Kong Pao Chicken and Beef Kebab Dinner

Before my brief hiatus I mentioned that I wanted to show you guys some of the food I eat during my day. After all, food in China is one of the most diverse and unique cuisines of any country.

Here is a what I had for dinner tonight, Kong Pao Chicken and Beef kebabs. In Chinese the characters for Kong Pao chicken is 宫保鸡丁 pronounced "kung pao ji ding". For beef kebabs the Chinese character is 牛肉串, the 牛肉 is beef and 串 means literally stick and it actually looks like a stick or kebab. It is pronounced "niu rou chuan" or if your in Beijing "chuar". Most Beijingers have an “er" accent on many of their words and so if you say "chuan" no one will understand you but if you say "chuar" you will be perfectly understood. Here are the pictures.

Getting Back to Blogging

Hey everyone, sorry for not blogging in almost a month, but for those who don't know the last month, since the flood in my apartment, has been really difficult. I was either unable to live at home because of the flood or locked out from my landlord because he wasn't happy that I was planning to leave at the end of January. In the end, I just didn't feel like writing anything because anything I would have written would have been negative things about China and it would not represent my true feelings of the place.

So, a long story short, to recap what has happened the last month; I have moved out of my old apartment and into a new one. I really like the new one for a few reasons; one its cheaper and from what I found out the average cost of an apartment in Beijing, but also because it is just as good as the old apartment with only a little wear and tear. The thing in my opinion that makes it better is the view, I live on the 19th floor and look south into the center of the city! And the fact that the landlord isn't crazy and I that I now have heat (I actually have to open the window a little because it gets so hot).

Here are a few pictures from my apartment. In the third picture, in the upper, middle-left of the image you can see a large bright light. That is the Dragon Building and the Olympic Green.

The Great Flood

I mentioned in an earlier post about the heating situation in China, and since the heat was turned on in the building Novemeber 15th, I have, despite much effort been unable to get my heat to work. After my wonderful Chinese Thanksgiving, I came home and tried for the third time to get my heat fixed. The guy came to my apartment fiddled with things and declared everything fixed. For the next hour my apartment seemed to be getting warmer. Then I started to hear a trickling sound but didn't think anything of it until I had to use the bathroom and walked across my apartment and into a giant puddle of water in my apartment. As I found out later, when they built the building they didn't seal the water pipe to the apartment heater correctly and it leaked through the dry wall all over my floor.

It now appears that they will have to tear the drywall down and fix the piping this week. So my apartment will be come a work zone until Wednesday.

I went to McDonald's for lunch today with my friend because I was sick of Chinese food. As it turns out we arrived during "special time." Special time is what the girl at the counter called it and I can only assume it mean that it was just a happy hour of sorts were all the food is discounted. I ended up getting a Big Mac meal with a large fry, two chocolate milkshakes and a water for 24 RMB, which is a little less then $4. The other thing was that because it was "special time" many Chinese students were at 麦当劳 (McDonald's in Chinese, pronounced Mai Dang Lao) studying. I wish I had gotten a picture of it but it took us 15 minutes to get a seat. I am not sure how anyone could study in there for hours with that greasy smell, but it is China so....

In other news, my one classmate is looking to move off campus next semester, so we have to decided to look for apartments together next week. I hope that by getting a roommate, I can reduce the cost of rent by almost half. Any chance to save money is a good thing I think. Plus it will be nice to have a roommate. The other cool part is that he is from Kazakhstan. He also doesn't speak English that well, so we usually have to communicate in a mix of English and Chinese, which is great for both of our Chinese.

One last thing, my school just decided to post an emergency exit plan for the students and so I thought I'd share with the three emergency exits! Also, if you live on the top floors and their is a fire, there is no way in hell your going to survive because their is only one stairwell. Anyway, here is the picture:

Chinese Thanksgiving

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't terribly miss home on Thanksgiving. I did however miss the food. So my thought was if I can't be home for Thanksgiving, I might as well go eat my favorite Chinese food, hotpot! For those of you who don't know, hotpot is the greatest thing to come from China, better then gunpowder, fireworks and whatever else has come from China.

Hotpot is literally a pot of boiling soup placed at the center of your table. The pot is generally split between spicy and not spicy broth. You then order all of the ingredients that you want, vegetables, meats, noodles etc. You then put all of what you ordered into the pots and let it cook in front of you. In addition to the flavoring that comes from being cooked in the broths, you also prepare your own dipping sauce by taking things like peanut sauce, onions, garlic, MSG, spices and what-not.

The hotpot restaurant that my friends and I went to is considered the best in Beijing, and so when you go around dinner time, there is generally and hour to two hour wait (its worth it). So what the restuarant does is set up little tables for people to sit at, they provide popcorn and other snacks. Many people will bring cards or other games to play while they wait.

Also one thing that is common in restaurants in China particularly hotpot restaurants is for the restaurant to give you a plastic baggie to put your phone in because all Chinese people leave their phone out when they are at the table.

Here are some pictures from hotpot:

One thing that I will try and focus on in the next few posts is food in China, because I haven't discussed it much and I think it is a very fun and interesting topic.

