to the biggest park on 太阳岛, Sun Island, in the middle of the 松花江, Pineblossom River, so we headed off to a Russian style cafe to while away the time until dinner. The cafe was rather nice and the waiters were adorable. Becka and I wanted to take them home. There was one whom we kept picking on to ask questions such as "what temperature is it today" and "do you know where a spot important in Korean history is" (more of that later). The poor lad never had any idea and had to go and ask.
Why, wherever I am, I can always hear the American? And why do they only talk about how easy Chinese girls are to pull?
We walked to the end of 中央大街. There is a monument as well as some more ice castles. At this point disaster struck as Sara suddenly realised she was camera-less... Sara and Boram headed back to see if they could find it (fat chance) and Becka and I went for a stroll on the frozen river instead. People were dragging themselves around on sledges while others, bizarrely, were throwing fireworks around. Becka and I were fairly far from the bank. We could hear lots of cracking sounds. We were sure it was just the crackles from the fireworks. So sure in fact, that we headed straight for the bank and stayed there. Just in case the river melts at -30C I suppose... We really needn't have worried though as the next day when we drove over the bridge we saw that they were cutting ice blocks from the river to make all the sculptures and the ice was metres thick.
Boram and Sara returned empty handed. Flipping nimble Chinese hands!
And then off to a hotel that had promised us it specialised in Western food. We eagerly rushed in, nattering to the Koreans about how much they were in for a treat with a turkey dinner. It all started off well. There was a singer and a piano. Greek statues here and there. Becka and Sara had Borsch, a Russian soup, for starters while Boram and I had chicken salad. All rather nice. The only wine available was Great Wall, a fairly upmarket Chinese brand. It tasted absolutely foul. But still, it was wine. And the spoons were dessert ones, not soup ones. But still, soup.
But then, half way through our starter, a waitress appeared wanting us to pay there and then. Becka was in the process of informing her that we weren't paying before we'd finished when the main course of turkey arrived. Becka and I spluttered a bit as the plates were plonked down amongst our half empty starter plates. The waitress sensed trouble and vanished.
The menu had stated turkey and cranberry sauce. And there was indeed turkey and cranberry sauce. All nice and tasty. But I swear that normally the turkey is accompanied by vegetables and potatoes and all manner of fodder... But no we had some slices of bird and two slices of some vegetable that was more a garnish than a serving.
We ordered a plate of vegetables and another of fries. The vegetables were not abundant and the fries, as Sara pointed out, were not as good as McDonald's...
We paid up. I stole the toilet's loo roll. (Loo roll is as rare as hen's teeth in public toilets in China and I had stupidly forgotten to bring any. I hate Chinese toilets.) We left for Haagen Dasz and arrived seconds before they shut. We were all still rather hungry so we ordered scarily expensive ice cream. It was Christmas after all. The ice cream in Haagen Dasz is a work of art-although mine did look as though a chef had slapped it together 2 seconds before he finished for the day... which was fair enough I suppose. It was delicious- even the Green Tea flavour.
Another feature of the restaurant was that it had posters for placemats that explained how you dealt with Western food. It had a handy diagram explaining what course was eaten when. But it said that fish was eaten after the main meal and I always thought it came before... Although when I see Chinese people eating Western food they seem to stick to the Chinese way of sharing everything. There was a pair of Chinese women with a plate of steak between them that one had cut up. Although to be fair when we eat Chinese food we do so in a Western way, with our own meal. I very rarely see the sauce served on top of the rice too, like it is in the West. Here, you get a bowl of rice and the rest goes in the middle to be shared.
We had rather a nightmare trying to get back to the hostel as the buses had stopped running. Taxis in Harbin work by picking up one person here and then another here that wants to go in roughly the same direction. However we were four people so we needed a completely free taxi and there just weren't any. So, in the end we split up and Becka and I shared a taxi with Chinese couple who whispered about Russians. In Harbin they all think we are Russians and in Qingdao they all think we are American. Or French. A couple have not understood our English accents and thought we were speaking French...
On Boxing day we headed off to visit the 文庙, the Confucian Temple. Unlike most cultural sites in China it managed to escape the mass trashing during the Cultural Revolution and is in fact still in use as a temple. Also unusually for tourist sites in China it was deserted. Even more unusually it was free to enter. It was rather serene, this temple sleeping under a blanket of snow hidden down a snowy, tree lined avenue. Disturbed only by Becka jumping in snow drifts. We had a great time wandering around the beautiful, ancient, complex, the largest in northern China, with only ourselves and one other tourist. It was like some giant playground in the snow. There was a large statue of Confucius in the middle. Near the back was where the monks must live as I could hear music from one building. Sounded a bit like they were having a party but I'm sure it was a very solemn monky one.
It was so beautiful.
Eventually we were chased away by the cold to go and find lunch. Although we noticed we were indeed slowly getting used to the temperature. The key is to completely cover your face. I found that if you walked fairly quickly, even your toes would warm up. In fact there were times when my toes glowed quite warm.
We found a shaokao place for lunch and I happily slobbered my way through some lamb and sugared toast. Becka ordered aubergine but it came as some mutation of a banana split, except it was filled with garlic and not jam.
I knew there was a buddhist temple not too far away but as I had not been able to find a map for love nor money and it was actually no longer a real temple, we headed off to find the Korean Museum. The Koreans had spent the past few days saying they wanted to visit a "site important in Korean history" but hadn't been able to give me any more details which annoyed me slightly and I was rather sceptical about faffing there on a hint. (I had basically been the tour leader on this trip lol- I really can't help Taking Charge and the others were content to follow me around on random buses, trusting that I knew where I was going). Eventually they gave me a street name, 安升路, Ansheng Road, which didn't actually exist but I plumped for 安升街， Ansheng Street and by some miracle we did indeed find a building scribbled over in the Korean script. And I'm rather glad we did. It turns out that at the beginning of last century, when Korea was occupied by the Japanese, the Japanese general, Prince Ito, came to Harbin to meet some Russian ambassador. Seconds after disembarking he was shot by one 安重根. I write his name here in Chinese characters as Koreans still use characters for formal occasions. And I can't write the Korean alphabet. The Chinese pronunciation would be An Zhonggen. Now this An is revered both in the North and South of Korea as a freedom fighter. He cut off two of his fingers so he could sign an oath in his own blood vowing to achieve Korean independence. Indeed his handprint, with two stubby fingers, is very famous in Korea now. An was caught soon after the assassination, tried and hung. The museum was all in Korean or Chinese but there was one English language article from the time. The tone was that of a civilised Westerner who about tolerates the Japanese (it made fun of them wearing French court dress for the trial but still removing their shoes when inside). It was a very biased piece of reporting. It implied that when An was stoppped from defending himself, it was to show respect to the murdered general and in fact the judge should be commended on his impartiality. It also said one sentence that the public were asked to leave so as not to be upset by the details but in the next sentence said that it was a completely open trial...
I was glad the Sara and Boram could not read it.
It was fascinating to learn about Korean histoy. Not a subject I knew much about.
Then we walked to the russian restaurant we had visited earlier. I, of course, lead the way as I was the only one who had any idea where we were or what was going on. It was fairly straightforward to walk to 中央大街 but Boram now thinks that I am part homing pigeon because I could find my way through the little streets. Everywhere was full of stalls selling clothes, fruit and even hunks of meat. I suppose it was probably colder than a freezer in the street so a good place to keep it!
Dinner was a warming Russian stew followed by banana splits and fruit sundaes. We ordered those as Sara and Boram had been intrigued by our talk of banana split when we had been confronted by Becka's aubergine split earlier in the day. We also got a fruit sundae as that was British too. Predictably the Chinese chef had nearly.but.not.quite.got. the banana split right as it was slices of banana and not a whole one split... Plus there was a little Communist flag stuck in the middle next to the paper umbrella. Which I don't remember there being in school. Still it tasted very nice.
We attempted to visit a bar. We walked in and sat down. Mostly empty bar. Waiter came in and said it was 400元 to be in the bar because there was an "event on". We left.
We went back to the hostel and drank Hapi instead. Hapi is short for 哈尔滨啤酒, Haerbin Pijiu, Harbin beer. I like calling it Hapi. I prefer it to Qingdao beer but shush, don't tell anyone I said that.
In the taxi back we had to drive up a small hill. It had snowed a lot during the day and it soon became evident that this hill was going to prove tricky. Several cars had failed already and just sat there spinning their wheels pathetically. People were pushing others. Our taxi's momentum did not fill us with confidence. We spun inch by inch forwards. I began to worry we were going to have to get out and push but after a few nailbiting slidy moments we made it. Phew! Driving here is interesting as the roads, whilst regularly cleared, are still nonetheless covered in a thin layer of snow. And yet they still all drive as though it was dry tarmac, pulling out here and there and swerving around each other.
Monday was our last day in Harbin and we caught a bus to try to ge to the Siberian Tiger reserve. But we had to change buses and although we got off at the right stop (actually I lie but the important thing is we walked *back* to the right stop) we could not find hide nor hair of the next one so we gave in and got a taxi instead. The taxi went down a wrong road after seeing a sign for the tiger park but after remerging from Narnia we all noticed the huge letters saying to drive 700m further on. Which none of the five of us had noticed on the way in...
The Tiger park. Hmm. How to describe... It was odd. Just odd. We sat in a minibus and drove through various enclosures filled to the brim with tigers. Just tiger after tiger after tiger. And apparently a liger but it looked like a lion to me. You could buy a live chicken for 40元 to feed to the tigers or splash out a bit to work your way up the livestock chain for 2000元 to feed them a live cow. After the minibus ride we walked past some cages where the novelty cats, such as a white tiger, three panthers and a honey coloured tiger paced dementedly. The three panthers were all in one cage. Each panther had its own wall to pace. They would walk three paces that way, then three the other, and then three back again and then three...
There were also two cheetahs. I would have thought Harbin way too cold for cheetahs. Obviously not.
The Tiger place depressed me. I just kept repeating the words "at least the species is being preserved" but golly it was rather tragic...
Then off to Sun Island to finally see some of the famous sculptures. It was half price to get in as it technically wasn't finished yet. I bought some toffee haws on a stick. I asked the seller how much they were and he said 20元. This is the equivalent of charging a fiver for a chocolate bar. I laughed and after a bit of arguing I gave up and paid 10. It was still a massive rip off as they should be around 3-5 but I felt sorry for him as he can't get many customers in that spot. And they were delicious. I love toffee haws. Very Chinese of me.
The snow sculptures were fantastic. So detailed. They must be very skilled to be able to produce a fish swimming through reeds from snow. One sculpture was huge and featured a woman with a huge mane of hair that I have no idea how they managed to carve. There was some swans with spread wings. There was also a large replica of the wolf feeding Romulus and Remus. Why? I hear you ask. Who knows, China, who knows.
The park is a normal park most of the time so there was plenty of space for us to mess about in the snow. I made a snow angel. Boram and Sara had a snow war. By now we didn't really notice the cold-although I'd couldn't really feel my toes.
It was so special, wandering through the snow, amongst the beautiful art under the soft winter sun munching on my toffee haws. We walked by the river for a while. I was loving it. Becka was not. In the end I gave in to her plea of hypothermia and we headed back for dinner.
Previously at some of the big sculptures there had been the inevitable tug on my elbow and cry of "美女!!" (meinu, beautiful girl, it's what you call someone like me when you are being polite) and I was once again the star of several souvenir snaps. It always amuses my how shy some of them are to pose with me when they're the ones that asked in the first place... When we were leaving and I dashed to the side of the bridge for one more shot of the frozen river I went past a tour group from 湖北, Hubei province (near Beijing). I know this because they all got very excited and mobbed me for a photo. I ended up posing with about 15 different men in quick succession. Most just put their arms around me but one shook my hand for the photo. In the background I could see Becka, Boram and Sara wetting themselves with laughter. Eventually I managed to escape and Boram hurried over to shake my hand and pretended to want a photo...
Over dinner we compared our different experiences of being a laowai in China. Normally the Chinese think Boram and Sara are Chinese too and chatter at them to be rewarded with a blank stare. Apparently they get asked if they can speak 普通话, which is the standard Mandarin, as the asker assumes they can only speak one of the Chinese dialects. That amuses me as educated people can all speak passable 普通话 and Boram and Sara certainly do not look as though they are fresh from the countryside! They find it hilarious that Becka and I get stared at and photographed.
We had dinner in another shaokao restaurant. I *need* to find one of those in Qingdao. The owner loved having foreigners in. She gave us some very salty peanuts and loved that I said it was too salty for me. They like it when we can't handle their food. Intriguingly it was only 8角 for a lamb kebab when normally they are a full 元. 角, technically called jiao but called mao in spoken Chinese, like kuai for the yuan, is a tenth of a yuan. 10分 make a jiao. Nothing has a price that is counted in 分fen. I have only ever seen one fen note and that was one Daisy's student had found down the back of a sofa. I covet it but Daisy won't sell it, even for 1000 times its worth lol. It's in very good condition considering it's around 20 years old. Back when a bowl of rice would have cost only a few fen. Nowadays mao are only really used when buying fruit on the street. Mao notes annoy me intensely as they are effectively worthless and I keep acquiring them. My life is spent trying to foist them on others.
Anyway I digress. We wandered around a bit and I got a pineapple pie from McDonald's. I am starting to like them. Who needs apple pie??? We went into the underground market below the main street and I bought some lacquer swan earrings because Mum wasn't there to stop me. The seller wouldn't let me haggle which was odd because places like that normally do. She wrote the price on a calculator which is also normally a sign of a haggling place. *Is suspicious*
Then we had some tea in a rather twee Russian restaurant that ressembled a Victorian tea shop. Apart from the picture that at first glance looked like rocky seashore but on closer inspection was a naked woman. For the first time in four months, I was in a room where Caucasians outnumbered Asians. Wiiiieerrddd. SO much colourrrrrr. Becka and I spent a while eavesdropping to work out where everyone was from. The family behind us sounded English and we talked about them in Chinese but abruptly stopped when the mother spoke Chinese to the waitress. Then we talked in Chinese about the Russian couple behind Sara and Boram. I mentioned that the boy was not good looking enough for the rather stunning Russian blonde. Then we stopped that when they spoke Chinese to the waiter. Then we tried to work out who the family were to the left of Boram but we just couldn't quite make out what language it was. At times it seemed English but at others not. As we couldn't hear we knew they weren't American! The girl had plaits in so I was going with German/Scandinavian. Becka went and pretended to read the menu over Boram's shoulder but still couldn't hear. I tried but also couldn't quite. We were attracting funny looks so in the end we bribed Boram to go and ask in her best English.
