Category: Living in China — Assorted Topics

Hello all!

I stopped blogging in October because I got too busy with my teaching/research/sightseeing and running.  It took several hours to post just one post, mainly because I like to include pictures with my post and the internet was extremely slow for loading pictures.

So…thank you for reading.

Here are some highlights that I can’t resist reporting:

#1 Favorite Conversation in Chinese, with a Cabdriver:

Cabdriver & I chatted easily about kids, work, how long have you been in China, oh, your Chinese is pretty good, etc. etc….in other words, the easy stuff that I could actually follow and provide answers that made sense.  He asked “So how old are you…50?”

“No,” I said, “I’m 47.”

Cabdriver:  “hmmm” (he’s embarrassed — overestimating a woman’s age is a faux pas in any country!)  Long pause.  Then… “You’re too thin!  Too thin!”  (I hesitated, but finally understood the word “shou” to mean “thin.”

I protested “Well, I run a lot…”

Cabdriver continues…”You need to eat more!”  “What’s the matter? Don’t you like Chinese food?”

This just cracked me up.  I was fairly slender at that point, and steadily put on a few more lbs as the weeks went on and I discovered more amazingly delicious and fattening food.

#1 favorite food in China:

Dumplings (jiaozi) at Professor Kong’s house.  Nothing better.  I ate so much it was painful!

#2 favorite food in China:

Fried flatbread (probably a Western China treat), with a delicate onion/salt flavor.  Really good.

#1 Stupid Foreigner Mistake

I bought a small packet of salt (didn’t need much, as I was there for only 5 months) from the store.  Started feeling sick (woozy, with a sore throat that came & went intermittently) in October.  So I ate more soups and oatmeal…felt worse.  Finally, after trying to pin down the source of the wooziness and sore throats, I got out my Chinese dictionary and looked up the characters on the salt package.  “Double Strength Flavor Enhancer,” it said.  That’s MSG!  I was adding MSG to everything — water to boil noodles, soups, and my morning oatmeal.

After tossing the MSG in the garbage, I immediately felt better and the sore throats disappeared.  (rolleyes)

#1 Favorite Activity in Guangzhou:  Finding new “districts.”  Different areas of the city specialize in very specific retail niches, like the LED display district, the trophy and laminated sign district, the bridal gown district, and so forth.  I found this fascinating!  So many little shops all devoted to the same thing…it’s a hoot for shoppers.

#1 Favorite “Holiday” — hands down, this has to be November 11th…Lonely Boys day.  Well, this also could apply to women, and we could call it Lonely Hearts day.  Why is it Lonely Boys day, I asked my students?  They said “because of all the ones in the date, and one is a lonely number.”

When I mentioned this online in a primarily US-based forum, a friend commented, “Ya gotta love a superpower with a Lonely Boys day.”   Isn’t that what international exchange is all about?  Exposing the human side of countries…showing the sincere and lovely little details of a culture to someone from another country.

#1 Coldest Month in Guangzhou:  November, followed closely by December and January.

How cold was it?  Down to about 45 degrees F, which is unusual for GZ in November, but not unusual for Dec and Jan.  Meh, no big deal, you might think…but there is no central heat in GZ (just as there is very little air conditioning in Oregon!).  We just bundled up.  Until I got my gutless space heater and awesome electric water bottle-thing, I was really, really cold for days on end until the weather temporarily warmed up.  People drank hot drinks at the office to keep warm.

#1 Nicest Students

My students, pictured here on the day they turned in their final exams:

Hello CCTV!  Your excellent programming would be even more enjoyable and believable if you could synchronize the audio with the visual.  When the sound of the words matches the picture we see on the TV, the effect on viewers is much stronger.

Thanks!

This movie commemorates and documents the political struggles leading up to the founding of the People’s Republic of China…just in time for the 60th Anniversary National Day.

Here’s the deal:  The movie incorporated cameos of 30 or so famous Chinese movie stars (from here and overseas).  I heard there were some complaints from mainland Chinese that they used some non-mainland actors in the movie, but the actors were all superb.   I didn’t recognize Jackie Chan!

