Saturday 22 November 2008

My way to work

So, after Mark stole my idea and wrote about his way to work, I feel that it is time you find out about my every day adventures:

Depending on the workload I leave for work between 7.30 and 8.30. Coming out of our sheltered little compound you can see all the schoolchildren being put on the bus by their parents that live in Season's Park too. The school is next to my work, so about 20 minutes walk, but clearly too far for parents to take their kids there. Then again most of them are busy people, so probably understandable.

Coming out of our gate, people are still wearing pyjamas in the street (a Beijing fashion) and are doing their morning exercises of walking backwards, attempting a jog or stretching (any age between 15 and 90). The biggest challenge is to cross the main road (Donghzhimen), because even during green pedstrian lights it's ok to turn (if you have any kind of wheely item with you), so you have to be aware of taxis, bikes and diplomtic cars, which just make up their own rules for traffic. At least it wakes me up!

Once having braved the road, the street is treelined (Ginko) and now all the different leaves are red and yellow and glow in the sun. The first building I pass is Pizza Hut, but the next one hosts the embassies of Mauritius, Lesotho and the WHO. Crossing a little street I see the Armenian embassy on the left and the Australian one on the right (I regularly nearly walk into the ambassadors car, I have just adopted too much of a Beijing attitude to cars and his driver seems to like nealry hitting people). Then, turning left, one of the diplomatic compounds is currently being painted (not sue what colour yet, last week it was blue and then grey). One more big street to cross, but here no one can turn, so it almost feels boring. Usually on the other side of the road, one of the diplomtic cars sneaks past just in front of me and Friday two girls in saris on bikes nearly got run over by a taxi, so not too boring.

The embassy of Guinea has one of the most alert guards and every morning he walks across from his little house to guard the gate when I walk past, I clearly look like I would do Guinea harm if I could (obviously I wouldn't). On the other side of the road Nepal and Saudi Arabia share the same block. Many plants and flowers greet you in front of the Kenyan embassy and then passing the school buses I cross the road to our building. The embassy of Usbekistan is worth mentioning for the fact that they have a random suitcase lying on the street in front of their gate which has an antenna and a little red light. Still trying to find out what this is for, but the security guards take good care of it.

Last Friday it struck me how amazig just walking around is. I finished work early at 5 and walked down towards the Chinese supermarket to pick up some noodles and stuff. The whole city got ready to begin the weekend and workers came out of the big building site near by to get their meal from their employer (it was delivered in a little white van). Then I turned around the corner and the smell of fresh popcorn immediately made me appreciate this town 10 times more. Fresh popcorn is available from lots of little stores, now that the corn has been harvested. Then just outside the supermarket the smell of sweet pineapple struck me. They even remove the skin for you if you want and form beautiful little shapes. I had to get one and also the tiniest clementines I've ever seen. They're about the size of a table tennis ball and really sweet.

Walking home with my purchases I could feel the icy air and the typically cold wind that has now taken over. Amazingly, you can even see the stars most nights.

Life really isn't a chore here, it has to be said.

Thursday 20 November 2008

The Long Journey Home

This is another post about my commute.
It takes a substantial part of everyday, during which I normally just relax and read, or listen to music, it gives me a chance to pay attention to what is going on around me in the city.
And then report the amusing things back to you.

I could take a taxi and miss the bus ride, this would save me from the squash, but cost €4 every day. Seems better to live with the inconvenience, pay €0.08 and travel along with everyone else. Hell it makes me feel more egalitarian, even if we enjoy a life in the city which is far beyond the reaches of most people.
Although, a student today did tell me the 'Typical' Beijing family has an investment portfolio, I think she may have been drawing a little heavily on personal experience. Most of my students are from well off families I think.

Anyway, tonight I missed the 628 to Datong Dong Lu deliberately, it was just too full. I should have known better, five minutes later the Yintong 110 turned up, but was at least as full and half the size. I took that bus to Huixinxiejie Beikou. On the bus there are TVs, this is pretty common in Beijing and I don't want to seem like a yokel, but it seems pretty technologically advanced to me. So often they show a home improvement programme, where a doe-eyed presenter knocks up some 'useful' implements for around the home. Last time I saw it, she was making a handy kitchen towel dispenser from a used oil bottle. You get the idea. Today however was a little different and illustrated two things I have noticed about life in China and the Chinese people in particular.

