Expect the Unexpected

Let me start by saying that my best moments in Beijing have been the ones I didn't really plan for.  If you had asked me Wednesday morning what I would be doing that night, I would have told you I planned on doing homework, and then going to bed.  I might even watch a movie, but only if I was feeling a little crazy.  Now if you had told me that I would be headed to a bar, down a dark alley, to listen to jazz, I would have laughed in your face.  The circumstances that lead to this experience are not particularly exciting.  Essentially, a friend of mine came into my room and said, "Do you want to go see a jazz concert tonight, it starts at 9:00."  On any other day, I probably would have passed, but for some reason, I was feeling adventurous.  You see, I have literally never gone out on Wednesday night.  Call me lame, but I like my sleep.  It's not that I didn't have work to do, either.  I had a five minute presentation the next day.  Not to mention the fact that I am not really a jazz fan.  Despite all these very good reasons why I should stay in my nice warm room, I instead chose to venture forth.  I am supremely happy that I did so.  The concert was in bar in a nearby neighborhood that is filled with restaurants and shops.  As previously mentioned, to get there you had to walk down an alley that I would hesitate to call inviting.  Before certain people start to write me angry emails, I was far from alone, being accompanied by five other people.  Not to mention my already intimidating physique.  That's a joke, people.  The band was sufficiently diverse, with a Chinese trumpet player, an American on the sax, and Australians on the drums and keyboard.  The crowd was a United Nations of foreigners.  We had a great time playing "Guess that Language," and sometimes we simply had no idea.  The music itself was quite enjoyable, though, honestly, it just seemed like an excuse for three band members to stand there while the other guy did a solo.  Then that guy would take his turn to sway back and forth while another guy soloed, and so on, and so on.  The whole experience was quite enjoyable.  Besides, who wouldn't want to be able to say they saw a jazz concert in a bar in Beijing, China?  Oh, and the best part is, my presentation the next day was flawless.

Forgot One

This one is definitely worth posting.

On a Happier Note...

I realize that my last post was quite depressing, so I am changing pace here by talking about my recent trip to the ancient city of Pingyao.  Spoiler alert, it was great.  Pingyao is a 2,700 years old walled city in China's Shanxi province, about 450 miles from Beijing.  To get there we took an overnight train from Beijing train station.

As shown above, the beds were stacked three high, with about a foot between them.  The "bed" that we slept in was comically small.  They were really more like benches.  Despite the cramped quarters, the twelve hour trip was pretty enjoyable.  I played a Chinese version of the B.S. card game, a game I played for years with my siblings.  We never played on a train in the Chinese country side, however, so that was a new experience.  My sleep was not aided by the sudden cold I developed, but that was forgotten pretty quickly.  I woke up around 7:00 to find myself looking at what one classmate likened to Tatooine (that's a Star Wars reference for those of you who don't know).  In short, it was pretty barren.  From the station we transferred to some golf carts and drove into the walled city of Pingyao.

My first look at the wall was pretty breathtaking.  We pretty much rounded a corner and the huge wall appeared out of the hazy morning air.  Going through the gates, we were soon introduced to the hotel we would be sleeping in that night.  Needless to say, it was less than traditional.  Pictured below is the courtyard outside of my room (mine is the first one on the right).  It was delightful to walk out of my room and find beautiful architecture, instead of a cold hallway.

 Speaking of non-traditional, pictured below is the bathroom of my hotel room.  As a captain of efficiency, I was delighted at the time saving potential of such a setup.

After a breakfast that didn't seem to consist of any kind of breakfast type foods, we were set lose on Pingyao.  It's hard to fit all the museums and historic sites we visited, so I'll simply provide a highlight reel of sorts.  

Our first stop was a museum that covered the history of bodyguards in eastern China.  My limited Chinese, and the poor quality of the translations, meant that I wasn't able to get much actual history.  Thankfully, entertainment was provided by the plethora of terrifying, rusty weapons you could simply walk up and start swinging.  I was flabbergasted at the apparent disregard for the potential lawsuits that could result from this ease of access.