They were from New Zealand.
Still we'd taught Boram and Sara the meaning of "eavesdrop" and found out the Chinese equivalent (偷听, literally "steal listen" I like that translation!)
We left to catch our plane, but not without me pinching the cafe's loo roll. It's gold, that stuff.
We leisurely strolled back to the bus stop and arrived at 8:35pm. The last bus was 8:30. We all went "noooo" then 2 seconds later the bus we wanted arrived and our "noooo" turned smoothly to "yeeaaahhhh".
Our plane was leaving at 12am so no rush.
We leisurely collected our bags from the hostel, leisurely bought some beer from a chaoshi and then caught a taxi. We drove leisurely to the airport as it had snowed all day so there was a 60km speed limit. No rush. Plane doesn't leave until 12.
We pootled into the airport at 22:15. I noticed that the sign said check-in stopped at 22:30. This was odd, I thought. To stop check-in an hour and a half before departure. Oh well. We checked in and wandered through security to arrive at our gate. Everyone was queuing to get on the plane. Odd. I quietly checked my phone and noted with interest that our flight actually was scheduled to leave at 11pm not 12am...
"Lol," I said to Becka, "lolz this plane is actually leaving at 11. I thought it was 12 haha. Imagine if we hadn't decided to get to the airport so early. Haha."
Becka then spent the next 5 minutes detailing what she would have done to me if we had planned to arrive just in time for a 12am flight and had missed the plane.
I explained the concept of "all's well that end's well" to Boram and Sara.
Although to be honest, the other three probably should have made sure they'd known the flight details too... I know I'd Taken Charge but I'm not the tour guide...
When we took off I noticed that the runway was still largely covered in snow. Oh well, obviously not a problem!
Aaaaaand back to Ol Qingers. We got back around 2am. I was so tired I slept through my alarm which is rather unusual for me. Today, at -2c, felt very pleasant and warm. Very warm.
I really liked Harbin. It was very...alive. Most of Qingdao's life is stuck up in tall towers but in Harbin it's very in your face. It might be freezing, but that just makes life burn all the more brilliantly. I suppose that living somewhere as hard as that, you must be determined to enjoy it. Hence the ice sculptures. I am going to try to tempt Mum to come back with me in the summer when she visits.
So that was my Christmas. It might not have been spent with my loved ones, but it's certainly one I'll never forget! Pictures to follow.
2010-12-23
Never Trust Foxes
"How tall are you?"
"1.76m"
"WOW!!!"
Today only a few people turned up for class, in mine and others, so we just combined and watched a film for the first two hours. We watched the dramatization of a tale from 聊斋志异 which is a collection of old Chinese scary stories. The particular film we watched was about a demon, in the shape of a beautiful woman (aren't they always) trying to steal the General from his loving wife. It inevitably ended with lots of people crying over each others' dead bodies although the demon was defeated and forced to turn back into a fox. Foxes have a bit of a reputation in Chinese folklore as being rather demonic but the fox at the end was snow white and very cuddly looking so it was hard to believe it was so evil...
Had some more lessons with the Korean kids today, although only one turned up. She had to write an essay and it really showed how vast the gulf between the textbook's standard of English and hers as she had difficulty even forming the present tense. There was a lot of "are do" etc going on. Why am I teaching her to argue the pros and cons of human activity with regards to the environment when I should be teaching her to speak basic English? Why???? Still we got a good chat going at the end. She is rather cute and happily chittered away, although always at a volume slightly below that which I am able to hear. When I would inevitably ask her to repeat she would think she had spoken wrongly and then would get quieter...
I bought some Christmas presents (we are going to surprise the Koreans with prezzies from Santa lol) and it is apparently snowing in Harbin. Snow! Exciting! Of course, with it being Harbin, they will be able to cope so no worries about flying there!
Becka's computer's power cable has died of unknow causes. She is without a computer. I can't imagine being without a computer. What do you do all day?
I suspect she is shortly going to go into withdrawal too...
"1.76m"
"WOW!!!"
Today only a few people turned up for class, in mine and others, so we just combined and watched a film for the first two hours. We watched the dramatization of a tale from 聊斋志异 which is a collection of old Chinese scary stories. The particular film we watched was about a demon, in the shape of a beautiful woman (aren't they always) trying to steal the General from his loving wife. It inevitably ended with lots of people crying over each others' dead bodies although the demon was defeated and forced to turn back into a fox. Foxes have a bit of a reputation in Chinese folklore as being rather demonic but the fox at the end was snow white and very cuddly looking so it was hard to believe it was so evil...
Had some more lessons with the Korean kids today, although only one turned up. She had to write an essay and it really showed how vast the gulf between the textbook's standard of English and hers as she had difficulty even forming the present tense. There was a lot of "are do" etc going on. Why am I teaching her to argue the pros and cons of human activity with regards to the environment when I should be teaching her to speak basic English? Why???? Still we got a good chat going at the end. She is rather cute and happily chittered away, although always at a volume slightly below that which I am able to hear. When I would inevitably ask her to repeat she would think she had spoken wrongly and then would get quieter...
I bought some Christmas presents (we are going to surprise the Koreans with prezzies from Santa lol) and it is apparently snowing in Harbin. Snow! Exciting! Of course, with it being Harbin, they will be able to cope so no worries about flying there!
Becka's computer's power cable has died of unknow causes. She is without a computer. I can't imagine being without a computer. What do you do all day?
I suspect she is shortly going to go into withdrawal too...
2010-12-22
Pished
So today had some rather amusing moments that only China could provide. This afternoon we headed off to Taidong Night Market to buy Becka some boots. The market starts from around 4pm and last until 10pm and you can generally buy anything you want there. Anything.
There was a brief moment where I was aware of some Chinese men making shapes with their hands around their noses and laughing in my general direction. In the corner of my eye the female stall owner zoomed into my field of vision to also view my face. I felt silly. We left.
We walked past a stall that I didn't look twice at but after hearing Becka squeal, I backtracked. She'd spotted fluffy, white, baby rabbits in some handy portable cages. And some fluffy, baby hamsters. Aaaaaannnndddd a crate full of very fluffy puppies... Becka loves puppies. A lot. And before I could stop her she'd scooped one up and was making maternal cooey noises. At this point the seller inquired as to our nationality. British!, I replied brightly. Thank god I did! Turns out this particular guy has a, er, somewhat strong disliking for Americans! He had some characters scrawled on one of the hamsters' cage that I didn't understand entirely but started off with 美国鬼子，日本鬼子. The man asked if I understood the meaning. 美国 is America and 日本 is Japan and 鬼子 means devils, as in foreign, ******* ********* devils. (He also didn't like the Japanese but this is pretty standard for China. As Vivien, my normally sweet jolly language partner, says, "we hate them!"). The man then went on a rant about America, saying that America bullies China. Which has a grain of truth one must admit...
Then he said that the UK was alright. I was glad. He had obviously forgotten about the Opium Wars...
Then I had the difficult task of de-puppying Becka. The puppy was very soft and furry and had big brown eyes and was shivering. It only cost 150元, 15quid. My heart moistened a little. Eventually I found the will and tore it from Becka's protesting arms and dumped it back in the puddle of puppies whence it came.
Becka will never forgive me.
Then we headed off back to the city centre, with Becka mewing about "bonding" and "subsititute child" as we were scheduled to meet Vivien and Candy to take them to a Western restaurant for dinner. They'd bought us a mini Christmas tree and some snow globes which was very sweet of them. Then we started on the food. As it was Christmas I was determined to have a bally good spread and proceeded to work my way through a soup course, a salad, lovely rare fillet steak and then a hot hot apple pie, accompanied by extra chips and onion rings, washed down with a bottle of Western red wine (so it tastes half decent- Chinese wine is DIRE). Needless to say I am rather stuffed right now! After that Becka and I decided to live a little and we ordered some Hennessey Cognac for all four of us. At this point Vivien and Candy, who had screeched at the cost of the wine (200元- but worth it) noticed the price of a glass (45元) and we had a mini, or rather a large, fight which had the poor waitress trying to work out whether to believe the Chinese or the Laowai about whether to order...Eventually I won and four glasses duly arrived. Needless to say Candy and Vivien didn't really like the taste of brandy but they manfully drank up.
We ended up walking through the streets of Qingdao singing the Chinese language version of Jingle Bells at the top of our voices. I say walking, Vivien was more stumbling. Then we piled into a taxi and carried on a rather bizarre conversation in a mixture of languages. The taxi driver was shaking with laughter. Becka and I were dropped off outside our flat and the last I saw was them hanging out of the window shouting "I LOVE YOU!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMASSSS!!!"
I feel slightly bad for getting them drunk but at the same time, damn funny!
The bill was 601元. By Western standards, at 15 quid a head, that's not bad although admittedly it is in China. But so worth it!
There was a brief moment where I was aware of some Chinese men making shapes with their hands around their noses and laughing in my general direction. In the corner of my eye the female stall owner zoomed into my field of vision to also view my face. I felt silly. We left.
We walked past a stall that I didn't look twice at but after hearing Becka squeal, I backtracked. She'd spotted fluffy, white, baby rabbits in some handy portable cages. And some fluffy, baby hamsters. Aaaaaannnndddd a crate full of very fluffy puppies... Becka loves puppies. A lot. And before I could stop her she'd scooped one up and was making maternal cooey noises. At this point the seller inquired as to our nationality. British!, I replied brightly. Thank god I did! Turns out this particular guy has a, er, somewhat strong disliking for Americans! He had some characters scrawled on one of the hamsters' cage that I didn't understand entirely but started off with 美国鬼子，日本鬼子. The man asked if I understood the meaning. 美国 is America and 日本 is Japan and 鬼子 means devils, as in foreign, ******* ********* devils. (He also didn't like the Japanese but this is pretty standard for China. As Vivien, my normally sweet jolly language partner, says, "we hate them!"). The man then went on a rant about America, saying that America bullies China. Which has a grain of truth one must admit...
Then he said that the UK was alright. I was glad. He had obviously forgotten about the Opium Wars...
Then I had the difficult task of de-puppying Becka. The puppy was very soft and furry and had big brown eyes and was shivering. It only cost 150元, 15quid. My heart moistened a little. Eventually I found the will and tore it from Becka's protesting arms and dumped it back in the puddle of puppies whence it came.
Becka will never forgive me.
Then we headed off back to the city centre, with Becka mewing about "bonding" and "subsititute child" as we were scheduled to meet Vivien and Candy to take them to a Western restaurant for dinner. They'd bought us a mini Christmas tree and some snow globes which was very sweet of them. Then we started on the food. As it was Christmas I was determined to have a bally good spread and proceeded to work my way through a soup course, a salad, lovely rare fillet steak and then a hot hot apple pie, accompanied by extra chips and onion rings, washed down with a bottle of Western red wine (so it tastes half decent- Chinese wine is DIRE). Needless to say I am rather stuffed right now! After that Becka and I decided to live a little and we ordered some Hennessey Cognac for all four of us. At this point Vivien and Candy, who had screeched at the cost of the wine (200元- but worth it) noticed the price of a glass (45元) and we had a mini, or rather a large, fight which had the poor waitress trying to work out whether to believe the Chinese or the Laowai about whether to order...Eventually I won and four glasses duly arrived. Needless to say Candy and Vivien didn't really like the taste of brandy but they manfully drank up.
We ended up walking through the streets of Qingdao singing the Chinese language version of Jingle Bells at the top of our voices. I say walking, Vivien was more stumbling. Then we piled into a taxi and carried on a rather bizarre conversation in a mixture of languages. The taxi driver was shaking with laughter. Becka and I were dropped off outside our flat and the last I saw was them hanging out of the window shouting "I LOVE YOU!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMASSSS!!!"
I feel slightly bad for getting them drunk but at the same time, damn funny!
The bill was 601元. By Western standards, at 15 quid a head, that's not bad although admittedly it is in China. But so worth it!
2010-12-21
What has been smelt, can never be unsmelt
I'm filling in some teaching hours for a friend who has gone to Korea for Christmas. I teach three young Korean teenagers whose English is... uncertain. They start class at 8am and continue until 9pm. I teach them for four hours every week from a set of textbooks that I wouldn't give a native speaking teenager. The texts are on impossibly boring and complex subjects for 13 year-olds. Today we had a text on the appointment of a new dean in a university and another on global warming. Next week is on early crank cameras. Both were complex English. They are so tired and bored they spend their time either face down on their desks or rubbing their faces.
I feel like I'm complicit in child abuse for making them study such rubbish.
I should be playing English games with them and studying texts with some relevance. Not one whose given reason for global warming was that "car exhausts are hot and this extra heat is trapped by the atmosphere and causes global warming". When I spoke to the boy about his electric guitar and band I finally got some sort of English learning going on, rather than regurgitating random bits of text. But no, out comes the textbook... And their vocab lists they have to study. They have about 60 words a week to learn, but they just learn random words with no context. One last week was "Puritan". I asked the boy what that meant and he said "errr... someone who believes in God?".
Plus I realised today that there is CCTV in the classroom. I hadn't known this.
Still it is a very easy job, despite the guilt at being forced to do a rubbish job. Plus I get paid every week so that was 5 crisp red be-Maoed 100yuan notes in my hand today. Love ya Mao.