1. Green Tea can do anything. You may have seen that Chinese people often carry around little bottles with tea leaves in wherever they go. In many places there are water heaters, so you can fill up your bottle and drink tea til your thirst is slaked and beyond.
2. Hygeine is a big deal. No shoes in the house, face masks to block out pollution, etc. You might be fooled however if you saw the university toilets, but never mind.

So on the show this evening, the lady was showing how telephone handsets (the landline kind) can become infected with bacteria from people spitting when they talk into them. Ignore the obvious advice at this point and stay with me.
The obvious responseis to wrap some green tea in a piece of kitchen towel (dispensed with ease of course) and then place that between the mouthpiece and the rest of the phone. The Tea then acts as some kind of antibacterial agent while your not using it.
A smug chap popped up to suggest this wouldn't work with wall-mounted phones, but an elastic band soon dealt with that little problem. Not quite sure what you do when you want to talk into it though.

So out of the melee and onto the subway, line five to Yonghegong Lama Temple.
On the subway were a number of migrant workers, you can often spot them as they carry huge rolls of bedding around with them, presumably sleping near wherever there is work. You get the distinct feeling the city and indeed country would not function without their hardwork. This general feeling of respect evaporated somewhat when one of them whipped out his mobile and played what sounded like Chinese Celine Dion, accompanied by diso lights which actually shone out from the sides of his phone. Charver.

Then changing at Yonghegong for Line 2 and the single stop to Dongzhimen. Line 2 is one of the oldest and most established subway lines. Built in the seventies, it is one of the older modern things in the city. Beijing is curious in that sense, things are either ancient or modern, with little middle ground. Not likely to change in the near future either since the modern buildings often aren't built to last.

Anyway, there are also TVs on the subway lines and on line two there are three basic programmes. Educational shorts displaying the proposed behaviour of subway passengers, these are largely ignored and I frequently have to utilise my superior body weight to suggest passengers should stand aside and let people off before attempting to board.

The second choice is essentially meat adverts, evenly split between KFC, which in China thinks nothing of mainly advertising their beef wraps, I guess the C doesn't mean so much here. and a company you may remeber called Little Sheep. Who seem to make both backpacks as we have already seen, and lamb cutlets that send women weak at the knees. A curious business model if you ask me.

The final programme is a very short soap opera. It seems to be charting the 'will they-won't they' relationship of two young attractive Beijing urbanites. If you've seen the French movie L'Appartement, you'll know the plot.

So there it is another curious little insight into my daily travels and travails.

Wednesday 19 November 2008

December, DEcember, as in 2008, next month December?

Tonight I went to buy some train tickets.
We live about fifteen minutes walk from the nearest place you can buy train tickets, which in Beijing is saying something.
Actually our apartment is pretty much convenient for everything, except my work.

View Larger Map

Anyway, I went to the train ticket shop, or whatever it's called.
And armed with my increasing Chinese (and a very useful phrasebook) I asked for two tickets, using the correct measure word and everything.

Deciding I was one of the reasonable number of Laowais who can speak good Mandarin, the women at the window trotted of at linguistic pace.
Did I want train tickets she asked? Correct I responded.
When she asked?
So armed with the knowledge, I said, twelfth month, fifth day.
Twelfth Month, she repeated.
Yes I said, correct.
Twelfth
? She tried again.
Yes I responded. Again.
Now she had begun to speak really slowly as she clearly had started to doubt my mental faculties.

Actually, so had I, I was starting to doubt it was approaching the third week of November. I was wondering if it was only October and I'd just got ahead of myself, or whether the Chinese railways ran on some other special calendar which only matched the Gregorian one during special occasions, like Eid and Yom Kippur.

But no, it transpired I was being ridiculous, you can't possibly buy train tickets this far in advance. I'd have to go back on the 25th. I left quite amiably, enrichened with some new knowledge. However, I did feel I'd have to share this experience with you all back home. It's not the fact that you have to wait to buy the tickets, the woman wasn't unpleasant or crazy. The noteworthy thing was simply that this woman could not comprehend the possibility that other places could exist where train tickets might be available three weeks in advance.

I'm definitely lucky to have visited lots of places and lived in a couple of different ones, but honestly... use your imagination woman, I didn't ask to rent a pair or unicorn wings to fly to Suzhou.

Thursday 13 November 2008

Another real-life insight

And an excuse for me to rabbit on in front of camera which I'm quite enjoying.
Who'd have thought I enjoyed the limelight eh?