Who thought this was a good idea?

Our next stop was one of the oldest banks in China.  We were greeted by beautiful architecture and the vase featured below.  Not only is it beautiful, it's 400 years old.

The bank was also the residence of the owner, and featured a room devoted to prayer to the Buddha.  this would turn out to be a common occurrence in the residences we would visit.

Perhaps my favorite place we visited was the former headquarters of the Pingyao county government, a beautiful building that consisted of several large, interconnected courtyards. 

 I did some solo exploration and stumbled on a quiet side area, pictured below.  I'm not sure what it was, but I was struck by the calmness of the place, something that Beijing is lacking in the extreme.  

I was so relaxed, that I just laid down in the middle of the place and took this picture.  My friends wandered off and watched some performance, but I couldn't be happier that I stayed.  No doubt the other visitors thought I was just another strange foreigner.  I nearly fell asleep too, but my friends returned before I could accomplish that.

We returned to the hotel for a paper cutting activity.  I skipped that, and used my time to read in a courtyard in the hotel.  It was wonderful, and besides, I couldn't care less about paper cutting.  I didn't get the artsy gene.  I also took a moment to walk around and check out the small shops around the hotel.  I stopped to buy a small lighter with a Ferrari logo on it, and after haggling with the guy for a bit he asked me whether I was cold or not.  You see, I was wearing shorts, because it was 65 degrees.  When I replied that I was very comfortable, he pulled up the cuff of his pants to reveal that he was also wearing a pair of cold weather tights.  To each his own.  With art class over, we spent the rest of the afternoon doing even more traveling, including the rental of a tandem bicycle. Unfortunately, I failed to get any pictures, as I was having too much fun, but I will ask around.  I'm sure someone has one.  Part of that afternoon adventure was finally getting on top of the wall that had captured my imagination that morning.  

 It was as beautiful as I thought it would be.  You could see the entire city, and you have a sudden desire to walk the entire way around, just to say you did.  Sadly, my friends were not keen on that idea, so we headed back to the bikes.

 After riding around for while, (which is easier said than done when you're on a tandem bike...on narrow streets...filled with people...and stores) we ended up at the Daoist Temple.

The architecture was beautiful, as you can see in all the pictures.  I even took the time to wash my hands in the fountain of my Zodiac animal, the ram.

I especially loved the secondary courtyard, seen above.  It was very airy, with a beautiful pool in the middle.

This post is getting pretty long, so I will save my other adventures from this weekend for a future post.  As a closing note, I would like to introduce the concept of "Chinglish."  Before you get all offended, this is just the term used here in China for the sometimes poor, and often hilarious, translations that are used in many places in China.  What follows are my "Chinglish" highlights from this trip.

Is this a common occurrence?

Oh...so close 

I'm all about safety when it comes to my maces.

And the winner is...

The Beijing Zoo: A Tour of Animal Depression

As I mentioned in my prior post, I went to the zoo today.  Nothing could have prepared me for the horror that I would face.  To say that the Beijing Zoo was a disappointment would a be a huge understatement.  A disappointing zoo is one with fewer animals than you expect, or maybe a lot of the attractions are closed.  That's not the Beijing Zoo.  The Beijing Zoo is, without a doubt, the single ugliest, dirtiest, most poorly managed zoo I have ever seen.  Everything appeared to have been constructed in the 1970s, and then completely forgotten.  I am not a veterinarian, I am not a zoo aficionado, but I am a human being, and I know what cruelty is.  Nobody would accuse me of being sentimental, I'm the hard-hearted one in my family, but the conditions imposed on the animals in this zoo were profoundly disturbing.  From the lack of mental stimulation, to the squalid conditions of the enclosures, it was a disgrace.  This zoo should be shut down, and the animals given to people that can actually care for them.  I never once saw an animal caretaker in my time there, nor did I see anyone correct the guests on their numerous transgressions.  The cages were so poorly designed as to almost encourage people to throw food, trash, even stones into the enclosures and even at the animals themselves.  They were even taking flash pictures of the mammals in the NOCTURNAL exhibit.  Nocturnal means they sleep during the day!  This is not only the fault of the guests themselves, but also the management of the zoo, who seemingly could not be bothered to protect the animals with which they are entrusted.  Were such lax oversight and poor design applied to American or European zoos, people would no doubt do the same thing.  I was there for an hour and a half, but it felt like four, so physically and emotionally draining it was.  At some point, I consciously acknowledged that I was not having fun, and was only remaining in the zoo so I could document what I saw, and encourage others to avoid it at all cost.  If you don't believe me, please look at the pictures below.