The auditorium (on campus) was packed.  Here’s a review (in English) of the movie from China’s government-owned TV, CCTV:

http://www.china.org.cn/video/2009-09/14/content_18585357.htm#

And here’s a review from TIME:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1928956,00.html

So….the lights dimmed….there were no trailers!….nor any announcements regarding cell phones, from what I could tell… and the scenes began to unfold.  A person with no knowledge of China’s 20th century history may be a little bored with the political discussions/faction building/etc. etc. that make up a fair portion of the film, but — well, you can’t just gloss over the political intricacies with this topic.

Each time a new character appeared on the screen, the entire auditorium exploded into a buzz of discussion — “that’s so-and-so from such-and-such movie!”  This was a delightful part of the movie experience for me.  Truly, the cameos were outstanding.  One cameo featured a man yelling to signal his troops for a massive shout of readiness as Mao surveyed them.  After viewing the National Day parade just a week prior (October 1st) and seeing the troups shouting powerfully in unison…it’s a pretty compelling moment. 

Another cameo featured Mao’s cook — a vignette so charming, you just knew Cookie would take one for the team.

The portrayal of Zhou Enlai was lovingly filmed.  This nation adores his memory.  In one scene, for example, he goodnaturedly assures Mao that capitalists can serve a useful purpose — sometimes you need to have a store open so you can buy a pack of smokes.  I’d see the movie again just to watch the Zhou Enlai scenes.

If I were to redo history, I think I’d work on Mao’s hairstyle.  The cinematographers, however,  stuck to the photographic history with regard to Mao’s coiffure, unlike some of the women in small supporting roles, who looked a little too modern.

The one drawback to the evening?  The guy next to me.  His cell phone went off 3 times…and he answered it each time!  Tsk tsk.

I’ll take some more time to explore the parks, but after 6 weeks here, that makes me a Big Expert Authority, yes? The parks here are…different.  They’re paved, for one thing.  They have little paths going here and there; always paved.  And stay off the grass!

They remind me more of amusement parks, because they have abundant restrooms (bring your own TP), snack shops, the occasional gift shop, and often they have music broadcast over speakers.

This picture is solely to break up the monotony of the text (actually, this is the — quote! — “intelligent and beautiful waterfall” from Yuexiu Park):

Some parks (like Baiyun Mountain) have admission fees, but it’s inexpensive — Baiyun was only 5 yuan (75 cents) to enter.  Baiyun, by the way, is amazing, and would be simply astounding for its vistas if the air were cleaner.  There’s a cable car that you can take to the top…looks like fun. 

Some of the view of the city below from Zhenhai Tower at Yuexiu Park (note — you can tour the tower AND the excellent museum at Yuexiu Park for just 10 yuan ($1.50)…and you don’t have to tour both on the same day):

Then there are little parks, too…dotting the city and filled with retirees exercising and socializing in the morning.  These little parks often have playgrounds with equipment that people of all ages like to use for range-of-motion exercises.  That’s right — playgrounds for adults!  Why pay money to go to a boring gym when you can play on a jungle gym outside for free?

And, just like the Pearl River scene I described several posts ago, there are dance groups in the parks.  My latest find at Baiyun Shan are groups of women who balance a ball on a type of (Korean?) racquet, twirling it around while they dance in unison to the music.  It looks like fun and makes  me feel kind of boring, just…running…

Some parks have helpful signage.  I like the proud sense of ownership conveyed by the Guangzhou Municipal Landscaping Department:

I am stupidly lucky to be here in China this fall — and I was here with my study abroad pals watching the big National Day 35th anniversary parade in 1984 (yes!  We actually got to attend the parade!)…which was noted to be one of the three most significant National Days in the history of the PRC.  China does not put on a military parade every year — they wait for increments of 5 years or other significant milestones.

So this year, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, they put on a HUGE wingding.  It was meant to be like the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, but on a much, much larger scale since it was held in the wide open Tiananmen Square, not inside the Bird’s Nest stadium.  And no, I didn’t attend the parade this year, since I’m in Guangzhou, not Beijing, but just being in the country for this historic anniversary was extraordinary.