I also hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Top Down Society

One of the things that makes Chinese culture very different from Western culture is how we view authoritative structures. In the US, we are very much anti-authority, always questioning those above us and around us, I think a bottom-up society. China, on the other hand, is very much a top-down society. Whether its from the national government or your boss, Chinese people view those above them with a sense of respect. This respect for authority sounds great, but in reality it makes things very to get done, leaves very little room for flexibility and reduces peoples choices.

Just a few examples of this:

In the US, when you have a home or an apartment, you pay for your electricity each month when you receive a bill. In China, when you rent an apartment you are given an electric card. To get electricity in your home you must go to a state-owned bank, wait in a long line to load with money. It can be really inconvenient because you may run out of money on your card in the middle of the night and the electricity gets shut of (like what happened to me) and because the only way to pay for electricity is to wait in the electricity line at the bank, which is usually 20 people long.

I went to see Harry Potter today, and unlike in the US where you can sit anywhere you'd like, in China you are given assigned seating. I think I like this way better, because you don't have to rush to get to your movie but it is another example of someone else making choices for Chinese people and not leaving it up to the individual.

On public buses in China, their are usually two or three doors. Each door is for either entering or exiting the bus. I am sure many cities in the US are like this but in China, there are no exceptions to this rule. If you are next to the entrance door and you need to get off you MUST move to the exit door because the bus drive will refuse to let you off through the entrance door. The only exceptions I have seen for this are the elderly.

During my exam week, I had my grammar exam in the morning of one of the days. Both of the classes that day were grammar, so I had the same teacher. I figured we would have the 2nd class free since we had just had an hour and half exam. Turned out I was wrong, my teacher said her boss told her we are supposed to have class all day, no exceptions. So despite her being tired, the students being tired, and only 4 out of 17 students staying for the second half, the teacher decided to push on with the lesson.

I know there are many more examples of the cultural differences but these are just the four that came to my mind now, since they happened recently.

On another fun note, here is a picture I secretly took of a 50 year old man and his man bag. No lie, I didn't fake this picture.

Learning Chinese

Sometimes I have to ask myself, why am I studying Chinese? Why did I have to pick maybe the hardest language in the world to learn? I feel like I have made a lot of progress in 2 1/2 months, so much so, that I have gotten to the point where it is getting really difficult. I've never had to study much to do well in school but recently the two hours of studying a night that I have been doing is quickly becoming not enough to keep up with everything (that doesn't include my two hours every Mon, Wed Fri that I have my tutor). So, next week, I am going to have to kick everything up a notch and really buckle down.

A few things of note about Chinese:

Chinese grammar is considerably easier then English grammar, however, I have found that since I don't know anything about English grammar it is hindering me in learning Chinese grammar and Chinese. In fact, my Chinese tutor knows English grammar better then me, granted she was an English major in college but still. So, I have begun a quick crash course on English grammar to help me understand it.

Also, when you speak your native language you don't realize how many words there really are. That changes quickly when you study a foreign language. For Chinese particularly, and why it is one of the hardest languages to learn, is that you don't just learn the a word, its meaning and pronunciation but you have to learn the character, how to write the character (which is different from recognizing it), its meaning and its pronunciation. The pronunciation is also different from most languages because Chinese is a tonal language. What that means is that one word like (ma) can have many different meanings depending on how it's pronounced and the context it is used. Chinese has four tones and a neutral sound. So for example Ma depending on the tone can mean: mom, horse, hemp, to scold or be used as a question particle. Of course, each of them have different characters which makes them easily distinguishable but in spoken Chinese its all based on the tone. 

For those who don't know much about the Chinese language there is just a small taste of what I have to deal with...lucky me!

Stalker Story

I told the story of my stalker to my parents the other night and so I totally forgot to post it on here. Alas, here it is.

My Chinese friend and I were on the subway, and were talking about Sino-American relations because this was right before the G20 Summit in Seoul and the Chinese media was busy blasting Americans Quantitative Easing policy and he had asked me what I thought and as many of you know, this is a subject that I have a lot to say about.

Anyway, I was right in the middle of talking about the next step of the Chinese economy, in terms of moving away from cheap manufacturing, and towards an ideas-based or knowledge-based economy, when my friend told me a story about how is journalism teacher doesn't let students talk about certain subjects and how he will openly and in-front of the class criticize students who don't "believe" a certain way.

It was at this point, that a Chinese woman interrupted us and started to belligerently yell at my friend in Chinese, in front of a packed train of Chinese people! She accused him of being un-Chinese and not loving his country for criticizing China and some its policies in front of a foreigner (there is a belief among Chinese people (I wonder why...cough cough Propaganda Dept), that foreigners only hear negative stories about China and that Chinese people shouldn't add to this by telling more negative things to foreigners). Essentially, this woman was making the exact point my friend and I were saying, and that is, if China wants to move to a knowledge-based, service economy you need the freedom to express creativity and your own views...that doesn't happen when you get yelled at on the subway.

The exciting part though only began. While the woman was yelling at us, my friend and I missed our stop on the subway, so we had to get off and double around, then switch off and transfer to another line. While we were doing this I got this weird feeling like we were being followed, and no not by PSB. As we were walking to through the transfer tunnel, I noticed a guy following a little behind us, listening to our conversation and then he continued to follow us on the subway platform to were we stood waiting for the train. After we got onto the train, he spoke to my friend in Chinese and then turned to me and said, "so what do you think of China?" We then got into a discussion about how I viewed China and many of the issues regarding the freedom to criticize the government etc. Basically we talked about all the is wrong with China. He then asked me what I think will happen with China, and I responded that I don't know but that whatever happens it will be because the Chinese people either stood up and said enough is enough or they don't. He agreed with that, but then went on to say, that it is his great hope that people like me come to China and aren't afraid to tell the truth and that because he met my friend and I he has even more hope for China.