This is just for interest, it really isn't that unpleasant.
And as Caroline and I were discussing last night, if this is the price for hot summers and blue skies into November then bring on the dust!

Monday 10 November 2008

First the BBC, next the China Daily.

OK a confession, the BBC story was written by me, at no invitation from the venerable Beeb.
However, a very similar story was actually run by the China Daily and this is in fact, the genuine article.

Still to come, the story of a weekend: posted soon.

No Planes, but trains and automobiles. (Long Post Warning)

Well we are back safe and well from the border town of Dandong, but not without incident. More of that later.
Five of us met at 21:00 at Dongzhimen subway station on Friday evening. Me and Caroline, Carol, Patrick and Sunnia all fellow lecturers from my university.

Fortunately for me and Caroline they all also speak Mandarin at levels we can only hope for in the future. We took a night train from Beijing Station to Shenyang North Station, arriving around 07:30 where we changed to a train to Dandong.

On the train journey to Dandong from Shenyang we had seat tickets as it was only a four hour journey and during the day. When you have seat tickets, at least on this train, that simply means four people sit together on the bottom of three bunks. We were packed in with three Chinese women who I’d guess were in their thirties or forties. Over the course of the journey Patrick and Sunnia were talking with the three women and the train guard, another woman about the same age. It was a good example of much you can interact with people when you can speak the same language. Everyone was very interested in us, where we were from, what we are doing in China and how much money we are paid. It was simple curiosity rather than any kind of jealousy or resentment, although we obviously weren’t comfortable talking about money, especially if we seemed extremely well paid compared to people living outside Beijing.

We arrived in Dandong at around 13:00 and were all pretty tired, we had spent the evening on the train snacking, drinking and generally carousing to the chagrin of our fellow passengers who only wanted a normal night sleep - it was a bit too exciting for us though. As soon as we arrived in Dandong we could see the strong Korean influence, not least in the prevalence of the Korean characters on nearly every shop and street sign. These are distinguishable from Chinese characters as they use a lot of circles which are not present in Chinese script. We took a right outside the station, manfully avoiding the various hawkers and 10%ers trying to set us up with a hotel room. With the use of the trusty Lonely Planet and a few roadside maps we wandered up Connecting Road No.6 to find the Yalu river and the border with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.


From the river bank, after some obligatory photographs including an incredibly blue sky, we set off to check out one of the guidebook recommended hotels. A quick look at the available rooms in the Oriental Cherry and we were happy to check in for around €23 for a very nice double room with a view of North Korea. After the obligatory difficulties with Caroline’s Laissez-Passer (EU diplomatic passport) we left the hotel to find some lunch. As is often the way when confronted with new and cheap food we went a little crazy and ordered quite a lot. Seafood was popular since it was a coastal town and the octopus and scallops were fresh and good.

Next we wandered the streets getting a bit of a feel for the town. I say town as it only had the piffling population of 700 000. Strangely that seems small now after spending time in Beijing. As well as the writing, the Korean influence in the town was quite clear in the shops and we spent an enjoyable 20 minutes pottering about in a mini-mart gathering up exotic alcoholic drinks and snacks. We then managed to wander into a surprising sight: Tesco. I was quite keen on a look inside for comparison purposes, but we never quite made it. After a brief discussion with an American woman living in Dandong, we decided that a visit to the Eastern-most point of the Great Wall was probably best left for the following morning. Instead we meandered back towards the harbour to take the short boat journey near to the banks of North Korea. This may sound like strange tourist activity, but the mystery that the country is shrouded in makes it quite a compelling thing to do and an enjoyable forty minutes was spent peering at the unlit banks spotting exotic activities like group exercise and bike-riding, the kind of activities you just don’t see in China…

The Korean side of the river really did look quite forlorn with a sad-looking collection of cranes and rusting barges. The never-working Ferris wheel only added to the atmosphere. As the sun went down and the neon began to light up the Chinese skyscrapers, the different trajectories of two ‘socialist’ countries was described in sharp relief. Back on dry land we cheered up by buying some tourist tat and warmed up by visiting Peter’s coffee shop. A French Canadian place currently operated by the eponymous 16 year old boy and an American and Norwegian friend of the family. Like many things China does its’ “opening up” in a big way and is attracting people from all over the world, even to its’ smaller, less obvious destinations. We relaxed with some caffeinated drinks and sent some emails using the free Wi-Fi, a couple of games of Sorry and Connect-4 added to the holiday atmosphere.