This adorable little guy is a Rhesus Macaque.  He is surrounded by the kind of vegetables and  other food that finds it s way into his cage thanks to the unsupervised guests.

Pretty sad to think he'll grow up and live in the same conditions.

An adorable Fennec Fox.  The patrons kept disturbing his sleep by banging on the glass and whistling at him.

This White-tailed Eagle was stuck in a cage that wouldn't fit a good sized parrot.

These beautiful Maned Wolves are like nothing I've ever seen.  They look like a fox perched on a deer's legs.  There enclosure is what I came to expect. dirt, dirt, and maybe some hills made of dirt.

This masked palm civet was lounging around.  His environment was actually pretty good, minus the people banging on his glass.

It's spelled Hedgehog, guys.

A beautiful polluted day at the lake

This is what passes for a bear enclosure...

Notice my perfect vantage point to throw trash, food, or whatever I want onto this bear's head.   Who designed this place, and had they ever been to a zoo before?!?!?

This was an awful Polar Bear viewing area.  It was tiny, crowded, and it looked terrible.  The bears had shallow water, so swimming was not much of an option, and you couldn't see them underwater.  Not to mention that slippery slanted surface.  It's great if you want to laugh at a bear as it slides uncontrollably into the water, but does that sound fun for the bear?

This gorgeous Black Panther had nothing to do other than pace in his tiny cage.  It was painful to watch.

It's difficult to see, but this is the elephant's area.  You can see it on the left, taking up roughly a third of the cage.  It is one of the smartest creatures on Earth, but it has no mental stimulation, not even a ball.  It's just a bare metal cage with a dirt floor.  This was sickening.

Another elephant, this time in a larger cage, but still nothing to do but pace.

People, like this woman, would literally carry bags of vegetables to throw to the animals.  This is in spite of the sign featured below, which is less than five feet from her...

People suck...

The rhinoceros enclosure was as bad, if not worse than the elephants, if only because he was open to the loud noises coming from the crowd as they echoed off his bare concrete home.

Why is this baboon surrounded by trash, and eating what appears to be a condiment packet?!?!?!?!

Why?!?!?!

The chimps and gorillas were perhaps the saddest.  They had nothing but a faded  painting of vegetation to look at, and the near constant banging on the glass by children and adults alike.

The otter's enclosure.  You might have noticed that something is missing.  Oh, yeah, IT'S WATER!  THE OTTERS HAVE NO WATER!

Oh, look, a dirty alley with rubble at the end of it.  How scenic...

In a similar vein, where is the water in this alligator's enclosure?!  There was barely enough to keep the handful of small fish in there alive!

I almost left without seeing the pandas, so convinced was I that it would just be another upsetting experience.  I wasn't far off the mark.  The three pandas that they have are treated to much better living conditions than the other animals, and given a relatively large area in which to roam.  

Despite the better conditions, it certainly didn't seem up to the standards of a national symbol.  It would be like keeping a bald eagle in a dirty cage.

I have to acknowledge that I did not visit at the the best time of the year, or even in the best weather.  It was definitely hazier than normal.  Even so, I can't imagine that sunlight would make anything less rusty, or make the cages bigger, or keep the idiots from banging on the glass and pouring coke into the bear's mouth (that's not a joke...).  Just trust me, if you ever come here, just don't go to the zoo.  Beijing has a great deal to offer, but this isn't part of that.  I was struck as I walked home by the amazing dichotomy of this city.  I was in a foul mood, already mentally writing and editing the diatribe you just read, when I came upon an old man playing a traditional Chinese string instrument in one of the tunnels used to cross under the street.  I threw some money into his hat, and then I leaned against the wall for a bit, just appreciating the music.  That seems to encapsulate my relationship with this city: sometimes I get the zoo, sometimes I get the music.  It's the not knowing which it will be that makes this city so interesting.