But enough chatter….first, the decorations started going up…hedges were trimmed…fences painted:

Banners everywhere!  I actually read one  (Long Live the People’s Republic of China!…”Long live” is a general translation of “wan sui” or “ten thousand years”…how’s THAT for a sense of history and dynasty?), but the rest I can guess from the “60” in the middle, such as this one (well, actually, this one is easy, too):

Note that many banners look like this — red banner, yellow block script — so a restaurant may have a similar banner saying something like “20% off breakfast buffet — now through October 15th!”   Walking on campus after my group lunch on Wednesday, I asked the students what one banner said (since I didn’t recognize any of the usual celebratory characters)…and they said it was a “don’t take drugs” banner.   hmm.

Back to National Day.  The ENTIRE city (and thus, I assume, the entire country) was spotless and decorated for the big day.   Lucky me — I got invited to a huge banquet hosted by the Guangdong Province Government (12 or so Zhongshan University foreign professors were invited and told very pointedly to dress up and be on time). 

Here’s the big banquet hall….All the government officials were there, plus esteemed guests like Long March survivors, model workers, and so forth.  The event was filmed by 6 or 7 TV crews:

Another shot:  I don’t know how many hundreds of people were in attendance, but another 100 or so were serving as waiters, too.  It was amazing.

The speeches — “Workers, Comrades, Friends!” — were translated into English, which was helpful…

What’s a banquet without roasted pig with glowing red eyes?

 

On the eve of National Day, people were walking the streets selling Chinese flags to wave, so I bought one, too.  On National Day itself, I went for a run along the Pearl River promenade, enjoying the somewhat cooler temperatures that morning.  Then I watched the morning parade (in Beijing) on TV…I watched the station that had an English language translation, so I was able to know the names of the parade formations, such as “Progress through Education”, “Our Beautiful Environment” and so forth.  It was indeed an impressive parade, with just one confusing glitch in the middle (it was broadcast live).

Then I set out to see more of Guangzhou on foot.  Everyone else in Guangzhou had the same idea.  Beijing Lu (a pedestrian shopping street) was packed, just packed with shoppers and revelers.   I wasn’t the only one snapping photographs — the Chinese as well were just as enamored with the festive decorations.  Here is Beijing Lu:

And here is a flower display in front of a municipal building:

The sense of pride and importance of the occasion makes me think that this is what it might have felt to experience July 4th in 1836 in the U.S. (the 60th anniversary of independence), when the sense of pride in the new republic was fresh.

Remember the hedge trimming?  Not one blade of grass was out of place at the park in front of Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall:

And why not get married on this historic day?  This is the decorated car that will drive the bride and groom away from their wedding banquet at a restaurant:

Later in the evening, after having wandered the city through throngs of happy shoppers, I returned to the apartment to watch the Beijing evening show, which included the “better than the Olympics” very carefully choreographed celebration at Tiananmen Square and some really impressive fireworks.  By then, though, I was tired and on overload, plus the sound was out of sync with the TV picture, so watching it was a little frustrating, even though the choreography was amazing. 

I heard a rumor that Beijing was discouraging cities from holding their own fireworks display (so that people might all watch the impressive Beijing show), but sure enough, I heard Guangzhou’s own fireworks going off in the distance (from Shamian Island) that night.  It was, in the end, so much to take in that I doubt if foreign news coverage even mentioned the Beijing nighttime show at all, after such an extravagant parade that same morning. 

I’m lucky indeed to have been here on this day.

Yes, I love mooncakes; I eat a lot of them.  I’m delighted to be here during the Autumn Harvest Festival because it means I can eat mooncakes morning, day and night.  But I liked the mooncakes I ate in Beijing in 1984 better!

I blame economic progress.  The old mooncakes were flaky, somewhat powdery white pastries with bean paste inside.  Over a couple of weeks, they got harder and harder.   They were fresh, in other words!  And they got hard and stale and you could use them as hockey pucks as the season wore on!

But now…they are classy and packaged beautifully and perfectly moist.  Here’s a website that features mooncakes and shows a good picture of the filling (this type has egg yolks in the middle): 

http://www.foodiepassion.com/article_MooncakesAndTheMidAutumnFestival.htm

Each mooncake is packaged up in its own plastic tray  with a packet of desiccant and then sealed in plastic.  

