Qingdao

I thought I'd write a little bit about Qingdao seeing as I suspect that nobody knows anything about it...

Qingdao, 青岛, is a city in 山东, Shandong, province which is in the North-East of China. If you look at a map it is the sticky out bit (i.e peninsula...) opposite Korea. Shandong plays an interesting part in Chinese culture as it is the birthplace of 孔子, Kongzi or Confucius to you and me. Indeed, it is quite a spiritual place and has many shrines and temples to Daoism and Buddhism etc. The most famous holy place is 泰山, Taishan- Mount Tai. Apparently this has one of the longest history of continuous religious worship in the world. The story goes that 秦始皇, the First Emperor of China, travelled to Taishan and proclaimed it to be very Holy and wrote an inscription to the glory of the Empire blah blah blah- basically all the standard stuff. I've also heard that a rock was taken from the mountain and placed in 天安门广场, Tiananmen Square, and that had a similar message inscribed on it too- except to the glory of the Republic.

Qingdao itself has a population of around 7 million (Shandong has roughly 95 million in total) plus two 老外* from the University of Edinburgh. We are living in the 崂山 district which is to the east of the main centre. In our area pretty much all the buildings are over 6 storeys with a generous helping of over 12 storeys amongst them. So not very picturesque. On the plus side the buildings are all surrounded by belts of grass and trees so there is plenty of green. We are fairly near the sea and a couple of beaches although the beaches here aren't that good in my opinion, despite the fact that Qingdao has a reputation as a resort city. Becka and I live on the 6th floor of the 留学生中心, International Student Centre. The lift only goes to the 5th floor. Next door is the Taekwondo school and a short walk though campus, which seems to be University buildings and normal blocks of a appartments, is where we have class. For food we can either go out of the campus and turn right where there are little restaurants and street stalls as well as a small shop and hairdressers. We can also turn left and walk down to 香港东路, East Hong Kong Road, where there are more stalls. Quite a lot of them sell hotpot and kebabs which the other place does not. 麦当劳, Maidanlao, McDonalds, is also down here... Behind the campus are the 崂山 mountains which look very picturesque. It's a lovely green area to go and walk in with some great viewpoints over the city.

To the west of us is 市南 (Shinan, City South) and 市北 (Shibei, City North) districts. There are lots of big shiny malls and hotels here including Jusco, which is a Japanese Department store. This is where we come for bread and jam for my breakfasts as well as a Starbucks where we go on Sunday- Sunday being Western Day when we are allowed to eat Western food and be all expaty :P There are also some clothes shops and restaurants although everything is a bit pricey. The best place for shopping is in Jimo Street, which I have already told you all about! This is situated in the North of the Old Town which is in the west of the city. Old Town is the remains of the German town that was here during Colonial times. Unlike most of Qingdao the buildings here are brick built, only two storeys high with little windows with wooden shutters. Everything is a bit dilapidated and the streets are filled with all sorts of detritus. However I think this just adds to the charm of the place. The area is dominated by the spires of the Catholic Cathedral, which is fairly clinical looking. Well, clinical for a Catholic cathedral! There is also a Protestant Church somewhere. I think that this is my favourite part of Qingdao because the narrow streets and small buildings have some sort of character. The rest of Qingdao is just souless skyscrapers and big, wide roads. Although on the seafront there are a few nicely designed high-rises with futuristic shapes and spires. Qingdao can best be described as "the Shit and the Shiny". There are some fairly ramshackle and dirty areas next to these great, big glossy malls filled with Gucci and Prada.

All in all the Chinese are very friendly and are very patient with my chinese! Luckily they don't really speak English so I can practise. My comprehension is fairly good but I'm not very good at forming sentences but the 4 hours of class a day are really useful. I don't know why we had so few hours of teaching at Edinburgh.

All in all Qingdao is a nice city but I'm looking forward to exploring more of China- particularly more of old China. What's left of it.


*老外, laowai, means "foreigner". Being a 老外 means that you get continually stared at (a classic 老外 stare is a fixed stare, eyebrows slightly furrowed and mouth partly open), asked to pose with people for pictures and given special prices. Special expensive prices.