On a side note, to give everyone an understanding of how sensitive of a topic Liu Xiaobo is in China, it was the one thing he refused to talk about and when I asked about Liu he looked around before he even refused to discuss him.

Studying, Exams and Overreaction

One of the things about studying Chinese that I am really starting to appreciate, is how important momentum is. The last two weeks I had been on a real role and making a lot of progress and for the first time giving me the confidence to actually believe that I could speak to Chinese people in their language, knowing that I wouldn't be perfect and would make mistakes.

However, this past weekend, without classes on Friday and a bunch of activities to do with friends I got a little lazy and didn't really study much. On top of that, I wasn't able to meet with my tutor because of a time confusion. Then on Sunday, the day I had reserved for studying, I got a real stomach virus and spent much of the evening around the toilet and in my bed. On Monday, I was still not feeling well with a dehydration migraine and wasn't able to meet with my tutor again. So, essentially, I missed four days of studying and while it doesn't seem like much it really has thrown off all my momentum. When I met my tutor today, I had forgotten a bunch of grammar points and vocab words, and in my one exam I forgot one of the easiest grammar points I had learned (luckily I was able to make up for it in other parts). To get back on track, I spent six hours studying today, two with my tutor and four by myself, between Starbucks and my apartment. So, here's to momentum and getting back on the Chinese language wagon!

I've only had one exam so far this week, and it was pretty easy. My next two will be much the same because the one is mostly in pinyin (few characters) and the other is just listening, so I am not worried about them.

Another thing of note that has happened recently is the closure of the outdoor night market in Wudaokou. Wudaokou is the college area of of Beijing, with at least 15 universities within a 15 minute walking radius.

The outdoor night market in Wu was huge, with dozens of mom and pop sellers; selling clothes, books, food, and just about anything else you could think of. As recently as a month ago it had been getting very crowded and hard to navigate for people just passing through. Something obviously had to be done to resolve the situation but in typical Chinese fashion, the police overreacted and instead of perhaps organizing, or making people pay for permits to sell things they just shut down the whole market and erected these hideous blue walls! Anyway, here is a picture of the newly erected fences.

Also, here is a picture of a girl I took a few weeks ago, who seemed to either be mocking the worldwide economic recession or just couldn't read English and thought the outfit looked cool (I am hoping for the latter)!!!

As for the stalker story, I am going to leave that for tomorrow...only so I can give the story the proper writing it deserves.

Chinese Bathhouse

One of the most famous historical aspects of Beijing are its hutong neighborhoods. Hutongs are basically a series of narrow alleys and backstreets. Within these alleys are courtyard homes, where as many as eight or even ten families lived and shared quarters.

For hundreds of years, every Beijinger lived in one of these types of homes. However, beginning in the 1950's and especially when China began its reform and opening in the 1980's, hutongs began to disappear as they gave way to modern roads and apartment complexes. One of the reasons that hutongs have disappeared so quickly since the reform and opening is because they lacked many of the the modern amenities that an emerging Chinese middle-class demanded. The hutongs had no running water, so no private showers or bathrooms, no heat and sometimes in poorer areas not even electricity.

And, because of the lack of running water, the bathhouse tradition took hold in China.

Often times when foreigners hear the term bathhouse they have a negative connotation about it but in China and much of Asia (particularly in South Korea and Japan) it is apart of their cultural tradition. In China, and in Beijing, people would frequent bathhouse once or twice a week to relax, clean and socialize because they lacked the running water at home. Now however, these bathhouses have become more like western spas in many ways, offering all types of massages (both good and naughty) that you would find in the west. However, Chinese spas still maintain a sense of tradition in that they are an important place to socialize because they offer more then just spa. They have swimming pools, arcade rooms, TV lounge rooms, fitness centers etc. Many also offer all-you-can-eat buffets.

It is for these reasons that many families will go together on the weekends, businessmen will take their clients to close business deals and regular people will just go to relax and spend time with friends.

Now that you have a little background here is my story.

My Chinese friend and I decided to try a Beijing bathhouse, since he had never been and obviously neither had I. We didn't have much clue on where to go, so we found this place online that had good reviews. It also wasn't very expensive. The downside, as we found out, is that it is in the middle of nowhere! Out close to the edge of Beijing-city proper. The place however, was just as nice as the pictures indicated. It was in this huge building, next nothing but the highway.

Inside, was like any spa in the US. It had a sort-of underground cave design to it, which was cool. One of the biggest differences between Chinese bathhouses and Western spas, is that in China everything is communal and there is no privacy. So, once you enter the proper dressing room you have to get naked and you stay like this until you leave the bathing areas.

(Unlike the West, China and much of Asia, I think, are not prudish when it comes to being naked. It is considered very normal. Also, the interactions between same-sexes is also very different in China. On the street, its not uncommon for men to have their arms around their friends and women to hold hands while they walk. In the bathhouse it is no different. For example, two Chinese men, about 30 came in and before you can use the hot springs you have to shower. Both of the men used the same shower head and soaped and washed each others backs. In the West, we would look at that as being gay, but in China its completely normal.)