I'm Back!

It's been a while since I posted, I'm sure everybody is delighted that they can once again hang on my every word.  OK, maybe not so much.  Regardless, it's nice to be writing again.  I have been really busy this week.  I'll take a moment to complain here.  We normally have one five minute presentation a week.  For some reason the professors have decided that this week we needed to have two.  On the bright side, my second one was based on an interview with a Chinese graduate student I interviewed yesterday afternoon.  We traveled together to the campus of a local university, where we were instructed to randomly select a student that was walking around.  Imagine asking someone to take a survey, and then having to ask them to help you read the survey, Yeah, it was awkward.  The girl was incredibly nice, however, and we managed to muddle our way through my questions.  Ironically, she was from Sichuan, the province I'm planning on visiting this spring break, and the other reason I've been a bit stressed.  Planning a trip like this is always tiring, but the added pressure of making the most of my one week off is only heightening that.  The last thing I want is to look back and say I could have used my time better.  I really need to acknowledge the fact that it's quite ridiculous to complain about planning a trip to a place that looks like this:

Yeah....Life is good.

Oh, and it's known for having a few of these:

Maybe not I won't get this close...they're still bears, you know?.

So I'm finding it hard to get to sad about having to deal with a travel agency or two.  Not to mention a Chinese friend of mine will be going with us, so we won't be lost the whole time.  Speaking of pandas, I will hopefully be headed to the Beijing Zoo this weekend, so I'll have pictures a plenty.  At the same time, I still need to post my pictures of the acrobatics show I saw last Friday.  I'll just give you a teaser: it featured eight motorcycles, lots of spinning plates, and 8 women...on one bike.

Random Thoughts From China

What follows is a collection of random topics that I have been dwelling on for some time now.  I warn you that some are a bit more niche than others.