And four or more are sold in marvelously decorated tins.  These are two of the more sedate tins:

And here’s a typical display of mooncakes on sale — the selection is bewildering, but fun to peruse:

Today, it’s all about packaging and preservatives.  The mooncakes of yore were tastier!

harumph.

Let’s say you want to get to the Garden Hotel, which currently does not have a subway stop (they are building one; hooray!).  The closest metro stop appears to be Lieshi Lingyuan or “Martyr’s Park”, a mile or so away.   Don’t forget your umbrella.

The Garden Hotel is notable for its excellent tourist maps of Guangzhou.  I am a map connoisseur — I triangulate between my all-Chinese map (more detailed), my partially tourist map (some translations; available in book stores for about 10 yuan), and the less detailed (but helpful for finding museums and such) tourist maps.  The Westin also has a good map, I hear.

The Garden hotel also has a beautiful lobby (www.gardenhotelguangzhou.com), and is across the street from the Baiyun Hotel and the Friendship Store (very high end merchandise).  Finally, it is across and down the street from where the local hash house harriers meet on Saturdays.  You can also find Starbucks here, etc. etc.

So, from the Martyr’s Park metro stop to the Garden Hotel:

First, the metro station has a marvelous map system that lists the notable places nearby each exit of the subway.   Not only is there a list, but also a map showing you where you emerge out onto the street.  I find this immensely helpful.

After passing Martyrs’ Park:

….I then turn right at the next arterial, passing a cell phone marketplace (heading North), and when I come to the next arterial, I cross it on the pedestrian overpass, turn right and walk East for just a bit until I meet up with the next arterial heading North again.

Don’t be afraid of crossing major arterials on foot in China (well, DO remember that pedestrians don’t ever have the right of way here, and nobody will stop for a pedestrian).  Thankfully, arterials accommodate foot and bicycle traffic with very helpful pedestrian overpasses.  This one (in the background) has nice flowers:

Then, it’s just a jog to the right once I meet the next big arterial where the Garden Hotel is located (Huang Shi Dong Lu).

East = Dong, West = Xi (pronounced “she”), North = Bei, as in Beijing, and South = Nan.  Middle = Zhong

Road = Lu (pronounced “loo”) and other names for arterials are Jie (“geeyeh”, soft g), or Da Jie (“big street”). 

Da = Big.  There’s also Da Dao; another name for a major arterial.

Get to know your Chinese numerals, too.

Let’s say I turn the wrong direction.  I know where North is because of the position of the sun on this blazing hot day, but the roads I’m on seem to be dead ending. 

Then I start noticing the street signs.  Blue street signs are especially helpful, because they point cars (and you) toward arterials. 

Once I follow the arrows to a through street (and now I’ve lost the sun so I really am confused), I  look at a detailed blue street sign.  The top line labels the street in Chinese and below it in pinyin…”Dong Feng Zhong Lu.”  (East wind middle street)  OK.  If I find that on my map, great, I’m good to go.  But where on Dongfeng Zhonglu am I, exactly, and should I turn left or right?

Here’s where the street sign gets even more helpful.  In smaller writing down below, the sign tells me which way to go (left or right) to get to the next intersecting arterial.  “Jianshe Damalu” is toward the West and “Jianshe Liumalu” is toward the East.  That’s literally, “Construction Big Horse Street” and “Construction Six Horse Street.”  With a little poetic license, I’ll call these Big Workhorse Street and Sixth Workhorse Street.  Here’s an example:

[This is a different street sign, saying you’re on Zhenhai street, and to your left you’ll meet up with Jiefang North Street, while to your right you’ll meet Xiao (little) North Street….the streets in the lower white part of the sign are perpendicular to the street in the blue portion.]

These parallel arterials have similar names because first, there’s  Big Horse Street.  The next small street over is Second Workhorse street.  It’s a dead end.  More parallel dead-end streets follow….Third Workhorse Street, and so on.  The Sixth Workhorse Street is another helpful through-street that I can follow North to the Garden Hotel.

If you visit Shamian Island (posted previously), you’ll note the same numbering system for the North-South streets there.  Don’t be confused by the numbers in the street names….they are not addresses, but indicators of sister streets parallel to a more well-known “big” street.