Anyway, back to my story, after getting undressed and showered, there was the choice of a hot spring, different massages (not the seedy kind), a sauna and a large Olympic-size swimming pool to choose from. After relaxing for an hour or so and trying out all the place had to offer, my friend and I were starving and decided to hit up the buffet. We gorged on all kinds of Chinese foods and by the time we were done, we were kind of tired, so we went to the lounge and watched some TV. Later, I wanted to play my friend in ping-pong in hope of being able to tell people back home that I beat a Chinese person in ping-pong but alas, my friend was pretty good and I am not. By the time we were finished playing ping-pong it was already 10 PM and we had been there for close to four hours and if we were going to catch the subway home we had to leave. Oh yeah, all of this cost 108 RMB or about $16! Not bad.

To sum up my experience, I would definitely say it was something I would not have done back in the States and I really enjoyed it. I think a place like that would be perfect for a cold, winter Friday when all you want to do is relax from your week and be warm and still have some fun. So I will try and find a closer place to my apartment and hopefully one a little cheaper.

This blog post was a lot longer then I thought it was going to be and it is getting late and I have an exam tomorrow (this week is also mid-terms), so I will leave out probably the most interesting part (at least for me) of this whole experience.

A little teaser, it involves some stalking, Chinese politics, a nationalistic Chinese woman, a pro-democracy Chinese man and me!

Shopping in Xidan

I am hearing complaints about the lack of posts. Some have called me lazy, others have been kinder but no less disappointed! Unfortunately for everyone out there and me, the last week or 10 days have been utterly boring and uneventful. I have fallen into a routine of morning class, lunch, tutoring session, nap, dinner, homework, relax time and bed. Same thing everyday. It think though, it has become a good thing because I now have a routine and feel like I live here in Beijing and am not just a tourist or passerby. However, the result has been thatI don't really have as much to talk about...if you think of your daily lives, how often do you have something really noteworthy to write on a blog?

Nonetheless, I this past weekend I went clothes shopping with a few of my Chinese friends because I really needed some more winter clothes. China is a shoppers paradise, whether its clothes, food whatever. The big choice in China that you have to make especially when buying clothes is where to go. Generally you have two choices, you can go to the clothing stores like Gap, H&M etc. or you can go to Chinese shops and markets. The biggest difference between the two is price but quality is also not as good at the Chinese shops. However, when you consider the price of the two, its easier to pick the lower quality one. Many of the Chinese shops have really great choices and have almost identical clothes to what you would find in Gap or H&M.

In Xidan, there are both malls filled with dingy, somewhat rundown Chinese shops and 21st Century mega-malls where you can buy Gap, H&M or even Versace, Prada and LV. Obviously, I chose the Chinese shops because if you know how to bargain...you can get great deals. Oh yeah, that is the other big thing about Chinese shops, you have to bargain, or you will get ripped off! I hate to bargain because Chinese people are very nasty when it comes to business and because there are two prices at these shops, the Chinese price and the Foreigner price. Lucky for me, my friend Annie is the GREATEST bargainer, perhaps in the world! Unfortunately for me, because they were Chinese shops they didn't have a lot of things in my size so I didn't buy much. However, I was able to buy a belt, two of those new, trendy circular scarves and a sporty winter jacket for 295 RMB! For those of you who want the the conversion that is about $44. Exactly! Pretty cheap. On top of it all, the coat I bought must be the warmest coat I have ever bought in my life!

One of the cool things that I especially like about Xidan is the architecture. Since it is right next to Tian'anmen Square it seems to have molded a little bit of Imperial, Sino-Sov and Modern architecture designs (Sorry I didnt get any of the Imperial-style architecture).

Also, Chang'An Avenue runs right by Xidan shopping plaza. Chang'An is probably the most famous road in Beijing, maybe even China. It is also the widest road in Beijing, with 10 lanes and two bike lanes!

Here are some pictures of Xidan.

And the last picture is of Chang'An Avenue during morning rush hour, courtesy of Wikipedia!

One last thing, since today is the Mid-term elections in America, I thought I would teach everyone how to say election in Chinese, since I learned it as well today, when I told my teacher I was going to leave class early to watch the returns! 选举 (pronounced xuǎnjǔ) means election. You can also say 大选 (dàxuǎn) or literally the "big election" since today is a General Election. A primary would be called 初选 (chū xuǎn) or literally meaning "early election." Not sure what you would call the mid-term elections maybe 半中腰选举 (bàn zhōngyāo xuǎnjǔ) or 中途选举 (zhōngtú xuǎnjǔ) which I think both mean halfway election but I don't know if that is how it would be said in Chinese. I will attempt to get a clarification on that.

Good luck Democrats!!!!

Good Winter

Yesterday, was I think, the first sign of winter. We had about two weeks of beautiful fall weather (my favorite season) but yesterday it got COLD! It was about 4 degrees Celsius or 40 degrees Fahrenheit, with a cold breeze and a slight rain and from here on out it is only expected to get colder. Winter weather in Beijing is similar to Ithaca, NY, where I went to college, so I am used to the cold weather. But I am sad that autumn was so short.