I had another erhu lesson today. There was an awkward moment when my teacher began to suspect that I was just nodding my head regardless of whether I understood and that I, in fact, didn't understand very much at all. Which is only half true...
I also tried to explain to my oral teacher that whilst tuition fees in England are now £9000 it's not quite as simple as that. However my Chinese, so fluent when buying a jin (500g) of apples, couldn't quite handle loan repayments, salary thresholds and interests rates tied to inflation so I ended up mumbling to a halt with smoke coming out of my ears...
My vpn, which I use to slip through the Great Firewall, sometimes slows the internet down so I tried to write this blog without it and discovered this site is also blocked. Why, China, why.
On the way to work today they were unblocking a sewer. I never want to be near a being-deblocked sewer ever again.
I feel like I'm complicit in child abuse for making them study such rubbish.
I should be playing English games with them and studying texts with some relevance. Not one whose given reason for global warming was that "car exhausts are hot and this extra heat is trapped by the atmosphere and causes global warming". When I spoke to the boy about his electric guitar and band I finally got some sort of English learning going on, rather than regurgitating random bits of text. But no, out comes the textbook... And their vocab lists they have to study. They have about 60 words a week to learn, but they just learn random words with no context. One last week was "Puritan". I asked the boy what that meant and he said "errr... someone who believes in God?".
Plus I realised today that there is CCTV in the classroom. I hadn't known this.
Still it is a very easy job, despite the guilt at being forced to do a rubbish job. Plus I get paid every week so that was 5 crisp red be-Maoed 100yuan notes in my hand today. Love ya Mao.
I had another erhu lesson today. There was an awkward moment when my teacher began to suspect that I was just nodding my head regardless of whether I understood and that I, in fact, didn't understand very much at all. Which is only half true...
I also tried to explain to my oral teacher that whilst tuition fees in England are now £9000 it's not quite as simple as that. However my Chinese, so fluent when buying a jin (500g) of apples, couldn't quite handle loan repayments, salary thresholds and interests rates tied to inflation so I ended up mumbling to a halt with smoke coming out of my ears...
My vpn, which I use to slip through the Great Firewall, sometimes slows the internet down so I tried to write this blog without it and discovered this site is also blocked. Why, China, why.
On the way to work today they were unblocking a sewer. I never want to be near a being-deblocked sewer ever again.
2010-12-20
Yes, I Can Use Chopsticks
The Chinese have low expectations of Westerners. Particularly where chopsticks are concerned. They immediately assume that I will be incapable of using them as it is a skill far beyond the capability of my clumsy Western hands, usefuly only for stabbing and sawing hunks of meat. They eagerly rush to find me a spoon or a fork. One even declared this weekend, "I can't believe you know how to use chopsticks!".
Yes I can use chopsticks. Believe it or not they are fairly simple to use. Believe it or not most people in the UK use chopsticks when they eat Chinese food.
"You eat Chinese food????? WOW! Do you like it?!?!?!?!"
I pointed out that most my meals were Chinese these days. Living in China and all.
"WOW!!!"
And this was from a 27 year-old with a degree...
Admittedly she was from Yishui though. I had to go back this weekend to blabber English at them. In the hotel lobby, with the normal fuss over my funny-looking passport, there was an extended family also waiting around. I became aware of mutterings and whisperings which could be translated thus:
From mother to 12yr-oldish daughter:
"Go on, speak English to the foreigner!"
"Mooooom it's embarrassing"
"Go on! Go on! Say, ach what was the word... say "hello"! Go on!"
"Mooommm...."
"Go on go on!"
Finally there was a very timid "hello" directed at the mother in the hope this would satisfy her. I smiled and said hello back. The mother grinned delightedly and prodded the daughter, who went "errrrrmmm.....errmmmm.... my name is, is, is, Nicola!". More proud grinning from mother, who had prodded her relatives to watch her daughter speaking to the big nosed laowai.
"Hello, my name is Louise"
The kid looked thrilled I, a real English-speaking person, was speaking to her.
"Nice to meet you!" she said. I, trying not to laugh, replied likewise.
Then they all bustled off to the stairs, the daughter's face pink with success.
We had to get a public bus to Yishui, which was not so bad. However we then got a minibus back and, well, it wasn't built to contain Westerners. There was even less legroom than on a Ryanair flight. I was squashed next to a granny who sporadically fed me haws, which were quite nice. Nevertheless it was rather uncomfortable, especially for three hours. Near the end we scraped a car and had to faff around while various drivers argued. More waiting. Then I got dropped off miles from where I live so by this point, fuming from the inconvenience and from banging my head climbing out of the minibus-too goddam small!-I just got in the nearest taxi and headed straight to Starbucks for Earl Grey Tea and light christmas music.
Eventually I calmed down.
But yeah my enthusiasm for teaching in Yishui is waning. It's too much travel for 6 hours of teaching. I spend pretty much the whole weekend either travelling or messing around alone in the cold hotel. I think I'll mention to my boss that unless he gives me a massive pay rise, I'm not going anymore.
I got a call today. The caller knew who I was and knew I was foreign as he spoke nice and slowly for me. He said he was from the "moduo" company. Moduo sounded like Motor to me (motuoche is Motorbike). I had no idea who he was. I tried to remember if I'd bought a motorbike in my sleep or something. He started talking about an interview. had I applied for a job and forgotten? I had a quick discussion with Becka as to who it could be and she had no idea either. Time passed with him helplessly repeating himself and me feeling very stupid. Eventually they found someone who spoke English, or rather how to say the company in English and it turned out they were from the modelling company that took my details weeks and weeks ago. Moduo is obviously their word for model! They wanted me for some advert but it was for January and I'm not going to be in Qingdao. Still, nice to hear from them!
Another thing I noticed was that even in Yishui, Christmas decorations are everywhere. And absolutely nobody in Yishui will do anything different this Saturday. Whyyyyyyyyyy???
I got a Christmas card from my parents today. I must admit I felt a pang when I opened it.
Yes I can use chopsticks. Believe it or not they are fairly simple to use. Believe it or not most people in the UK use chopsticks when they eat Chinese food.
"You eat Chinese food????? WOW! Do you like it?!?!?!?!"
I pointed out that most my meals were Chinese these days. Living in China and all.
"WOW!!!"
And this was from a 27 year-old with a degree...
Admittedly she was from Yishui though. I had to go back this weekend to blabber English at them. In the hotel lobby, with the normal fuss over my funny-looking passport, there was an extended family also waiting around. I became aware of mutterings and whisperings which could be translated thus:
From mother to 12yr-oldish daughter:
"Go on, speak English to the foreigner!"
"Mooooom it's embarrassing"
"Go on! Go on! Say, ach what was the word... say "hello"! Go on!"
"Mooommm...."
"Go on go on!"
Finally there was a very timid "hello" directed at the mother in the hope this would satisfy her. I smiled and said hello back. The mother grinned delightedly and prodded the daughter, who went "errrrrmmm.....errmmmm.... my name is, is, is, Nicola!". More proud grinning from mother, who had prodded her relatives to watch her daughter speaking to the big nosed laowai.
"Hello, my name is Louise"
The kid looked thrilled I, a real English-speaking person, was speaking to her.
"Nice to meet you!" she said. I, trying not to laugh, replied likewise.
Then they all bustled off to the stairs, the daughter's face pink with success.
We had to get a public bus to Yishui, which was not so bad. However we then got a minibus back and, well, it wasn't built to contain Westerners. There was even less legroom than on a Ryanair flight. I was squashed next to a granny who sporadically fed me haws, which were quite nice. Nevertheless it was rather uncomfortable, especially for three hours. Near the end we scraped a car and had to faff around while various drivers argued. More waiting. Then I got dropped off miles from where I live so by this point, fuming from the inconvenience and from banging my head climbing out of the minibus-too goddam small!-I just got in the nearest taxi and headed straight to Starbucks for Earl Grey Tea and light christmas music.
Eventually I calmed down.
But yeah my enthusiasm for teaching in Yishui is waning. It's too much travel for 6 hours of teaching. I spend pretty much the whole weekend either travelling or messing around alone in the cold hotel. I think I'll mention to my boss that unless he gives me a massive pay rise, I'm not going anymore.
I got a call today. The caller knew who I was and knew I was foreign as he spoke nice and slowly for me. He said he was from the "moduo" company. Moduo sounded like Motor to me (motuoche is Motorbike). I had no idea who he was. I tried to remember if I'd bought a motorbike in my sleep or something. He started talking about an interview. had I applied for a job and forgotten? I had a quick discussion with Becka as to who it could be and she had no idea either. Time passed with him helplessly repeating himself and me feeling very stupid. Eventually they found someone who spoke English, or rather how to say the company in English and it turned out they were from the modelling company that took my details weeks and weeks ago. Moduo is obviously their word for model! They wanted me for some advert but it was for January and I'm not going to be in Qingdao. Still, nice to hear from them!
Another thing I noticed was that even in Yishui, Christmas decorations are everywhere. And absolutely nobody in Yishui will do anything different this Saturday. Whyyyyyyyyyy???
I got a Christmas card from my parents today. I must admit I felt a pang when I opened it.
2010-12-16
Riches
Went to the cinema yesterday with Vivien, Candy and Becka. We saw some Chinese comedy film that basically parodied Chinese martial arts films, and indeed featured Yoda at some point for some reason. Anyway the Chinese found it hilarious. I didn't.
I was whingeing to Vivien about how much bother teaching was and that the pay was alright but gawd what a faff. Vivien asked how much I got and I replied 130 an hour and there was a slight pause. Then she revealed that when she worked for McDonalds over the summer she got 5.8 an hour. I queried this as to whether she meant 58 but no, she really only earnt 5.8kuai and hour, the equivalent of 58p an hour while I, pretty much untrained, got £13 for muddling through teaching...
5.8! That's nothing! British workers in McDonalds also get 5.8... but that's pounds not kuai! And how could I get 130? After further quizzing I think I earn more than even a doctor! That's the equivalent of getting £60,000 a year in the UK! For being an unqualified teacher whose only virtue, a fairly standard British accent, is merely a happy chance.
So my question is: I am always told "don't take less than a 100! (I don't take less than 130:P)" and if this figure is so stratospherically high, where did it come from?
My dilemma in life at the moment is that my computer is incapable of connecting to the wireless in our flat so I was having to use my ipod all of the time. Which is annoying as it is a rather small screen. But after some fiddling it now connects if I use a cable. This isn't perfect, but by now I'll take anything...
Becka, Boram, Sara and I are definitely going to Harbin next week. EEEEEEEEEEEEEESOEXCITEDDDDDDDDDDD
Daisy came over for dinner. Becka is slightly tipsy from drinking wine. As it's Chinese wine it tastes disgusting so she has warmed it up and the flat smells all lovely and winey. I cooked and we had mash potato (OMG I MISSED YOU MASH POTATO) and carrots and bits of meat and apple sauce and it was lovely. Lovely.
The Koreans have their friend's dog over. It is a black cocker spaniel with dachsundesque body length. It is terrified of me and skittles away when I approach. As it is a wooden floor it doesn't really go very far and just slithers around in a panic. I find this hilarious and keep saying BOO so it skitters away. Maybe that's why it doesn't like me...
Boram had stomach ache last night so the Koreans decided that the best way to cure this would be to stick needles in each other to draw blood.
I don't get Eastern medicine.
I was whingeing to Vivien about how much bother teaching was and that the pay was alright but gawd what a faff. Vivien asked how much I got and I replied 130 an hour and there was a slight pause. Then she revealed that when she worked for McDonalds over the summer she got 5.8 an hour. I queried this as to whether she meant 58 but no, she really only earnt 5.8kuai and hour, the equivalent of 58p an hour while I, pretty much untrained, got £13 for muddling through teaching...
5.8! That's nothing! British workers in McDonalds also get 5.8... but that's pounds not kuai! And how could I get 130? After further quizzing I think I earn more than even a doctor! That's the equivalent of getting £60,000 a year in the UK! For being an unqualified teacher whose only virtue, a fairly standard British accent, is merely a happy chance.
So my question is: I am always told "don't take less than a 100! (I don't take less than 130:P)" and if this figure is so stratospherically high, where did it come from?
My dilemma in life at the moment is that my computer is incapable of connecting to the wireless in our flat so I was having to use my ipod all of the time. Which is annoying as it is a rather small screen. But after some fiddling it now connects if I use a cable. This isn't perfect, but by now I'll take anything...
Becka, Boram, Sara and I are definitely going to Harbin next week. EEEEEEEEEEEEEESOEXCITEDDDDDDDDDDD
Daisy came over for dinner. Becka is slightly tipsy from drinking wine. As it's Chinese wine it tastes disgusting so she has warmed it up and the flat smells all lovely and winey. I cooked and we had mash potato (OMG I MISSED YOU MASH POTATO) and carrots and bits of meat and apple sauce and it was lovely. Lovely.
The Koreans have their friend's dog over. It is a black cocker spaniel with dachsundesque body length. It is terrified of me and skittles away when I approach. As it is a wooden floor it doesn't really go very far and just slithers around in a panic. I find this hilarious and keep saying BOO so it skitters away. Maybe that's why it doesn't like me...
Boram had stomach ache last night so the Koreans decided that the best way to cure this would be to stick needles in each other to draw blood.
I don't get Eastern medicine.
2010-12-15
Colds and Ideas
The thing about China is that it asks me questions that the answers to which I have not thought about before. For example when wandering around Jusco in search of somewhere to buy phone credit, I came across a life size stuffed leopard, which may or may not have been real. And I thought, do I need one of those in my life? I had no idea if I did.
Yesterday started off badly. I have had a cold for a week now and by yesterday I was getting rather run down. Plus the temperature here has plunged somewhat, which does not help! So, after dragging my achingly tired body through the blistering wind (I swear I have never felt anything that cold before!) to class my mood was low. Particularly as I knew that after the next 4 hours of class I had an erhu lesson and then 2 hours of teaching. I cursed myself for biting off more than I could chew. The teacher commented that I looked ill and recommended I take some medicine. I mumbled something about not sure where to find western medicine and she smiled and asked if I didn't like Chinese medicine. I muttered something nondescript as I thought it impolite to mention that I doubted dried bits of animal would do me much good...