After checking with Peter and a waiter we head off in search of some entertainment for the evening. Since lunch had been so substantial we were more interested in a few drinks than anything to eat. On the walk, we saw some evening activity down by the river:
We spent the evening in a classy little river-front joint called the July Bar. Kiwi drinks proved very popular, especially with a little Korean Soju added. We reacquainted ourselves with the dice drinking game that I was first taught a couple of years ago on a visit to Yangshuo. In the early hours we abandoned the bar having enjoyed the live music, Sarah Brightman DVD on loop and one waitress added to the list of fans gained. Back at the hotel, we enjoyed the lack of other guests by keeping the party going for a couple of hours.

Next morning after an early and ‘interesting’ breakfast we found a taxi prepared to take the six of us to Tiger Mountain (Hushan) and the Great Wall. The Wall looked quite steep, but we got to the top in pretty short order. From the peak of the hill there were great views all around, augmented by a telescope rented out for 3 Yuan by an old guy in a US Army coat.
Back down the other side and we reached ‘One Step Across’ the closest point between China and North Korea. Caroline was showing her usual disdain for authority when a border guard popped up to suggest we might like to get back into Chinese territory.


The bracing activity was just what we needed to recover from the previous evening’s excesses. We then took a taxi back to the railway station for the local take on the Jianbing (including a small sausage). The journey back to Shenyang was more subdued, as the return route normally as, especially as we were all pretty tired. Getting back right on time we had an hour in Shenyang before the fast train back to Beijing which would get us home at 22:30. We went for some Chinese fast food right next to the station. Baozi and beef noodles were the order of the day. After a quick meal we headed back into the station with plenty of time to spare.

Unfortunately this was Shenyang Nan (south) Station and our train was due to depart from the North station in 20 minutes. We headed across town in a taxi that showed more than usual reticence to speed and got to the platform after quite a substantial sprint. The train had just left. So we had a problem. It was 18:30 and we had a long journey to make. There were a number of different options, but the caveat was that we needed to be back insufficient time for Caroline to get to work for 08:00 the next morning. Sunnia also had a lecture at this time, while Carol and I both had lectures at 10:10. The usual hustlers at the gates tried to convince us that their bus was the only one in town, but again we turned to the Lonely Planet. After a bit of a hunt we eventually found the bus station and bought tickets for a night bus which left at 20:00 to arrive in Beijing around 06:00 the next morning.

Hardly ideal, but still a good solution under the circumstances, we settled into an almost empty bus as it departed the station. Just outside the station the bus stopped and approximately 20 more passengers got on. Half of whom were teenaged school kids, one particular girl could not hold her excitement as she saw our unexpected faces she let out an involuntary yelp. She then jumped into the seat behind us and proceeded to eat through a mountain of snacks., at one point offering a half-eaten pomegranate through the seats like feeding time at the zoo. We weren’t too worried by this development, as experience had told us that Chinese people are normally pretty reliable when it comes to settling down for sleep on public transport. The secondary market in tickets was an interesting one though as clearly empty buses leaving for Beijing are a useful thing to sell on. As far as we could tell, the bus drivers must have been in contact with the ticket touts by mobile phone, so ultimately everyone ended up on the same buses out of town. Depending on the deal you cut with the hustlers, this could be more or less expensive than buying the bus tickets at the station. Enterprising and environmentally sound, there was little to criticise about the set-up.

So, we settled down again for the ride home. Only it wasn’t to be so easy. The engine proceeded to cut out on one of the main express ways out of town. The driver and his mate jumped off the bus to tinker with the engine and petrol tank followed by starting the engine again. We pootled forward a few yards and then rolled to a stop again. This routine repeated itself approximately twenty times to our dismay and yet to the complete lack of surprise of any of the other passengers, despite Chinese customers normally being a pretty demanding lot. At one point the driver ran across the carriageway, vaulted the central reservation and jumped into a taxi headed in the other direction. We were confident another bus would be on the way, but no such luck. He arrived back sometime later with a hose that was quickly ‘jerry rigged’ into place and away we went. With a fuel stop, a stop to collect more passengers, (at which point we hopped into quieter seats), a stop for a small cage of dogs to be loaded into the hold and a few more engine problems and repairs we then left Shenyang approximately 2 hours later.