You may be wondering why I am devoting a whole post to the changing of the seasons but the thing in Beijing that is so different from Ithaca, is that there is no heat in almost all buildings until November 15th!!! That is the first day the government allows most apartment buildings to begin heating the buildings. It is a way to conserve energy, I think. In other words, my apartment is FREEZING. I only wear sweatpants, sweatshirts and two pairs of socks. I also have about five candles lighted to give off heat. I am seriously considering buying a small space heater, it is that bad. The only good news out of all this, is that in the morning I get ready so much quicker and get to school earlier because the sooner I get my clothes and coat on, the sooner I am warm.

Hope everyone is warm in America!

Underground Bike Bunkers

Today, my friends and I made a fascinating 

discovery. We had found out that we had been living 

and going to school on top of a massive underground 

bunker...filled with bikes!!! I don't have words to 

describe how bizarrely cool this place is, I will let 

the pictures I took show you.  Also, we found out 

that this isn't the only bunker, we have discovered at 

least 10 so far, each filled with bikes!

Previously, in an earlier post I mentioned how Chinese want the world to see how much China has changed and thus build huge, beautiful buildings yet have awful water quality etc. Well, I wanted to mention another funny thing about Chinese mentalality. Today, I was buying some books with friends and we had picked out three that we liked. Two of them were pretty normal size books, and so they cost 15 RMB but the third book was a long one, and so the cart owner thought since it was bigger it should cost more and wanted to charge 25 RMB!




On another occasion, I was trying to buy a pair of Converse sneakers with friend and my friend got hers for 35 RMB but the stall owner wanted to sell me mine for 75! When I asked why so much for mine when my friends were 35 RMB she said it was because they were bigger and used more material!!! What!?!? If only I spoke enough Chinese to explain how bulk purchasing of raw materials and an assembly line work!

The lesson to learn here is that Chinese people think the bigger something is, the more it should cost.

Last, but certainly not of little importance and something my Dad will be happy to hear, is that last night, I found cartons of ice cream for sale in my Apartment convience store, first time I have seen that in China! So obviously I had to buy some. Sadly, it cost 28 RMB or about 10 RMB more then I had spent on lunch and dinner combined. Oh well, there is nothing better than a movie and ice cream in bed!

My Short Take on Liu Xiaobo and Democracy in China

 I try and stay away from political topics as much as I can but this one is just way to important.

I have read much about China's political system, politics and society these last few years and every time I became more unsure of the future of Democracy in China, and for that matter if Democracy is even right for China. However, in these last few days, I have realized that for as much as the Communist Party has accomplished in the last 20 years, that without the very basic of human rights what does it matter. How can the Party profligate all of their successes while ignoring all that they have taken from people?

There were and are many excuses for why Democracy could never work in China, from to many people to the type of social structure Chinese society is, but I say if you never give people the chance then of course Democracy won't succeed. I have only been here for a month (3 months living in China total) but I can say that the Chinese people are dynamic and resourceful and even with 1.3 billion people they could make work.

McDonalds

Have you ever laid in bed late at night, hungry but to lazy to get up to cook something and didn't want to have to put clothes on and go out to your local fast food restaurant? Well have no fear, because in China, McDonalds has a 24 hour, English/Chinese language hotline you can call to place your order. What's even better is that you don't have to figure out which McDonalds is closest because the hotline does all that for you AND there is no delivery fee, tip or surcharge of any kind. Lastly, to top it all off they show up in a bright red McDonalds jumpsuit! Sorry for no picture but I didnt want to be mean to the guy and take his picture. Oh and after placing my order, the guy was here in less then 15 minutes!

Off to enjoy my late night snack! Loving China right now!

Air Quality

One of the things that I have been meaning to mention in a post has been the air quality here in Beijing. I remember running up to the Olympics that there was a lot of coverage on the poor quality of air in Beijing. When I was in here two years ago, I think there were only 10-15 blue sky days in two months and that that was mostly during the Olympics, when the Chinese government seeded the clouds to make it rain and clear the skies.

This time around, I think there has been a drastic improvement in air quality and overall "blue sky" days. Just in the last week, outside of the one rainy day, five or six of the days have had blue skies. From what I have read, the government has made a strong push to move heavy industry out of Beijing and into the suburbs or even into Central and Western China, in an attempt to provide a higher standard of living for Beijingers. Whether this is the reason that the air quality is better or not, I do know I am happy for the change.

Here is a picture of today, from my apartment window. It is a perfect autumn day, warm in the sun, accompanied by a soft, cool breeze.

School and Iphone 4

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days but there honestly hasn't been a lot to post about. I have gotten into a routine of school, tutoring, studying. There really hasn't been that much time to do anything else. However, yesterday was National Day, the founding of the PRC and so I have a week off from classes because of it. They call the week off a Golden Week. There are two per year in China, for National Day and Chinese New Year. The reason why they give the whole country a week off is because it is the only time anyone can return to their homes. Long weekends just aren't enough time when your traveling by train from Beijing to Chongqing or wherever. So for this Golden Week, Chinese people get one of their two opportunities to travel home each year and over 150 million will take advantage of it this week.

I was planning on traveling to Shanghai this week for both the expo and to see the city but I just decided I didn't want to deal with all the hassle of traveling with so many Chinese people. But I will be making a trip out to the Beijing suburbs, perhaps to Chengde. So, I will have plenty to talk about then.