After the first 2 hours of class though I came up with a plan. Instead of oral class I escaped to Starbucks and damn it was a good move! Curled up in a snuggly warm armchair with some lovely early grey tea, I felt a lot more capable! I then also had a Bright Idea. Namely that next Saturday is, I believe, Christmas and that I did not see it being much full of joy, what with it being spent in frozen Qingdao without family or turkey. Soo I suddenly thought "let's go to Harbin instead". Harbin is a city in China's far north-east and is famous for its ice sculptures. And being the coldest city in China but anyway I suddenly started reading about it and looking at prices and then started to get very excited. Very very excited. Spending Christmas wandering a snowy city, especially one as full of Russian architecture as Harbin, looking at pretty ice sculptures, husky sledding on the river, followed by a sampling of Harbin's famously raucous nightlife seemed almost as good as being at home! So I fired off text messages at Becka and may have succeeded in emotionally blackmailing her to come...
So the mere thought of a trip cheered me up no end. I faced my Erhu lesson with resolve and was relieved to find that the reason my erhu sounded so bad was because the bridge was in the wrong place. Phew! My teaching went alright as well although I was teaching some Korean teenagers who had started class at 8am and this was now their last two lessons of the day at 4:30 so you can imagine the enthusiasm... And then a nice surprise of Daisy suddenly asking to meet up for dinner. We went to Lisa's and had a nice time chatting.
On the way to class yesterday Sara, my flatmate, commented that people stared at me a lot. I have to admit, I have stopped noticing! Although when a car turned into an entrance in front of me today, it paused for 5 seconds as the driver stared at me, mouth open.
Fingers crossed for Harbin!
Yesterday started off badly. I have had a cold for a week now and by yesterday I was getting rather run down. Plus the temperature here has plunged somewhat, which does not help! So, after dragging my achingly tired body through the blistering wind (I swear I have never felt anything that cold before!) to class my mood was low. Particularly as I knew that after the next 4 hours of class I had an erhu lesson and then 2 hours of teaching. I cursed myself for biting off more than I could chew. The teacher commented that I looked ill and recommended I take some medicine. I mumbled something about not sure where to find western medicine and she smiled and asked if I didn't like Chinese medicine. I muttered something nondescript as I thought it impolite to mention that I doubted dried bits of animal would do me much good...
After the first 2 hours of class though I came up with a plan. Instead of oral class I escaped to Starbucks and damn it was a good move! Curled up in a snuggly warm armchair with some lovely early grey tea, I felt a lot more capable! I then also had a Bright Idea. Namely that next Saturday is, I believe, Christmas and that I did not see it being much full of joy, what with it being spent in frozen Qingdao without family or turkey. Soo I suddenly thought "let's go to Harbin instead". Harbin is a city in China's far north-east and is famous for its ice sculptures. And being the coldest city in China but anyway I suddenly started reading about it and looking at prices and then started to get very excited. Very very excited. Spending Christmas wandering a snowy city, especially one as full of Russian architecture as Harbin, looking at pretty ice sculptures, husky sledding on the river, followed by a sampling of Harbin's famously raucous nightlife seemed almost as good as being at home! So I fired off text messages at Becka and may have succeeded in emotionally blackmailing her to come...
So the mere thought of a trip cheered me up no end. I faced my Erhu lesson with resolve and was relieved to find that the reason my erhu sounded so bad was because the bridge was in the wrong place. Phew! My teaching went alright as well although I was teaching some Korean teenagers who had started class at 8am and this was now their last two lessons of the day at 4:30 so you can imagine the enthusiasm... And then a nice surprise of Daisy suddenly asking to meet up for dinner. We went to Lisa's and had a nice time chatting.
On the way to class yesterday Sara, my flatmate, commented that people stared at me a lot. I have to admit, I have stopped noticing! Although when a car turned into an entrance in front of me today, it paused for 5 seconds as the driver stared at me, mouth open.
Fingers crossed for Harbin!
2010-12-12
B2 Ban
A week or so ago I'd had the bright idea of organising a party for my class, B2, as I felt that as we all came from different parts of the globe, noone really knew each other. I organised it for Friday and dilligently advertised it on the board and in my best Chinese only for Friday to come and I have a raging cold... However, these things are sent to test us so I dragged myself over anyway- and was glad I did.
We started off at a restaurant on Qingda Yi Lu, the street where we often go. We were put in the private room. Chinese restaurants all have these small rooms with circular tables for large groups. Despite it being a circular table, and thus to my Arthurian mind a denoter of equality, there is in fact a strict seating system depending on who is the guest, who is the host and who is what seniority in the company. Our Oral teacher spent a long time telling us the correct order but I've forgotten most of it, except that the head host has the seat facing the door and the second host has the seat nearest the door so he can order. As I'd been the one doing the organising I got the head host's chair as well as the responsibility of ordering. It was quite encouraging how much more quickly I can deal with ordering now! When I first got here it would take several hours to order rice but now I just leafed through nonchantly ordering some 锅包肉 here and some 地三鲜 there, maybe a bit of 糖醋里脊 for good measure.
Then we happily set to munching. The Japanese girl with us, who is best described as cheeky, appeared to be the sommelier for the night and kept filling our glasses with beer. Bizarrely the Russian didn't drink- odd for a Russian no? It was good until... well we'd spent that afternoon waiting for the internet man and he hadn't come so we'd been annoyed etc but then at 7:30 he rang wondering why noone was waiting for him in the flat... so Becka raged back to the flat to sort it out.
Then we all headed to LPG and more chatting in our stilted, uncertain, almost certainly painfully discordant Chinese. But it's still pretty cool how much you can get across! I was chatting to a Korean, who is very cute, and he had heard of Margaret Thatcher, which impressed me. He said he liked Washish. I wasn't sure what this meant so we spent several minutes going through any possible pronunciation in his mind before he wrote it down. He had meant Oasis, the band. The Koreans also taught me the dice game, which I had been curious about for a while. This is where you have some dice, and you shake them in a cup and then other people have to guess what value you have. Or something lol. After a while we peeled off into language groups and I started talking to some Laowais I hadn't met before. One was wearing a Loughborough shirt and he turned out to be a student there. He was in Qingdao on a placement for international business or something, although he's returning to the UK this week. He was a keen rugby player and as such, took up rather a lot of space for his bulging biceps. I was a tiny bit in love.
I also got talking to an American, from Tennessee, who was basically just living in Qingdao. He hadn't heard of evolution until he went to College. Nonetheless he seemed very sensible!
I enjoyed chilling with everyone over a beer but that night I had a vision of a future that I want to avoid. There was a girl who was off her face, wrap dress rapidly unwrapping, complaining about the quality of the weed and how much she hated China. "I hate it!" she slurred, looming into my face, eyes wide open. "And they've been pissing with the Catholic Church!" China has a state run Catholic Church that isn't "in full communion with Rome" or whatever pompous phrase it is and they've recently chosen some new bishops and made rebel bishops agree or something. This girl was a Catholic, but not a Catholic "soul" whatever that means, and asked what I thought. "I think China's been through enough without Catholiscm so that's a good thing" I replied. She reeled a bit and then carried on about weed again.
So yeah, I hope I never become a drunk, high, arrogant, half-dressed, whining expat!
I mean, what would you rather have, a system that means you can grow up thinking the world was invented 6000 years ago, run by multi-millionaires (and you can only win election in the US if you can afford the campaign), or one that bans facebook but refuses to expose its citizens to Jewish myths and Roman letters? I pick China! Sure they are lied to about Tiananmen Square, but that was 20 years ago now.
China's government's sole concern in economic prosperity. If that involves freedom of speech, enshrined in the Chinese constitution as is the right to voice criticism, then China will let that happen. Give it time
Boram and Sara very kindly cooked Becka and I dinner today. They cooked banfan, which we already like, and something that sounded like tapichiki or something. It was bits of vegetables, and something fishy, in a spicy tomato sauce. Nice, but for the spice. They've made me some Korean type tea which appears to be flower buds in hot water. Weird but wonderful. When the flatowner's son came round he said it was funny we British were using Chinese to talk to the Koreans. He lived in Canada for a year which explains his excellent English.
We started off at a restaurant on Qingda Yi Lu, the street where we often go. We were put in the private room. Chinese restaurants all have these small rooms with circular tables for large groups. Despite it being a circular table, and thus to my Arthurian mind a denoter of equality, there is in fact a strict seating system depending on who is the guest, who is the host and who is what seniority in the company. Our Oral teacher spent a long time telling us the correct order but I've forgotten most of it, except that the head host has the seat facing the door and the second host has the seat nearest the door so he can order. As I'd been the one doing the organising I got the head host's chair as well as the responsibility of ordering. It was quite encouraging how much more quickly I can deal with ordering now! When I first got here it would take several hours to order rice but now I just leafed through nonchantly ordering some 锅包肉 here and some 地三鲜 there, maybe a bit of 糖醋里脊 for good measure.
Then we happily set to munching. The Japanese girl with us, who is best described as cheeky, appeared to be the sommelier for the night and kept filling our glasses with beer. Bizarrely the Russian didn't drink- odd for a Russian no? It was good until... well we'd spent that afternoon waiting for the internet man and he hadn't come so we'd been annoyed etc but then at 7:30 he rang wondering why noone was waiting for him in the flat... so Becka raged back to the flat to sort it out.
Then we all headed to LPG and more chatting in our stilted, uncertain, almost certainly painfully discordant Chinese. But it's still pretty cool how much you can get across! I was chatting to a Korean, who is very cute, and he had heard of Margaret Thatcher, which impressed me. He said he liked Washish. I wasn't sure what this meant so we spent several minutes going through any possible pronunciation in his mind before he wrote it down. He had meant Oasis, the band. The Koreans also taught me the dice game, which I had been curious about for a while. This is where you have some dice, and you shake them in a cup and then other people have to guess what value you have. Or something lol. After a while we peeled off into language groups and I started talking to some Laowais I hadn't met before. One was wearing a Loughborough shirt and he turned out to be a student there. He was in Qingdao on a placement for international business or something, although he's returning to the UK this week. He was a keen rugby player and as such, took up rather a lot of space for his bulging biceps. I was a tiny bit in love.
I also got talking to an American, from Tennessee, who was basically just living in Qingdao. He hadn't heard of evolution until he went to College. Nonetheless he seemed very sensible!
I enjoyed chilling with everyone over a beer but that night I had a vision of a future that I want to avoid. There was a girl who was off her face, wrap dress rapidly unwrapping, complaining about the quality of the weed and how much she hated China. "I hate it!" she slurred, looming into my face, eyes wide open. "And they've been pissing with the Catholic Church!" China has a state run Catholic Church that isn't "in full communion with Rome" or whatever pompous phrase it is and they've recently chosen some new bishops and made rebel bishops agree or something. This girl was a Catholic, but not a Catholic "soul" whatever that means, and asked what I thought. "I think China's been through enough without Catholiscm so that's a good thing" I replied. She reeled a bit and then carried on about weed again.
So yeah, I hope I never become a drunk, high, arrogant, half-dressed, whining expat!
I mean, what would you rather have, a system that means you can grow up thinking the world was invented 6000 years ago, run by multi-millionaires (and you can only win election in the US if you can afford the campaign), or one that bans facebook but refuses to expose its citizens to Jewish myths and Roman letters? I pick China! Sure they are lied to about Tiananmen Square, but that was 20 years ago now.
China's government's sole concern in economic prosperity. If that involves freedom of speech, enshrined in the Chinese constitution as is the right to voice criticism, then China will let that happen. Give it time
Boram and Sara very kindly cooked Becka and I dinner today. They cooked banfan, which we already like, and something that sounded like tapichiki or something. It was bits of vegetables, and something fishy, in a spicy tomato sauce. Nice, but for the spice. They've made me some Korean type tea which appears to be flower buds in hot water. Weird but wonderful. When the flatowner's son came round he said it was funny we British were using Chinese to talk to the Koreans. He lived in Canada for a year which explains his excellent English.
2010-12-09
Phone Calls AAAHHHHHH
So Becka and I have finally moved in to our new flat! It was a fairly laborious process as not only has my stuff expanded to fill several suitcases but we also had to lug over my microwave, sword and bronze statue of a horse. So that took several taxi trips.
I've had to cope with several phone calls recently. This shouldn't be news but I do dread phone calls. I see an unknown number, my heart sinks, I answer it with a nervous "喂, 你好?" "Wei (what they say when answering the phone), hello?"and then hold the phone away from my ear as a cacophony of syllables blares out. After a while I interrupt with a "你好， 我听不懂""Hello, I don't understand". There's normally a pause. Then more Chinese. I listen in the vain hope of trying to pick out a clue. Sometimes I get it and sometimes I have to inquire as to who it is. I got a call on Wednesday that took me a while to figure out. He said he was "快递""kuaidi". I asked him to wait a moment while I looked this up. Turned out it meant "express", he was delivering an express letter, and wanted to know which student building I was in. I wasn't expecting a letter so it took me a while to get this but eventually I trooped downstairs to where a man on a motorbike was waiting. He gave me an envelope and pointed at my name with a quizzical expression. I opened it and realised it was my YHA membership card.
Another tricky call was from the internet man. I'd gone to buy the internet, and I was rather proud of myself for navigating the conversation, but that was face-to-face and with an educated Chinese lady, so she spoke Standard Mandarin, putonghua, 普通话. The internet installer man spoke with the Qingdao accent, which involves speaking like you have a hot potato in your mouth, and was over the phone. After a while I gathered he wanted to know when I could be in the flat. After a long while.