Hooray for nicely labeled street signs and detailed maps! 

If you don’t know any Chinese, the default action is to have someone write down the name of your destination on a piece of paper in Chinese, and then when you get lost, you can pull out the paper to ask for directions.

If your Chinese is better than mine, go to www.zuoche.com, which is a nifty website telling you how to get anywhere (in major cities in China) by bus, taxi, or subway.  You just type in your location and destination, et voila!  It gives you an estimate of how long your trip will take and how much the fares are likely to be.

Shamian Island (pronounced “Shah-myen”) is a little section of Guangzhou separated by a bit of a moat from the rest of the city.  That is, it hangs out into the Pearl River, even though it’s not obvious if you look at a city map.  The U.S. Consulate is here (serving an area of China with a population of over 200 million!  Inconceivable!).  

The White Swan Hotel is also here — an interesting place, as it is filled with U.S. parents adopting Chinese babies and children.  There is some procedural reason (visa, immigration?) why they stay here in Guangzhou.  As such, the White Swan has a little neighborhood of shops selling baby and children-sized clothing (traditional, too), diapers, and some Western-style foods.

Guangzhou was the only port in China open to foreigners from 1757 to 1842, and Shamian Island retains some vestiges of that colonial history with rather handsome buildings, a charming French church, and so forth.  So a little cottage industry has appeared on the island….brides and grooms get their wedding photographs taken with some of these lovely buildings in the background.

Here’s a poor-quality photo of several brides lined up to get their picture taken (one wearing jeans underneath the dress):

Another lucky couple:

La Dolce Vita Restaurant (delicious!) is located on the far Eastern edge of the island:

Getting to Shamian Island is hard to describe in words.  Take the metro to Huangsha.  You have to go over a large pedestrian overpass to get to the island…if you end up crossing what looks like a small canal, (after the pedestrian overpass) that’s good.  The White Swan hotel tower can be seen toward the South.

(Not to worry; I’m not going to blog separately about each and every day…): 

I had arrived a day early to make sure I didn’t miss the opening dinner.  First order of the day was to run — I asked the 4th floor staff to direct me how to run to Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) and they just laughed; it sounded quite impossible.  The concierge, however, pulled out a map and indicated a direct route on some major streets. 

It is my theory that 90% of getting lost happens within 100 ft of the hotel.  Because…you don’t know which way to turn when you exit the hotel.  Do you turn right, right as you exit, or do you turn right at the end of the driveway?  It’s never clear.  So anyway, I ran a couple of miles down the wrong and very busy street, then self-corrected and ran a couple of miles in the correct direction, all the way dodging rush hour pedestrians, bikes and cars.  The car exhaust on these busy arterials was pretty bad. 

An inauspicious start to running in China, and I didn’t reach Tiantan.  Much improvement to come!

Then I set out by taxi (lazy me — the subways work fine in Beijing) to Wangfujing (a big shopping district) to relive my memories of 1984.  It was vaguely familiar, but so grown up!  I ate at (I admit) a Pizza Hut.  The food was fine…what fascinated me was the crowds of young Chinese, waiting in line to get a table and ordering up dish after dish after dish…Wow.  If any businessperson doubts the future of commerce in China, let him or her come to the Pizza Hut at Wangfujing.

I then walked to the Forbidden City, accompanied by an art student who struck up a conversation with me, chatting about the history of the Forbidden City, this & that building’s significance, etc.  I knew something was up, but let him lead me down a side street to…the gallery where he worked.  A smooth-talking salesman took over from there, giving detailed descriptions of each scroll.  I was not in a scroll-buying mood (plus, had ZERO space in my luggage), so I eventually escaped from the high-pressure sales and continued on to the Forbidden City.  I didn’t pay the entrance fee, but just admired the outer courtyard, and of course, the iconic view facing Tiananmen Square:

From there, I walked back to Wangfujing, took a taxi back to the hotel (20 yuan — about $3), and went to our opening dinner, Banquet #1, Beijing Duck!   A naive group we were — we ate heartily, thinking that future meals would be more simple.   Hahaha….