In other news, the Iphone 4 has been released in China, and people have been going nuts. Scalpers have been going into the Apple store here in Beijing and buying 20 to 30 Iphones for around 5000 RMB. They then go and sell them right outside the store for 7000, 8000 or even 10,000 RMB. Sanlitun Village (where the flagship Apple Store is) has turned into a circus because of it and there are now always police officers hanging around trying to bust sellers. I think its more likely they are just hoping for a discount on an Iphone and then they wouldn't arrest the scalpers. Here is an article about the Iphone pandemonium.

Also, here is a picture from the deck of my favorite cafe, called The Bridge. Many expats and middle-class Chinese college students come here to study. The building across the street is Houlian and it is the main shopping mall in Wudaokou, which is a 15 minute walk from my apartment. Also, many students hangout here because Peking Univ, Tsinghua, BLCU, Renmin my school and at least 5 other schools are all withing walking distance of Wudaokou.

Mid-Autumn Fesitval

Today in China, is the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is one of China's most important holidays. My apartment complex has decorated a little for it.

Here is a link if you want to read more about the holiday. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

For the holiday, I get Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off. But I have to make those days up on Saturday and Sunday. Also, from October 1st-7th we have off for China's National Anniversary.

Last night, I went with my Chinese friends to our friends work party. We had Chinese hors d'oeuvres, tea, watched some operatic performances, and listened to Chinese Folk Music. It was really interesting to experience. I also got tour an apartment that is selling for 30 million RMB or about $4 million USD because my friend sells apartments like that to rich Chinese people.

For me though, what was really noticeable about last night was that, in this apartment complex of three buildings, there were a total of 5 lights on in the buildings. There are so many high-end buildings but few people to live in them and owners have no incentive to lower the price of apartments because in China, there is no property tax. In the US, if you can't find a tenant at the price you want, it is better to lower the cost of the apartment, so that you can at least cover the cost of the property tax. But in China that doesn't happen and since many people see buying apartments as the safest investments in China, anyone with money buys one, and will only sell it at the price they want. So property prices in Beijing have climbed 12% since last year and it is becoming hard for poorer people to even afford the worst apartments.

Today, I also had my first meeting with my tutor. She is amazing, and I learned so much from her in just one day. The plan is to meet three times a week, two hours at a time. Combining my time in the class room and with my tutor and not including my homework and other studying, I will be studying Chinese 22 hours a week! This much studying should give me conversational Chinese in just a few months and this time next year, I should be fluent!

想家 "Home Sick"

There is a poem by one of China's my famous poets, Li Bai. The poem is about being home sick, in Chinese they call it 想家 or "wanting home" and even though at this moment I am not home sick, I thought I would post the poem because the time when I home the most is usually at night. For me, this poem really captures those times.

So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed --
Could there have been a frost already?
Lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight.
Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home.

Cultural Differences

Here is a mini-series from CCTV about the differences between Chinese and Western cultures. It is about the only thing in three weeks that I have enjoyed watching on CCTV. It is five parts.

Part 1 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100907/100068.shtml
Part 2 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100908/100238.shtml
Part 3 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100909/100295.shtml
Part 4 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100910/100159.shtml
Part 5 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100915/100078.shtml

Snacks full of Calories

I just wanted to write a quick post about my snacking habits here in China.

In the past two plus weeks, I have spent much of my free time snacking on chips, ice cream, soda, and fried Chinese snacks. Many would think that I would be gaining so much weight, well not quite. Partially, do to some unfortunate stomach problems, I have estimated that I have lost close to 10 pounds and I think that is a conservative estimate. Even without the stomach problems, I think I would probably have lost around five pounds.

There are also a few ideas that I have come up with to write about through talking to other foreigners about their experiences, and one will include details about the food here and what my daily meals look like.

Lots of good posts coming, and more pictures of the surrounding community.

Ok, now back to my Pringles can and pineapple soy milk.

Classes

Today was my first day of classes. It was quite uneventful and included only the very basic level of Chinese. The class was three hours long with three small breaks in between. Basically, we went over numbers, greetings etc. Not to much homework either, but there is plenty of stuff to review and preview for tomorrows class.

Besides learning Chinese, the thing that I love the most about studying abroad is the different people you meet. In my class alone, there were three Kazaks, a few Russians and people from Japan, Botswana, Jamaica, Mongolia, and I think two of the girls were from some South East Asian countries.

Apparently I have a very good Chinese name, because my teacher and everyone else really seem to like. I think I mentioned this to my parents but not on here, my Chinese is 孔泽华, pronounced Kong Ze Hua. The father of the family I was staying with gave me the name, and I must say its better then my last name, which made me sound like a migrant worker. The reason for the name goes like this, Kong is the last name of Confucius in Chinese, Ze is from Mao Ze Dong and Hua is how they pronounce George Washington's last name. The reason those were picked were because, Confucius and Mao are very big in China, and I am very tall to Chinese people and since I am American they decided on the character of George Washington's name.

The other night I went to dinner with a friend in Zhongguancun, which is the Silicon Valley of China and only a short bus ride away from my apartment, we came across a Christian Church. Here is a picture of it.

Tonight was the first night that I could cook on my own, since I finally bought a hot plate. Ah, it was nice to make have pasta for dinner!