The problem is they are not used to dealing with foreigners so very rarely make concessions, like speaking slowly and clearly. When checking out of the student building the woman asked after my "chuardar", (bedsheet) or that's what it sounded like. A newsreader would have said "chuangdan", which is what I understand. Cue frustration...
I miss being a native speaker of the local language...
I had my second erhu lesson on Tuesday. I dislike the boss of the music school as a) she takes 30 of the 60kuai I pay for my lesson and b) is rather hard to understand and gets annoyed when I just stare back blankly. I don't do it on purpose!
At the other end of the spectrum, whenever we go somewhere posh they are amazed when we can say nihao. Last night we went to Q bar, which is a rather swanky cocktail bar in Shangri-La Hotel. To get free drinks (it was ladies' night) we, of course, had to fill out a bloody form. Becka and I filled it out in Chinese characters and the waiter was like "OMG WOW YOU SPEAK CHINESE????" "er, a little...". Fairy, a colleague from work, rang up and I answered with wei, nihao? and she spent the next few seconds spluttering "wow you said nihao! Haha!""Haha...".
My erhu teacher is lovely. We are now best friends. Next semester I am going to teach her English in return for erhu lessons. This means the boss won't get anything yaya. She is from Mao Zedong's hometown and is studying at Qingdao University (the poly to Ocean's redbrick). She helped me haggle for a bowl. I got it for 13kuai instead of 15. I saved 20p woohoo!
I have a man who is desperately trying to make me teach his kid English. I feel rather guilty as I just don't have the time but he is rather desperate. The Chinese are crazy about learning English they really are!
In other news I have a cold :( The weather here has got cold lately, -2 yesterday, plus I have been rather busy moving flat, sorting out internet (predictably in China not very straightforward), going to class, revising for an exam, planning travels, and teaching so it was inevitable I'd get something. I wimped out of class and teaching today and am now snuggled in Starbucks listening to music and planning lessons. I would find some paracetmol but they are quite rare here. They tend to use Chinese medicine for sniffles etc. But I have been told that Chinese medicine "doesn't work on foreigners" so I might have to Earl-Grey-Tea this one out.
That reminds me, my boss tried to get out of paying me for one hour as it was a "party hour" (playing games and things). I replied that if I was there I'd bloody well better be paid. I got the money :D The good news is that I am going to Yishui next week so I may be having Christmas day off after all! And now we have a kitchen, and soon an oven (you can buy microwave sized ovens quite cheaply), THERE WILL BE CHRISTMAS DINNER. Although maybe not turkey.
I've had to cope with several phone calls recently. This shouldn't be news but I do dread phone calls. I see an unknown number, my heart sinks, I answer it with a nervous "喂, 你好?" "Wei (what they say when answering the phone), hello?"and then hold the phone away from my ear as a cacophony of syllables blares out. After a while I interrupt with a "你好， 我听不懂""Hello, I don't understand". There's normally a pause. Then more Chinese. I listen in the vain hope of trying to pick out a clue. Sometimes I get it and sometimes I have to inquire as to who it is. I got a call on Wednesday that took me a while to figure out. He said he was "快递""kuaidi". I asked him to wait a moment while I looked this up. Turned out it meant "express", he was delivering an express letter, and wanted to know which student building I was in. I wasn't expecting a letter so it took me a while to get this but eventually I trooped downstairs to where a man on a motorbike was waiting. He gave me an envelope and pointed at my name with a quizzical expression. I opened it and realised it was my YHA membership card.
Another tricky call was from the internet man. I'd gone to buy the internet, and I was rather proud of myself for navigating the conversation, but that was face-to-face and with an educated Chinese lady, so she spoke Standard Mandarin, putonghua, 普通话. The internet installer man spoke with the Qingdao accent, which involves speaking like you have a hot potato in your mouth, and was over the phone. After a while I gathered he wanted to know when I could be in the flat. After a long while.
The problem is they are not used to dealing with foreigners so very rarely make concessions, like speaking slowly and clearly. When checking out of the student building the woman asked after my "chuardar", (bedsheet) or that's what it sounded like. A newsreader would have said "chuangdan", which is what I understand. Cue frustration...
I miss being a native speaker of the local language...
I had my second erhu lesson on Tuesday. I dislike the boss of the music school as a) she takes 30 of the 60kuai I pay for my lesson and b) is rather hard to understand and gets annoyed when I just stare back blankly. I don't do it on purpose!
At the other end of the spectrum, whenever we go somewhere posh they are amazed when we can say nihao. Last night we went to Q bar, which is a rather swanky cocktail bar in Shangri-La Hotel. To get free drinks (it was ladies' night) we, of course, had to fill out a bloody form. Becka and I filled it out in Chinese characters and the waiter was like "OMG WOW YOU SPEAK CHINESE????" "er, a little...". Fairy, a colleague from work, rang up and I answered with wei, nihao? and she spent the next few seconds spluttering "wow you said nihao! Haha!""Haha...".
My erhu teacher is lovely. We are now best friends. Next semester I am going to teach her English in return for erhu lessons. This means the boss won't get anything yaya. She is from Mao Zedong's hometown and is studying at Qingdao University (the poly to Ocean's redbrick). She helped me haggle for a bowl. I got it for 13kuai instead of 15. I saved 20p woohoo!
I have a man who is desperately trying to make me teach his kid English. I feel rather guilty as I just don't have the time but he is rather desperate. The Chinese are crazy about learning English they really are!
In other news I have a cold :( The weather here has got cold lately, -2 yesterday, plus I have been rather busy moving flat, sorting out internet (predictably in China not very straightforward), going to class, revising for an exam, planning travels, and teaching so it was inevitable I'd get something. I wimped out of class and teaching today and am now snuggled in Starbucks listening to music and planning lessons. I would find some paracetmol but they are quite rare here. They tend to use Chinese medicine for sniffles etc. But I have been told that Chinese medicine "doesn't work on foreigners" so I might have to Earl-Grey-Tea this one out.
That reminds me, my boss tried to get out of paying me for one hour as it was a "party hour" (playing games and things). I replied that if I was there I'd bloody well better be paid. I got the money :D The good news is that I am going to Yishui next week so I may be having Christmas day off after all! And now we have a kitchen, and soon an oven (you can buy microwave sized ovens quite cheaply), THERE WILL BE CHRISTMAS DINNER. Although maybe not turkey.
Those "vehicles" I mentioned a few weeks ago. Literally an engine with a light in front. And clouds of black smock behind. Not built for speed.
2010-12-04
Ants on a Tree
So on Friday afternoon Becka and I went to see our new flat and decided that we definitely wanted it. Becka was getting cold feet as we were leaving to see the flat but when she nipped back for her passport and reappeared again she'd encountered some annoying Koreans and was once again set on moving out.
The flat is rather comfy. It's on the 1st floor but with grills over the windows so it seems secure. There is a large living room with a big bay window. Through some rather pretty sliding doors is the kitchen, of course without an oven but with a fridge and rings. On one side are two bedrooms, mine and Becka's, with the bathroom inbetween. On the other side is our new flatmates' shared room and a bathroom that has no bath or shower. My bedroom faces south, so gets lots of lovely light, and has a larger than single-sized bed with a surprisingly soft mattress. Mattresses here, at least ones I've encountered, tend to be rather hard so that was quite nice although I've kinda got used to the hard... I get a large wardrobe but no other furniture. Becka doesn't even get a wardrobe. This has provided me with a perfect excuse to go and find me some lovely antique Chinese furniture so I'm not complaining!
Our new flatmates are called Boram and Sara. Both are from South Korea and are in our class. I'm not sure how old they are exactly because when I asked they said they were born in 1989, "year of the Snake, like you!". (Technically I was born in 1990 but as it was in January it was still the year of the Snake as it was before the end of the Chinese year). What I know about Sara is that she has a boyfriend in South Korea and is very pretty. Boram has a younger brother who is just about to go into the army (compulsory in SK) which must be a daunting prospect given the situation there.
So today we headed off to the 派出所, local police station, to register that us aliens were moving house. Did it work first time? As expected, no. We all trooped in and handed over a tree's worth of paper but the snag came when we found that only Sara's name was on the lease. Apparently all our names had to be to prove that we were going to live there. Which is silly. Because whether our name is on the lease or not makes no difference to where we live surely! Anyway this took a while to be communicated but after the policewoman started to get annoyed we rang the owner's son who spoke English who translated. So then we trooped off to the Estate Agents and told them the problem and they muttered that some other Germans had also had this problem and then proceeded to make many phone calls. They had a sign on the wall in English commemorating their work in "promoting the System's global expansion". I think this estate agent has plans for more than just 3bed flats! They also had the door to their toilet open. I dislike Chinese toilets.
After waiting for a while the agent asked for our passports and then copied our names from them. Or tried to. When he got to my passport he stared at it for a few seconds and then asked me which bit was the name. I then tried to explain that Louise Elizabeth Jones really was my whole name yes I know it's long but that's laowai for you haha no it doesn't mean anything no Jones is my family name not Louise here let me write it. Then we did the same thing with Becka's name. Then we put a fingerprint on the lease and then we headed back to the 派出所 and lo! everything was all done.
麻烦, mafan, means bother. There's a lot of mafan in China.
The policewoman's son was hanging around playing computer games on the police computers. He looked a bit bored.
I've found out why the street vendors disappear every now and then. Some of them, or most, don't have licenses so the police occasionally wanders around and gathers them in to tell them off. Annoying.
Last night Becka and I headed off to the night market in 台东路，Taidong Road. (A lot of roads here seem named after areas in Taiwan- I think they think it strengthens their claim). We bought a bag of popcorn and sat on the bus happily munching away. The passenger next to Becka was eavesdropping our conversation. I think he was enjoying the chance to practise his aural skills. Near the end he asked Becka for some help with some question he had. The guy next to me just seemed annoyed by my constant munching on popcorn.
Taidong road, and environs, are covered in stalls selling pretty much everything. We spent quite a while walking among them. Some guy brushed against me and dug his hand against my pocket but couldn't get at my phone. I glared at him but as it could theoretically have been just an accident and if I picked a fight it would very quickly be one of me against every Chinese person there, I didn't do anything else. Becka bought a woolly hat and I nearly bought a jumper but decided against it (too much glitter). I bought a bowl instead. At the end of the road was a square. Here in China, which I admire very much, in the evening the adults go and congregate in squares to dance and play music. In every corner women would be doing some strange dance in unison, with or without fans, that I couldn't work out were just well-known steps or if someone had choreographed it or if it was a rehearsal for something. The odd coupled were dancing this almost salsa-like dance, except it was very slow and sedate and to Chinese music. In other corners were a group playing the drums and cymbols. In another some people were "playing" on the playground-like equipment you see here and there. As a whole it was rather nice to see adults doing something other than drinking to socialise. Keeps them fit as well I imagine.
Then we walked back down to meet Daisy and go to Beer Street. Beer Street was a tad disappointing as when Daisy had last been it had been hustling and bustling but last night was a bit empty and forlorn. Not really peak time I suppose. So we backtracked to Taidong to another restaurant. There we ordered 蚂蚁上树 which is literally translated as "ants on a tree". This aroused our curiosity so we ordered that, some deepfried chicken and some 红烧茄子, aubergine in brown sauce. Sadly the ants on a tree turned out not to be ants but noodles made from potato starch with miniscule bits of animal here and there. Ever had potato starch noodles? They are a bit jellyish and I can't say I recommend them.. We also slurped our way through some beer and started chatting about weird Japanese things (bit of a tautology there- everything Japanese sounds weird) and our most embarrassing moments. Great topics of conversation and I was so glad noone else understood us in the restaurant!
The restaurant loo was disgusting.
Then we went on to LPG for more beer and to see if our future husbands were there. No luck so we went to 88 bar, but not before I'd dropped my new bowl and smashed it. Daisy swore she'd fix it and ended up carting it around for the rest of the night. I had never been in to 88 before and was very glad we did as it was priceless. The decor was 19thcentury Dutch brothel meets STROBE LIGHTS. It was filled with Chinese, and one westerner who was a classic example of someone who has found that the looks and intelligence he was born with fetch a better league of woman in the East. There were some uninhibited dancers on a platform near the bar (must be Korean- I can't imagine a Chinese girl like that) and a cute guy in a gangster-type suit and hat singing. After a while Daisy, Becka and I got given drinks by a group of Chinese men which was great for the free drinks, but not so great as we figured that we didn't want these guys as our new best friends. So Becka faked being sick and we ran away out of the bar, Daisy waving the broken bowl. Then we tried Feeling Club, which is shiny and has metal detectors. It also was equipped with pole and possible Phillipina, as well as tvs showing the Victoria's Secret fashion show. After 5 minutes we had again made friends with some drunk man which again led to a hasty "Oh I don't feel well" exit. At this point we called it a night and headed home...
Confusing moment of the week: Passed a man and his dog waiting to cross the road. The dog was standing on its hind legs and the man was holding its front paw like a hand.
Confidence-boosting moment of the week: drunk sleazy guy telling me my Chinese wasn't very good. He didn't really seem to cut me slack for being a bit tipsy and having to hear him over some very loud music!
Eavesdrop of the week: some guys brushed past and although I didn't hear it, Daisy said they said the 2nd laowai was the fittest- which was me:P
Unexpected Price Tag of the Week: tried a jacket on in a shop. It was furry on the inside with hide on the outside trimmed with fur and lace. It was lovely and snuggly to wear even if I would argue that it wasn't the most tasteful garment I've ever seen. We wondered if it was real fur and asked the price. It was 450 pounds. Must have been unicorn fur or something!
Rarist Item in China: none of the supermarkets near me sell bowls. Only one stall in the whole of Taidong sold bowls. And I broke it. And Taidong is 30 minutes away by bus. All I need is one bowl!