• Chinese is very hard.  This isn't a complaint, merely an observation from experience.  The topic of why this is so is one that myself and my classmates here at CET have talked about quite a bit since arriving.  Let's start with the fact that Chinese is a tonal language.  This is elementary to why Chinese is so difficult for Westerners to process.  There are four tones in Chinese (five actually, if you count the fact that a word can actually have no tone).  This means that changing the tone of a word changes it's meaning entirely.  For example, the word for glasses is yanjing, but the word for eyes is also yanjing.  The difference is that one uses the first tone, and one uses the fourth tone.  If you went to the doctor and told him your yanjing hurts, and use the fourth tone instead of the first tone, you would be telling him that your glasses were in pain.  This would cause him to stare at you with some disbelief and confusion.  I get this look very often.  Another important reason is that I am simply not a native speaker.  It is my understanding, derived from speaking with a psychology graduate school student friend of mine and from personal experience, that there is a psychological phenomena that result from this.  Basically, when you and I speak English, my native tongue, my mind is constantly predicting the word that will follow the one you just spoke.  That's why we can finish each other's sentences.  It's like counting cards, I now that the list of words you could use is getting smaller and smaller.  With Chinese, I have no such sense.  Because I'm so focused on translating the word you just said, my mind gives little thought to the words you're going to say next.  This is, as you can imagine, quite frustrating, as it means that I am often about two steps behind someone speaking Chinese.  That's why I have to do a lot of smiling and nodding in response to their stares of confusion and disbelief.  
• The Chinese system is also quite difficult, for the simple reason that it is not phonetic in any way.  Imagine you see a new word in English, what do you do first?  You try to sound it out of course, while looking for root words that would help you figure out what it means.  For example, disestablishmentarianism, a very long word to be sure, but if you say it phonetically, and you break it down into its root compenents (dis-establish-mentarian-ism) you can figure out that it has to do with a certain way of thinking related to working against a certain establishment or way of life.  Now try that with this Chinese character: 你好。  Those of you with prior experience will realize that this is one of the most basic and important Chinese phrases, "ni hao," or as we now it, "hello."  The reason you had no idea that was the case is that you have almost no way of puzzling out how to say that character.  Your only hope is that it is somehow pictographic, meaning it literally looks like what it want to be.  This is not very common, and nearly useless once you get past Chinese 101.  This is why other Asian speakers, specifically, those who grew up writing and speaking Japanese, have such an advantage over Westerners.  First of all, I have to establish that Japanese is not a tonal language, so they have little advantage when it comes to speaking Chinese.  Japanese and Chinese writing, however, do share many basic characters, known as Kanji, that the Japanese have borrowed from the Chinese writing system.  This fact gives those educated in Japanese a slight advantage in the field of writing.  I summary, when learning to write Chinese, you have to do more than just memorize the definition and pronunciation of a word, you also have to memorize how to write, as you can't puzzle it out using phonetics.
• Enough serious academic discussions, lets's talk about naked old men.  The naked old men at my gym, to be specific.  Now, I have never been a gym going person, as I have always gotten my exercise on the road or track through running.  As such, I have little experience with gym changing rooms.  Now, everybody knows the cliche about old men and changing rooms, how they will sit there, naked with one leg up on the bench, and try to have a conversation with you. While this has yet to happen to me here in China (nor anywhere for that matter), I have definitely seen more than my fair share of old man butt during my time at the gym (for those of you who are interested, a fair share of old man butt is exactly one per lifetime).  This is definitely a cultural thing, but it is an interesting paradox, as Chinese culture is remarkably mute when it comes to topics like nudity, sex, and even personal feelings.  This doesn't seem to stop the old men at the gym, however, as they will disrobe with no warning, leaving me staring at the floor and fumbling to put my keys in my pockets as I make break for the door.

EJR

Ping Ponging and Bamboo Sticks

I suppose it was inevitable, being in China, that I play ping pong.  All stereotypes aside, it does seem like ping pong is pretty popular here.  There is a ping pong room at the gym I go to, and the university as it's own table as well.  As such, I have gone to play twice with some of the Chinese roommates.  He is vastly superior to me in skill, as you might imagine.  It was the most recent time, however, when I was faced with what might be China's greatest pastime, smoking.  Nearly every adult male seems to smoke here (I give it another week before I see a baby lighting up).  If you go to a restaurant, especially a smaller one, don't bother asking for a non-smoking section.  They don't seem to exist.  In this case, the small ping pong room looked like a scene from an episode of Mad Men, except instead of dapper men in suits smoking, you had old Chinese men in jumpsuits.  That was the scene, two old men playing ping pong rather intensely, while a third sat and chain smoked.  Having just taken a shower, I immediately wanted to leave, but instead had to sit and watch the two men play for about 15 minutes. The air pretty much smelled like cancer.  Call it my privileged upbringing, but I don't abide smoking very much, a position I quickly abandoned as useless once I got here.  In the end, the men were very nice, but I still had to take another shower.

As I mentioned in a prior post, I have started taking a Wushu martial arts class once a week.  So far, it's proven to be pretty great, though I can barely type this post, which I'll explain soon.  Last week we simply practiced punching and a side kick, nothing earth shattering.  That was until he pulled out the sticks.  I'm not sure at what point someone decided I was to be trusted with swinging a five and a half foot piece of bamboo, but I'm sure glad they did.  We basically just did a series of choreographed strikes with a partner, but it was quite entertaining.  This was despite the fact that I seemed almost incapable at doing it in the beginning.  Today, however, we upped the ante by adding boxing gloves and punching pads.  This proved to be good fun, even if I did get matched up with a guy who had about 60 pounds and 5 inches on me.  It was like punching at a bear standing on its hind legs, but then you have to let it swing at you.  In addition, the guys shoulder was hurt, so he kept the pad tucked in close to his body, making it quite a bit less giving, and therefore more painful.  My hands and wrists are fine now, but holding up those boxing gloves definitely tired them out.  This was followed by adding more moves to our stick swinging, which proved more successful with my new partner.  The whole exercise was made more interesting by the introduction of about 25 French girls who are studying at the school right now, all of whom seemed to decide in unison to come to the basketball court at just that time.  As a taken man, I didn't really care, but adding a group of staring girls to any activity always seems to up the stakes a bit.  This seemed true for my partner at least, as he always took a moment between punches to look at the group.  Too bad for him, he doesn't speak French.  