Tomorrow, I also begin my language exchange with the daughter of the family I stayed with. We are going to meet on Tuesday and Thursday, one day I help her with her English the other she helps with my Chinese. I have also been spending a lot of time with her and her friends. They are young, trendy, upper-middle class urban kids. Quite similar to who you would run across in NYC. One owns a smoothie, fruit and dessert shop (which is amazingly fresh and tasty), another sells multi-million dollar apartments. The others are all in school but appear to come from pretty well-off families. The are a ton of fun and love to have a good time and they always pay for me when we go out and I can't do anything to stop them! Its a Chinese custom to be generous to people you first meet.

Have to go finish reviewing for tomorrow and go buy some dish soap to clean my pan from cooking. Bye.

Apartment

First Day of Classes

Tomorrow is my first day of classes. My schedule looks like this, Monday through Friday 8 AM-11:30 AM, with classes in listening, speaking and reading and writing rotating throughout the week. It is essentially equivalent to a full class schedule of a US college student, and all in Chinese.

Also an update on my bathroom situation, it wasn't that I couldn't flush toilet paper but that there was a back-up in the line (not sure why they would tell me that I couldn't flush toilet paper but alas they are Chinese). Also I am not sure if this whole situation is because it is a new building and not all the kinks are worked out or what, but all is good on the flushing front!

I also bought a hot plate today, so now I can officially cook in my apartment. In case I didn't mention it before, my apartment doesn't have gas, so all cooking has to be done with an electric hot plate, and when I was signing the lease with the landlord I didn't realize I needed that, so I didn't have it put into my contract, thus I had to buy it on my own.

Have class early tomorrow, so I will put my photo account information tomorrow and everyone can get a closer look at my apartment. I will also have all the details about my first day of classes.

Chinese Way of Thinking

One of the things that continues to amaze me is that with so many space-age buildings, advanced subway systems, HUGE malls etc. etc etc. there are so many basic services that just aren't available to everyday people. 


Let me sum up the story. Since I have moved in, my toilet would get blocked from time to time no matter how little went in. Then on Sunday, "stuff" started to come out of the drain in the floor. I was told that it is because the pipes are getting backed up. That you can't put toilet paper in the toilets. This just confounds me because how in a new building can you not have 21st Century plumbing? I may need to ask a foreigner that is living in my building if they are having the same problem because it could just be what they are telling me and it may not be true.


Another example, is that you cannot drink tap water here, or in any Chinese city for that matter, perhaps maybe Hong Kongers can. You would think that of their $500 stimulus that they would have invested money into sewage and water filtration systems.


I asked a number of my Chinese friends about this, and they responded that this is how a Chinese person thinks. If your buildings, airports, train systems etc. look amazing then everything must be amazing.


Also, on a slightly different topic, I went grocery shopping today and when you go to pay you have to pay for each plastic bag you use. The cashier girl gives me 2. I have about $80 worth of grocery's! So when she starts stuffing and stuffing and stuffing all of my things (including my bread) into bags I just asked for 4 more bags. She looked at me in disbelief! Chinese people are so frugal that they will stuff everything into as little number of bags as possible even if the bags cost .1 yuan each!


I tried uploading pictures of my apartment but there are so many and it takes to much time, so I think I will open a flickr account or some other type of photo sharing account and then will share with everyone the link.

First Big Weekend

This weekend was the first weekend since I have been in Beijing that I could go out (also only my 2nd weekend) but I made it count. Friday night I went out with the daughter of the family I stayed with and met up with a bunch of her friends. It was a blast, even though she was the only one that could speak English.

We spent most of our time at a lounge/bar called Pure Girl and we played Chinese drinking games involving dice and cards. I also taught them how to play Kings, which they loved because it involved far more drinking then their games. 

An interesting thing about going out in China (maybe its done in the US but I have never done it), is that when you go with a group of people you dont buy your own drinks you buy a bottle of whichever alcohol that you like and share. And so we went through 2 bottles of Whiskey and the bartender bought us a few rounds of tequila sunrises. They also made me take a shot of absinthe because I was the guest (i think).

Later at about 2, we moved to KTV or karaoke bar and sang until 4 AM. They made me sing every Lady Gaga song there was because young Chinese people are OBSESSED with her!

I will post pictures on Monday because that is when I am getting my camera back from Mrs. Pi. She held onto it because I was having furniture delivered to my apartment and its not safe to leave valuables around. Also, the posts will be become more frequent and more than just about what I am doing but about observations etc because I will have internet in my apartment finally! Oh yeah its only $120 for a whole year! And i think its a 10 MB download!

On Monday, I pick classes and learn more about what school is going to be like so will have tons about that as well.

Stay tuned!

Sorry for all the bad grammar and spelling mistakes but I have so much to do that I dont have time to read over what I wrote.

First Update from China

Hey Everyone

Sorry it took so long for me to update my blog but, I have been both very busy and have had little internet access. I will try and sum up the past week as best I can because so much has happened. Going forward, I will provide more details and post much more frequently.

I landed in Beijing around 2 pm last Saturday and the family I was staying with Mr. and Mrs. Pi were there to pick me up. They drove me to their home, which took an hour because of traffic and because they live on the other side of Beijing from where the airport is. That night we went out for dinner to with their daughter and a friend of hers. The food was excellent it the company was great! We had many beers!