The flat is rather comfy. It's on the 1st floor but with grills over the windows so it seems secure. There is a large living room with a big bay window. Through some rather pretty sliding doors is the kitchen, of course without an oven but with a fridge and rings. On one side are two bedrooms, mine and Becka's, with the bathroom inbetween. On the other side is our new flatmates' shared room and a bathroom that has no bath or shower. My bedroom faces south, so gets lots of lovely light, and has a larger than single-sized bed with a surprisingly soft mattress. Mattresses here, at least ones I've encountered, tend to be rather hard so that was quite nice although I've kinda got used to the hard... I get a large wardrobe but no other furniture. Becka doesn't even get a wardrobe. This has provided me with a perfect excuse to go and find me some lovely antique Chinese furniture so I'm not complaining!
Our new flatmates are called Boram and Sara. Both are from South Korea and are in our class. I'm not sure how old they are exactly because when I asked they said they were born in 1989, "year of the Snake, like you!". (Technically I was born in 1990 but as it was in January it was still the year of the Snake as it was before the end of the Chinese year). What I know about Sara is that she has a boyfriend in South Korea and is very pretty. Boram has a younger brother who is just about to go into the army (compulsory in SK) which must be a daunting prospect given the situation there.
So today we headed off to the 派出所, local police station, to register that us aliens were moving house. Did it work first time? As expected, no. We all trooped in and handed over a tree's worth of paper but the snag came when we found that only Sara's name was on the lease. Apparently all our names had to be to prove that we were going to live there. Which is silly. Because whether our name is on the lease or not makes no difference to where we live surely! Anyway this took a while to be communicated but after the policewoman started to get annoyed we rang the owner's son who spoke English who translated. So then we trooped off to the Estate Agents and told them the problem and they muttered that some other Germans had also had this problem and then proceeded to make many phone calls. They had a sign on the wall in English commemorating their work in "promoting the System's global expansion". I think this estate agent has plans for more than just 3bed flats! They also had the door to their toilet open. I dislike Chinese toilets.
After waiting for a while the agent asked for our passports and then copied our names from them. Or tried to. When he got to my passport he stared at it for a few seconds and then asked me which bit was the name. I then tried to explain that Louise Elizabeth Jones really was my whole name yes I know it's long but that's laowai for you haha no it doesn't mean anything no Jones is my family name not Louise here let me write it. Then we did the same thing with Becka's name. Then we put a fingerprint on the lease and then we headed back to the 派出所 and lo! everything was all done.
麻烦, mafan, means bother. There's a lot of mafan in China.
The policewoman's son was hanging around playing computer games on the police computers. He looked a bit bored.
I've found out why the street vendors disappear every now and then. Some of them, or most, don't have licenses so the police occasionally wanders around and gathers them in to tell them off. Annoying.
Last night Becka and I headed off to the night market in 台东路，Taidong Road. (A lot of roads here seem named after areas in Taiwan- I think they think it strengthens their claim). We bought a bag of popcorn and sat on the bus happily munching away. The passenger next to Becka was eavesdropping our conversation. I think he was enjoying the chance to practise his aural skills. Near the end he asked Becka for some help with some question he had. The guy next to me just seemed annoyed by my constant munching on popcorn.
Taidong road, and environs, are covered in stalls selling pretty much everything. We spent quite a while walking among them. Some guy brushed against me and dug his hand against my pocket but couldn't get at my phone. I glared at him but as it could theoretically have been just an accident and if I picked a fight it would very quickly be one of me against every Chinese person there, I didn't do anything else. Becka bought a woolly hat and I nearly bought a jumper but decided against it (too much glitter). I bought a bowl instead. At the end of the road was a square. Here in China, which I admire very much, in the evening the adults go and congregate in squares to dance and play music. In every corner women would be doing some strange dance in unison, with or without fans, that I couldn't work out were just well-known steps or if someone had choreographed it or if it was a rehearsal for something. The odd coupled were dancing this almost salsa-like dance, except it was very slow and sedate and to Chinese music. In other corners were a group playing the drums and cymbols. In another some people were "playing" on the playground-like equipment you see here and there. As a whole it was rather nice to see adults doing something other than drinking to socialise. Keeps them fit as well I imagine.
Then we walked back down to meet Daisy and go to Beer Street. Beer Street was a tad disappointing as when Daisy had last been it had been hustling and bustling but last night was a bit empty and forlorn. Not really peak time I suppose. So we backtracked to Taidong to another restaurant. There we ordered 蚂蚁上树 which is literally translated as "ants on a tree". This aroused our curiosity so we ordered that, some deepfried chicken and some 红烧茄子, aubergine in brown sauce. Sadly the ants on a tree turned out not to be ants but noodles made from potato starch with miniscule bits of animal here and there. Ever had potato starch noodles? They are a bit jellyish and I can't say I recommend them.. We also slurped our way through some beer and started chatting about weird Japanese things (bit of a tautology there- everything Japanese sounds weird) and our most embarrassing moments. Great topics of conversation and I was so glad noone else understood us in the restaurant!
The restaurant loo was disgusting.
Then we went on to LPG for more beer and to see if our future husbands were there. No luck so we went to 88 bar, but not before I'd dropped my new bowl and smashed it. Daisy swore she'd fix it and ended up carting it around for the rest of the night. I had never been in to 88 before and was very glad we did as it was priceless. The decor was 19thcentury Dutch brothel meets STROBE LIGHTS. It was filled with Chinese, and one westerner who was a classic example of someone who has found that the looks and intelligence he was born with fetch a better league of woman in the East. There were some uninhibited dancers on a platform near the bar (must be Korean- I can't imagine a Chinese girl like that) and a cute guy in a gangster-type suit and hat singing. After a while Daisy, Becka and I got given drinks by a group of Chinese men which was great for the free drinks, but not so great as we figured that we didn't want these guys as our new best friends. So Becka faked being sick and we ran away out of the bar, Daisy waving the broken bowl. Then we tried Feeling Club, which is shiny and has metal detectors. It also was equipped with pole and possible Phillipina, as well as tvs showing the Victoria's Secret fashion show. After 5 minutes we had again made friends with some drunk man which again led to a hasty "Oh I don't feel well" exit. At this point we called it a night and headed home...
Confusing moment of the week: Passed a man and his dog waiting to cross the road. The dog was standing on its hind legs and the man was holding its front paw like a hand.
Confidence-boosting moment of the week: drunk sleazy guy telling me my Chinese wasn't very good. He didn't really seem to cut me slack for being a bit tipsy and having to hear him over some very loud music!
Eavesdrop of the week: some guys brushed past and although I didn't hear it, Daisy said they said the 2nd laowai was the fittest- which was me:P
Unexpected Price Tag of the Week: tried a jacket on in a shop. It was furry on the inside with hide on the outside trimmed with fur and lace. It was lovely and snuggly to wear even if I would argue that it wasn't the most tasteful garment I've ever seen. We wondered if it was real fur and asked the price. It was 450 pounds. Must have been unicorn fur or something!
Rarist Item in China: none of the supermarkets near me sell bowls. Only one stall in the whole of Taidong sold bowls. And I broke it. And Taidong is 30 minutes away by bus. All I need is one bowl!
2010-12-02
I've Changed My Mind
I woke up this morning prepared to stay in the student accomodation but two of my classmates, two korean girls, approached Becka and I about sharing their flat. It looks nice from the pictures and has a kitchen. We are booked in to see it tomorrow but have pretty much agreed to share it with them already. I know it doesn't really make sense seeing as we paid a month's accomodation only yesterday but a) this flat is a lot cheaper in the long run (£600 for everything for 6 months as opposed to £750) b) there's a kitchen (although an oven is not necessarily guaranteed in a Chinese flat...) and c) I'm young and can do nonsensical things if I want to.
And you never know, the student centre might give us a refund...
The two Korean girls seem fun. I think one is called Boram and the other Sara. I only really know them by their Chinese names that our teacher calls them so I should probably find out their real names. I've seen them out and about in LPG and I think we'll have a great time together. Plus we'll probably only speak in Chinese so that will be good practice. Although of course they speak English, albeit tentatively, having studied it at school. So annoying that everyone bloody speaks English.
I waited for a bus opposite the government's building today. Every now and then black cars would ooze in and out.
If you think that Christmas is commercialised in the West you should come here. Not one non-Christian Chinese will celebrate Christmas, or even take the day off work. And yet every mall has a fake Christmas tree outside and special offers inside. We've seamlessly moved from Halloween decorations to Thanksgiving and now to Christmas. Without a single secular Chinese person celebrating either!
Christmas is literally just a mechanism to sell more stuff.
And you never know, the student centre might give us a refund...
The two Korean girls seem fun. I think one is called Boram and the other Sara. I only really know them by their Chinese names that our teacher calls them so I should probably find out their real names. I've seen them out and about in LPG and I think we'll have a great time together. Plus we'll probably only speak in Chinese so that will be good practice. Although of course they speak English, albeit tentatively, having studied it at school. So annoying that everyone bloody speaks English.
I waited for a bus opposite the government's building today. Every now and then black cars would ooze in and out.
If you think that Christmas is commercialised in the West you should come here. Not one non-Christian Chinese will celebrate Christmas, or even take the day off work. And yet every mall has a fake Christmas tree outside and special offers inside. We've seamlessly moved from Halloween decorations to Thanksgiving and now to Christmas. Without a single secular Chinese person celebrating either!
Christmas is literally just a mechanism to sell more stuff.
2010-12-01
China, Tchaikovsky and Dumplings in One Handy Package
Yesterday brought a reminder that everything is twice as hard in China. Becka and I had been booking flights to Hanoi, in Vietnam, for our travel in January but while we had successfully organized flying from Guangzhou to Hanoi, the leg to Guangzhou from Qingdao was proving rather tricky. As NatWest had helpfully blocked my card and sent a new one I am temporarily without plastic and Ctrip, the ubiquitous travel booking website for China, just could not handle Becka's card. After several calls to Ctrip, then Nationwide, then Ctrip then Ctrip again we had ended up with no flight. I tried again yesterday and tried to use Paypal which in theory pays money direct from your bank without the need for a debit card. Huzzah, I thought. I have a cunning plan. However the bloody Ctrip website requested that you enter in a debit card number as back up just in case...
So back to square one.
Then I remembered I was a twin and promptly lay in wait for Sara to come online on Skype and then mugged her for her details and yea, Becka and Louise shall go to Hanoi!
Conveniently our Oral teacher spent her lesson yesterday teaching us about Chinese geography. This included slides and short movies on various areas in China. First off she introduced Shanghai (Shanghainese are not very popular in the rest of China apparently. I suspect their attitude matches Liverpudlian Becka's towards London) with all its fancy skyscrapers and neoclassical archicture. All very interesting but Been There Seen That.
A map of China for you to see. I'm in Qingdao in Shandong province. Qingdao itself is not marked but we are just above the n in Shandong.
Then she moved onto to the Loess plateau in Shanxi, Shaanxi and parts of Ningxia. The loess, the yellow soil, is very soft and erodes very easily. As China, over its long history, has cut down so many trees there is nothing holding it back from slipping into the rivers and seas. Indeed the Yellow River, which has its mouth not far from Qingdao, and Yellow Sea, are both named after the silt caused by erosion. Originally this area was the birthplace of agriculture but millenia of human degradation have turned it barren, something which the government is now planning to rectify with ambitious damming and reforestation plans. It is an area the size of France and also home to 50 million people, among them the Ningxia minority. The traditional style of house here are in fact cut into the plateau hillsides as cave dwellings.
So now I really want to go there...
Next was Yunnan (see above, south-west China). This is a very popular destination in China for several reasons. One is its diverse topography, from mountainous ethnically-Tibetan towns in the north-west to lush jungle in the south. It is home to a great many of China's "56 Ethnic Minorities" and our teacher introduced us to a couple.
First were the 摩梭, Mosuo, minority. They are famous in China for being a Matriarchal society, and for their "walking marriages". The emphasis appears to be on the matrilineal line and normally a house consists of a family from one matrilineal line. Adding a female suffix to a word makes it stronger, while adding the male makes it weaker, hence the female word is "boulder" but "pebble" for male. In a walking marriage, there is no marriage as such. The man and the woman never have a ceremony and both sides can leave whenever they wish. Normally they do not live together, hence the "walking" part by the man, so within one house there will be a grandmother and her brothers, her daughters and sons, and her daughters' children. (N.B. the one child rule does not apply to minorities). Men look after their mother and sisters' children rather than their partner or own children. Our teacher mentioned that some women do not know the father of their child but apparently this is rather overexaggerated. Whilst in theory one could have as many partners as you want, in practice they tend to be very monagamous. I believe this society may have evolved from when the men would have all been far away hunting, serving as monks etc leaving the women in the village to look after themselves.
According to a quote I found: "Our Friend Marriages are very good. First, we are all our mother's children, making money for her, therefore there is no conflict between brothers and sisters. Second the relationship is based on love, and no money, or dowry, is involved. If a couple feels contented, they stay together. If they feel unhappy, they can go their separate ways. As a result, there is little fighting. The system is good because we help our families during the daytime and only come together with our partners at night, and therefore there are few quarrels between us.” One 32-year-old Mosuo woman told the Los Angeles Times, "Outside Lake Lugo, marriage is like a business transaction. The women worry, 'Does he have a good job? can he take care of me? In our village, the girls are strong and take care of themselves. Everything we did is for love."
Which puts an interesting perspective on the institution of marriage.
Doesn't everyone look nice.
They all live around 泸沽湖, Lugu Lake.
Next were the 白, Bai, White, Minority. They like to wear white.
Last but not least, and not really least considering there are 50 odd other minorities, are the Miao. They, er, have a magpie-like penchant for silver.
As you can see, they like to wear a lot of it!
Another group, the 纳西, Naxi, have their own writing system of around 1500 symbols, not unlike hieroglyphs. They resemble Chinese characters from oracle bones, found several thousand years ago.
The 2nd and 4 rows are Dongba and the 3rd (平安一生, "lifelong security") is Chinese.
Becka and I are spending 3 weeks in Yunnan in January, with Sara joining for the last week in Kunming. Needless to say Becka and I are now even more excited!