EJR

Warmth

Don't look now folks, but it actually breached 40 degrees here in Beijing today.  This was quite a pleasant surprise for me, as I've grown quite tired of waking up and freezing my cheeks off walking to the bathroom.  This was helped by the fact that I am a college age male, so I didn't walk outside until about 1:30 (I woke up at about 9:30, for the record).  I actually opened my window because it was so nice.  If you think I'm going on and on about this, you're right, I am.  The air was relatively good as well.  It was like Christmas.

In addition to the good weather, I've also been compiling some observations from my experience so far, mostly from walking to and from the gym.

• Traffic here is ridiculous.  This doesn't just mean that there's a lot of cars, it means that some people are out of their minds.  Beeping, for example, seem to be compulsory.  No matter the situation, the horn will be pressed.  Two people talking in the street?  Beep.  A car stops to let someone out?  Beep.  Traffic stopped for more than 10 seconds?  Beep.  Beep.  Beep.  This results in several things, most importantly that nobody seems to care about beeping.  You'd think it was birds singing or something.  The concept of pedestrians having the right of way is also unknown in Beijing.  Those the light that indicates its OK to walk across the street is really more of a "hey, try walking, but that taxi driver over there doesn't really care what I say" light.
• It was inevitable, I know, but it's still slightly disconcerting for people to stare at you like you're the Michelin Man.  This is especially true of older people.  The other day, I left the gym with just a shirt on, because I was a little hot from running.  This caused about four older people to stare very intensely at me.  You can imagine they were even more surprised when I said hello in Chinese.
• Spit, oh how I hate it.  Unfortunately, I appear to be in the spitting capital of the world.  Walking through the street is like a game of "dodge the loogie."  At some point you have to stop caring and just accept that you're going to step in some.  This is a combination of cultural and environmental factors.  Spitting just isn't considered rude here.  More importantly, the air pollution cannot be helping people's respiratory and sinus health.  I have had a mild cough since I got here, and I find myself spitting on occasion.  I don't spit in the middle of the sidewalk, however.

Food Pics Aplenty

We had our first language practicum yesterday, an exercise in which we go on location to practice certain vocabulary and grammar.  In this case, we went to a restaurant together, all 18 of us.  I feel like the waiter ran out of patience about 3 minutes into the whole thing.  I can't really blame her, I would be annoyed if a bunch of kids were trying to instruct me in garbled Chinese.  Thankfully, we all had a great time, as shown in the photos below.

Baozi, a common dish, but this one was served fried and with a very sweet dipping sauce, so it tasted like  donuts

Very good tofu.  Interesting note, tofu and meat are often found in the same dish here, unlike the US, where tofu and meat almost never exist together.

Fried noodles with herbs and peppers, very delicious.

The same octopus dish from the other night, still great.

Well, this was a pork dish, clearly I didn't get my camera out before we finished it off.

A chicken dish, it tasted like chicken, but amazing.

This is definitely not something you'd see in the US, eggs and tomato in a sweet sauce.  Awesome.

Class can't be taught.

So the air hasn't been particularly good as of late.  It got up to 418 the other morning, which is quite bad.  As such, they have given us all some face masks to wear, seen below.

If you like not very closely you'll be able to see that it's really just a piece of cloth that has no real purifying properties.  Worry not, however, as I plan on buying a real, effective mask in the coming days.  Until then, I'll stay inside.