My first full day in the city, included going to get my sim card for my phone and we also went to a map store to get me a map of the city. My cell phone bill will cost about 88 RMB or $11 a month. It includes 450 minutes and 150 MB of data. Text msgs are .3 RMB and each MB I go over my data plan is .24 RMB!!! Check the exchange rate to see how cheap that is!

On Monday, Mrs Pi took me to register for my school and to start looking for an apartment. The registration took about 2 hours and was typical China in that it took forever to complete when it should have been done in 15 minutes. Very frustrating.

Looking for an apartment was even worse. Mrs. Pi knew what I was looking for because her daughter translated eveything but she doesn't speak much english. So it is very hard to communicate with her. It wasn't until Tuesday that I thought of using google translator for everything. Anyway, the first day of apartment hunting was miserable and the places we looked at were awful. They were typical Chinese apartments.

The second day was much better and we found an amazing apartment! It is brand new, in a gated community of sorts. It is so new that many rooms are still be completed and the outside is still being finished. Many of the things in my apartment weren't installed yet.

On Wednesday, we went back to the apartment began to finalize payments and to oversee the installation of the air conditioner, TV and the cleaning ladies who came to clean the apartment so I could move in that night. After they had completed, Mrs. Pi took me to Wal-Mart to buy many apartment neccessites.

Yesterday, I had my physical for school. The paperwork for my physical I brought from the US wasn't sufficient because it was all photocopies!?!? So I had to get 5 tests done. Again Chinese inefficiences, caused a process that maybe would have taken in an American doctor's office an hour took close to four in the Chinese hospital! But it was great day because I met so many foreign students from all over the world. I met people from Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Iran, Pakistan, South Korea, Japan, UK, Belgium just to name a few. It appears that for students entering the university this year year there are only four Americans. I also got to meet up with two Chinese friends that I met at the Olympics and we went out for dinner, got milkshakes and they came over to my apartment.

My one friend Lang Cheng asked me to give him an English name. He was thinking about Nove, which I told him was kind of dumb because its not a real name. I came up with the name Miles because he reminds me of a hipster-like kid and thought he needed a cooler, less-common but still used named. He really liked it!

That is all for now I think, I have to go back to my apartment to meet Mrs Pi who is going to help me with some of the last formalities of my apartment. I will post pictures of my apartment next time I am at Starbucks, since I don't have internet at my apartment until Monday.

Taking off....soon

I am currently taking a break from packing for a quick update.

Tomorrow I leave for New York City, Friday my flight is at noon and arrive in Beijing 1:50 PM China time and 1:50 AM EST.

I will be staying with a family that is friends with my professor for a few days, while I get settled and look for an apartment. I am really excited about the opportunity to live with a Chinese family and see how they live.

In terms of my school, all I really know for sure is that registration is August 30 and 31st. After that, I don't know anything else about it that isn't on wikipedia or found through a google search. Their website is awful and of no use unfortunately perhaps because the school isnt a popular one among westerners.  At least from what is available online.

Here are some links if you want to take a look. The last link is also a great forum for anything China-related and is where I have spend many hours!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Science_and_Technology_Beijing
http://en.ustb.edu.cn/
http://oice.ustb.edu.cn/en/internationalstudents.asp
http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/index

Thats all for now. The next post will be from China, whenever I get internet access!

Indescriptionable

Now less than two weeks away from my departure, I have come to realize that the planning, preparing and packing are the easiest parts of this move, especially when you consider I can only pack two suitcases. Consider, when I went off to college I probably filled up a whole car or two. Altogether, you quickly figure out whats important and what is not.

Really the most daunting part of this whole thing, as I have come to experience it seems to be of the idea of"the move". The sheer magnitude of this move only hit me when I realized that I have to pack ALL of my important possessions into two suitcases, had to buy a one-way plane ticket and that I am moving somewhere where I know three of 1.3 billion people! Its very mind-numbing at times, yet thoroughly exciting and exhilarating at others. I hope that everyone at some point in their lives gets to feel the way I am feeling.

And now that I have shared this with you at 4 AM EST, I can attempt to clear my mind and get a good night sleep!

Hello An Introduction

Hey everyone. This is my first blog entry about my move to China.  I intend to keep things as up-to-date as possible with many pictures (with my snazzy new camera) and posts about my activities. If I remember correctly, my last blog about traveling to China received much criticism from my parents about not posting enough so I will attempt to rectify things in that regard this go around.

A few of my many interests includes politics and sociology, and so I predict this blog will have a fair bit of both. But obviously I intend to include much about my personal life, experiences and schooling.

In case anyone has lived under a block or is reading this for the first time, I am moving to Beijing, China for two years on August 27th. The first few days I will be staying with a Chinese family (thanks to my amazing professor, for whose guidance I dont think any of this would be possible) and searching for an apartment to call my own. The purpose of this trip is for me to master the language of Chinese, or at the very least become fluent in it. I have been studying for a year or so but I am one of those people that needs the constant, day-to-day immersion to learn a language.

I will be studying at the University of Science and Technology Beijing, not my first choice, but I was awarded a Chinese Government Scholarship, so I cannot complain, and they picked this school for me. I am looking forward to beginning my studies and adventures in China.

Stay tuned for more to come...