Exhausted; cold and concerned about the state of the bus there was little we could do but fall asleep. A few hours of drifting in and out of fitful sleep we arrived back in Beijing at about 06:30. Curiously it seemed the arrival time was set to anticipate the curious carry on with the bus. So we took a short taxi ride from the bus stop home. Caroline had time for a shower before work and I grabbed an hour’s sleep.

The weekend was over. Despite the problematic journey home we’d enjoyed seeing another part of the country and a brief glimpse into one of the most secretive regimes on the planet.

Friday 7 November 2008

This teaching lark

It's not easy this teaching lark, it must be said.
We're coming up to mid-term exams, so everyone, teachers and students are a little nervous.

In the past 3 years I've come to the slightly surprising realisation that, in contrary to my school career, I'm actually pretty damn conciencious.
If I'm doing something I want to do it well, in fact, I often want to do it best, but that's just my perfectionist / competitive streak which I find reasonably easy to ignore.

So I'm trying to overcome the cultural divide between staff and students and do the best job I can to prepare these young Chinese people for their life in the UK next year. I know that for all of them it will be a big experience, for a lucky few it will be like my year abroad - life changing and may influence their career and life choices for years to come. Had I not been to Brussels, I would not have known about the exams which Caroline and I passed and which ultimately brought us here to the adventure in Beijing.

Anyway, that's enough of a contemplative window into my soul for now, I'll report back on general results of the exams soon and we'll see how good my pedagogic skills are.

This weekend we are off to Dandong near the North Korean / Chinese border, expect reports and pictures sometime next week.

Would enjoy a weekend beer/glass of wine/cup of tea with you all.
Will just have to raise my tsingtao to you on the train.

Tuesday 4 November 2008

THE Shopping Experience

I think it's time to talk about one of the most important thins we do here in Beijing: shopping. Noooo, I don't mean shopping for clothes, shoes, socks or DVDs (although I will say something about this later), I'm talking about the supermarket.

Chinese supermarkets are great, almost like zoos. There are lots of different things incl. live fish, crabs and other stuff like seaweed. And then there is the range of things that we have never seen in our lives, hundreds of bottles with mysterious contents, vegetables that we have no clue what to do with and bakery products that may be sweet, sour, hot, neutral or all of the above. My personal favourite: little sour dough buns with candyfloss beef filling. Usually we buy some things that look strange and try what they are at home, about 1/3 of them we buy again.

The real experience are the people in the supermarket: yesterday a young man saw us in the oats isle and came in specifically to inspect our basket and then walked off disappointed. Of course, there are staff as well and plenty of them. Yesterday I made the mistake of wanting to buy some moisturiser for my hands. Having chosen the one next to the 'White Hands' one (presumably it contains bleach), I tried to pick the chosen one up. Oh no,instantly, a little Chinese woman sorted shouting at me, preventing me from even getting near it (this is a normal isle I'm talking about). She picked it up, put it in a blue plastic bag and wrote out a receipt (also blue) with the product number and the price. Then she turned around. So,... I presumed I had to go to one of the counters to pay, so I asked the next staff member (about 2 meters away) and she pointed me in the right direction. No one at the counter, but luckily a Chinese guy also wanted to buy something and started shouting until someone came. Then it turned out that the woman had written the wrong number on the paper, so I had to go back to her and she had to send another member of staff to come to the till with me to tell the woman the right number. And this was just for some moisturiser and before any food shopping!

A quick word about the other shopping: clothes etc. Basically, you go to the market and there are NO fixed prices. Depending on the seller's day you can pay anything from about 1-100 Euros. Still being eco-conscious I tried to avoid buying anything unneccessarily, but having accompanied my colleague and tried some boots for the winter, I can speak from limited experience. I tried on a pair of boots and they were ever so slightly too small with my normal socks. So the girl went off to get a bigger size, but returned with the same boots (claiming they were bigger), but asked me to take off my socks and put on the tighty skincoloured ones. I could still feel the warmth that my foot had left in the boot only minuted earlier. Needless to say, I did not purchase that day.

So, when our things finally arrive from Europe, I will put my purchased Max Mara coat (had it been a size smaller it would have been Gucci) in the wardrobe and finally put my proper winter coat on!

Fame at last

As with the American election, coverage of this particular event is probably best left to the BBC.

See the full report.