Our teacher also talked about Tibet. Apparently it is a wee bit dangerous to go if you are, or look, Han Chinese as you might get beaten up. Us Laowais are alright though!
So after 2 hours of talking we had hardly covered even a third of China. When you consider that there is also Hong Kong, who still think of themselves as British apparently, and Macao, yum Neoclassicsm, and Sichuan, remote mountains and spice, and Xinjiang, oases in the desert on the Silk Road, and Qinghai, "Green Sea" i.e. one big lawn, and Inner Mongolia, more deserts and prairies with small horses and big eagles, and Beijing and Xi'an, Terracotta Warriers, and 黑龙江, Black Dragon River with its ice cities and not forgetting Guangxi and Guangdong and Amoy and Hubei/Hunan and Henan/Hebei... how am I going to fit it all in????
Last night Becka and I got a pleasant surprise when Vivien, my language partner, and Candy, hers, took us to a concert. Or rather Vivien's parents took us. It was the Macao Symphony Orchestra who performed a mix of Tchaikovsky as well as accompanying someone on the 琵琶, pipa, which is like a Chinese lute. I know nothing about the pipa but even I could see that the musician must be one of the best. Her fingers moved so fast and accurately and yet with such emotion. However, one tiny thing. I am all for innovation and fusion but I didn't think that the pipa, which is a fairly staccato instrument, went very well with a Western orchestra. There would be sweeping strings, honeyed brass and then this twanging sound. I think it would sound at its best as a solo instrument. The rest of the performance was fantastic and I'm very grateful to Viven's parents for taking us. The tickets were free, but it was lovely of them to drive us back. Vivien's mum has invited us to her house which has got us all excited as we studied visiting a chinese home a few weeks ago. I'll have to revise beforehand but I remember you have to compliment them on how big and clean their house is and how lovely the furniture.
The soloist was wearing a qipao but with cut away sleeves. Again, this fusion of western style didn't really work but the fabric was beautifully embroidered. While I'm here I'm intending to buy me a nice a qipao-one full length and a shorter one.
There were a lot of speeches by various people throughout the performance and because they spoke slowly, I actually understood rather a lot. It was mostly, oh I'm so glad to be back in Qingdao this is my 2nd home town blah blah (audience enthusiasticly claps). The head of the Qingdao government was wheeled out in a sharply ironed suit. He looked a bit nervous. I have noticed this with many top Chinese politicians and businessmen is that they all seem rather self concious. Why?
The concert hall was the main one in Qingdao and rather snazzy. It was big and white and futuristic. I'm afraid the pictures aren't so good as I took them on my ipod.
.
And Becka eating. Behind her you can see the stacks of bamboo boxes they steam the dumplings in.
So back to square one.
Then I remembered I was a twin and promptly lay in wait for Sara to come online on Skype and then mugged her for her details and yea, Becka and Louise shall go to Hanoi!
Conveniently our Oral teacher spent her lesson yesterday teaching us about Chinese geography. This included slides and short movies on various areas in China. First off she introduced Shanghai (Shanghainese are not very popular in the rest of China apparently. I suspect their attitude matches Liverpudlian Becka's towards London) with all its fancy skyscrapers and neoclassical archicture. All very interesting but Been There Seen That.
Then she moved onto to the Loess plateau in Shanxi, Shaanxi and parts of Ningxia. The loess, the yellow soil, is very soft and erodes very easily. As China, over its long history, has cut down so many trees there is nothing holding it back from slipping into the rivers and seas. Indeed the Yellow River, which has its mouth not far from Qingdao, and Yellow Sea, are both named after the silt caused by erosion. Originally this area was the birthplace of agriculture but millenia of human degradation have turned it barren, something which the government is now planning to rectify with ambitious damming and reforestation plans. It is an area the size of France and also home to 50 million people, among them the Ningxia minority. The traditional style of house here are in fact cut into the plateau hillsides as cave dwellings.
Next was Yunnan (see above, south-west China). This is a very popular destination in China for several reasons. One is its diverse topography, from mountainous ethnically-Tibetan towns in the north-west to lush jungle in the south. It is home to a great many of China's "56 Ethnic Minorities" and our teacher introduced us to a couple.
First were the 摩梭, Mosuo, minority. They are famous in China for being a Matriarchal society, and for their "walking marriages". The emphasis appears to be on the matrilineal line and normally a house consists of a family from one matrilineal line. Adding a female suffix to a word makes it stronger, while adding the male makes it weaker, hence the female word is "boulder" but "pebble" for male. In a walking marriage, there is no marriage as such. The man and the woman never have a ceremony and both sides can leave whenever they wish. Normally they do not live together, hence the "walking" part by the man, so within one house there will be a grandmother and her brothers, her daughters and sons, and her daughters' children. (N.B. the one child rule does not apply to minorities). Men look after their mother and sisters' children rather than their partner or own children. Our teacher mentioned that some women do not know the father of their child but apparently this is rather overexaggerated. Whilst in theory one could have as many partners as you want, in practice they tend to be very monagamous. I believe this society may have evolved from when the men would have all been far away hunting, serving as monks etc leaving the women in the village to look after themselves.
According to a quote I found: "Our Friend Marriages are very good. First, we are all our mother's children, making money for her, therefore there is no conflict between brothers and sisters. Second the relationship is based on love, and no money, or dowry, is involved. If a couple feels contented, they stay together. If they feel unhappy, they can go their separate ways. As a result, there is little fighting. The system is good because we help our families during the daytime and only come together with our partners at night, and therefore there are few quarrels between us.” One 32-year-old Mosuo woman told the Los Angeles Times, "Outside Lake Lugo, marriage is like a business transaction. The women worry, 'Does he have a good job? can he take care of me? In our village, the girls are strong and take care of themselves. Everything we did is for love."
Which puts an interesting perspective on the institution of marriage.
They all live around 泸沽湖, Lugu Lake.
Which looks rather marvellous. I want to go there.
Next were the 白, Bai, White, Minority. They like to wear white.
Another group, the 纳西, Naxi, have their own writing system of around 1500 symbols, not unlike hieroglyphs. They resemble Chinese characters from oracle bones, found several thousand years ago.
The 2nd and 4 rows are Dongba and the 3rd (平安一生, "lifelong security") is Chinese.
Becka and I are spending 3 weeks in Yunnan in January, with Sara joining for the last week in Kunming. Needless to say Becka and I are now even more excited!
Our teacher also talked about Tibet. Apparently it is a wee bit dangerous to go if you are, or look, Han Chinese as you might get beaten up. Us Laowais are alright though!
So after 2 hours of talking we had hardly covered even a third of China. When you consider that there is also Hong Kong, who still think of themselves as British apparently, and Macao, yum Neoclassicsm, and Sichuan, remote mountains and spice, and Xinjiang, oases in the desert on the Silk Road, and Qinghai, "Green Sea" i.e. one big lawn, and Inner Mongolia, more deserts and prairies with small horses and big eagles, and Beijing and Xi'an, Terracotta Warriers, and 黑龙江, Black Dragon River with its ice cities and not forgetting Guangxi and Guangdong and Amoy and Hubei/Hunan and Henan/Hebei... how am I going to fit it all in????
Last night Becka and I got a pleasant surprise when Vivien, my language partner, and Candy, hers, took us to a concert. Or rather Vivien's parents took us. It was the Macao Symphony Orchestra who performed a mix of Tchaikovsky as well as accompanying someone on the 琵琶, pipa, which is like a Chinese lute. I know nothing about the pipa but even I could see that the musician must be one of the best. Her fingers moved so fast and accurately and yet with such emotion. However, one tiny thing. I am all for innovation and fusion but I didn't think that the pipa, which is a fairly staccato instrument, went very well with a Western orchestra. There would be sweeping strings, honeyed brass and then this twanging sound. I think it would sound at its best as a solo instrument. The rest of the performance was fantastic and I'm very grateful to Viven's parents for taking us. The tickets were free, but it was lovely of them to drive us back. Vivien's mum has invited us to her house which has got us all excited as we studied visiting a chinese home a few weeks ago. I'll have to revise beforehand but I remember you have to compliment them on how big and clean their house is and how lovely the furniture.
The soloist was wearing a qipao but with cut away sleeves. Again, this fusion of western style didn't really work but the fabric was beautifully embroidered. While I'm here I'm intending to buy me a nice a qipao-one full length and a shorter one.
There were a lot of speeches by various people throughout the performance and because they spoke slowly, I actually understood rather a lot. It was mostly, oh I'm so glad to be back in Qingdao this is my 2nd home town blah blah (audience enthusiasticly claps). The head of the Qingdao government was wheeled out in a sharply ironed suit. He looked a bit nervous. I have noticed this with many top Chinese politicians and businessmen is that they all seem rather self concious. Why?
The concert hall was the main one in Qingdao and rather snazzy. It was big and white and futuristic. I'm afraid the pictures aren't so good as I took them on my ipod.
Below is where we go to eat dumplings. It's rather ramshackle and dirty but they had a laptop out today and it just seemd so out of place.
The big menu on the wall:
And Becka eating. Behind her you can see the stacks of bamboo boxes they steam the dumplings in.
2010-11-29
Of Cheese and Erhus
Yesterday Becka and I decided to fulfill our ambition of cooking jacket potatoes with beans and cheese. This involved finding baked beans so we trekked to Haixin Plaza, makes Waitrose look like a soup kitchen, as I remembered seeing some beans there. Sure enough, in the exotic imported section nestled some Heinz cans of baked beans. We scooped some up at £1 a tin and then headed to Jusco for cheese, butter and potatoes, as we reasoned that this would be cheaper. It wasn't really. So Becka and I ended up paying around £4 for 250g of slightly plasticky cheddar cheese. And £2 for a block of margerine.
Then we headed back to my room to cook up our feast. Our equipment consisted of one microwavable bowl, a lid to the bowl, a large knife and a spoon. We cooked our four potatoes in relays in the bowl and then microwaved the beans in the bowl as well. For Becka's plate we stretched a plastic bag over the grill that was supplied with the microwave and for mine I used the bowl. The plastic bag contraption actually worked quite well. For cutlery we used a rice scoop and a soup spoon.
We allowed ourselves a sliver of cheese each.
It tasted amazing.
Where, and what, we normally eat:
Our feast:
Today Becka, Daisy and I ventured forth into Chinese culture with music lessons. Daisy and Becka elected to play the 古筝, Guzheng, which is a horizontal board with strings stretched over the top, rather like a sideways harp. I went for the 二胡 which is like a violin except it is played on your lap, it only has two strings and the bow is connected to the strings. So I suppose, not really like a violin but close enough! The erhu orginally came from Mongolia and has a bit of the peasant about it as opposed to the furniture-like guzheng. Which is kinda why I chose it as it is easily portable and I have this vision of being sat in a village in Yunnan (picturesque province in China) sawing out some haunting melody. We'll see :P
I was a tad nervous before starting as a) it would be all in Chinese and b) all I have heard about the erhu is that it is supposed to be the most difficult instrument to learn to play. But I confidently assured myself that years of half-hearted violin playing would give me a head start, and besides, how hard can it be...
It was actually quite good fun. My teacher was very cute and fascinated that a laowai was learning the erhu. Despite her talking at top speed I was actually surprised at how much I could understand and it helped that she happily pushed and pulled me into the right position. I was a bit, alright a lot, rubbish at first as it was quite hard to pull the bow smoothly across the strings. Cat wailing doesn't even begin to describe the sound coming out. My wrist action wasn't so good but after a while I learnt to relax and got a good flow going. By the end of the lesson I had mastered the c major scale and twinkle twinkle little star. That famous traditional Chinese tune :P Plus my Chinese had got a good workout so that was a Chinese and an erhu lesson for a mere 60kuai!
So now I am thinking of buying one and setting about learning it properly. A medium quality one is around 1000元 so 100 pounds.... xmas present sized....
This is a video from the House of Flying Daggers- the string instrument is an erhu :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CftQoGezY3Y
Then we headed back to my room to cook up our feast. Our equipment consisted of one microwavable bowl, a lid to the bowl, a large knife and a spoon. We cooked our four potatoes in relays in the bowl and then microwaved the beans in the bowl as well. For Becka's plate we stretched a plastic bag over the grill that was supplied with the microwave and for mine I used the bowl. The plastic bag contraption actually worked quite well. For cutlery we used a rice scoop and a soup spoon.
We allowed ourselves a sliver of cheese each.
It tasted amazing.
Where, and what, we normally eat:
Today Becka, Daisy and I ventured forth into Chinese culture with music lessons. Daisy and Becka elected to play the 古筝, Guzheng, which is a horizontal board with strings stretched over the top, rather like a sideways harp. I went for the 二胡 which is like a violin except it is played on your lap, it only has two strings and the bow is connected to the strings. So I suppose, not really like a violin but close enough! The erhu orginally came from Mongolia and has a bit of the peasant about it as opposed to the furniture-like guzheng. Which is kinda why I chose it as it is easily portable and I have this vision of being sat in a village in Yunnan (picturesque province in China) sawing out some haunting melody. We'll see :P
I was a tad nervous before starting as a) it would be all in Chinese and b) all I have heard about the erhu is that it is supposed to be the most difficult instrument to learn to play. But I confidently assured myself that years of half-hearted violin playing would give me a head start, and besides, how hard can it be...
It was actually quite good fun. My teacher was very cute and fascinated that a laowai was learning the erhu. Despite her talking at top speed I was actually surprised at how much I could understand and it helped that she happily pushed and pulled me into the right position. I was a bit, alright a lot, rubbish at first as it was quite hard to pull the bow smoothly across the strings. Cat wailing doesn't even begin to describe the sound coming out. My wrist action wasn't so good but after a while I learnt to relax and got a good flow going. By the end of the lesson I had mastered the c major scale and twinkle twinkle little star. That famous traditional Chinese tune :P Plus my Chinese had got a good workout so that was a Chinese and an erhu lesson for a mere 60kuai!
So now I am thinking of buying one and setting about learning it properly. A medium quality one is around 1000元 so 100 pounds.... xmas present sized....
This is a video from the House of Flying Daggers- the string instrument is an erhu :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CftQoGezY3Y
2010-11-25
Duck!
Last night was Axel's farewell party at a restaurant specialising in dumplings. I'm not dumplings' biggest fan but there were some quite nice, albeit anonymous, dishes including sweet and sour battered pork and a stew type thing that was almost nice, except for a funny twang... But plenty of Qingdao beer was flowing. Becka and I are on a mission to develop a liking for beer- you know, integrate with the culture n everything. Plus our normal thirst-slakers of vodka and whisky are a) rare, b) expensive and c) usually fake when you do get it. Fake smirnoff vodka mushes your brain. So we dilligently set about practising and I have to say, bit by bit, I'm getting used to the flavour.
It was sad to say goodbye to Axel-he's off to Beijing to work there. The expat population in Qingdao is fairly fluid so there are a lot of goodbyes which is sad- but the good thing is that wherever you go in China, you'll know somewhere who has moved there from here!
I finally found some crispy aromatic duck! Very Chinese :P Although the pack came with the head. Doesn't come with a head in the UK.
Had a fail moment at lunchtime. We were eating rice noodles, which come in a broth. The idea is to get the noodles from the broth into a small bowl. But they are slippery little bastards and as I was hauling some into my bowl I lost control and one slithered away, pulling the rest away, and before I knew it a mass of noodles came slipping out onto the floor. I tried to catch them, which was a bad idea as they were boiling hot, whilst shrieking Help Help!
I let them cool down and then grabbed the mass from the floor and plonked them back into the broth bath. This is China, after all.
The Chinese bus drivers have pot plants on their dashboards. Rather cute.
In Starbucks, in order to get to a western plug, my computer cable was across a walkway. In the UK they'd have fluttered about it being a health and safety hazard but here, they figure people can negotiate a cable in their path. This philosophy is also in use with manholes. In the UK we have them all covered up but here, they assume we can avoid falling down big holes by using our light-sensors. Which is fair enough, no?
It was sad to say goodbye to Axel-he's off to Beijing to work there. The expat population in Qingdao is fairly fluid so there are a lot of goodbyes which is sad- but the good thing is that wherever you go in China, you'll know somewhere who has moved there from here!
I finally found some crispy aromatic duck! Very Chinese :P Although the pack came with the head. Doesn't come with a head in the UK.
Had a fail moment at lunchtime. We were eating rice noodles, which come in a broth. The idea is to get the noodles from the broth into a small bowl. But they are slippery little bastards and as I was hauling some into my bowl I lost control and one slithered away, pulling the rest away, and before I knew it a mass of noodles came slipping out onto the floor. I tried to catch them, which was a bad idea as they were boiling hot, whilst shrieking Help Help!
I let them cool down and then grabbed the mass from the floor and plonked them back into the broth bath. This is China, after all.
The Chinese bus drivers have pot plants on their dashboards. Rather cute.
In Starbucks, in order to get to a western plug, my computer cable was across a walkway. In the UK they'd have fluttered about it being a health and safety hazard but here, they figure people can negotiate a cable in their path. This philosophy is also in use with manholes. In the UK we have them all covered up but here, they assume we can avoid falling down big holes by using our light-sensors. Which is fair enough, no?
2010-11-24
Teacher's Pet
On the way into the city centre we passed the burnt out remains of a construction workers' dormitory. You could still see the blackened and twisted skeletons of their metal bedposts. I have no idea if anyone was hurt although I suspect not as the dorms are not unlike portakabins in the UK so if there was a fire you'd be able to get out pretty quick. Even if what little you've got goes up in smoke. Being a construction worker in China is a pretty miserable job. They tend to be unskilled, ill-educated immigrants from the countryside who get worked to the bone every day in dangerous conditions. Is this Communism?
I am sat in Starbucks and there are several Chinese of around 50 years old. They would have been teenagers during the Cultural Revolution and I often wonder if their veneer of sophistication, Apple Notebooks and Creme Macchiatos conceal the the once fervent member of the Red Guard, running through the streets angrily tearing down China's ancient buildings and setting upon academics in howling mobs. Can you imagine? "I used to be a Revolutionary but now I design biscuit packaging"...
In other news in class today we had been set the homework of memorising a couple of paragraphs to recite. The Chinese love recitations. We grew out of that 50 years ago but still, it is a method which has its advantages, particularly for learning Chinese. You need to get familiar with how sentences are constructed and this is best done by studying closely, as you do when you remember something by heart. I and about one other person had bothered to do this which caused the teacher to launch a guilt trip against those who had not. About half way through the speech she then latched onto me and informed the whole class that, due to my hard work, I had progressed from the middle of the class to the top and that they should all ask me how I study and thus follow my example. She continued on the theme of my amazingness for about 5 minutes while I not so much blushed as tomatoed.
I did feel a wee bit of pride though :P Since being here I feel like my Chinese level has indeed shot up and I have indeed acquired a work ethic. I've probably got one of the best attendence rates and while sitting through Tingli often feels like a waste of time, I noticed in 2nd year that the more classes you attended, no matter how pointless they seemed, the better you were at Chinese...
Needless to say no-one asked how I study. Becka said she had been looking for something to throw at me. *Is Teacher's Pet*
I've been asked to teach about Thanksgiving. I know nothing about Thanksgiving. America and Britain aren't that similar and haven't been for 300 years...
Although apparently Anthony's girlfriend bought a turkey. This means you can buy turkeys. Perhaps there will be a proper dinner at Christmas after all. Although I suspect that a more likely Christmas scenario is that I will actually be teaching all day in a factory in Yishui... Cheery...
I am sat in Starbucks and there are several Chinese of around 50 years old. They would have been teenagers during the Cultural Revolution and I often wonder if their veneer of sophistication, Apple Notebooks and Creme Macchiatos conceal the the once fervent member of the Red Guard, running through the streets angrily tearing down China's ancient buildings and setting upon academics in howling mobs. Can you imagine? "I used to be a Revolutionary but now I design biscuit packaging"...
In other news in class today we had been set the homework of memorising a couple of paragraphs to recite. The Chinese love recitations. We grew out of that 50 years ago but still, it is a method which has its advantages, particularly for learning Chinese. You need to get familiar with how sentences are constructed and this is best done by studying closely, as you do when you remember something by heart. I and about one other person had bothered to do this which caused the teacher to launch a guilt trip against those who had not. About half way through the speech she then latched onto me and informed the whole class that, due to my hard work, I had progressed from the middle of the class to the top and that they should all ask me how I study and thus follow my example. She continued on the theme of my amazingness for about 5 minutes while I not so much blushed as tomatoed.
I did feel a wee bit of pride though :P Since being here I feel like my Chinese level has indeed shot up and I have indeed acquired a work ethic. I've probably got one of the best attendence rates and while sitting through Tingli often feels like a waste of time, I noticed in 2nd year that the more classes you attended, no matter how pointless they seemed, the better you were at Chinese...
Needless to say no-one asked how I study. Becka said she had been looking for something to throw at me. *Is Teacher's Pet*
I've been asked to teach about Thanksgiving. I know nothing about Thanksgiving. America and Britain aren't that similar and haven't been for 300 years...
Although apparently Anthony's girlfriend bought a turkey. This means you can buy turkeys. Perhaps there will be a proper dinner at Christmas after all. Although I suspect that a more likely Christmas scenario is that I will actually be teaching all day in a factory in Yishui... Cheery...
2010-11-22
Politics and Microwaves
On Sunday Daisy, Becka and I ventured forth to see the new Harry Potter at the cinema. This involves going into 百丽广场which is Shiny. Embarassingly shiny, when you consider how poor some people are even in Qingdao. I thought Harry Potter, or 哈利波特, Hali Bote, was rather good although Becka's chair, she was sat in front, kept shaking as she convulsed with laughter at various points that weren't supposed to be comedy moments. It was English language with Chinese subtitles and it was rather interesting to read those, or the parts I could take in before they disappeared again. Most of the names were transliterated but Sirius' was 天狼星 which is the Chinese name for the same star-"Heavenly Wolf Star" although weirdly his surname as Black was not written as 黑 but rather 布莱克, Bulaike.
Only one last installment of Harry Potter and then it really is over. Sad :(
After class Becka and I went and helped Anthony in a class he had to give. It was an oral lesson and at first they were rather shy in talking to us but by the end of the hour we had a really interesting discussion going. So much so that several hung around and we talked for a further hour about democracy, heritage, and marriage. We were talking about democracy and they said that China was not one, and I said that the UK wasn't really either. I don't really call electing one MP every 5 years, with councillors sporadically in between, democracy. I asked if they trusted their leaders and they said yes. The lad said he wanted to vote but wasn't actually going to do anything to bring it about. This annoyed Becka, who dislikes apathy :P We asked if they thought a monarchy or a republic was better and they plumped for republic but couldn't quite say why a largely unelected president, who changes only every 8 years, was better than an inherited monarch. They said that if a president did a bad job, he could be removed but history shows that it is actually fairly easy to remove a monarch as well...
Then we talked about heritage and tradition. The Chinese are very proud of their country's 3000 years of civilisation (the lad thought Britain only had 500 years) but we argued that as they completely trashed it during the Cultural Revolution, China was only really 30 years old. 20th century Chinese history is so sad it really is. They just turned on themselves in this explosion of self-hate and ripped down anything precious. That's why antiques are so highly prized here and fakes abound-everything else got smashed. People describe China as a tiger, or even a dragon, but I think it is really a phoenix, rising from the ashes.
Then we talked about marriage. The lad asked if I wanted a Chinese boyfriend and looked hopeful. What I noticed was that although we get married at similar ages, the Chinese are far more likely to stay together. Although their divorce rate is inevitably climbing. One lady's grandmother is still alive and she has bound feet. Apparently they are tiny and you can only make out the big toe. She has to be supported everywhere. When she had them first bound she cried every day. The Chinese always pull up foot-binding and women's rights to justify the revolution, and it's hard to disagree.
Eventually we had to leave but it was very interesting!
Then Becka and I went to Jusco and bought a bag of oats, some milk, and a microwave. In theory, tomorrow, this combination will produce porridge but we shall see. The microwave cost me 600元 and was a bit of a challenge to get home. The original plan had been to get a taxi but when I first hefted it it didn't feel so heavy so we hauled it to the bus. The bus was pretty full but we reached our stop and managed, somehow, to haul it off again. It had got rather heavier by this point. Then we had to cover the 500m home. We did this in relays, with Becka carrying the bags whilst I carried the damn microwave, and then vice versa. By the end our arms were killing! It is now on my bedroom floor. I spent hours peeling the bloody protective plastic off (the Chinese LOVE packaging- even biscuits in packets come individually wrapped). But we heated up Becka's dinner and it works! So finger's crossed for the porridge...
On the way to Anthony's school we walked along the seafront for a while. Today was lovely and clear. The Yellow Sea was sparkling. I love being able to say that I live on the shores of the Yellow Sea. It sounds so exotic!
Only one last installment of Harry Potter and then it really is over. Sad :(
After class Becka and I went and helped Anthony in a class he had to give. It was an oral lesson and at first they were rather shy in talking to us but by the end of the hour we had a really interesting discussion going. So much so that several hung around and we talked for a further hour about democracy, heritage, and marriage. We were talking about democracy and they said that China was not one, and I said that the UK wasn't really either. I don't really call electing one MP every 5 years, with councillors sporadically in between, democracy. I asked if they trusted their leaders and they said yes. The lad said he wanted to vote but wasn't actually going to do anything to bring it about. This annoyed Becka, who dislikes apathy :P We asked if they thought a monarchy or a republic was better and they plumped for republic but couldn't quite say why a largely unelected president, who changes only every 8 years, was better than an inherited monarch. They said that if a president did a bad job, he could be removed but history shows that it is actually fairly easy to remove a monarch as well...
Then we talked about heritage and tradition. The Chinese are very proud of their country's 3000 years of civilisation (the lad thought Britain only had 500 years) but we argued that as they completely trashed it during the Cultural Revolution, China was only really 30 years old. 20th century Chinese history is so sad it really is. They just turned on themselves in this explosion of self-hate and ripped down anything precious. That's why antiques are so highly prized here and fakes abound-everything else got smashed. People describe China as a tiger, or even a dragon, but I think it is really a phoenix, rising from the ashes.
Then we talked about marriage. The lad asked if I wanted a Chinese boyfriend and looked hopeful. What I noticed was that although we get married at similar ages, the Chinese are far more likely to stay together. Although their divorce rate is inevitably climbing. One lady's grandmother is still alive and she has bound feet. Apparently they are tiny and you can only make out the big toe. She has to be supported everywhere. When she had them first bound she cried every day. The Chinese always pull up foot-binding and women's rights to justify the revolution, and it's hard to disagree.
Eventually we had to leave but it was very interesting!
Then Becka and I went to Jusco and bought a bag of oats, some milk, and a microwave. In theory, tomorrow, this combination will produce porridge but we shall see. The microwave cost me 600元 and was a bit of a challenge to get home. The original plan had been to get a taxi but when I first hefted it it didn't feel so heavy so we hauled it to the bus. The bus was pretty full but we reached our stop and managed, somehow, to haul it off again. It had got rather heavier by this point. Then we had to cover the 500m home. We did this in relays, with Becka carrying the bags whilst I carried the damn microwave, and then vice versa. By the end our arms were killing! It is now on my bedroom floor. I spent hours peeling the bloody protective plastic off (the Chinese LOVE packaging- even biscuits in packets come individually wrapped). But we heated up Becka's dinner and it works! So finger's crossed for the porridge...
On the way to Anthony's school we walked along the seafront for a while. Today was lovely and clear. The Yellow Sea was sparkling. I love being able to say that I live on the shores of the Yellow Sea. It sounds so exotic!
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